Video 61

you will cry over this one. atari had a 320k 130xe in the works, and a 512k 130xe. with a 40/80 column chip in it, that could be changed on the fly. the 512k one was supposed to be battery backed up. the xf-551, was supposed to be a 3.5 inch drive, i know the guy who talked atari out of releasing it, and they went back to a 5&1/4 inch floppy.
 so many authors of magazine articles, used the 130xe. they wanted more ram, and more storage on disk. by that time, the pc's were 3.5 inch disks. atari almost, and i say almost, for once, was going to support their market share, then backed out at the end, with some bad advise to boot.
 i was stunned, i asked them why, they told me if you want a business machine, buy a pc. no kidding, they were that bad at business.

you will cry over this one. atari had a 320k 130xe in the works, and a 512k 130xe. with a 40/80 column chip in it, that could be changed on the fly. the 512k one was supposed to be battery backed up. the xf-551, was supposed to be a 3.5 inch drive, i know the guy who talked atari out of releasing it, and they went back to a 5&1/4 inch floppy.
 so many authors of magazine articles, used the 130xe. they wanted more ram, and more storage on disk. by that time, the pc's were 3.5 inch disks. atari almost, and i say almost, for once, was going to support their market share, then backed out at the end, with some bad advise to boot.
 i was stunned, i asked them why, they told me if you want a business machine, buy a pc. no kidding, they were that bad at business.

nope, just can't get this one going. it must be just a partial game. took your advise, still nothing. i am sure they would try to give it the same treatment as the 7800 version. look what they did for choplifter on the 7800 and the XEGS.
 sorry about the no response, its very hard for me right now. e-mail me at video61@tcq.net please.

my friend found my ruff and ready cart. it looks bug free. we made a short youtube of it. as soon as its posted, i will post the link here. my friend is looking for the beer belly bert also.

you will cry over this one. atari had a 320k 130xe in the works, and a 512k 130xe. with a 40/80 column chip in it, that could be changed on the fly. the 512k one was supposed to be battery backed up. the xf-551, was supposed to be a 3.5 inch drive, i know the guy who talked atari out of releasing it, and they went back to a 5&1/4 inch floppy.
 so many authors of magazine articles, used the 130xe. they wanted more ram, and more storage on disk. by that time, the pc's were 3.5 inch disks. atari almost, and i say almost, for once, was going to support their market share, then backed out at the end, with some bad advise to boot.
 i was stunned, i asked them why, they told me if you want a business machine, buy a pc. no kidding, they were that bad at business.

Thanks for the kind words on the recovery. doctors tell me another year to a year in a half. Bummer.
 
There were some 2600 games, like Save Mary and Shooting Gallery. I also have some boards with e-proms on them, and of course the e-proms are covered. I plugged them in years ago, some work, some do not. At that time I had no boards, so I stuck them away someplace. Who knows where now. The Atari 2600 was my first machine, but I always loved the 7800 and the 8-bit computers more. So that is what i have concentrated on.
 
Someday if I get better, I will look for the 2600 stuff.
 
Atari had two semi truck trailers loaded with XEGM Mario Bros. carts, brand new in the box. To make sure people did not sneak into the parking lot and make off with inventory they did not want to use labor to put back into their inventory (i know, so damn cheap), they parked the trailer doors ends to each other, so that the only way to open a door of a trailer was to get a semi truck to move the trailers away from each other. That way no sneaky stuff after dark.
 
They refused to sell me the Mario Bros. carts, only if I paid the truck drivers rates. So the company that supplied the trucks, trailers, and drivers, wanted me to pay the freight of the carts that were hauled in from various stores around the country that returned the carts to Atari.
 
Atari usually hated to take back returns, and always tried to cut deals with stores so that they could put Atari's name brand to hell, through a closeout bin in the stores. If you ever wondered why Atari always had a trash name, that was one way to keep the name in the garbage.
 
I inquired about the freight, and found out I had to pay for months of rent for the trailers too, on top of paying to have the trailers pulled away from each other. I found the carts were way over priced by then, higher that what stores were selling them for, so I turned them down. Found out later they sold the carts to a scrapper for pennies each. They told me that there were 1,500 Mario Bros. games in one of the trailers.
 
