Pre-crash systems are slowly being forgotten.

[CatPix]

Don't matter....most kids don't know Donkey Kong, they know of Donkey Kong, the character, but not the arcade game Donkey Kong

Sorry, it DOES matter.

For thoe kids, you're an authority because you're adult AND you know about those old games.

Those kids are gonna grow with the false idea that Mario is an Atari character, and will either spread this false truth around them, causing more confusion about retrogaming, or they are gonna found that you lied and won't trust you about video gaming anymore. In both case, that is a stupid attitude.

[ApolloBoy]

Sorry, it DOES matter.

For thoe kids, you're an authority because you're adult AND you know about those old games.

Those kids are gonna grow with the false idea that Mario is an Atari character, and will either spread this false truth around them, causing more confusion about retrogaming, or they are gonna found that you lied and won't trust you about video gaming anymore. In both case, that is a stupid attitude.

That's high_voltage you're talking to, just put him on ignore like everyone else and all will be fine.

[malducci]

Do kids really need to know gaming history??? Most kids just want to play some video games, and in that context it means the current stuff out there. There's nothing wrong with that. They're not historians, and they don't need to know the roots of video games, to the enjoy what they enjoy. If they're curious about the past, great, but it isn't required. You guys sound like a bunch of old farts sitting around, complaining how youth today just doesn't get it. Remember when old people said that about the video games you played as a kid, instead of doing something else?

 

Is it sad? Yeah in way it is. Is there some responsibility that youth learn about this stuff, just to enjoy themselves with some modern entertainment? No. Not at all. The curious will find/discover this old stuff. The rest are just fine as is.

[Flojomojo]

^ well said. Silent movies and radio dramas are "slowly being forgotten" too.

[Osgeld]

Do kids really need to know gaming history???

 

Do kids really need to know any history? My dad waffles on about nuances in this that and the other and has my entire life, guess what I ignore most of it but it did spur an armchair interest in history myself, and that's not a bad thing.

[atarian63]

Spin-off from this thread:

http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=reply_post&f=125&t=253378&qpid=3524586

 

 

The buck stops here. Any future digital archaeologist will have a blast and discover a treasure trove of information if they ever go through my time capsules.

 

Nothing on the internet is permanent. Long lived? Maybe. Sometimes. But sites that host manuals and documentation will drop off the radar over time as their webmasters keel over.

 

I've already run into many many instances where something was available 4 years ago, but not any more. And the only places that stuff likely exists is on select hard drives randomly scattered around the world. Vainly I'd like to think just mine, and mine alone!

 

--

 

The people now making 6 and 7 figure incomes are more likely to have grown up with NES and other post-crash systems. They're the ones whose childhood systems are being thrust into the limelight.

 

People that have sentimental attachment to it are now becoming pre-occupied with old-age stuff, like retirement and nursing homes and fighting who gets the community shower next. Topics of conversation are turning to which disease you have, and what you'd trade it for. Things orders of magnitudes more pertinent than if a copy of Air-Sea Battle sells for $2.00 or $4.00 and whether it is a repro or not.

 

--

 

This is a moving window, and someday the NES proponents of today will be more interested in retirement things and slowly forget about videogames. And perhaps the Playstation 6 will become the hot item.

 

--

 

Classic computers like the Apple II, Atari 400/800, and Commodore 64 seem somewhat more immune to that sliding window of time. They remain timeless and their popularity is holding steady or showing increased interest.

 

In speaking of 8-bit computers, I think we're nearly done with all the single board and S-100 systems of the 70's however. A lot of original owners are senile or dead by now.

 

The Apple II and Commodore Amiga are on an upswing though. Perhaps even exhibiting a positive rate of climb! And interest in classic PC's from the 486 - Pentium 60 era are also taking off now. Actually all CPU classes from the 8086 and DOS games through the Pentium 200 MMX's with Win98 are showing renewed interest.

 

A shame that millions of these machines were dumped as e-waste. I just had to put that in here.

 

 

I sold all that early stuff, I see ST interest rising as well, I never understood the interest in crappy pc s. They were lousy at arcade games at the time,required lots of setups for various games to get them to run and the games sucked.

[atarian63]

 

..and that's what an emulation collection is all about. Thank you!

