Justin

Let JIM BUTTERFIELD instruct you on the C64! This 1983 video provides 14 lessons about the Commodore 64 from Games and Simulations to graphics to how to load a program. The video is presented by the legend Jim Butterfield, a well-known "Goodtime Charlie" who became an icon of the Commodore world. Jim Butterfield authored several books and articles about early microcomputers, wrote software, and was a television personality as well. Enjoy:

WOW @Clint Thompson that is amazing! Is that your original system?

Now that is super cool! I hope you'll be able to jump in more of these TurboGrafx-16 Squad Challenges.

All of these choices are awesome 🐛

A very special gift from @Gianna! These will be put to use playing classic NES black box games on Nintendo Switch Online

Bomberman '93 appeared in the January 1993 issue of TurboForce Magazine: http://archives.tg-16.com/turbo_force_0003.htm

If AppleTV (or Amazon or whatever) included a gyroscopic / motion remote, a lot of these mobile games like "Cornhole" could be played on the TV at home and deliver a similar experience to what Intellivision Amico would. Amico would be more appealing to me if it were launching with some of the more notable titles that had been announced and now seem to have disappeared from the list, games like Earthworm Jim and Toe Jam & Earl.

Chris Bucci (spida1a) has an excellent overview of Bomberman ’93 for the TurboGrafx-16 It's a great place to start if you're new to the game! For comparison, here's Chris Bucci’s TurboViews episode reviewing the original Bomberman on TurboGrafx-16:

Let's get the word out about this High Score Squad Challenge! The more people participating the more fun the challenge! Spread the word and invite friends to play!

Bomberman '93 TurboGrafx-16 / Duo Controller: TURBO PAD / KEYBOARD / PLAYER'S CHOICE Difficulty Level: Normal Game Play on: Real Hardware / Mini Console / Emulation OK! ✔ Squad Challenge ends 11:59 pm PST February 28, 2022 Nominated by: @Gianna Objective Play for the highest possible score using the difficulty settings defined in the challenge. Post a photo or YouTube video of your score in this thread. Scores must be achieved between February 15th through February 28th, 2022. Screen captures are not allowed as they are more easily manipulated for falsified scores. Multiple submissions are permitted. The player with the highest score at the end of the competition is the victor! Eligibility Anyone can join in. All players are welcome! Play Rules Games may be played on real hardware, Flashback / Mini console, or emulation, using any controller or keyboard, following all rules and game settings defined in the challenge. Choosing between real hardware or emulation, and choosing which controller to play on is part of formulating your strategy. Enhancements, rewinds and hacked versions of this game are not allowed. Difficulty Level We are playing Bomberman '93 using "Normal Game" Difficulty, which provides for the standard Bomberman gameplay and level of difficulty. Continues and Passwords are allowed. TurboSwitches may be set to Player's Choice. (Our recommended setting is to set both TurboSwitches in the down position.) Fair Play Your integrity is everything. Players should play fairly, be honest, and have fun! Falsified scores will result in your immediate removal from the site. It goes without saying that we will not allow cheats, hacks, cartridge frying, enhancements, rewinds, deceitful photo manipulation, subterfuge, or any other unfair advantage. Everybody hates a cheater. More To review detailed rules on how to play, please visit the High Score Squad page here: Message Welcome to our 118th Squad Challenge!!! BOOM!! For this challenge we're playing the incredible Bomberman '93, released late in the TG lifespan for the TurboGrafx-16 and newly released TurboDuo. Special thanks to @Gianna for nominating this game for High Score Squad! Bomberman is an absolute gem from the 8-Bit era, with simple, challenging gameplay, lots of mind-bending logic puzzles, fun characters and environments, and of course lots of explosions! Bomberman became incredibly popular on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but it was the TurboGrafx-16 version that brought about a more polished game with detailed, arcade-like graphics and sound. The original Bomberman was released for the TurboGrafx-16 in 1991 on HuCard format, which was able to be played on the standard TurboGrafx-16 console and TurboExpress portable. When the more advanced TurboDuo console was released in 1992, one of it's pack-in titles included Bomberman as an unlockable Easter Egg. It was one of my personal favorite games to play for the system! The original Bomberman was followed up with Hudson Soft’s reimagined, more powerful sequel that takes everything fun about the original and increases it two-fold, to create a blast of a puzzle game that could boost sales of the TurboGrafx-16 and the new TurboDuo. Evil Bomberman and six of his cronies steal the 7 vital chips from the Pan-Galactic Mother’s supercomputer. This causes the computer to shut down and now it’s up to you to chase Evil Bomberman across a galaxy of planets and save the day! Bomberman ’93 was one of the most anticipated releases in the later era of the TurboGrafx-16 and featured some of the most appealing Bomberman graphics of all time! Bomberman ’93 exploded on the scene with advertisements appearing in video game magazines like GamePro and Electronic Gaming Monthly, and promotions appearing in Toys R Us, Babbages, Software Etc. and FuncoLand. Bomberman ’93 is one of the best Bomberman games on the TurboGrafx and PC Engine, and proved to be more than a worthy follow up to the original game. Puzzle games really shine on TurboGrafx-16 and I hope you will all enjoy this one! We last saw Bomberman in High Score Squad when we played the original TG16 Bomberman in High Score Squad during May of 2016. In my opinion Bomberman really shines in all forms on the TurboGrafx-16 and is even better than the original on the NES. ROM and PDF Instruction Manual are provided below. I hope you all have fun, and good luck to everybody participating. Let's explore one of the most fun TurboGrafx-16 and Duo titles! Can you BOMB your way to the top?! Bomberman_93.pdf Bomberman_93.pce

