CommodoreDecker Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 21 minutes ago, Faicuai said: Would you look at those beautiful solder-blobs... Like a wirk-of-art !! Kudos!! Almost impossible to tell the difference between that and a mass-manufacturing process, in a factory nobody should be taking deep breaths in because fumes from lead solder would probably kill more parrots than a laser printer's Teflon-coated fuser. The artistry of a 20-something's hands with desoldering gun is amazing. Or anyone who doesn't have shaky hands and/or major caffeine addiction. Also, while web browser spellcheckers allow "spellchecker" as a valid word, they don't for "desoldering" or "fuser". I think that's just horrible. /pout 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 I remember seeing these knockoff Gemsticks quite often back in the day but never actually purchased one. This one was on eBay for a decent(ish) price so I thought, "What the heck...". It turns out to be kind of cheap feeling in the hands but yet nice and responsive. Not a terrible controller overall. Still, it'll probably eventually end up in the box with all of the other oddball Atari controllers and won't ever see much use. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 2600 power supplies. I real like the look of these two. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted June 18, 2021 Share Posted June 18, 2021 2 hours ago, SS said: I remember seeing these knockoff Gemsticks quite often back in the day but never actually purchased one. This one was on eBay for a decent(ish) price so I thought, "What the heck...". It turns out to be kind of cheap feeling in the hands but yet nice and responsive. Not a terrible controller overall. Still, it'll probably eventually end up in the box with all of the other oddball Atari controllers and won't ever see much use. Got a whole tub of "odd ball" controllers much like the GEMSTIK. I won't live long enough to enjoy them all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted June 28, 2021 Share Posted June 28, 2021 I rarely purchase original titles in magnetic-media format, but there are some noteworthy exceptions... and Archer Maclean's Dropzone is one of them... and arguably a masterpiece, too. Always wanted a true copy of it ! In many years of regular eBay patrolling, for some reason I can't recall ever seeing one. Waited until the very end of what seems to be a deserted auction, with a starting bid of $29.95, and BIN of $90+... ended up getting it for $29.95+shipment... This one happens to be Microdaft version (1984) specifically for the US market but pretty much timed as PAL, which is hard... It is been said that the main concept mirrors that of Defender... but the GFX, dynamics and overall craftsmanship of Dropzone makes it disappear in the rear-view mirror, to oblivion... plus being developed on the 800 and really pushing it, for that time. One of the very, very few games that does not need any extravagant and fictitious illustrations to make it attractive... Its actual graphics are its own presentation card, and a true testament of What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG). ? On an all-time class of its own!! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 (edited) Having had a MultiJoy8 board for too long now, I have ordered the bits for it, half on Ebay and half from Farnell. Edited June 29, 2021 by Wrathchild 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 1 hour ago, Wrathchild said: Having had a MultiJoy8 board for too long now, I have ordered the bits for it, half on Ebay and half from Farnell. Don't make the absolutely idiotic mistake I did when assembling my first board from Mr. Robot (the really cool round ones). Somehow, I got 2 of the DB9 connectors soldered in the wrong place. I did not notice the difference between male and female (no jokes about how easy that is to do these days) and swapped an input and output jack. Luckily, I was able to desolder both with no damage, and both of mine are assembled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarland Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 3 hours ago, Faicuai said: I rarely purchase original titles in magnetic-media format, but there are some noteworthy exceptions... and Archer Maclean's Dropzone is one of them... and arguably a masterpiece, too. Always wanted a true copy of it ! That's a great price. Looks in great condition too. Yes this one is an exception! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 6 hours ago, Stephen said: Somehow, I got 2 of the DB9 connectors soldered in the wrong place Indeed, I went back to @ivop's original thread to check what I'd need and read similar, though I will most likely go with soldering the joystick cables to the board rather than use the female sockets for extenders. My soldering skills are amateur but this does seem a good way to get some more experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124519535097 Got this coming, to adorn my wall 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 8GB SanDisk SD Card, trying to get my GOEX floppy drive working, doesn't seem to read/write any images with the older cards I have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazzspeed Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 2 hours ago, Beeblebrox said: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124519535097 Got this coming, to adorn my wall Ohh, I like that. That would look good on my office wall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted June 29, 2021 Share Posted June 29, 2021 28 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said: Ohh, I like that. That would look good on my office wall. It's yours for... £250!!!!? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 On 6/29/2021 at 3:30 AM, Stephen said: Don't make the absolutely idiotic mistake I did when assembling my first board from Mr. Robot (the really cool round ones). Somehow, I got 2 of the DB9 connectors soldered in the wrong place. I did not notice the difference between male and female (no jokes about how easy that is to do these days) and swapped an input and output jack. Luckily, I was able to desolder both with no damage, and both of mine are assembled. When I did mine (on the square board) I had to move the input connectors from above board to below board because (IIRC) I had used the wrong type of connector. At least it works which I can't say about the "flying wire" version I did myself. With DB-9 you can argue about what's male and female anyway, because the pin side is the one that something gets shoved into.