Justin

Want!

so awesome! cant wait to get this in print!

Thank you so much! I'll cover this on Atari Newsline again when it arrives, thanks my friend! You're amazing

Just a quick note to anyone who paid before noon PST today: your orders have shipped!

ATARI NEWSLINE. BREAKING NEWS. // On this #AtariNewsline Update, the FREE #Holiday #Update to #Atari50 The Anniversary Celebration is out! Let's take a look at the #trailer and dissect what's inside! Plus: My #Atari2600Plus #Preorder #Shipping #Update! And: Responding to some #Feedback I received after my video aired yesterday on #ThatAtariShow about my now 3 week delayed #Atari order! Is it on the way?
 
 

ATARI NEWSLINE. BREAKING NEWS. // On this episode of #AtariNewsline, #MadnessBeverage by @bluesunsetgames3887 is rumored to be coming soon to the #AtariVCS! This is the 1st #FPS (first person shooter) #game on the #VCS! Let's take a look at the trailer from 2021! Is my #Atari2600Plus on the way? Plus: WIN 1 of 2 #Steam Codes for #SuperStarShooter16 by #JDVideoGameProductions! And... Enter to be placed in a drawing for a FREE #Atari2600 #cart! All this & more on #Atari #Newsline!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zNJjc6HR2U
 

On this episode of #NoFilterHD, I play #MilliandGreg by @2ndbossgamestudio324 ! In this game, you're a cute little girl named Milli on the hunt for her missing cat Greg, who seems to be just about anywhere that's out of reach! This cool platformer/runner is a fantastic & charming #game, complete with over 100 levels of pure delight & healthy frustration 😉 I play the #game & give commentary while playing for the first time on the #AtariVCS! What do u think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Ibfo6U1dc
 

I do. I like the 7800 graphics, but I don’t like to have the same game for multiple systems. I have only so much space and am reaching the point where I’ll only be looking to purchase ROMs soon.

My cart arrived today.  🙂

Got mine!

The Print Edition of CLUB VCS ISSUE 01 is here and available first to members of Club VCS and Atari I/O!
Here are the details:
Print Edition Features: Two additional content pages, including: a listing of all CLUB VCS Members that were active as of October 13, 2023 a credits and acknowledgements page A revised table of contents to reflect the above Minor corrections and revisions from the digital version Over 60 pages of content Print Edition physical details: Size: 8.5" x 11" Binding: Perfect Bound Full-color printing, 80lb (inside) Cover: Gloss Lamination (outside), 100lb Satin Cover Cost: U.S. Domestic: $15, shipped. These will be shipped via USPS in a Large Envelope/Flat in a rigid mailer to help mitigate bending while in transit.  Note: Large Envelope/Flat does not include tracking.  If you want tracking, let me know and I will calculate the revised cost.  International: $11, plus actual shipping to your country. Availability: 40 copies are available from this initial run of 50.  I held back 10 copies for co-conspirators and collaborators. These will be first come, first served; one copy per person. Club VCS and Atari I/O members get exclusive ordering until Friday, December 15, 2023.  After that, I'll open it up.  Co-conspirators and collaborators, yours went out early this week so keep an eye on your mailboxes! @RickR, @Podan, @Ballistik, @Justin, @Mockduck To get your copy, send me a PM here with your PayPal email and mailing address and I will send you a request for payment.  
 

I'd love to see a 7800 version of Crystal Castles!

Nice pick up. Hopefully you have a twin-stick or controller holder for Robotron. It’s an excellent port. Very smooth, fluid gameplay. You have some really good games here. Enjoy!

I *feel* this. 

The intended goal of these final weeks of 2023 was to lay off the game purchasing and focus the budget on Christmas.  I've failed that commitment 😆.
 
Received a great box from @Video 61!  Totally skipped out on the 7800 lineup in its heyday, so this should be interesting.
 

Looked impressive!  There are many things I would have loved to see the 7800 try to do.  I really wish Konami would have tried to make a few of their games for it.  They figured out ways around Nintendo’s licensing rules they could have had another company make their games for the 7800.  