 

It's reliable, starts every time, and comes with plenty of documentation and pictures, schematics and manuals scans; to look at. All without the hassle of tediously foraging for the stuff in the "wild". All without the burden and time consumption of dick'n'round with rat-bag physical items.

 

Sure, there's gonna be some collectards that go for the real thing and gotta get'em all. But they're just as rare as those huge classic car collections. So far out of ordinary experience they might not as well exist. And what good is that? How can you enjoy the stuff. Cool to look at, absolutely. Cool to maintain, not so much.

 

Anyhow the pre-NES generation material will fade and only memories will remain. And emulation is perfect to preserve them.

 

I no longer play the first 8-bit classics with zest except for a few select games. And even then it's about triggering and remembering the good times more than developing new strategies or getting a new hi-score. How many new forum discussions center around Slot Racers' strategies? Or Basic Math time trials?

 

I'm glad I curated a virtual collection when I did, because, now, I don't see myself having the time and patience. Too many more exciting things to do. But I'll be still updating and working with it in a standby low-priority style.

 

I'm also glad I don't have the burden of maintaining 30 consoles and baggie chasing after them either. I have time for 1 or 2 at best. That's the Apple II stuff. That's MORE than enough for me.

I collect the hardware as in consoles and have them all setup and working,but I have switched to SD readers where possible so people are not rooting through my collection.

[atarian63]

I didn't read the topic, just the first couple of posts. I just want to say, that in Mozart's time, no one played the music of Bach. This whole thing of playing old music in concerts is something that slowly started in the 19th century, and grew over the 20th century. Now it's expected and absolutely normal for orchestras to play the great names of the old times. This is not something that always happened.

 

Generally speaking, thoughout history, even if people learned about the greats of old, it was from an historic perspective.

 

Now videogames are something else,but I think there are some very specific reasons why systems like the NES are so hype, and older systems not that much. First of all is the crash itself. Since then the official story is that Atari Sucks, the other 8-bit atari clones are just the same, and Nintendo single handedly invented good videogames. For old systems to get more attention this vision would have to change.

 

Second, I think a lot of the NES kids are now "on their prime", as many said. And so they make their youtube channels (Pat, AVGN amongst others) and mainly focus on the stuff they know. There are some 50yo dudes making videos too, talking about their stuff, or these random internet forums where old people talk about all that trash, but who wants to listen to old men on their deathbed tal about the stone age, defending how some stupid squares on a crappy old television were great times?

 

Even if people talk about atari, coleco, etc.. Mostly it's not gonna be as polular. I would be willing to bet if PAt was the Atari Punk, James rolf was the Angry Atari nerd etc.. These systems would be going up in price. But who talks about pre-crash system? Gamester81? kids find him to be just boring. He doesn't scream on camera, he has no gimmicks. That won't attract young easily impressed kids.

 

At the same time, I think pre-crash games are generally of a type that most people aren't really seeking. People might buy these NES games, but who actually plays the more brutal ones? Most old atari games are basically games. They're not really relaxing, they don't tell a story unless you're willing to read a manual (yuck, reading is boring, who wants to do that?), and most of all, they don't really make good youtube videos for the most part. Unless you want to laugh at how terrible they look.

 

I know what I am talking about is just one part of it, and some of you already mentioned other very big factors in all this. But I have no doubt in my mind that youtube and social media have a huge impact on retro gaming, and that the Atari guy just isn't as appealing as the NES/SNES guys are.

Maybe, I guess I am old, I hate storyline games and games you can "beat" and mostly prefer arcade games and shmups, that being g said I have been rebuying newer old systems like tg16 and ps1 as I did not have time during those years to play.

[Omega-TI]

I sold all that early stuff, I see ST interest rising as well, I never understood the interest in crappy pc s. They were lousy at arcade games at the time,required lots of setups for various games to get them to run and the games sucked.

 

No matter how bad something sucks to one person, there will be another, usually within a certain age range that has fond memories of it. It could be a P.O.S. Edsel, Corvair, Gremlin or Pacer. In the Classic Computer world it could be a nearly worthless TS1000 a Vic 20 or even a TI-99/4A. Someone somewhere probably spent uncounted hundreds of hours as a kid or young adult tinkering on or with that special object.

