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Unless bugs are identified this will be the final release of Heist. This release fixes a number of small bugs and implements a few additional features such as Bezerk style directional shooting (selectable via the Left Difficulty Switch). This release also makes (3) lives standard. Single life games are still selectable as games 4-6. I hope you enjoy. - Tim Gameplay Capture the money while avoiding the police and laser defenses. Once the money is in your possession a door will open. You still need to make it out of the bank to clear the level. All of this must be done before time runs out. Some levels are easier than others and the time is adjusted accordingly. Note that the police will not notice you until you are in their general proximity or you have taken the money. Once you capture the money all police become aware of your presence and they move with an increased sense of urgency (i.e., faster). There is a total of 20 levels using 10 playfields. Each playfield is displayed twice. The second time through you are given less time and the police move faster. If you complete all twenty levels you will flip the game and have the chance to play through them again. This time, however, the police will move faster and you will be limited to (4) bullets. Controls Movement: Use the left joystick to move left, right, up, down and on diagonals. Pause: Set the COLOR/BW switch to BW to pause the game. The playfield walls will turn lite gray and the player will face left to indicate that the game is paused. Set the switch back to COLOR to continue gameplay. Shooting: Behavior dependent upon position of Left Difficulty Switch. In either mode, the bullet travels in the direction that the player is presently moving. Mode A (Left Difficulty Switch A): If player is standing still then the bullet moves in the direction that the player last moved. This is similar to the behavior implemented in Berzerk released by Stern Electronics, Inc. in 1982. Mode B (Left Difficulty Switch B): If player is standing still then the bullet moves horizontally to the left when the player is facing left. Similarly, the bullet moves horizontally to the right when player is facing right. Game Variants Use Game Select switch while on Title Screen to cycle through game variants Game 1 – (3) Lives, Limited Time, Limited Bullets (Normal Game) Game 2 – (3) Lives, Unlimited Time, Unlimited Bullets Game 3 – (3) Lives, Unlimited Time, No Bullets Game 4 – Single Life, Limited Time, Limited Bullets Game 5 – Single Life, Unlimited Time, Unlimited Bullets Game 6 – Single Life, Unlimited Time, No Bullets Scoring $1000 for each money bag stolen. On games where you have more than one life you will lose the money if you are caught/die before clearing the level by making it through the exit door. Hints It may help your overall strategy to get the police to chase you. You can get their attention by moving close to them. This works even if you are protected behind a wall. Level Timers (Games 1 & 4) Level Time 1 30 seconds 2 24 seconds 3 30 seconds 4 24 seconds 5 20 seconds 6 16 seconds 7 28 seconds 8 24 seconds 9 14 seconds 10 12 seconds 11 20 seconds 12 16 seconds 13 20 seconds 14 16 seconds 15 36 seconds 16 32 seconds 17 20 seconds 18 16 seconds 19 24 seconds 20 20 seconds HEIST.bin HEIST Game Manual.pdf HEIST.bas I'm including the source code as it may help someone. I'm sure there are plenty of areas where the code could have been written better. Sometimes the 'hack' is actually a means of doing something without using additional variables. Other times what looks like a hack is truly a hack. It can be a little intimidating showing how the sausage is made... and there is no claim that anything performed by the code is the best way to do it.

Welcome to the VirtualVCS (Atari 2600) emulator for the Atari Jaguar written by Bryan Edewaard and Damien Jones of Temporary Sanity Designs (TSD). Fun stories of the development can be found at this place, and this place. ------------------------------------------------------------- Over time TSD handed the VirtualVCS source code to Carl Forhan who assemebled, with considerable work, the VirtualVCS demo that has floated around the internet for years. With the release by Curt Vendel, Atari Historian, of the other Atari 2600 emulator, it has been the hope of Carl, Curt, and many others (including myself) to one day see working Atari 2600 games on the Atari Jaguar. As later explained in this message under "Background information" game images have been hex edited in to replace the game images already in the VirtualVCS demo. The menu graphics format in VirtualVCS were unraveled by sh3-rg. A sweep for "STA CXCLR" (85 2c) and those that use that method of hit detection also helped. The main objective is to find games that work in the confines of the abilities of VirtualVCS in it's alpha state. The strengths of this emulator being very close to true speed emulation, good controls, and many display abilities intact. The weaknesses being no sound, no hit detection, some display abilities needing refinement and no apparent bank switching ability using rom images of 4K or less. Limiting, but not impossible. All efforts are for the enjoyment of the Jaguar community, and in the hopes to understanding the true technical limitations to add in better development of VirtualVCS and/or the 2600 emulator later down the road. Images can be loaded on rom loaders (Skunkboard, Flash card (though not tested)) to try out. No actual cartridges will be sold from this, strictly fun and research. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Downloads!! Bubsy Kitt'n Kaboodle (demo) released March 22, 2018 Download Mario Brother 4K fan playable game released March 23, 2018: Download VirtualVCS - Muticart 01 released March 27, 2018: Download Adult Pack 01-Women (April 17, 2018) Adult 01-Women.zip Adult Pack 02- Men (April 17, 2018) Adult 02-Men.zip Puzzle Pack 01 (April 18, 2018) Puzzle 01.zip Dungeon II by S0c7 (March 24, 2019) Version 3 Sci-Fi Pack 01 (November 6, 2022) Normal Difficulty Hard Difficulty Sci-Fi Pack 01 Preview (December 31, 2018) vvcs-Sci-Fi Pack.rom Other Downloads: Original copy of Virtual VCS vvcs.rom Other downloads: 50 VirtualVCS roms with 300 Atari 2600 roms to try. (April 4, 2018) Instructions provided for others to experiment with VirtualVCS to find other games that work as well. Mario bros_4k_v2.bin vvcs-Mario brothers.rom