Congratulations No Swear Gamer!! A KING HAS RETURNED. Congratulations to high score legend @nosweargamer on becoming our new NES 10-Yard Fight Squad Champion! No Swear landed a Touchdown with his stellar 42 - 0 game, giving him a score of 84 points! Terrific win for nosweargamer! And a big congratulations to everybody on all those incredible scores across the board! I hope 10-Yard Fight was a fun event to get in the mood for the Super Bowl and everybody enjoyed the big game. Newcomer @datafry was on fire in 10-Yard Fight, securing the 2nd Place in our Final Standings with his white hot 42 - 3 game, giving him a total score of 81 points. Our other big newcomer @Doug.dryerlint17 was "on there" and takes 3rd with an impressive 28 - 3 game, giving him a score of 53 points. Perennial Squad champ @Atari 5200 Guy joined us for 10-Yard Fight with his impressive 21 - 0 game, resulting in a total score of 42 points to take 4th Place in our Final Standings. Squad Legend "The Don" @RickR himself nominated 10-Yard Fight and got us started in the game with his 21 - 3 performance, giving Rick a total score of 39 points and taking 5th Place. My congratulations to all who joined us in our Nintendo Entertainment System 10-Yard Fight Squad Challenge and shared these high scores. I hope everybody had a blast! Also, we'd like to offer a BIG WELCOME to new members @datafry and @Doug.dryerlint17 who have been joining us in the Forums. We're thrilled to have all you at Atari I/O participating in High Score Squad!! WELCOME!! I'd also like to recognize and say thank you to Atari I/O's content creators who do so much to get the word out about our High Score events, and invite new friends to join our Atari Party at Atari I/O. @nosweargamer went live on YouTube on multiple occasions with our 10-Yard Fight Squad Challenge and played in real time before his subscribers. I was in attendance and watched his fantastic game. @Papa Pete also shared a very cool High Score Squad video on YouTube today! @Papa Pete actually went back and played Megamania on Atari 2600, as he missed out on joining our Megamanaia Squad Challenge a few weeks back. Special Shoutout to @Sabertooth for putting so much effort into the new Club VCS and inviting new Atari VCS fans to join us. I can tell you Sabertooth has been putting in tremendous work into making the Atari VCS community something genuinely amazing. THANK YOU to everyone for helping to get the word out about our events in the forums! As always I'd like to encourage Squad Legend and our new champion @nosweargamer to post his high score on the Scoreboard, and let's make sure this Challenge continues on! Congratulations to NSG, special thanks once again to @RickR for nominating this game, and a big congratulations to our wonderful little community for being such a great group to spend time with, I hope everybody had fun playing in our football league! NOTE: We play an incredible classic puzzle game in our next High Score Squad Challenge - Bomberman '93 for the TurboGrafx-16 & TurboDuo! Be there!

I think there have been a lot of comparisons to the Ouya because of that, it shares that basic Android architecture without much else. I feel like if this is released without a -serious- push from third party publishers, it will end up with a similar library to the Ouya and fade away within a year. Say what you want about the Ouya, at least it made it to the store shelves in Target. At this point, Amico will be fortunate to get that far.

I wonder why they went so strongly in the direction of the Wii branding. Same colors, similar concepts.

It's honestly shocking that they would create and publish this image. They're not just pitting themselves against the current generation from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, now they're using this image to pit themselves against some of the greatest, most beloved classic video game systems of all time. The NES, SNES, and PlayStation Dual Shock are controllers that set the standard of their generation. Calling the NES "2 Buttons and a D-Pad" controller "complicated" is such an insane thing to say that it makes me wonder what they're smoking over there. If anything the Amico controller is its Achilles Heel. It doubles down on the ergonomics of the original controller, and it makes their offering more expensive. Also interesting to note that in that pile of "complicated" video game controllers they opted not to include the Sega Dreamcast controller with its unique VMU screen.

This is straight up 100x better treatment than I received from Atari as a dedicated fan in 1993. I remember once I left Chip's Challenge in my pants pocket and it went through the washer and dryer twice. Popped it in my Lynx and it still played! Even the label stayed perfect. I bought a disposable camera, took a picture, mailed it to Atari with a letter, and they could not have cared less. It was a very lonely thing to be an Atari gamer back then, you were pretty much left to your own devices. I think it's a tremendous sign and very encouraging that Atari as they exist today sent @TrekMD a shirt, or that they even have a real support department. I haven't heard stories like these in decades.