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 18 hours ago, Mazzspeed said: Ohh, I like that. That would look good on my office wall. If I only had free walls....all covered with shelves and cabinets, leaving pretty few space for decoration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted June 30, 2021 Share Posted June 30, 2021 On 6/18/2021 at 4:35 AM, gilsaluki said: Got a whole tub of "odd ball" controllers much like the GEMSTIK. I won't live long enough to enjoy them all. I resolved not to buy any more that aren't nice to play and no more Competition Pro's at all but still make exceptions for very cheap offers and very odd controllers. Ended up with one of the Quickshott "big ball/tit" controllers which is absolutely atrocious to play and takes up a lot of space that way. Need to strengthen my resolve. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 On 6/30/2021 at 12:23 AM, slx said: ...and no more Competition Pro's at all... On that note I present the following (just arrived).? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinsCool Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 2 hours ago, sramirez2008 said: On that note I present the following (just arrived).? This looks like a buttplug inside a Atari controller shell, lol 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 11 minutes ago, VinsCool said: This looks like a buttplug Yep...several folks on YouTube have referred to it as such. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted July 1, 2021 Share Posted July 1, 2021 2 hours ago, VinsCool said: This looks like a buttplug inside a Atari controller shell, lol Beat me to it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted July 2, 2021 Share Posted July 2, 2021 5 hours ago, sramirez2008 said: On that note I present the following (just arrived).? Not quite as accommodating as this link i.ebayimg.com/images/g/diUAAOSwP0Zdteqw/s-l1600.jpg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted July 2, 2021 Share Posted July 2, 2021 2 hours ago, Stephen said: Not quite as accommodating as this link Hide contents i.ebayimg.com/images/g/diUAAOSwP0Zdteqw/s-l1600.jpg Hide contents They must have known what shape they were making this in, right? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted July 3, 2021 Share Posted July 3, 2021 On 6/28/2021 at 10:32 PM, Sugarland said: Yes this one is an exception! Well, when it comes to Atari, I am also all-in for anything productivity-oriented... and we may have to make another exception, after all... ? Here comes a rare-bird, one that I had never seen before during my regular eBay patrolling, and one that (oddly) does not have a rarity-rating in Atarimania... ? Fleet System-2 is a dual-platform (C64 / Atari) Word Processor, coming in two 90 KB floppies (side-2 is Atari version). Once again, a basically deserted auction, no one (except one bidder?) paying attention to it... Ended up getting it for $30 flat (vendor chose my offer over a competing one, but I do not recall bidding too high for this one)... Anyhow, it seems complete, although with a bit strange launching sequence and protection-scheme... First,,it DOES NOT come with DOS and ONLY works by first booting user-provided DOS 2.5, INTO BASIC (!) Then you issue "RUN D:BOOT" command and object code begins to load (like using Basic as an environment shell, which is bizarre)... all the way to a final protection-check, which not only outputs G4 and G6 codes on Indus/GT display, but one that is hostile to Track-Buffering / high-speed code, flushing it OUT of the drive (with a soft-reset) before reading final bad-sectors... something I had never seen before happening on the Indus... not even with Dropzone's own fuzzy-sector protection, above. Well, I have some user-manual catch-up to do here, to learn how this bad-boy works... Interesting, nonetheless! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarland Posted July 3, 2021 Share Posted July 3, 2021 3 hours ago, Faicuai said: Well, when it comes to Atari, I am also all-in for anything productivity-oriented... and we may have to make another exception, after all... ? Here comes a rare-bird, one that I had never seen before during my regular eBay patrolling, and one that (oddly) does not have a rarity-rating in Atarimania... ? Fleet System-2 is a dual-platform (C64 / Atari) Word Processor, coming in two 90 KB floppies (side-2 is Atari version). Once again, a basically deserted auction, no one (except one bidder?) paying attention to it... Ended up getting it for $30 flat (vendor chose my offer over a competing one, but I do not recall bidding too high for this one)... Anyhow, it seems complete, although with a bit strange launching sequence and protection-scheme... First,,it DOES NOT come with DOS and ONLY works by first booting user-provided DOS 2.5, INTO BASIC (!) Then you issue "RUN D:BOOT" command and object code begins to load (like using Basic as an environment shell, which is bizarre)... all the way to a final protection-check, which not only outputs G4 and G6 codes on Indus/GT display, but one that is hostile to Track-Buffering / high-speed code, flushing it OUT of the drive (with a soft-reset) before reading final bad-sectors... something I had never seen before happening on the Indus... not even with Dropzone's own fuzzy-sector protection, above. Well, I have some user-manual catch-up to do here, to learn how this bad-boy works... Interesting, nonetheless! Amazing find! It looks very interesting. Looks to be in excellent condition. It's great that I've learned so much more about A8's in the past six years here on AtariAge and elsewhere. There's a lot of software like this that I'd never heard of. Will a working copy of it be posted on Atarimania and here? Realizing it first needs to be cracked. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted July 3, 2021 Share Posted July 3, 2021 Cool find. Not that rare, probably about "8", but never got that much attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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