Hm, interesting, so it seems I have 90 Atari loose cartridges including some duplicates/variations. For some reason I thought I had more. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of common cartridges here. You have your standard Combat, Air-Sea Battle, Yars Revenge, Defender, Asteroids, Missile Command, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Berzerk, and maybe Adventure. 90% of the people that have an Atari probably have 3 or more of those in their collection. Those are the mainstays. I have the common paddle games there like Warlods, Video Olympics, Breakout, Super-Breakout, and Night Driver. Then there's the usual second wave of (arcade) games such as Ms Pac-Man, Galaxian, Phoenix, Moon Patrol, Jungle Hunt, Centipede and Pole Position. Again this is the group that probably most people have in their collection as well, common but also good quality titles. Followed by the sporadic wave of newer titles like Battlezone, Dig Dug, Mario Bros, Millipede, Crystal Castles, and Kangaroo. Pretty common ones and in my mind, all these titles are well worth having. I remember seeing all of these in the stores when I was a kid and even got to play many of them when some of my friends or classmates lent them to me. I noticed that I have Gremlins in there. I remember hunting for this one high and low, and found it a box of what must have been 500 Asteroids, Defender and Space Invaders cartridges at some video game store in Kensington Market in downtown Toronto. Got a pretty good deal on it as well. Occasionally I will run into a store where the owner has no real sense of the worth of the cartridges or just wants to get rid of it. Mind you, I've had people blatantly wanting to rip me off just to see how high I will go. Unfortunately the game Gremlins isn't very good. Then there's a group of cartridges that came out in the late 80s like Solaris, Desert Falcon, Super Football, Jr. Pac-Man, Sprint Master, and Realsports Boxing. I recall buying these when I came to Canada at fairly good prices ($20-$30 I believe at the time). Pretty good titles, I always liked Desert Falcon (I seem to be the minority), Solaris (probably the most advanced game in my mind) and Realsports Boxing. There are a few titles that I wasn't really aware of until I re-started my collection like Radar Lock, Road Runner, Off-the Wall, Midnight Magic, Crossbow, and Double Dunk. I have some Sears titles, although I keep looking for Submarine Commander. The thing that has puzzled me how some of the more obscure crappier older Atari games like Game of Concentration are being sold for higher prices than what I have accustomed seeing. Many of the older titles are pretty poor and don't hold my interest for more than a few minutes at a time. There are few where I turned it on and then right away turned it off (Math Grand Prix, Home Run, etc) . I can deal with bad graphics and sounds, but poor gameplay won't get my time. There's been a few titles that I looked for a long time like Track&Field, Taz and Road Runner. I probably paid more for them than I should, but after a while I just tired looking for a good deal. I play T&T quite a bit and Road Runner is actually pretty fun to play. Taz is not that good. I don't really care for variants of the games based on label, or go out of my way to collect the Coleco or Parker Brother re-issues by Atari. The ones I have usually came when I bought bundles from someone privately. I still keep an eye out for games like Pengo, Quadrun or Video Cube and I sometimes think, "hell, just pay for it on eBay and get it over with". With respect to any of the older titles that I'm missing, ifI stumble upon on it when I browse at stores I may just buy it on the spot. It's getting to the point where many times I'm not totally sure what I'm missing. Used to have a list on my phone (even created a Windows Phone app in Visual Studio at some to manage it) but I haven't kept my wishlist up-to-date. Also wish I had a Indy 500 racing controller, but I have a feeling I'd play it like once or twice and then put it away. A bit of a shame the quality of the labels of many of the cartridges that I have. Got to give Atari credit for the artwork on their games. Interesting to see all the variations of the Atari cartridges.

So here are my Activision, Absolute and Epyx games. Probably the only complete sets that I have (perhaps M-Network as well). I've always had a particular like for Activision comics and if I'm completely honest with myself I'd say they were best company for the 2600 back in the day. Their titles always seemed to me the more original and were effectively home game exclusives, many of them quite original. I liked how they had the consistent packaging, you got to see a picture of the actual designer and their look was always clean and bright. They always had good level of quality overall. As a kid River Raid, Tennis, Enduro and Megamania made the rounds among my friends and while I never owned them back then, I was fortunate to borrow them on occasion and played them for hours. I did see their catalogues at the department stores and always wished I owned them. The one cartridge especially I wanted was Decathlon just because I was fascinated with Track&Field (or Hyper Olympics) in the arcade. With my allowance it would have taken me months to save up considering the high prices of carts back then. When I moved to a different country I was gifted some cash which I then I sent by mail to my old friends to buy me and ship me the game (the country I lived had no Atari games and straddled in between being a 3rd World Country and something close to being developed). I've had some happy moments in my complicated life and receiving Decathlon in the mail, is one of the top 10 moments for me. When I moved to Canada I picked up a ton of games in 89-91 for the 2600. Activision titles were always pricey in the stores, so I picked many of the common ones at local second-hand stores. This is how I got to play for some of my all-time favourites like Pressure Cooker, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall, and Frostbite. In the stores I actually bought Space Shuttle, Decathlon, Enduro, and Robot Tank. Towards the end of my 2nd Atari phase I then picked up titles like Double Dragon, Commando, as well as all three Epyx titles, and Title Match Pro Wrestling. For the last few years as I rebuilt my Atari collection, I started collecting again and picked some titles I never owned previously. HERO and Pitfall II were great finds and have become a couple of my favourites. There were some that I had never seen or played as well like Private Eye, Pete Rose, Beamrider, and Kung Fu Master. I think the last missing cartridge for me was Cosmic Commuter (another mysterious one) which I ended getting from someone on eBay. I have some of the titles boxed as well, so I will probably snap some additional pictures in the next couple of days. I also noted that I seem to have a couple all-blue label instead of their colour version; Keystone Kapers and Space Shuttle. Probably easy to find KK, but I'm sure it will be pricey to get a copy of SS. Many of the labels seem to be in poor condition, showing the usual dark spots. Some of them had their price stickers still on; just looking at them now I'd think I'd be hard-pressed to pay that much for them again. Overall, I'm happy I was able to complete the Activision set.