I realize they're trying to do a creative modernization of the Intellivision keypad, but I think they could've had a home run with 2 buttons and a D-Pad. That's all you need 🙂

Added context for the Instagram post above: I was acquainted with Keith and really respected that he was still out there captaining that ship. Atari I/O likes to amplify things like that - nice people, good projects, fun sincere things that go beyond just Atari. I was vaguely aware of Tommy Tallarico at the time. I knew he produced music for the video game industry and had done the music for Earthworm Jim. I was unaware of the Steven Tyler stuff. I just thought he was a cool fan who had attended the event!

Want to see something wild? This is our Instagram post from October 6, 2015. It was a "regram" from @IntellivisionLives, which was the Official Intellivision Instagram account during the time that Intellivision was primarily owned and run by the late Keith Robinson, with whom I was aquatinted. Intellivision had attended the Twin Galaxies Entertainment Festival that year and hosted an Astrosmash contest which we were amplifying to help get the word out for our friends at Intellivision. Here is what my caption read: "The winner of the #Astrosmash shoot off at the #twingalaxiesentertainmentfestival: music legend Tommy Tallarico who scored 13,229 points in five minutes of play, winning an Intellivision Flashback! ☺️" So Intellivision held an Astrosmash contest - which Tommy Tallarico won! They gave him an Intellivision Flashback for free, he beat out other contestants playing, posed for pictures, and @RickR @btbfilms76 and I all gave the post a like. Unreal that somebody with his means, and connections to Intellivision, would take the free Intellivision prize when an actual fan could've played and won.

I got the Super NES Hallmark Ornament for Christmas too, they did a very nice job with it. All the details and sounds are there. Very impressive! I doubt we will see an Atari ornament any time soon but would be very happy if we did

A superb topic! And a terrific recommendation. Thank you @RickR! This feels like it's in the same spirit as the Beer Tasting Club.

YIKES! They also keep relying on "crowdfunding". Don't do this! Crowdfunding is nice for smaller projects. If you have a project with a guy out there calling himself "CEO" of something, you shouldn't have to rely on crowdfunding. Seek out private capital from accredited investors. (My rule of thumb: if somebody can't lose $100K in your project, brush it off and walk away unscathed like John McClane walking out of an explosion, they shouldn't be investing in your project.) Easier said than done - but I feel I can say this as someone who has had to do this with a project substantially larger than the Amico is. If you want something bad enough you need to be willing to bust-yo-ass and work for it. Suck it up and get that Sequoia Capital money. Do not use nostalgia and fuzzy memories as a wedge to get micro investments from regular "mom and pop" people investing $1,000 here and there. Disappointing to see this. I wish everybody at Intellivision the best and want to see this succeed. It's a nice idea, let's get this done and not allow people to be financially hurt over something they loved from their childhood.

I remember in the '90s we used to talk a lot about "Atari Vaporware" - stuff like the Atari 2700 Remote Control VCS, the Atari Cosmos, the Atari Keyboards for the 2600 and the 7800, the Atari 2000 kid's console, the Atari Mindlink Controller, the Atari 2600 Voice Commander, the 7800 High Score Cartridge, all of the unreleased software that never saw the light of day - all of this was announced and touted by Atari before it was ready to go. It was a huge mistake. All this focus on hardware and unreleased games while Nintendo developed a 6502 system that was essentially a 2600/5200 that could address more memory with some ColecoVision characteristics. Yet Atari was busy announcing products before they were ready. They all did it. If there was one thing I would hope Intellivision would learn from this era, it's to "build it first, then they will come." Have a clear vision, stay focused, get the job done and then begin promoting to the public. @RickR is right on here. This is the correct mindset. Intellivision should set their price point and build within that target. If you're going to delay by 3 years at least come in under budget. I can't tell you what a huge opportunity there is right now to fill the $99 niche that sits between the Mini Flashback consoles and Playstation / Xbox. That niche used to be filled pretty well by Game Boy / GBA / 3DS, but with that line effectively abandoned in favor of merging Nintendo's two product lines (portable + home console) into the Switch, there's a big opportunity. The only ones I see coming close to the target right now at that price is Evercade. Imagine if Evercade got into Costco or Sam's Club with a nice bundle that included a couple games? Intellivision has that same opportunity, and for that matter so does Atari if they can bring the price down a bit. I want to see everybody succeed and stay in the game, each with a robust, satisfied fandom. @nosweargamer Your coverage of this has been the best. I like that you can review this from an objective viewpoint. You sum it up and break this craziness down into bitesized morsels that I think everybody can understand. We all want to see Intellivision succeed, but we also see things for what they are.

George Lucas filming The Phantom Menace wearing a t-shirt quoting the New Yorker's bad review of Star Wars. Here’s that review: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-force-still-with-us