 

Someday, somewhere someone will see on Ebay the exact model of their first computer, or see that special car in the want ads and say, HELL YES, I WABT IT! Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, especially when us middle to late middle age people can afford to dump some money into something that we could not as a kid or as a young adult who spent most of their money on diapers, baby formula and clothing for the kids.

 

So, EFF it, enjoy yourself and do YOUR your thing!

[atarian63]

 

No matter how bad something sucks to one person, there will be another, usually within a certain age range that has fond memories of it. It could be a P.O.S. Edsel, Corvair, Gremlin or Pacer. In the Classic Computer world it could be a nearly worthless TS1000 a Vic 20 or even a TI-99/4A. Someone somewhere probably spent uncounted hundreds of hours as a kid or young adult tinkering on or with that special object.

 

Someday, somewhere someone will see on Ebay the exact model of their first computer, or see that special car in the want ads and say, HELL YES, I WABT IT! Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, especially when us middle to late middle age people can afford to dump some money into something that we could not as a kid or as a young adult who spent most of their money on diapers, baby formula and clothing for the kids.

 

So, EFF it, enjoy yourself and do YOUR your thing!

I hear you but being there selling that stuff in its prime..it was godawful yet it was the future of gaming which is good or sad depending on your pov,but yeah I get you on nostalgia for sure.

[BalloonFighter]

How many silent movies have you seen? How many have your kids (if you have them) seen?

 

It's simply the nature of things- our pop culture will wither and die with the generation that created it. Very few properties manage to become timeless. By the time these early games become old enough to seem truly historic/scholarly/worthy of preservation & study, very little will have survived & those future game enthusiasts will bemoan our lack of attention to perseveration. But, you know what? I bet the surviving examples of the earliest of gaming will be due to people like us, trying desperately to keep it out of landfills, opening up units and learning how they work & how to fix them, updating their hardware to make them compatible with devices that didn't exist when they were first made.

 

The best we can do is relay what we love about these old machines to the gamers younger than us. Most of them won't listen. Some will. I did- and as long as I can get another person or two to care, they'll be someone to carry this stuff into its place in history.

Just watched Häxan the other night! As someone who's greatly enthused and fascinated by the work of media historians and preservationists (especially in film,) these words ring very true. Those who collect and play these games are some of the upholders of their history. Even if the general public doesn't care for the old games or their history, they will hopefully at least be there for others to see, read about, and play in some form if they so wish in the future. Although I think the current survival rates for retro games have been greater than that of silent and early sound cinema (how many games that were released out to the public don't survive in any form at the moment?), we don't know how long these items will last for. Hopefully there will be proper digital preservation in the future, as there is currently no guaranteed long term solution for properly preserving these games.

 

I just want to point out that in the video that spawned all this "the sky is falling" stuff, Ian actually mentions that kids 15 or 16 years old come into his store and get 2600 stuff because it's cheap and fun to collect. So it isn't hopeless, people.

That's pretty much the same reason why I started collecting for Atari: it's (mostly) dirt cheap and pretty fun.

 

Edited June 12, 2016 by BalloonFighter

[Keatah]

Do kids really need to know gaming history??? Most kids just want to play some video games, and in that context it means the current stuff out there. There's nothing wrong with that. They're not historians, and they don't need to know the roots of video games, to the enjoy what they enjoy. If they're curious about the past, great, but it isn't required. You guys sound like a bunch of old farts sitting around, complaining how youth today just doesn't get it. Remember when old people said that about the video games you played as a kid, instead of doing something else?

 

Is it sad? Yeah in way it is. Is there some responsibility that youth learn about this stuff, just to enjoy themselves with some modern entertainment? No. Not at all. The curious will find/discover this old stuff. The rest are just fine as is.

 

When I was a kid all I wanted to do was play Asteroids on my Apple II at home. In pseudo-vector. And many clones were made available. Some good, most bad.

 

Did I care about the development trials and tribulations? No. Did I care about the history of the game? Definitely not.

 

And when a "modern kid" does seek out the history of a game, and they will in time, a little bit of research will yield the right answers.

[Keatah]

I collect the hardware as in consoles and have them all setup and working,but I have switched to SD readers where possible so people are not rooting through my collection.

 

That seems to be an ever-growing solution. More and more people are doing this. And the next step in the natural progression of things is going to be combining several systems into one box.

 

Some of us are already there with finely honed emulation rigs. And if the Z3K becomes available, yet another option.