Atari was probably the first company to license arcade hits to complement their own library which they offered on the VCS and soon third-parties followed suit (Parker Bros, M-Network), or in case of some others (Sega, Bally Midway, etc) ended up spinning up their own companies to make and publish these home console versions. It's interesting how Coleco basically went with the arcade-conversions only, which were so prominently displayed on their boxes. As a kid, I remember seeing that and being impressed by that. But other than Time Pilot (which was not a great conversion), most Coleco games for the Atari always left me cold. Anyways, my list is: Space Invaders Double Dragon Ms. Pac-Man Pole Position Frogger Track & Field Tapper Bump'n'Jump Galaxian Q*Bert 1. Space Invaders What can you say about Space Invaders which hasn't been said? It was truly the killer app for the Atari 2600. It brought them a ton of console sales; compared to Asteroids, Berzerk and Missile Command which came around the same time, this is the one that people recognized quickly (before Pac-Man that is) and you can play it quickly. This is one of the few games that I recall my dad playing with me on the Atari 2600 back in 1982/83 when I had borrowed the game from a friend. I never get bored playing this game. I love picking off alien by alien and there is a ton of variations on the cart to make it interesting especially with two players. 2. Double Dragon Yes, Double Dragon. This is one of my all-time favourite arcade games and I can finish it on one quarter which I just did recently when I was Las Vegas and they had it at one of hotels. I recall some of my friends having it on the Sega Master System and Nintendo, and thinking it was pretty lame. I also remember the Amiga 500 version that my friend had and thinking that it looked better than the arcade. So when I saw it the local Consumers (along with F-14, Commando, Rampage, etc), I bought it right away. Crappy graphics and limited gameplay. But man, I love playing this game. I like the fact that someone actually tried it on an Atari 2600 and squeezed a 3-button control scheme into the poor Atari joystick controller. Most of the time I can finish this game and will one day put on a longplay video on Youtube! 3. Ms. Pac-Man Like Hitman Hart, this is the excellence of execution. It is everything that the original Pac-Man wasn't. I actually only played this game for the first time in 89 and thought it was outstanding. Little or no flicker, different mazes, the bonus and speed were perfect. Reading the stories now about the Pac-Man fiasco, it's funny what a massive difference the extra 4kb made. Ms. Pac-Man drew a new line in the sand for the Atari games and set a new standard. 4. Pole Position Obviously I like arcade conversions where I was okay playing them. Pole Position is one of the very arcade games that I had mastered and could finish most of the times. The graphics and sound were not great, and the automatic acceleration is one compromise that had to be made. I just love the fact that the same arcade track was converted into the 2600 and the sense of motion that you get. One of the finer examples of arcade conversions for the VCS. 5. Frogger I remember playing Frogger in a dingy backroom in a restaurant (circa 1984) in the small town I lived in for most of my teens. I always like the game and was okay in it. I was very surprised how good the Atari version was when I first got it in 89 from a used book store. The gameplay was all there and while the graphics weren't great, they did the job. And yes, I've seen the Starpath version (which is phenomenal), and just went with Parker Bros version because of what it does with its more limited resources. 6. Track & Field There are times that I look back at how much money I spent on Hyper Olympics and wonder what else I could have bought with that allowance that went into that game? Another Atari cart (Spider Kong) or perhaps a LCD hand-held game? Hyper Olympics (aka Track&Field) was awesome and I could make it past the first round no problems. This Atari conversion is really good and it's (un)fortunate I never knew of it around 83/84 because perhaps I wouldn't have been so fixated on Activision's Decathlon. All the events are in there and they even have the head-to-head races, not to mention allowing you to enter your initials. I have to get myself a proper controller (or build my own). 7. Tapper I've never seen this game in the arcade, or at least don't remember. I bought my 2600 cart off eBay and was surprised how good it is. It has 3 different levels and the playability is top notch. It's a very fun game and I can play it for long periods of time. I have played the arcade version in MAME and I can't say this is the type of game I would have sought out in the arcade, but it's a fun with a good sense of humour. 8. Bump'n'Jump I don't remember playing it in the arcade when it first came out but noticing after I got a copy of it for the C64. Always thought it was a fun game to play and once you had a sense of the road pattern you could do really well. I found a copy of this at a flea market in Pickering and probably the best $10 I spent for a M-Network game. 9. Galaxian After the dominance of Space Invaders, there were two sucessors: Phoenix and Galaxian. I always wondered why Atari got both licenses and I suppose it was partly to ensure no competitor was able to get it. I thought that this conversion was well done and the movement and difficulty were just right. Like Space Invaders I can easily spend a couple of hours playing this over and over again. Weird that I was never really into shoot'em ups, but considering that I played Galaxian quite a bit when I was younger, I have to say that this conversion is pretty good considering we're dealing with some significant constraints with 2600 hardware. After reading about the tricks and limitations of the 2600, I can't help noticing things like flicker, solid colour for the attacking aliens and playfield used for the formations. Overall, it's a great game and perfect to relax for a while. 10. Q*Bet Just saw with the talk from the creator of Q*Bert and it's interesting to hear about the development history, it's worth the 45 minutes of your time. The Atari 2600 did a pretty good job considering the graphical limitations and is probably the worst looking of them all. It's a pity that the last row had to be sacrificed with in my mind throws the feel of the game off and makes it for a cramped game at times. It is one of my favourite games on the 2600 and always brings me back to play another round.

