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AtariAge News Archive
The Atari Lynx turned 30 in 2019 and Atari Gamer decided to turn this event into a momentous birthday party! The Atari Gamer Programming Competition was envisaged so that homebrew developers would bring a handful of new games to the Atari Lynx on its 30th Birthday. Instead, we got eleven new games across all genre styles! This ahead-of-its-time console is getting a whole lot of presents, so join in with us in celebrations, enjoy all the new games and keep on Lynxing! There are eleven new games for the Atari Lynx to celebrate its 30th Birthday. You can download their ROMs or play them in your web browser by following the links on this page. After you've played the games, please cast votes for your favorites! You can also discuss the games and leave comments in the discussion threads for each of these new titles in our forum. Your voice will help determine the winners! The complete ROM package is available for download here. Inside you will find all of the original submissions, as well as a directory with converted LYX ROMs for AgaCart and a directory of ROMs and a special launcher to use with the Lynx SD cartridge. Be sure to have a look at the README.txt file for more instructions. And don't forget to vote! Discuss online: 111 comments in Atari Lynx Forum
We've launched a Summer Sale with 10% off all 2600, 5200, 7800 and Jaguar games (minus pre-order games) in the AtariAge Store! Now's a great time to pick up some of those homebrew games you've been eyeing but haven't yet pulled the trigger on! This sale is for two weeks only, and only applies to games, hardware is excluded. As a BONUS, any purchase of $200 or more will receive a free copy of Balloon Trip or Sheep It Up!, a $25 value! Sale ends on Thursday, September 5th, 2019 at 11:59pm CST! Please visit the AtariAge Store for complete details. Discuss online: 42 comments in Atari 2600 Forum
Our friend Curt Vendel of AtariMuseum.com attended the recent Vintage Computer Festival East, where he assembled an impressive exhibit covering the Atari 400/800 computers to honor the 40th anniversary of the Atari 8-bit computer line. Bill and Anthony of the The Guru Meditation YouTube channel were given a tour of this exhibit by Curt, where he describes some of the hardware and software on display. Besides the hardware that saw retail release that Atari 8-bit computer fans are familiar with, Curt also talks about some unreleased prototypes he had on hand, such an 850 Interface Module in a black, aluminum case, an 800D (Developer) system that had an expansion bus and serial ports on the side, and a cost-reduced Atari 800 "Collette" board where everything was on the main board as opposed to the use of expansion slots. Also on display was an interactive Atari sales kiosk featuring the ERIC Laserdisc demonstrator system. You can watch the video below: Discuss online: 130 comments in Atari 8-Bit Computers Forum
AtariProtos.com, a website that investigates and reviews unreleased prototypes for various Atari consoles, has uncovered new Work in Progress (WIP) versions of many Atari 2600 games. Many thanks to the efforts of Ken Van Mersbergen (Dutchman2000) for obtaining access to these games and sharing them with the community, and to Matt Reichert for reviewing these prototypes and describing how they differ from the released versions of the games. Several reviews of these prototypes have already been posted, with a promise of more to follow:
You can learn more about these prototypes by visiting the links above, and you can download the binaries themselves from this thread in our Prototypes forum. Discuss online: 64 comments in Prototypes Forum
The Portland Retro Gaming Expo is one of the largest classic gaming events in the country, bursting at the seams with video games and game-related activities all weekend long! The PRGE Retrocade opens to the public at noon on Friday, featuring 30,000 square feet of full-size arcade games and pinball machines, and the main exhibition hall (along with the arcade) will be open Saturday and Sunday. Here's an incomplete list of what you'll find at the show:
Discuss online: 47 comments in 2019 Portland Retro Gaming Expo Forum
We've recently upgraded the AtariAge Forums to a significantly newer version! This was a long time coming, and the updated forum has a wealth of improvements over the previous incarnation. Here's a brief list of some of the improvements:
If you're an active user of the forum, please consider purchasing a subscription. It's very time consuming to keep AtariAge online, and it's also expensive as AtariAge is run on two dedicated servers--one serving the web pages and another devoted to the databases. On top of that we have a third server used for development, on which we also provide free hosting for several classic gaming-related sites. These dedicated servers run over $600 a month, and there are also various software-related expenses involved as well (such as the forum license, which is over $200 a year). The upgrade for the forums and moving AtariAge to a new web server during this process cost roughly $2,500. We do not presently have ads on AtariAge, but it is something we've considered doing to help offset the costs and time involved. We'd prefer not to go that route, though! Important! If you are UNABLE TO LOGIN to the forum after the upgrade, please make sure you login with your display name. If you had a login that was different than your visible name on the forum, it will no longer work (these were eliminated). You can read more information about this upgrade as well as leave feedback in our Announcements Forum. Discuss online: 878 comments in Announcements Forum
