Justin

You seem to really enjoy sports games, @RickR! ☺️

My New High Score: 229

A new personal best: 216

What would you need to see from them in order for you to get behind it Hopefully for the 2600, to give us a proper version of 2600 E.T. Here's a starting point, let's get text on the screen plus you can walk over the wells the same way Elliott, the Scientist, and the FBI agent can. You have to walk over the well and press the Fire button to enter it. You're greeted with something like this:

Congrats on your score @Atari Creep, big welcome to Lily!

Karl Morris is a great guy, I hope he does well with these.

Renowned Atari Historian Karl Morris is self-publishing his new book "GameGuide - Lynx" which takes a look at the complete history of The Atari Lynx, with a review of all 71 officially released Lynx games, plus hardware, interviews, resources and more. The book is shipping early February, 2022 and is available for purchase on his website: https://www.zafinnbooks.com/gameguide_lynx.html

I think offering the ability to play these game streaming services is a very appealing selling point for the VCS. It's another reason, even a very big reason, to spend $300+ on the VCS as opposed to other offerings. It's nice to know that you're getting the ability to access so much through the VCS and makes it a worthwhile purchase. The downside is it dilutes the "personality" of the VCS and the Atari brand as a whole, when things like Stadia, XBOX Game Cloud and all of this modern AAA content effectively become the loudest voice in the room and take you out of the "World of Atari" experience that has been carefully curated for the VCS. Overall it's a net positive in my opinion, but I'd like to see more modern AAA content come from Atari themselves.

My finest work.

Yes, and likewise if you paste your Atari I/O RSS link over there, your Blog posts here will feed over there as well.

Hi @CrossBow, It looks like you were able to do it! Congratulations! For future reference, the RSS icon is right here on Atari I/O: And right here on AA: The orange icon provides you with the same RSS links already provided above. We're happy to help you with any future efforts if you would like our help.

Excellent observation @Clint Thompson!! That is spot-on Haha yes! Geraldine knew me by name. I had the direct number to the front desk. This was a (408) number as opposed to the 1-800 number. The (408) number had a more corporate feel to it, as though they were primarily there to take calls from suppliers, developers, etc. whereas the 1-800 number was really the consumer sales line. I didn't know about the 1-800 number for some time, and by then I had already developed a relationship with Geraldine as a contact. I've mentioned this a few times, including the stories I've shared before here: When I caught the Atari bug and thought I was the only kid on the planet who had an interest in Atari and classic games, I scoured every Toys R Us, Kay-Bee and Sears I could find. While I had just a skosh of success finding clearance Asteroids and E.T. games, along with an occasional Missile Command, RealSports Soccer, and of course a selection of Atari Lynx games, I couldn't for the life of me find an Atari 7800 system or games. My brilliant mom suggested I call information (this was pre-google) and ask if they had a phone number for Atari in Sunnyvale, CA. Sure enough they did, and the operator offered to connect me to the front desk at Atari. When the phone rang, Geraldine answered "Good afternoon, this is Atari" in a very polite voice. I suspect she immediately recognized she was speaking with an 11 year old and knew how to handle the call. I briefly told her that I was calling because I had a renewed interest in Atari and was unable to find Atari items locally. I explained that I had grown up playing 2600 & 7800, but my family sold our Atari collection five years prior and bought Nintendo, and now I had a reignited, fiery interest in Atari and was interested in purchasing a new Atari 7800 system and games. Geraldine was very understanding and helpful. She explained that Atari still had a great supply of 2600 and 7800 games, hardware and accessories, and offered to send me a brochure and ordering information, and would include information for the Lynx as well. I cannot tell you how excited I was. I held it together though and acted as professional as an 11 year old could have. I shared enough of my story for Geraldine to remember me in future calls. I would end up calling Atari and speaking with Geraldine about once every month or so. She always knew my name and she was always very gracious and very helpful. In hindsight I'm surprised she didn't send me an Atari Advantage poster or stickers or something. I was also able to get Julie Wade and John Skruch on the phone on at least two occasions, and spoke with them about the potential of new 7800 games being released for 1993, and was told that new games were "on the horizon" but the focus had shifted to getting the Atari Jaguar ready for launch and continuing support for Atari Lynx. In hindsight I believe they were referring to unreleased Atari 7800 games like Toki, Super Off-Road, Electrocop and others, but I can't say that with certainty. I also ended up semi-prank calling Jack Tramiel at home a few times and recorded our conversations, but that's a story that should be shared in another thread. As a side note: I remember it was a Saturday around lunch when my mom suggested I call information and ask if they had a phone number for Atari. The operator put me through, but because it was the weekend Atari was closed and I had to wait until Monday to call them back. It felt like an eternity having to wait the rest of the week for the envelope from Atari to come in the mail! When it arrived that Thursday, it was like Christmas. I spent hours reading through every word of every page that Geraldine sent me. For the first time, I could hold something in my hands that came from Atari, that would serve as my ability to order games and systems, it was my connection to the World of Atari and everything that came after.