Yes! It's finally here. The playable Demo of Robot Zed. Years in the making! I spent all day trying to figure out this game breaking bug that's been plaguing me for months and finally figured it out. Now I can finally release this thing. You're a cute little robot that can obtain the powers of certain enemy robots once you defeat them. You can use those powers in your quest to rescue all of your Robo Buddies! This is just the opening level that everyone plays before you get access to any of the other levels. This game is also a rogue like with inspiration from Mega Man and Kirby. Here are the control instructions: Left / Right - Moves in that direction Up - Fires current weapon power Fire Button - Jumps Fire Button AND Down - Cycle through your powers to select (if you've obtained any). You only have one life and an energy status. Every hit by enemy fire, an explosion, or even running into an enemy will knock it down. To the right is the your power ability number. Every time you use one of your selected abilities, it will drain this. Once you are down to zero, you will return to normal power Zed. You can obtain life energy from the regular bots that don't give you any special powers. You can obtain special powers from the robots with special abilities. You receive their ability plus 10 power ability points. If you already have their ability, you will receive 5 power ability points instead. When you lose all your life energy, it's game over. When you destroy an enemy, it will release their power module and will follow you until you collect it. The regular bot won't always give you life energy. So, have fun, tell me what you think, and if you run into any crazy bugs. I will also be updating this demo with additional window dressing so to speak, to make it look even better. Once I make any additions, I will upload the new version. Note: Quick edit. Minutes after uploading I realized I forgot to remove a recent bug checker I added to the code. I removed it and have uploaded the correct version. RobotZed_07.bas.bin

So I did receive the labels yesterday afternoon, which was a great coincidence, since I was just going to prep four cartridges for the eventual arrival of the new labels. I received about 40-50 of them. All the Activision ones and ordered one single Spectravideo cart for Planet Patrol. So I'll start with my dupes: Keystone Kapers, Planet Patrol, Space Shuttle and Stampede. I did do more of a clean, scrapping some of the residue of the Keystone Kapers and Planet Patrol cartridges a bit more. The Spectravideo cart has the infamous hole in the front where a bunch of Goo Gone ended up seeping in, so that took a while to clean up properly. Here are the Space Shuttle, Keystone Kapers and Planet Patrol carts all cleaned up. The Stampede one still has a lot of residue on the end label, so I will let soak a bit more in the Goo Gone and do a clean later today. I ended up using rubbing alcohol (weird, how during the pandemic this was so hard to find), a screen cleaning cloth, compressed air and q-tips. The Spectravideo cart is especially a dust magnet. I ended up cleaning it like 4-5 times to get all the specks of dust away. Adding the labels was easy. They do feel thicker and harder than the original labels. I started at the top label for the Activision carts (more on that below). So here's the Keystone Kapers cart with the new label. And here's a side-by-side comparison with the other one in my collection still with the original label on. The richness of the colours come through, although the green on the department store walls is significantly lighter. And here is the Space Shuttle cartridge with the new label. And here's a comparison of my other with the original label. I'd say that this is one of the carts with the best condition label I have in my collection. And now here is the Planet Patrol cart with the new labels on it. Note the bits of dust still there. I was trying to get the top label dead-centre, which is easier said than done. And here's a side-by-side comparison with the other in my collection, which is in great condition (this is from a CIB copy I have). The scuffs are certainly more noticeable in the original and the colours have lost some of their shine. A couple lessons learned: - I should have started applying the new Activision labels from the front section rather than the top label. Looking at the originals, the edge is lined up more with the front - The soak method wasn't great for the Spectravideo cart with its hole. Even though the old label was on, the Goo Gone seeped in and was a hassle to clean out completely - In case of the Planet Patrol cart, I wish I had disassembled it and given it a cleansing bath. Would have quicker and more thorough. I will probably do Stampede later.

So a couple weeks ago I stumbled upon this post from pboland where he's selling replacement labels for cartridges. I was intrigued because I have a full set of Activision cartridges, but the labels on the majority of them are in a poor state. After doing the math and needing some new distraction, I decided to order a full replacement set. Now, I think I will probably not touch the more rarer carts like Cosmic Commuter, Ghostbusters, Rampage, etc but will do the more common one. I already had some duplicates, so I decided to get started. I got some Goo Gone from Home Depot and a plastic scrapper that I ordered from Amazon. I had a metal one that I use for glass, but didn't want to use something that could scratch it. I did read the post about removing the labels and decided considering that I used Goo Gone before that I would have slightly adjust my approach. I decided to dump half the bottle in a plastic container and let the cartridges soak in it for a couple of hours. The fluid level is low enough so that it's very unlikely to touch the circuitry inside since I didn't want to open it. Other than leaving the top section soaked for a few minutes, the labels came off super-easy with the scrapper and was able to clean up any residue with a rag. One still had a pricing tag and that came off no problem as well. Space Shuttle, Keystone Kapers and Stampede are ready! I'm currently hunting for some bargains in getting some Activision carts from FB Marketplace, eBay and Kijiji. Based on a couple of appointments I should have about 30 or so cartridges in the next few days. Surprised how hard it is to find reasonably-priced carts of Skiing and Tennis!

Is there any known way to make the paddle on the Hyperkin Ranger Controller LESS sensitive? I love this controller for standard joystick use, but when it comes to the paddles THEY'RE WAY TOO SENSITIVE! Is there any mod I can do to change this? I would like it to act more so like the original paddles. For example I'm able to completely max out my score on kaboom with standard paddles, but with the Ranger I can't even get past 5,000 points..... I cannot find a single bit of information online about modding/changing the paddles on these controllers so any information would be great! Thank you!!!

I've been refurbishing Atari's for awhile now, and would like to get a hold of a good diagnostic cartridge. I see Best Electronics has one available for $45.00; does anyone know of a less expensive alternative?

I have a 2600 that won't come in on my TV. I have the RF plugged into an RF>coax adapter and into the (CRT) TV and when I turn it on the TV static goes wild but no picture. So I know it's getting power. I cleaned the game. I tried both channels 2 and 3 and even did a channel search but still nothing. Any suggestions? Could it be a bad adapter? I know the TV is fine because I just used an NES plugged with RF earlier.