ZeroPage Homebrew will be streaming a 12 HOUR homebrew gaming marathon fundraiser on July 12, 2019 for the continued development of the amazing Atari 2600 emulator Stella. Stella development began in 1996, is maintained by Stephen Anthony (stephena), and many contributors have put in the their time, equipment and dollars over the years towards its continued success. 100% of all funds raised through auctions and donations will go to the Stella project! Over the twelve hours of the marathon the crew at ZeroPage will be playing all your favorite homebrews, taking gaming challenges from the chat, trying for new highscores and generally having a ton of fun. We'll also be auctioning off a whole bunch of generously donated items to help raise funds for the incredible work that's being done on Stella. Supporting the development of Stella not only provides you with an amazing Atari 2600 emulator to play all your favorite old school and new homebrew games, it's also and incredibly important tool in the development of new games for your VCS! Stella has a large number of helpful utilities under the hood to help troubleshoot and analyze issues during the process of making a game. By supporting Stella, you're helping accelerate the development of games and push games to further and further heights! 
Generously Donated Auction Items (more to come!):
Discuss online: 125 comments in Atari 2600 Forum
We've just added two new Atari Jaguar titles to the AtariAge Store! We're proud to reveal that Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and Fantasy World Dizzy are now available to pre-order. Each game includes a high-quality, professionally printed box, manual and label. Fantasy World Dizzy (like Treasure Island Dizzy before it) is limited to 250 copies. We expect to ship these as soon as printing of the boxes, manuals and labels is complete, so order today to make sure you're among the first to enjoy them!  Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe It's been two years since the last ball was thrown on a Speedball pitch. There are new teams, new stadia, and new rules. The arena is bigger, the players are tougher, and the action is faster than ever before. The challenge is this: take control of Brutal Deluxe, the worst team in Speedball history, and turn them into champions. Speedball 2 is a different ball game! Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe is a video game based on a violent futuristic cyberpunk sport that draws on elements of handball and ice hockey, and rewards violent play as well as goals. The concept of the game is very reminiscent of the 1975 film Rollerball. The original game was developed by Bitmap Brothers and is one of their most successful titles. Originally released for the Atari ST in 1990, Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe has been ported to a variety of additional systems and has finally made it's way to the Atari Jaguar! Fantasy World Dizzy Dizzy & Daisy strolled through the enchanted forest without a care in the world... But suddenly the Evil King's trolls seized poor Daisy! She was sent to the Wizards Weird's Tallest Tower, while Dizzy was dragged away and thrown into the deepest, darkest, dankest of the King's Dungeons in the bowels of Fantasy World. Dizzy was frightened! Who knew what fate awaited him...and he still hadn't done this week's homework! But then he remembered that he had a fresh green apple that he had planned to give to his teacher to escape detention, and he cheered up. And there was some bread and water on the table! A cunning plan began to brew in his mind... Dizzy and The Yolkfolk are characters created by the Oliver Twins, and these characters would appear in many games during the 8 and 16-bit eras. Most of their appearances were in multi-screen platform adventure puzzle games, however, they also appeared in some great arcade games as the title characters. Slowly, over the course of the series, we learn more about this odd little family and help them out of the tricky situations they find themselves in by visiting the many varied locations of their magical world. Fantasy World Dizzy is our second Dizzy release, following on the heels of Treasure Island Dizzy, which is still available for purchase (get it while supplies last, though!) You can learn more about Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and Fantasy World Dizzy by visiting the AtariAge Store. Discuss online: comments in Forum