The Asus Tuf laptop we got some months ago to replace the old Dell, I have been trying to get it exchanged/refunded due to several Bluscreens and other issues 😞 Shame as it's the most powerful laptop I've ever personally used. But honestly, though seemingy a good deal at the time I don't "game" on it, I have my old desktop now in the bedroom and though its spec doesn't quite match this Laptop I've never felt I needed anything better for my use BUT if I did we still got the main Livingroom Lenovo Legion Desktop I posted previously that is even more powerful. But this laptop has a 15-inch screen though nice I prefer using the 27-inch Asus monitor on the Legion or the 21-inch monitor in the bedroom on the old CyberPower Desktop 🤷‍♂️Also, I have learned, I agree with what I have heard, outside of really being a gamer that requires true mobility you are better off with a gaming desktop and a mid-range laptop for all your basic work/browsing/video watching etc. Because when you push the dedicated GPU in the laptop the fans ramp up to cool the system to a distracting level imho. Anyway, regardless of whatever happens with this machine figured I'd put it through the benchmarks at least once to post here:
UserBenchmarks: Game 77%, Desk 107%, Work 74%
CPU: Intel Core i7-12650H - 101.2%
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3050-Ti (Laptop) - 68.9%
SSD: Nvme SAMSUNG MZVLQ1T0HBLB-00B00 1TB - 288.8%
RAM: Samsung M425R1GB4BB0-CQKOL 2x8GB - 136.6%
MBD: Asus ASUS TUF Dash F15 FX517ZE_TUF517ZE
 

Oh man, I'm glad you posted this.  It's so dang close to my main NUC desktop.  I haven't gamed a bunch on this thing, but everything I have tried has run smoothly.  I'm actually surprised that the Intel Arc A730 has a slightly higher score than the 3050TI.  Given a margin of error, I'm sure they are actually about the same. 
Hopefully your return goes smoothly, as it's no good to have a high end laptop you don't trust. 
 

I did the update last night.  Dang it, only 8GB of free space for me.  I added an 8GB USB drive and moved BPM Boy over to that.  BOOM.  The Atari50 update worked with no issues.
 

Digital Eclipse has announced the next game in their Gold Master Series...
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story
Over 40 games, including the lost version of Attack of the Mutant Camels for the never released Konix Multisystem. Wild.
 

So an  update on this...
I was able to find a 2 port unit that in working condition in my spares pile. Popped in my backbit Pro that has a full 5200 set on it and Decathlon fired right up without any issue and played fine. I then dug out my actual Decathlon cartridge and popped it in..and..
Black screen...
Tried again, and still black screen although moving the cartridge slightly towards the back or front would cause it to show a brown...or green screen.
I cleaned the cartridge with my 99.9 IPA and my de-ox-id and not much black came off on the cotton swap so the cart fingers were pretty clean. Tried it again..same thing. I then started to experiment with this a bit and finally found that if I lifted the cart out of the slot after inserting it just a smidge, that the game would sometimes boot right up and work. But if I so much as bumped that 5200, then it would scramble the graphics and lock up. 
I think what is happening here, is similar to the 2600 activision carts. That is, the PCBs on these Activision 5200 games are likely a tad thinner than 1st party games and I don't think the PCBs extend out of the cartridge mouth as much as 1st part games do. 
My guess is that there is nothing wrong with the system or the game, other than after 40 years, everything is a bit more loose than before and it just isn't make a very good connection anymore. I still have issues with nearly all of my Activision games on my 2600 and 7800 systems, so it doesn't surprise me that the 5200 games might have similar fitment issues into the slot after all this time.
Oh...and yes this spare 2 port does have a 4-port BIOS installed so I still don't know if the game with work on stock 2 port units or requires the 4 port BIOS similar to the 2 CBS games and Pitfall!.
 