This happened all of the time with Tramiel's Atari. If they smelled money like with the selling us the unreleased games, they played hard ball. But if they came to find out they had no leverage, then at the right time, I could have gotten the games at a reasonable price.
 
The day the scrapper came into Atari to see what they had, must have been a day that Atari got sick of paying the trailer rental bill, and he got them cheap.
 
To this day i am still bummed out over that.

Yeah Atari did that here in America all of the time. It got so bad that hardly anyone would trust them on pricing. As far as Paperboy is concerned, so far i have not seen it. But i have not looked at anything in almost 4 years now.
 
Julie Wade at Atari once told me she just got in a new game for the 7800, and Jack ordered it shelved immediately. It was in the early 1990's, perhaps 1991. I tried to buy it, but no deal. So it might have been destroyed. Or the only known copy is sitting quietly in an ex Atari employee's collection. Atari had not dumped the 7800 yet when that happened. Could've been Klax.
 
In 1989 when Atari admitted to me under duress that they had informally dumped the XE line, they admitted they had finished games for the XE that were going to be left unreleased. They offered the games to the three dealers mentioned, Atari would have sold the games for $100,000 a piece. We turned them down, no way could we come up with that kind of money for at least 6-10 games.
 
So in 1991-92, we ended up with them anyways.
 
Speaking of games, you also mentioned Beer Belly Bert in a thread. I'm pretty sure i have that in a proto cart also. I just need a friend to help dig it out for me, like he did with Ruff and Ready.

Many times I'm asked about the unreleased Atari games we sell. "where did you get them" or "how did you get them" or "why is this dealer able to sell this stuff, when it's Atari's property?"
 
There were, primarily, three authorized Atari dealers that were loyal to Atari right up to the end: B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and of course me, Video 61.
 
When Atari pulled the plug on any of their systems, we were allowed directly into their warehouse and offices to buy whatever was left that they were offering. We made bids on tons of stuff. This included computers, hard drives, rolls of e-proms, disks full of images, prototype cartridges, etc. that contained data for unreleased games. I even have a pile of removable hard disks, plus lots of other stuff hardware related.
 
Atari never wiped any thing clean. They knew full wellwhat we were going to do, and if they objected to it, they would have never sold them to us loaded with unreleased games, they would have wiped the data clean if they did not want us to produce the games. They sold them to us as is, which means we get to release the stuff, because we bought them outright.

Many times I'm asked about the unreleased Atari games we sell. "where did you get them" or "how did you get them" or "why is this dealer able to sell this stuff, when it's Atari's property?"
 
There were, primarily, three authorized Atari dealers that were loyal to Atari right up to the end: B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and of course me, Video 61.
 
When Atari pulled the plug on any of their systems, we were allowed directly into their warehouse and offices to buy whatever was left that they were offering. We made bids on tons of stuff. This included computers, hard drives, rolls of e-proms, disks full of images, prototype cartridges, etc. that contained data for unreleased games. I even have a pile of removable hard disks, plus lots of other stuff hardware related.
 
Atari never wiped any thing clean. They knew full wellwhat we were going to do, and if they objected to it, they would have never sold them to us loaded with unreleased games, they would have wiped the data clean if they did not want us to produce the games. They sold them to us as is, which means we get to release the stuff, because we bought them outright.

Many times I'm asked about the unreleased Atari games we sell. "where did you get them" or "how did you get them" or "why is this dealer able to sell this stuff, when it's Atari's property?"
 
There were, primarily, three authorized Atari dealers that were loyal to Atari right up to the end: B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and of course me, Video 61.
 
When Atari pulled the plug on any of their systems, we were allowed directly into their warehouse and offices to buy whatever was left that they were offering. We made bids on tons of stuff. This included computers, hard drives, rolls of e-proms, disks full of images, prototype cartridges, etc. that contained data for unreleased games. I even have a pile of removable hard disks, plus lots of other stuff hardware related.
 