Darren Doyle of Greyfox Books has launched a Kickstarter campaign to create the first unofficially-licensed coffee table book on the Atari 8-bit Home Computer, Atari: A Visual History. The book pays a huge tribute to this incredible home computer, its product design, and its amazing catalogue of third-party software associated with this iconic 8-bit system. Atari: A Visual History is the very first book of this kind to be released for the Atari 8-bit home computer enthusiast in a visual compendium, ever! Darren has spent many months on development of this title and has acquired some incredible content along the way. Features of the book include:
The premise of the book is to cover a huge majority of classic third-party Atari 8-bit software from such amazing software houses as Datasoft, Broderbund, First Star Software and the likes. A selection of commercial and non-commercial homebrew games will also be covered in the book, giving these games the exposure in a visual compendium never seen in a format of this type before. Atari: A Visual History will also deliver a selection of interviews with game designers who worked on the Atari 8-bit. The three most popular computers of Atari's 8-bit computer range receive their very own profile coverage, with additional exclusive photography of these computers by Roberto Rogel, as well as a choice selection of Atari-related peripherals. The book will measure 170mm x 230mm (6” x 9”) and will only be available in hardcover form for maximum durability, comprising a whopping 420 pages of content. Please visit the Kickstarter campaign to learn more about Atari: A Visual History and make a pledge to support this project. You can discuss the book with its author Darren Doyle in our Atari 8-bit Computers Forum. Discuss online: 433 comments in Atari 8-Bit Computers Forum
 This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the Atari 400/800 computers, and to help celebrate this event, the Atari Museum has been working with one of the original Atari 400/800 computer engineers, Joe Decuir, to put on an exhibit at the annual Vintage Computer Festival East. This year's show takes place May 3-5, 2019 in Wall, New Jersey at the InfoAge Science and History Center. Each year the science center hosts a myriad of vintage computers from 8-bit home computers to mini and mainframes of all shapes and sizes. The Atari Museum exhibit hosted by Curt Vendel and Joe Decuir will feature every piece of hardware ever produced for the 400/800 series, as well as unique prototype equipment. But the 400/800 exhibit is just one small part of the overall Atari exhibit, which will also be a tribute to Jay Miner. Peter Fletcher, Bill Lange, Amiga Bill, and Dean Notarnicola will also be on hand, displaying Atari computers from the XL, XE, ST and Falcon series in this huge overall exhibit. The Lorraine will be there as well – Jay Miner’s amazing Amiga 1000. Thanks to Evan Koblentz, executive director of the Vintage Computer Festival (VCF), Joe Decuir will be giving a formal speaking presentation at VCF covering the Atari 400/800 computers, from their beginnings as an improved design over the Atari 2600, to the final production computer designs. Evan and Jay will then discuss the follow-up 68000-based computer that the Atari’s could have further evolve into, a design that would eventually see reality years later as the Amiga “Lorraine.” This is a rare and special opportunity, not just for Atari enthusiasts, but for anyone who loves the Atari 2600 to the Atari computers to the Amiga to see and meet the man who was involved in all three product designs. Please visit the Vintage Computer Festival website to learn more! Pictured above is the The Atari Home Computer Demonstrator, which will be on display as part of this exhibit. Discuss online: 130 comments in Atari 8-Bit Computers Forum
 Our friends at Piko Interactive have opened up pre-ordering for their next two Atari Jaguar titles, Head over Heels and Impossamole! The games will be available for pre-order until April 15 2019. During the pre-order period they are discounted $5 and will see a price hike on and after April 2019! First up is the Gremlin graphics action platformer Impossamole. Monty Mole has been living in luxury since his previous adventures, but he has now been beamed up by an alien race who want him to do a job for them. Monty must trek through five worlds to retrieve the sacred scrolls of the race's Guardians. The platform-based gameplay is similar to Monty's earlier games, with primarily horizontal progress as well as ropes and ladders to navigate. Monty has developed a useful flying kick and has been given a smart bomb, with the potential to collect extra bombs and guns. Hazards, enemies and level designs are themed around each level, and range from cable cars and falling snowballs to Ninjas and Monkeys. Improvements have been made to the music and the gameplay for a better user experience. Impossamole features a cardboard box, instruction manual, and game cartridge. Next is Head Over Heels, the classic Ocean Software puzzle adventure. OK, let me try and explain this. You see, Heads (he's