Just to again refute one of Tod Frye's comments about Pac-Man not being very popular by the time he was assigned to do the VCS version.  In Steve Golson's GDC talk in 2017 about Ms. Pac-Man and the history of GCC, he mentions why and when they decided to make an enhancement kit for Pac-Man, in June 1981:
 
https://youtu.be/rhM8NAMW_VQ?t=18m00s
 
He mentions 2 Pac-Man pattern books, one of which - Mastering Pac-Man - originally came out in 1981 (I don't know which month it was released, but a revised edition came out in January 1982). 

Another keynote showing more contradictions from Tod Frye.  At this year's PRGE, Frye admits what we already knew - that he didn't care much for arcade Pac-Man:
https://youtu.be/Olagk6ZI_Sc?si=xAXGhbm9hXSe9v0l&t=1260
Frye talks about the development of Pac-Man, but offers a different excuse as to why he didn't use the earlier kernel he developed:
"We were mastering the kernels that reused the players vertically down the screen.  I didn't do that in Pac-Man.  I had a kernel that did it, but I had to throw it away because I ran out of time to finish it.  No, I had the kernel but I didn't have the flicker manager which is a completely different thing.":
https://youtu.be/Olagk6ZI_Sc?si=3vPtIN9p0DoPbl6j&t=1468
The explanation he offered in Once Upon Atari was that he was under probation at the time, and after someone remarked that nobody had ever designed a kernel like that before, he opted not to use it (out of spite for being under probation, I guess).
Later on, Frye talks about when Atari sent GCC a copy of all their VCS game source code listings.  Frye claims that when GCC later sent Atari a copy of all of their VCS listings, that, "I will say with no false humility whatsoever a lot of their tech looked a lot like what I'd done in Pac-Man with horizontal columns.":
https://youtu.be/Olagk6ZI_Sc?si=zoy1Q7GyMO3tkOer&t=2417
So, he not only contradicted himself with previous keynotes and interviews he's given about Pac-Man's kernel, he's done it in the same keynote!  Now, how could GCC had a copy of his earlier Pac-Man kernel if he'd thrown it away?  If he's mistaken about that bit and GCC actually did end up with a copy of his earlier work, and used that for the basis of their Ms. Pac-Man and other VCS games, then he has no reason to complain about it.  He had the chance to use it - and be the first to use it - and didn't.  But to claim he had a better kernel, but threw it out because he didn't have time to finish it... but yet had time to start over and create a new kernel? That makes zero sense.  Rob Zdybel is right - there's something off about Frye's recollections, and it seems the more time that passes, the more 'fried' (pun intended) his memory seems to get.
Also, Rob Z. claimed in a previous keynote that GCC never shared any of their VCS listings with Atari (or if Atari had copies of them, they never shared them with the VCS group).  I again will side with Zdybel over Frye's account.  We certainly know GCC didn't reuse anything from the released version of Pac-Man, because there was nothing special about how it was programmed as far as any innovative tricks.
Frye also criticizes Warshaw for not asking for help with E.T.  Well, he did have help with it.  Jerome Domurat created 1.5K of graphics code for it.  If anyone should have been asking for help, it was Frye with Pac-Man.  He also mentions someone at the show told him he should have chosen to do Defender, since that was one of his favorite games.  Well, Frye claimed in Once Upon Atari that he was offered first choice to do either Defender or Pac-Man, and left it up to Bob Polaro to chose; Polaro couldn't see how Pac-Man could be done (apparently without it sucking) and picked Defender.  Both were poor conversions, but if given the 'stuck on an island' decision of picking one or the other, I'd pick Defender.  Much like Pac-Man, Defender's kernel didn't rely on vertical separation, which is why it flickers as badly as Pac-Man.  Chopper Command was clearly Activision's take on Defender, and shows what a kernel that uses vertical separation looks like.

I have a 2 port 5200, but no Decathlon cart.  I also do not own Pitfall, Mountain King, or K-Razy Shootout.  😞  I do have a AtariMax cart though.  I can try those games on that at some point.