StarBlitz_v5C_30hz.txt STARBLITZ is the first 30 FPS shooter for the Atari with 30 FPS of full screen animation. GameLoader is an Atari 2600 emulator for the Commodore 64 that adds fantastic Commodore graphics to Atari games by recompiling the source into a standalone executable that runs on the C64. 200% Overclocking GameLoader Turbo Edition is a new version of the emu that overclocks C64 Atari 2600 emulation by 200%. This effectively moves the bar from 1 Mhz emulation on a 1 Mhz platform to 2 Mhz emulation on a 1 Mhz platform. Overclocking Example and Technical Limitations STARBLITZ is now running at 200% speed, going from 30 FPS to 60 FPS of full screen animation on the Commodore 64: There are no changes to the game code, GameLoader Turbo Edition recompiles the source into a 2X Overclocked standalone executable for the Commodore 64. This video camera does not capture it well but STARBLITZ renders fluidly at 60 FPS double speed with no dropped frames. Television signal Limitations Limitations in the classic Television signaling specification prevent Silly Venture Fluid City, the first 60 FPS Atari game from speed doubling to reach 120 FPS: Availability GameLoader will be released at the Silly Venture Atari Art party Winter Festival in Gdansk.

My latest AtariAge related video!

HI everyone. There is a listing for a 2600 near me, and I was wondering if anyone can confirm if the box seen here might be for a heavy sixer? The console they are selling in the listing is a 4-switch, so despite the seller claiming it is all original they don't match. I already have a heavy sixer and would love a matching box, but at their asking price whether it is or isn't one makes or breaks the sale for me. Thanks!

Anyone how an idea on value of this? Can’t find much on besides a forum 6+ years ago

SOLD! As the title says, I'm selling G.I. Joe: Cobra Strike, VGA 90, for Atari 2600, for $350 shipped and insured.

I have the following items for sale. Please see pictures for condition. I will be adding more items in the near future, so check back! Shipping: Currently I can only ship to USA. You are responsibly for Shipping fees, and Insurance if you choose to have the package insured. If you don't get insurance, I take no responsibility. Some items are marked as untested, I have not tested these items. Either because I don’t have the equipment, time or expertise. I believe my prices are within a reasonable range. I’m always open to offer, especially if you have proof of lower prices. Payment - PayPal Please PM to purchase. thanks for looking. Click on pictures to see bigger images. APF MP1000 Brickdown/Shooting Gallery - $30.00 $20.00 Hangman/Tic Tac Toe/ Doodle - $20.00 $12.00 Atari 2600 SwordQuest EarthWorld - sealed $25.00 $18.00 Atari 5200 Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom box, inst(wrinkled), cart - $15.00 $10.00 Popeye box, cart, missing inst - $10.00 $7.00 QIX box, inst, cart missing ovrls - $9.00 $6.00 Radio Shack Color Computer Appliance and Light Control $15.00 $10.00 Backgammon $6.00 $4.00 Checkers torn label $6.00 $4.00 Color Baseball $6.00 $4.00 Color Cubes $8.00 $5.00 Football - torn label 5.00 $3.00 Gomoku/Renju - torn label 6.00 $4.00 Microchess 2.0 no label 18.00 $13.00 Micro Painter - no label 10.00 $7.00 Pinball 11.00 $8.00 Pinball - no label 7.00 $4.00 Quasar Commander - missing label 9.00 $6.00 Spectaculator 4.00 $3.00 Spidercide 20.00 $15.00 TypeMate $8.00 $6.00 Wildcatting $12.00 $9.00 Amiga - UNTESTED GVP DSS 8 Digital Sound Studio - $40.00 (ebay sold prices are $52) $30.00 $15.00 Apple – UNTESTED Apple IIE 80Col/64K memory expansion 1986 – $15.00 $10.00 $7.00 Disk II Interface Card 650-x104 1978 – $20.00 $15.00 $10.00 Microsoft Softcard 1981 - $60.00 $40.00 $30.00 Software Dimensions Inc Firmware ID Card SerNO SD-12595 - $15.00 $10.00 $5.00 MacRecorder Farallon Computing - $10.00 $7.00 Atari ST Navarone battery backed clock Untested - $60.00 $50.00 $30.00 Video Digitizer untested - $50.00 $30.00 Game.com Game.com Internet - $50.00 $30.00 Scrabble Complete - $5.00 $4.00 Tiger Web Link NIP - $80.00 $60.00 Vectrex Tour De France CGE - $25.00 $20.0 V-Frogger CIB - $50.00 $40.00 SNES PIKO Super 4 in 1 multi-cart CIB - $30.00 $22.00 Astrocade WAR from the 1st run of 20 - $85.00 $73.00 Intellivision ABPA Backgammon gatefold box, cart, overlays (1 ABPA) – $9.00 $7.00 Atlantis box, cart, inst, overlays – $4.00 $3.00 Beauty & the Beast CIB – $10.00 $8.00 Boxing gatefold box, cart, inst, overlays – $5.00 $4.00 Bowling 4 x overlays CIB – $15.00 $10.00 Checkers gatefold box, cart, inst, overlays – $4.00 $3.00 Chip shot box, cart, inst – $13.00 $9.00 Chip shot “NEW” label box, cart inst – $15.00 $10.00 Donkey Kong Jr box, cart, inst – $18.00 $13.00 Donkey Kong box, cart, inst – $6.00 $4.00 Lock ‘N’ Chase box, cart, inst, overlays - $4.00 $3.00 Mission X box, cart, inst, overlays, warranty card – $7.00 $5.00 Royal Dealer box discoloration box, cart, inst, overlays – $3.00 $2.00 Skiing gatefold box, cart, inst, inst update, overlays – $3.00 $2.00 Space Battle gatefold box, cart, inst, overlays – $4.00 $3.00 Super Pro Tennis box, cart, inst, overlays, unused labels – $200.00 $165.00 Tennis CIB box rough - $18.00 $14.00 The Dreadnaught Factor box, cart, inst, overlays – $18.00 $14.00 Triple Action gatefold box, cart, inst, overlays – $5.00 $4.00 U.S.C.F. Chess gatefold box, cart, inst, recommendation sheet, overlays – $13.00 $9.00 World Championship Baseball CIB - $18.00 $13.00 $9.00

Here we have an Atari 2600 Kids Controller bundle which includes the following: - Kids Controller (Made in USA in El Paso, Texas) - Alpha Beam With Ernie cart + manual - Cookie Monster Munch cart + manual + Kids Controller overlay Please note that the end labels of both game cartridges - while included in the bundle - are detached from the carts. Both games and the Kids Controller itself have been fully cleaned and tested and work as they should. I performed a little "under the hood" work on the Kids Controller to restore its responsiveness to its former glory. ? Asking $20 plus shipping. Please send me a PM with interest or questions. Thanks! SOLD

Sold I have a crate of various joysticks and paddles, most are OEM Atari, there's a super stick and a gem-stick in there as well. As-is, untested. I will give them an exterior cleaning before shipping out. $20 + Shipping obo EDIT: the cx10 controller is currently being repaired and will most likely be sold separately sorry about that!!