the one with arms) can glide and jump and shoot, but he can't carry anything. And Heels, the one with the feet, can carry things, but he can't shoot. And if you get them together then they can do all sorts of things... Let me try again. There's this evil emperor, see, called Blacktooth, and he's enslaved all these different planets. So Head and Heels are trying to liberate the Five Crowns and... well there are these doughnuts, and some fish and bunny rabbits, and... well, it's really sort of... unique. Head Over Heels is a great strategy puzzle game originally developed by Ocean Software for the Amiga, Atari ST, and other early computer platforms. Finally it is playable on the Atari Jaguar. Head over Heels includes a cardboard box, instruction manual, and game cartridge. Pre-Orders will ship by April 15, 2019. The $5 price hike will apply on and after this date. You can learn more over at Piko Interactive. Discuss online: 16 comments in Classic Gaming General Forum
 Champ Games is nearing completion on their latest game for the Atari 2600, Wizard of Wor Arcade. This updated version of Wizard of Wor offers many new features from the CBS original release, including updated graphics, sound effects, more mazes, speech (using the AtariVox), high scores, and many more! One additional feature that Champ Games has built into Wizard of Wor is the ability to create and save your own mazes! A maze editor has been added to the game that will allow you to create up to three custom mazes that are then playable as in the first three dungeons. If you have a SaveKey/AtariVox, you can also save the mazes so your creative work isn't lost when you power down your Atari. Each of the three custom mazes will have a default layout that will be shipped with the cartridge. This is where you come in! We are asking you to use the maze editor to design your best maze and send us a screenshot. If we choose your design, it will be included in the final version of Wizard of Wor Arcade and you will have your name added to the credits section of the official manual! For more information and official rules, please visit the Wizard of Wor Arcade Maze Design Contest in the AtariAge Forums. The contest ends Friday, March 8th, 2019 at midnight EST. Winners will be announced on March 10th! Good luck! Discuss online: 50 comments in Contests Forum
 Welcome to the 2018 Atari Awards, where YOU get to vote on your favorite homebrew games, hacks and demos of 2018! Voting Ends on February 18, 2019 at 23:59:59 PST. You can click each of the threads in the 2018 Atari Awards forum to vote, as well as the links below for each category. We've made available a package you can download containing game binaries, instructions, and packaging so you can make informed decisions when voting. The results of the 2018 edition of the Atari Awards will be announced LIVE on the ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch channel on February 23rd, 2019 at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT during a special broadcast. ZeroPage Homebrew will be announcing the winners and runners up on the broadcast in each of the categories along with LIVE acceptance speeches from the winners, plus much more! Results will then be posted in our 2018 Atari Awards forum. 2018 Atari Awards Categories:
Discuss online: 51 comments in 2018 Atari Awards! Forum
 After a long hiatus, a new version of the Atari800MacX Atari 8-bit computer emulator for macOS is now available! Atari800MacX is a native macOS port of the popular Atari800 emulator, which forms the basis for many Atari 8-bit emulators on various platforms. Most importantly, version 5.0.0 of Atari800MacX supports the latest versions of macOS (Sierra and above). Changes in this new release include:
Discuss online: 45 comments in Atari 8-Bit Computers Forum
Happy New Year and welcome to 2019! For our Atari Jaguar fans, we're working on a new compilation of seven Atari Jaguar games released by Reboot over the last decade, all of which have been given an update with new graphics, music and other additions such as Pro Controller support and cartridge saves. Titled, "reBOOTed", this collection features 16+ megabytes of code, music and graphics squeezed into a 6 megabyte cartridge. Some of these titles never had a physical release while others were only available on Jaguar CD or in extremely limited runs due to production costs. reBOOTed features the following games:
Discuss online: 74 comments in Atari Jaguar Forum
 A major new version of the popular Atari 2600 emulator Stella has been released. Stella 6.0 introduces several new changes, with the largest of them involving cycle-exact TIA audio emulation. Several games that never worked correctly before, such as E.T. and Ms. Pac-Man, now sound exactly as they do on a real console. Stella is a multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and versions are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Stella allows you to enjoy the large library of Atari 2600 titles on your computer, and it's also an exceptional tool for anyone creating new homebrew games for the 2600.