[Keatah]

Just watched Häxan the other night! As someone who's greatly enthused and fascinated by the work of media historians and preservationists (especially in film,) these words ring very true. Those who collect and play these games are some of the upholders of their history. Even if the general public doesn't care for the old games or their history, they will hopefully at least be there for others to see, read about, and play in some form if they so wish in the future. Although I think the current survival rates for retro games have been greater than that of silent and early sound cinema (how many games that were released out to the public don't survive in any form at the moment?), we don't know how long these items will last for. Hopefully there will be proper digital preservation in the future, as there is currently no guaranteed long term solution for properly preserving these games.

 

That's pretty much the same reason why I started collecting for Atari: it's (mostly) dirt cheap and pretty fun.

 

 

Documentation is a HUGE part of my emulation collection. Often exceeding a 9:1 ratio. 9 items of press material or manuals per game.

 

There are thousands upon thousands of games not preserved in even a simple form. Games that require online servers and patches and appstore-only material are especially vulnerable to being lost.

 

A digital collection's downfall is that it must be mirrored in duplicate and periodically migrated to relevant hardware that is reliable.

[Keatah]

I made contracts so that in case of major worldwide catastrophe my digital collection is going to be all right. It is likely the only one of its kind. And I updated it this past November 2015.

 

But, naturally, it will require periodic refreshing and examination and migration to ensure any kind integrity past ~10 years. But it isn’t a major undertaking, can be done in an afternoon.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Keatah

[BalloonFighter]

There are thousands upon thousands of games not preserved in even a simple form. Games that require online servers and patches and appstore-only material are especially vulnerable to being lost.

You are very correct Keatah. The survival rate for modern games is looking to be abysmal. I should have specified my statement, as I was thinking more in the sense of old cartridge-based games rather than games found on discs or even online platforms as you mention. I would even argue that there's a good possibility of cartridge-based games surviving longer than other forms of video game media because of their simplicity. Carts don't get ruined by slight scratches, there's no need to connect to an online server or get updates, etc. The only concern would be needing the capability to replicate the hardware that the cart's ROM needs to play on (through original hardware, emulation, FPGA, or some other means.)

 

 

I made contracts so that in case of major worldwide catastrophe my digital collection is going to be all right. It is likely the only one of its kind. And I updated it this past November 2015.

 

But, naturally, it will require periodic refreshing and examination and migration to ensure any kind integrity past ~10 years. But it isn’t a major undertaking, can be done in an afternoon.

Those are impressive efforts you've made in working to preserve your digital collection the best you can. We all truly still have yet to see what the future holds in regards to large-scale computer and video game archiving and preservation, especially when these items will be a century old, and we (along with the people behind these systems and software,) are all elderly or deceased.

[Flojomojo]

I made contracts so that in case of major worldwide catastrophe my digital collection is going to be all right. It is likely the only one of its kind. And I updated it this past November 2015.

 

But, naturally, it will require periodic refreshing and examination and migration to ensure any kind integrity past ~10 years. But it isnt a major undertaking, can be done in an afternoon.

That's a very dramatic way of saying you re-upped Crashplan for another year.

[CatPix]

Do kids really need to know gaming history???

Not really, but in this case, don't teach them wrong facts.

Don't tell them that Mario is an Atari character, just tell them that there is a Mario game on Atari.

[HoshiChiri]

Not really, but in this case, don't teach them wrong facts.

Don't tell them that Mario is an Atari character, just tell them that there is a Mario game on Atari.

 

This- keep the information clean as long as we can, it'll corrupt after we all die anyway.

 

It should be mind-blowing enough to know there was a time when Nintendo made games for someone else's console. It's something that hasn't really happened for about 30 years.

[CatPix]

I'm not sure they "made" it, merely they licenced the game to Atari then Coleco, I think. But what's more mindblowing is that there was an Atari 7800 Mario Bros, at a time where Nintendo had their own console The magics of arcade licencing.

[mikey.shake]

For what it's worth, 2-3 of the retro-based gaming stores in Boston have recently seen a HUGE influx of NES games. At first, I took it as a sign of 1) college-types moving away at the end of the year, and 2) PAX happening recently. But it seems to keep on rolling, with a few stores I've been in having at least doubled their NES inventories. And the stuff I'm seeing isn't just Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing, it's that $15-$30 strata with your Ninja Gaidens and Punch-Outs and the better TMNT games. Like, places are having to find new shelves to stuff them into.