Running Atari 2600 programs on my NTSC C64! This is a Cross Compiler for the C64 that runs Atari 2600 programs written in Assembly and BASIC (SuperCharger BASIC and Flashback BASIC) with no changes to the BASIC or Assembly code. This is accomplished by abstracting the Atari 2600 virtual machine RUNTIME including a soft ANTIC blitter like Atari home computers bringing display list technology to the Commodore 64! Double the fun of racing the beam with the classic Television Threading Model on the Commodore 64 allows game loops that repeat 30 or 60 times per second with full screen animation each frame creating faster action scenes than are usually seen with the C64 design. The rich BASIC provides graphics and sound support and a camera object for panning around the virtual world, or with abstract Assembly programming (ASDK api). The next version will add color and audio support, check out some of the Atari 2600 BASIC and Assembly games that will be supported online here: http://relationalframework.com/Atari2600gamesonline.htm The Commodore 64 and the Atari 2600 Video Computer System are the two most popular retro computer consoles, write programs that run on both! Details: The soft blitter, camera object and display lists are running and functional, I dropped the compiled Atari 2600 BASIC Assembly code and the bitmap right into the 64 Framework and it ran the same in the abstracted VM on my Commodore 64. I can cross compile some of the BASIC at this point and am adding the RUNTIME subsystems that are missing. Adding sprites, sound and color next... the Tracker/Sequencer for the TIA chiptunes is going to be tremendous fun on the 6581! C64 Extra tile detail: The VM abstracts each 1 bit textured phat tile the TIA draws into 4 characters on the VIC-II text screen allowing both tiled patterns and background patterns to be drawn, I chose the same graphic for the 4 background tile quadrants in the demo. There's inspiring concept innovation with prior art if a prototype was ever produced!

Hi, I tried some simple composite video mods for my Atari 2600 with terrible results: Blurry image, ghosting, dark image, etc. Then I designed my own mod and it works good enough for me. I wanted to share it with all who want to give a try. First you need to remove some components from the board. I prefer to remove all unused components and store them. But if you are more conservative then remove the following components only Also, you need to remove or disconnect the "RF Modulator Module" and built the Video Amplifier. I designed two simple video amplifiers: The first is a simple one stage amplifier. This circuit Works good but due to the limited gain of only one amplification stage, there is some limitation in the brightness of the image. Most people will not notice it, but I wanted to ensure the best quality possible keeping it simple. The second is a two stage amplifier. This is still a very simple circuit with flat gain up to 4.2MHz (Composite video band width) which ensures brightness and color preservation with minimun distortion. Use the 5K trimmer to adjust the gain (brigthness) of the signal. Teorically you will have 0dB or unity gain with 1577Ohm. This is the Bode plot of my LTSpice simulation of the circuit This is the board with the circuit installed And finally this is the results: Video on a CRT TV Video on a LED TV

Welcome back to what I'm now calling Chronogamer LE. The LE stands for Low Effort. If I have to really work up any enthusiasm to play something then that's too much effort, so I will learn what I can about it, read the manual, maybe do some research and play it for as long as I can stand it. If I try to get more involved in it, I'll end up going down a sort of procrastination rabbit-hole where I put it off for, like, half a decade or more and it blocks me from moving forward. I've recently learned I can blame ADHD for this, so, yay for me. Oh, by the way, I found Random Terrain's page that presents some optimal guessing regarding the release dates of games released to be played on the Atari VCS. Nice Job, RT! Your have made it a lot easier for me to get back into this. Bridge (Atari VCS, 1980, Activision) The manual for Activision's Bridge will not teach you to play Bridge. You have to have that knowledge ahead of time. You can get that knowledge from YouTube. You'll learn that it normally takes four people to play this game. You can learn everything you need to get started in about 10 minutes or even less. If you have three other people that you want to hang out with and try a new card game, then this could possibly be an interesting game. Maybe. I'd have to really like at least one of the other people involved to even think about playing any card game these days. Okay, I take that back. I did enjoy playing some Texas Hold-em prior to the Pandemic, but there was money involved and also an attractive woman, so, I guess we understand what motivates me. (It wasn't the money.) Activision's Bridge is for a single player. Like the manual, I don't want to teach you anything about playing Bridge. Sorry. Kinda. Don't look at me like that, just go to YouTube. Regarding this video game: I can see that there is planning and some tactical thinking involved. I can see the appeal of playing this as a social card game with other people. I can see the appeal of having a video game version of Bridge to help a player practice to improve how they play the game. I can even appreciate Activision's Bridge as a way of exploring how to think about playing the card game Bridge. These are worthy and noble pursuits and I admire the courage it must've took for Activision to produce this as one of the four games they debuted in 1980. (Edit: This game DID come out in 1980, but it was not one of the four debut games. They were: Boxing, Checkers, Dragster and Fishing Derby. I'll get better at playing these things in order now that I have a better order for them, but I've dreaded playing Bridge for so long that I needed to get it out of the way so that I could just get back to doing this.) That doesn't mean I have any interest in ever playing it again. Also, I'm a little resentful that I've learned to play a card game that I'll probably never ever play. This is where I'd give the game an emoji rating but it's been so long since I've posted I don't even remember how to do them. In this case it would be one of those "meh" emojis. Oh... okay, that was easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for reading! I might go on YouTube with these articles and show actual game play. I know that I've almost done this in the past and then deleted my YouTube. Sorry about that.