You can learn more about this latest version of Stella straight from its primary developer, including a complete list of improvements in Stella 6.0, in our Emulation Forum. Visit the official Stella website to download the appropriate veresion for your operating system. Discuss online: 194 comments in Emulation Forum
CollectorVision has announced their CollectorVision Phoenix system, a new ColecoVision-compatible system based on FPGA technology. The Phoenix allows you to play ColecoVision cartridges just as you would on a regular ColecoVision. The Phoenix is compatible with all ColecoVision game cartridges and runs them with 100% accuracy. Since the Phoenix is based on FPGA technology, it will be possible to add support to play games from additional systems down the road. From the start, the Phoenix will allow you to enjoy ColecoVision and 2600 games.  Here are some of the Phoenix's features:
We're excited about this system, since original ColecoVision systems are notoriously fussy and difficult to repair. Having a new ColecoVision-compatible system using all new parts with HDMI output is a big win for ColecoVision fans! You can learn more about the Phoenix and how to buy one by visiting the CollectorVision Phoenix Kickstarter. You can also discuss the Phoenix in our ColecoVision / Adam Forum. Discuss online: 781 comments in ColecoVision / Adam Forum
Please visit the official Portland Retro Gaming Expo website to learn more about the show. If you're attending the show, please stop by our booth, say hello, and play some new games! Discuss online: 27 comments in 2018 Portland Retro Gaming Expo Forum
AtariAge is proud to announce that Defender of the Crown and Treasure Island Dizzy are coming to the Atari Jaguar! Both of these chart-topping classic games are now available to pre-order in the AtariAge Store. Each game includes a high-quality, professionally printed box, manual and label, and each is being released in limited quantities (300 copies for Defender of the Crown and 250 for Treasure Island Dizzy).  Defender of the Crown IT IS A TIME OF LEGENDS. A time for heroes. A time of bitter strife, when great men rise above their peers to perform great deeds. A chapter of history is in the making. Your liege the king is dead, the throne vacant. Britain enters a season of destruction, a winter of killing that can end only when the last brave Saxon knight lies dead or the castles of the Normans lie in heaps of rubble, emptied of the foul oppressors that have enslaved your people. It is a time when foreign invaders shall learn truths administered by the shining blades of Saxon swords. It is a time when heroes are made, and legends are born. Defender of the Crown was Cinemaware's first game, making its debut on the Commodore Amiga back in 1986. A strategy computer game designed by Kellyn Beck, it raised the bar for computer graphics in home computer games. Defender of the Crown would be ported to many computer systems and game consoles over time and has now been realized on the Atari Jaguar. Treasure Island Dizzy Dizzy was looking forward to his round-the-world cruise. When he told the other Yolkfolk about the good deal he found, they wondered just what lay ahead of him. Dizzy enjoyed the cruise at first. The captain, Long John Silver, was a lovely old bloke with a kindly manner, good at insulting and degrading the fare paying punters. He was well-balanced -- he had a parrot on one shoulder and a chip on the other. Dizzy thought he would organize a game of cricket on the aft deck. In a fit of blinding stupidity, he used LJ's spare leg collection as makeshift stumps, and when they ere lost overboard he was made to walk the plank! That was how he came to find himself gently poaching on the silent, sun-kissed beach of a seemingly deserted island... He had to somehow find a way back to the Yolkfolk and lodge his compensation claim with the travel agent... Dizzy and The Yolkfolk are characters created by the Oliver Twins, and these characters would appear in many games during the 8 and 16-bit eras. Most of their appearances were in multi-screen platform adventure puzzle games, however, they also appeared in some great arcade games as the title characters. Slowly, over the course of the series, we learn more about this odd little family and help them out of the tricky situations they find themselves in by visiting the many varied locations of their magical world. You can learn more about Defender of the Crown and Treasure Island Dizzy by visiting the AtariAge Store. Discuss online: 182 comments in Atari Jaguar Forum
You've surely seen QR Codes all over the place in the last decade. QR codes are a means of encoding information into a compact, square graphic that can be scanned (usually by cell phones these days) and decoded. Most often these codes are a link to a website, but they can be used to store any manner of information. Atari 2600 fan Seth Robinson recently embarked on the challenge of encoding Atari 2600 games as QR codes stored on paper cards, and then using a camera to decode the game and run it in an emulator. As QR codes can store about 3K of 8-bit data, a 2K Atari 2600 game can easily fit in a standard QR code. Larger 4K games can be encoded using two QR codes, one on each side of the card. You then have to flip the code to load the second half of the game. As a large percentage of Atari 2600 games are either 2K or 4K in size, this allows you to run quite a few games from QR codes. Seth used a Raspberry Pi and a Picamera and open source software to read the "PaperCart" Atari 2600 game cards he printed, and once decoded they are run in the RetroPie Atari 2600 emulator. For all the details about this PaperCart system system (including how to create your own), please visit Seth's Code Dojo page. Discuss online: 54 comments in Atari 2600 Forum 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 83 Next |
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