 

And despite this, the SNES supplies seem to have mostly remained static, with Genesis stuff going up in price everywhere.

 

Not saying it necessarily means anything, but I thought it was curious. I've been busy hunting 5200 / 7800 carts, which seem to be thinner and thinner on the ground than ever in my neck of the woods.

 

----------

 

I also wonder if we're going to see an increased future interest (and attendant price jump) some of the "lesser" 2nd-Gen consoles in the near future. With only so many 5200s, ColecoVisions, etc, in the wild, and the current "that's crap" mentality (for instance, the influence the AVGN video had on the greater public perception of the 5200), I imagine more of these might get casually junked than a 2600, which probably offers more fuzzy memories for the public at large.

 

For example: 32-year old Super-Casual Gamer (or perhaps Modern-Only Gamer) is cleaning out their parents' basement. They find a 5200 and a 2600. Mom and Dad don't care, and give Gamer carte blanche to decide what to do with them. Both consoles have been in a box since before SCG was born. They can't get either console to work. They might not know about the RF-to-coax adapter, and aren't QUITE interested enough to do the online research. Maybe they don't have the switchbox for the 5200. Maybe the CX-52 controllers don't work. And maybe they've also seen that AVGN video. So they decide to toss the 5200 and keep the 2600, 'cause, duh, woodgrain and big metal switches, soooo retro. Like on one of those "know your roots" shirts. Maybe they get $25 for the 5200 on craigslist, or maybe it sits there for a week before they decide to take it to the recycling center. The 2600 ends up in their apartment on top of the laserdisc player, and maybe eventually gets hooked up once in a while to play Pitfall (legitimately) and E.T. (ironically). (You could replace the 5200 in this example with the ColecoVision, the Intellivision, the Odyssey2, or any of the other consoles from that generation.)

 

With 15 years of 2600 consoles and games and an iconic image, the 2600 would be the obvious choice for SCG to go with because of its cultural permanence. Now, surely, TONS of 2600s have been trashed over the decades as well (*tears fill my eyes*). But with fifteen years of production comes tons more consoles still floating around out there.

 

With only 2-3 years of production and only one million sold (basic Wikipedia numbers cited, could be off) the 5200 makes a good example of the opposite end of the spectrum. With less reason for people who aren't aficionados to hang onto them, it seems to me a much higher percentage of the "second-tier" consoles of that era are going to be (or already have been) lost/trashed/destroyed. For every trashed 5200, you would need to throw away THIRTY VCS consoles to have the same effect on the world's supply. I feel like twenty years ('86-'05) of the 5200/ColecoVision being "old junk" tech, and then another decade of them being "worthless" in the eyes of an undiscriminating post-NES, post-YouTube culture at large may have led to a carelessness that might have seriously thinned the herd. But I feel like a lot of people, even within the retro gaming community, haven't realized that yet. Maybe because many of the people who are already interested in these systems have had their collections since it was less expensive, I don't know.

 

When I talk to gamers outside of AtariAge and mention the 5200 recently, their perception is that there are piles of them covered in dust for anyone who wants one because they "suck so hard". But having searched online recently, getting a working 5200 setup (one controller, switchbox, power supply, console) isn't like getting a 2600. It's not cheap to get one that's confirmed to work. Well, not cheap like a 2600 is cheap. Of those one million 5200s sold, how many would we estimate are still in working condition? Two-thirds? Half? How about the ColecoVision's two million sold, or the Intellivision's three million?

 

I realize that at the heart of it, good gameplay and controls are tops -- which are part of the reason the 2600 seems to be so pervasive as perhaps the iconic face of the Second Generation. But the 30 million sold doesn't hurt either.

 

So what's going to happen to the desirability -- and attendant prices/availability -- of those "other" Pre-Crash systems? I realize the Vectrex probably sold half a million or less, but look what's happened there. Limited supply has led to those being very expensive collectors' pieces today. Neat ones, too. Granted, the CV or 5200 might not have the unique qualities that machine does, but it's not like the general public is clamoring to get a Vectrex, either. But if people keep junking Odyssey2s because "they suck", how long before there are only a half million of those left?