Pele's Soccer (Atari VCS, 1980) As I've said before: "I'm not a sports fan" so how I felt about this game surprised me. Contrasting from our recent excursion into third-party software that had only two games to a cart, Atari's (the party of the first part) Pele's Soccer has 54 games promised for it on the front of the box and it delivers with 28 versions of two player and 28 versions of single player. The "versioning" is three variations each on modes of speed, modes of challenge and goal size. The playfield is interesting in that it's a scrolling vertical field. As you move the ball up or down it, the field scrolls up and down with it. It's another good example of "there's more to this playing area than meets your eye" that was emerging from videogames more and more. Yes, some videogames don't need that, Fishing Derby and Boxing, for example, do just fine without it but I really like the idea of using it to allow the player to focus on "what's happening right now" while being aware of a bigger picture. That's not a very good way to articulate it, but I do like this style of game. I can see how it might not work as well for sport-ports like hockey (where seeing where your team-members are helps) or basketball (important to see the big picture) but for this simplified version of soccer it works. You only have three players for each team and they're locked into a triangle formation, the "forward" at the apex of the triangle and two "backs". You can pass the ball among the members of your little triangle but it takes some practice. I started playing the easier two-player game (game 28) (EDIT: Nelio correctly points out that this is a typo and I was playing the easier one-player game. It's entirely possible though, that I WAS playing the two-player game by myself, which would indeed make it pretty easy.) and unexpectedly found that I enjoyed it. I advanced through a number of the variations, trying them out as I went, finding that the harder it got the more work it felt like and the more my button-thumb began to protest. Regardless, it kept my attention for far longer than I thought it would. I've yet to play it with either of my kids, but I look forward to trying it out with my son, who used to play soccer (ages 5 to 8ish) I think the real plus of this game is how, even on the easiest level, if you're doing pretty well (say, you've scored twice and your console opponent hasn't scored at all yet) the computer player improves its game. The goalie becomes more reactive and I'd swear the blue triangle of the enemy move faster, but again, I tend to imagine these things. Your mileage may vary. For me, personally, it was a lot more fun than watching professional soccer, which, to me, consists of a lot of this: There are penalties in the two-player games that do not exist in the single-player variations that I'm looking forward to experiencing with my son. It would be nice if they could simulate penalties for excessive ear-flicking. While I don't like watching real world Soccer, I must admit there are sometimes amazing moments like this one: (EDIT: Awww, I can't even remember what this gif was, but the link has died. Oh well.) which even makes an "professional sports neutral" person like myself feel begrudging admiration even to the point of tingles. Anyway, sorry for the "half-entry", I really can't count this game as "completed" until I've enjoyed it a bit in the two-player mode. Since I'm a bit retentive about splitting entries into two parts, I'll just edit this one with the two-player information after I've played. (Edit: no, this never happened because OF COURSE it never happened.) Golf is the next game in the pile. (EDIT: When I pulled a bunch of games out of the closet I'd actually thought about doing Golf, but then I noticed Bridge. Bridge is one of those games that I was never able to get myself to play and now that I've finally done so, I'm SO glad it's over. I should do Golf soon. It's funny, because Golf and Bridge are both games that my parents both like to play fairly regularly in real life these days and I just cringe thinking about either.)

Boxing (Activision, Atari VCS, 1980) We've seen a Boxing game once before! 1978 on the APF-1000MP. I'd actually recorded that play session on a VHS tape which now will not load anything because my VCR won't work. Well, the mechanical bits won't work. The electronic bits still work as a conduit to serve my old consoles. All hail the conduit! Oooh, boy... boxing... I don't get boxing as a sport. I get that it takes skill, that it's a discipline similar to any skill that involves using the brain and body. I just don't like that competitive boxing's goal seems to be to punch someone until they're unconscious. Other sports might have greater risk for more serious injuries, it just seems odd to me that boxing still happens as a spectator sport. Enough about my bleh-ness on the subject. Boxing is one of six titles (Six? I don't know why I've always thought there were just four.) in 1980 to be released by a third-party. I'm never totally sure about who the first two parties are. I assume that one would be you, the consumer. The other party would be... the company that manufactures the console itself, in this case, Atari. But which one of those counts as the "first-party" and which is the "second-party". I'm going to guess that Atari would be the first and the consumer would be the second and then out of NOWHERE, comes the third-party, only doing stuff because the first and second parties have done something first. So, Activision. You know that something named Activision has something to do with the game because they spend precious screen-space to emblazon a logo on the screen to read "Activision". Without squinting, I could tell what the screen was supposed to be: two boxers facing each other in a boxing ring. I always thought it was a pretty fair representation of the sport. No need to complicate things by adding the rest of the body. The point is to knock each other out and the head is the best way to do that. Bob Whitehead, the designer and programmer had said that he decided to make the rounds two minutes, instead of however long they are in boxing, because... and all he says is "You'll see." I think what he was saying was "Because your button-thumb can't take much more than two minutes if it can even survive that." This is a tough game for your button-thumb. This is an Atari VCS game I recommend playing with an anachronistic (( Genesis )) controller if at all possible. I thought it was just my old hands complaining, but my son said that he definitely started to feel it after just two games, too. My son thought it was fun in a very simple way - like most games from this era. Not quite the strategy of the games he's into now (DOTA2), but it was short so no biggie. We both particularly liked the animation of the punch landing on the face of the other player and how it collapsed into the rest of his head. We were slightly disappointed that there was nothing to celebrate a KO other than the score changing to show "KO" but we weren't really surprised either. The game has difficulty options which control the speed you move. A difficulty and you're moving slower, B difficulty and you're moving faster. If you want to give your boxing opponent an advantage, set your difficulty to A and theirs to B. If you want a fairly tough game, put yours at A and play the computer on B. You'll likely manage to win, but your thumb will be sore so who's really the winner? I decided to see what the computer would do if you just let your player sit there and do nothing. The reactions varied. Sometimes the computer would come over and immediately start beating on the uncontrolled player-boxer and other times it would pause a few moments before starting the beating. Regardless, about "halfway to KO" the computer would step back a bit, as if to give the player a break, but still dancing around as if to say "So... you gonna fight or what?" and then continue beating the snot out of the uncontrolled boxer-player. Quick video here of the computer (console player?) player beating the uncontrolled boxer-player. No, it's totally not exciting but I posted it anyway. http://youtu.be/WSyW3lKDsSE (Yes, it's a dead link. I'm sorry.) Anyway, it was fun to see Boxing again. If I had to pick a way to compare it to the Atari games that had come out before it, and I'd say it seemed more "solid" and the graphics seem better defined with no blinking. (( Warning: Anachronistic Reference I asked my son "Who's that Pokemon?" and he immediately said "oh, ha. Geodude." )) Annnnd, next time... let's try Fishing Derby, a game I don't think I've ever played!