I would encourage @MaximumRD and @Sabertooth to consider using RSS to syndicate their Atari I/O Blogs also. Their content is top-notch and we are proud to host it.

Hi @CrossBow, RSS is a simple web feed that lets users and apps syndicate Blog posts in a standard format. Using an RSS feed is an easy way to export/import a Blog into news aggregators and other websites. This means you can build your Blog one place and it will automatically feed elsewhere if you configure it to do so. You can build your Atari I/O Blog and use RSS to feed it to your Atari Age Blog (and other Blog sites!) so it can appear across multiple websites at once. You do this by configuring your other blogs to import an RSS feed, and pasting your URL to your Atari I/O Blog as the source. Your Atari I/O Blog RSS feed URL is: https://forums.atari.io/blogs/blog/rss/22-itc-chronicles-stories-from-the-ivory-tower-collections/?member=1&key=07b209807b79c676392a74af9cea1ef1 You can find your RSS feed by click on the little orange RSS icon on the bottom right of your Blog’s homepage. It looks like this: Additionally, you can import your existing Atari Age blog posts! You can do this by following a few easy steps: 1 Go to your Atari I/O Blog homepage here: 2 Click on the “MANAGE BLOG” dropdown menu on the right. It looks like this: 3 Select “ATOM / RSS IMPORT” 4 Enable RSS Import 5 Paste your Atari Age Blog RSS feed URL into the URL box. It looks like this: 6 Click the black “SAVE” Button NOTE: Your Atari Age Blog RSS feed URL is: https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/blog/rss/841-the-ivory-tower-collections-7800s/ Do this and you should be all set! We are happy to do this for you if you request. We think your blogs and your videos are valuable to our community. You have a great wealth of knowledge to share and I personally have enjoyed your content recently. If there’s anything we can do to help you please let us know. - Justin

Our man in Japan, James May, goes Go-Karting in a way that is "legally unrelated to Nintendo®️". This is a short clip from the Amazon limited series James May Our Man In Japan. I never knew this was a thing! This looks like a lot of fun. If only they had shells to shoot at other karts!

@DegasElite I was about to say I've never heard that before, but apparently I have -- it's what I wrote down in my Fatal Run write-up in my Strategy Guide in 6th Grade. (If you download the PDF it's at the top of Pg. 5). I wrote "Fatal Run is one of the last 7800 games = originally designed for the Lynx." I'm not sure that's true, in fact I would suspect it's not, but I wouldn't have written that in my Strategy Guide if I hadn't heard it somewhere and believed it to be true. Maybe @Video 61 knew something about it at the time and had told me. RoadBlasters absolutely should have been on the Atari 7800. It should've been a best-selling title. Right along with Marble Madness, Tetris and Paperboy. Atari Corp. (Jack Tramiel / Home Consumer Div.) should've had an exclusive agreement with Atari Games (Warner Communications / Coin-Op Arcade) to have exclusive rights to all of the Atari arcade games for Atari systems and computers. Instead they formed Tengen and found ways to put everything on Nintendo. THANK YOU @Clint Thompson that means a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wish I had done more at the time so I would have more to share with everybody today. I had always wanted it to be a website. I had to settle for paper at the time but a few years later we got started on what would grow into what you see today. I think it's really cool that you also remember the mail order forms and lists from Atari from the early 1990s, I haven't met too many people who were ordering from Atari at that time or recall the forms and catalogs they would send in the mail. I'm glad I was able to include those in the Strategy Guide to share with everybody. The Strategy Guide has gotten a good response. I'm thinking about creating a modern version of it - a free downloadable PDF laid out like an old "Nintendo Power" Strategy Guide, complete with tips & tricks for all the best Atari games, with some "personality" mixed in, in the form of annotations and quotes from Atari I/O members & staff. That would be a lot of work but could be a fun project.

@RickR GREAT POST, GREAT QUESTION!! I've been asking myself this for 30 years! What the heck? Once I played the original arcade version of Warlords I realized that what I had been playing all along was The Atari 2600 approximation of what was in the arcades. But still, what the heck is that thing? How is that supposed to be a "Warlord"? It looks like one of the cities from Missile Command toppled over on its side. For a long time I accepted that it was supposed to be a crown, but I'm not so sure that it's not one half of the "Darth Vader Warlord" face from the arcades:

I'm going to work on my Bowling score when I get home! 🎳

Keep in mind, rides like that aren't at the center of a theme park, they're found next to a Burger King.

Enjoyed this blog entry greatly. You can always export this blog elsewhere, and import your AA blog entries here using RSS. Terrific post.

@CrossBow, I'm really happy to see that you decided to start your blog here. I've been watching your videos every night for the past few weeks and you are a wealth of knowledge. (Enjoyed the 5200 controller repair video especially) You have so much to contribute to the World of Atari -- a blog seems like a natural fit for you! It’s exciting to see you bring Ivory Tower Collections to the Atari I/O Blog. Looking forward to seeing what’s to come! PS - added Ivory Tower Collections to our YouTube drop down menu at the top of our homepage