 

Once a system is collectably "rare", how long before attention turns back to it, no matter how (perhaps unfairly) maligned it may have been over the years?

 

I feel like it's similar to what I've been seeing lately with Genesis stuff. Everybody took it for granted for so long, now that collectors have realized it's a less-tapped vein, everything I see in stores seems to be skyrocketing in price then disappearing. And there were thirty million of those sold.

 

Of course, maybe I'm being over-analytical and paranoid. I suppose that one could tie a dozen 5200s together and have their own private island if they wanted to once they get sick of all this video game business... and just float away. Yeah, emulation's a way to preserve the games, and I dig that, but what about the circuitry fetishists who love these machines themselves almost as much as the programs they run?

 

(Also, none of this is in any way a comment on which consoles are better/worse/more deserving/etc. I love my Odyssey2, but it isn't nearly as cool as a Vectrex. Just musing on how behavior based on current "Popular Perception" of the Pre-Crash Era might be influencing the future for those consoles non-2600 Pre-Crash consoles in a major way.)

[Gamemoose]

Do kids really need to know gaming history??? Most kids just want to play some video games, and in that context it means the current stuff out there. There's nothing wrong with that. They're not historians, and they don't need to know the roots of video games, to the enjoy what they enjoy. If they're curious about the past, great, but it isn't required. You guys sound like a bunch of old farts sitting around, complaining how youth today just doesn't get it. Remember when old people said that about the video games you played as a kid, instead of doing something else?

 

Is it sad? Yeah in way it is. Is there some responsibility that youth learn about this stuff, just to enjoy themselves with some modern entertainment? No. Not at all. The curious will find/discover this old stuff. The rest are just fine as is.

Do they need to? No. Is it a good idea to give them a little experience with the beginnings of their hobby? Definitely.

 

You don't have to beat them with a Leonard Herman book or do a filmstrip on it, but a mention or even a "hey, let's put down Minecraft and try some Pitfall." It's like going to a museum but in the comfort of home and being able to touch the exhibits. If you grew up with those old games, you are also sharing a part of you-a slice of your life.

 

I've exposed my daughter to the classics when she was old enough to hold a controller and am in the process of doing the same to my brood of step-children. It blew their mind how a game system like the 2600 only had one button and a big stick as opposed to the DualShocks or Wii Remotes they play on. While these games aren't their cup of tea (too hard to play, even the NES falls in that camp) tbey do talk about the classics now and then.

[Gamemoose]

Do kids really need to know gaming history??? Most kids just want to play some video games, and in that context it means the current stuff out there. There's nothing wrong with that. They're not historians, and they don't need to know the roots of video games, to the enjoy what they enjoy. If they're curious about the past, great, but it isn't required. You guys sound like a bunch of old farts sitting around, complaining how youth today just doesn't get it. Remember when old people said that about the video games you played as a kid, instead of doing something else?

 

Is it sad? Yeah in way it is. Is there some responsibility that youth learn about this stuff, just to enjoy themselves with some modern entertainment? No. Not at all. The curious will find/discover this old stuff. The rest are just fine as is.

Do they need to? No. Is it a good idea to give them a little experience with the beginnings of their hobby? Definitely.

 

You don't have to beat them with a Leonard Herman book or do a filmstrip on it, but a mention or even a "hey, let's put down Minecraft and try some Pitfall." It's like going to a museum but in the comfort of home and being able to touch the exhibits. If you grew up with those old games, you are also sharing a part of you-a slice of your life.

 

I've exposed my daughter to the classics when she was old enough to hold a controller and am in the process of doing the same to my brood of step-children. It blew their mind how a game system like the 2600 only had one button and a big stick as opposed to the DualShocks or Wii Remotes they play on. While these games aren't their cup of tea (too hard to play, even the NES falls in that camp) tbey do talk about the classics now and then.

[AtariTexas]

When they bury me clutching my Yars Revenge cart.....that won't be the end of Atari for me, just merely bringing it along to the afterlife

[Professor Gull]

When they bury me clutching my Yars Revenge cart.....that won't be the end of Atari for me, just merely bringing it along to the afterlife

Make sure to bring that Heavy Sixer with you as well but if you end up being forced to use a 7800 and their North American controllers you might be in the wrong place.