Maze Craze: A Game of Cops and Robbers (Atari VCS, 1980) Someone in the 70s realized that there was fun to be found by using a computer to generate random mazes with a simple algorithm and allowing people to race through it. The first maze game that I can remember appearing on a home console was for the Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) and was cart #10 Maze, Cat and Mouse (1977). I don't know if this is the last "maze game" or not because I can't see into the future. (If I could, I'd have warned people about 80s hair.) This maze game decides to have a theme, and that theme is not merely "racing your buddy through a maze". Instead, it's a complex, textured and many-layered game which can be fraught with societal implications even to this day. It's not a game of cat and mouse! It's a game of Cops and Robbers! Which is totally different because if a mouse fights back, the cat is still gonna win. If a robber fights back, the outcome can be less certain. So, I could totally wax on that, but let's talk about the game instead. The cart contains 16 game variations with each variation further able to be varied by setting increasing parts or the entire maze "invisible". More on the invisibility aspect later. Players each have their little "cops" on screen, starting at the same point on the left side of the maze. The goal is to get through the maze to the exit all the way over on the right side of the maze. Yes, this sounds just like the other "maze" games so far, but wait...there's more!* *the phrase "but wait...there's more!" is over-used and a bit hokey and the creator of this blog would like to apologize profusely for its use. The game variations let you put "Robbers" in the maze. Two, three or five, depending on your selection. The Robbers start at the other end of the maze and randomly run through it. If you're playing the A difficulty game, your Cop moves just as fast as the Robbers. If you're on the B difficulty game, they move faster than the robbers. Players must maneuver through the maze, racing towards the exit, while avoiding the Robbers. This involves a lot of backtracking while trying to dodge the Robbers. How do you dodge the Robbers in what is essentially a single lane maze? You have to hope they take a turn down a blind alley giving you a chance to sneak by. I'm not going to lie, this is fun and depending on your emotional investment in the game, it can be intense (in a fun way). I will say that it's much more fun to play all of these with a partner but it's not necessary. You can easily play all of the games with just you leaving your Cop partner sitting alone at the starting spot. The 16 games the following variants with the number of Robbers or, in some instances, the visibility of the maze. Robbers - This is a race to the end of the maze, but Robbers come after you from the right side and will "take you out of the game" if you know what I'm sayin'. It's interesting because your little Cop doesn't disappear, it just becomes inert and doesn't move. We like to play that the dead Cop isn't really dead (yet) but yelling out to his buddy, "You gotta make it out, Louie! You gotta tell my family I died heroic and stuff...". (To keep things simple we pretended both Cops were named Louie.) Blockade - There's a variant that does let you play a cool trick on your opponent. By pressing the button you can drop an illusory wall to make it look like the bit of the maze you just passed through is actually a dead end. Yes, your opponent can just pass through this pretend wall, but it's a cool trick and if they weren't paying attention to you, they can fall for it. Capture - Another variant has the Cops doing what cops do in a game of cops and robbers, they can catch the robbers. Your goal is to get to each of the robbers and touch them before your opponent does. First to get all of them wins. There's no reason to not enjoy this game for a little while if you've ever felt some degree of satisfaction after getting through a maze. I fully intend to make an actual game play video of some of the more dramatic moments and linking y'all to it. I just didn't want to put off writing a new entry while I was still feeling the urge to write an entry. I wanted to talk about the "invisible" maze options. In most of the variants, if you choose to activate the invisibility option, the "invisible" parts of the maze will not be invisible. You will see your partner and the Robbers making their way along the invisible parts, and if you have a good head for mazes you can use their mistakes to your advantage. It's also possible to have an "auto peek" game or a player peek game. This allows you to see the invisible part of the maze for a brief moment. The problem is that your opponent will also see it. (( Martin Brundle-Fly would have been good at this. ))* (( Yes, by including that gif I AM admitting that I know things about the distant year of 1989, but I couldn't resist. )) (( From now on, if I decide to type something "out of character" for whatever year I'm currently deluding myself into believing I'm in, I'll put those anachronistic comments in double parenthesis. )) Scouts - Also in "invisible maze" you can sometimes have "Scouts". Scouts are your friends who run ahead of you briefly and show you how the maze runs. It's still invisible, but it probably keeps you from breaking your joystick slamming your Cop into an invisible wall because the Scouts give you some idea of where you can go. There, a quick and dirty entry. I'm likely going to add to it with a gameplay video as well as a discussion of a maze generating algorithm. EDIT Still no gameplay video my attention span might not last long enough to do one. I went ahead and did a cringe-worthy pair of videos talking about the maze generating algorithm that I can only hypothesize is used in Maze Craze. I'm a little annoyed at both Quicktime (which seems to want to crop any clip you add to the end of another, instead of just fitting it into the frame... if anyone knows a setting I'm missing, please let me know.) and YouTube, which also seems to decide to crop things. Well, I shouldn't be surprised that there is a learning curve and that freestuff has its limitations. The links to these videos are: Part 1: http://youtu.be/WJBIxAHV28k (EDIT: I'm pretty sure neither of these work anymore.) Part 2: http://youtu.be/XdoPmLaxf8A As always, constructive and sincere criticism is welcome, particularly with regard to any facts that I just blatantly seem to make up on the fly. My next entry should be Activision's Boxing.