Atari never wiped any thing clean. They knew full wellwhat we were going to do, and if they objected to it, they would have never sold them to us loaded with unreleased games, they would have wiped the data clean if they did not want us to produce the games. They sold them to us as is, which means we get to release the stuff, because we bought them outright.

Many times I'm asked about the unreleased Atari games we sell. "where did you get them" or "how did you get them" or "why is this dealer able to sell this stuff, when it's Atari's property?"
 
There were, primarily, three authorized Atari dealers that were loyal to Atari right up to the end: B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and of course me, Video 61.
 
When Atari pulled the plug on any of their systems, we were allowed directly into their warehouse and offices to buy whatever was left that they were offering. We made bids on tons of stuff. This included computers, hard drives, rolls of e-proms, disks full of images, prototype cartridges, etc. that contained data for unreleased games. I even have a pile of removable hard disks, plus lots of other stuff hardware related.
 
Atari never wiped any thing clean. They knew full wellwhat we were going to do, and if they objected to it, they would have never sold them to us loaded with unreleased games, they would have wiped the data clean if they did not want us to produce the games. They sold them to us as is, which means we get to release the stuff, because we bought them outright.

Many times I'm asked about the unreleased Atari games we sell. "where did you get them" or "how did you get them" or "why is this dealer able to sell this stuff, when it's Atari's property?"
 
There were, primarily, three authorized Atari dealers that were loyal to Atari right up to the end: B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and of course me, Video 61.
 
When Atari pulled the plug on any of their systems, we were allowed directly into their warehouse and offices to buy whatever was left that they were offering. We made bids on tons of stuff. This included computers, hard drives, rolls of e-proms, disks full of images, prototype cartridges, etc. that contained data for unreleased games. I even have a pile of removable hard disks, plus lots of other stuff hardware related.
 
Atari never wiped any thing clean. They knew full wellwhat we were going to do, and if they objected to it, they would have never sold them to us loaded with unreleased games, they would have wiped the data clean if they did not want us to produce the games. They sold them to us as is, which means we get to release the stuff, because we bought them outright.

Many times I'm asked about the unreleased Atari games we sell. "where did you get them" or "how did you get them" or "why is this dealer able to sell this stuff, when it's Atari's property?"
 
There were, primarily, three authorized Atari dealers that were loyal to Atari right up to the end: B&C Computervisions, Best Electronics, and of course me, Video 61.
 
When Atari pulled the plug on any of their systems, we were allowed directly into their warehouse and offices to buy whatever was left that they were offering. We made bids on tons of stuff. This included computers, hard drives, rolls of e-proms, disks full of images, prototype cartridges, etc. that contained data for unreleased games. I even have a pile of removable hard disks, plus lots of other stuff hardware related.
 
Atari never wiped any thing clean. They knew full wellwhat we were going to do, and if they objected to it, they would have never sold them to us loaded with unreleased games, they would have wiped the data clean if they did not want us to produce the games. They sold them to us as is, which means we get to release the stuff, because we bought them outright.

i have ruff and ready on cart. i only played it once back in the 1990's, and it seemed to have some spelling problems, or missing letters. for me, sometimes its hard to tell so i just put it in my own collection, to see someday when i had more time if its ok. so when i saw this thread, i had my friend  come over and dig out my collection, he found it, took it home and played it. he said its a hard game, but made it to level 2. so i might release it in the near future.
 
i also have ghost chaser which i released. i saw beer belly bert, and i remember that i used to call atari all of the time in the late 80's and nineties, recommending games to them, because they had such a hard time understanding games. that was one i recommended.
 
sometimes the only way i got them to believe the game existed, is to actually send them a physical copy. sometimes i did the leg work for them, and provided the contact person at the software house that owned the game.
 
i used to be direct with almost all third party developers back in the day, so i knew people who worked in many of the software houses, if they still were there and existed as a company.
 
later on i found out atari was picking up these games for peanuts, because atari themselves were not supporting the market in any meaningful way. they ported many games over to cartridge, then let them sit.

i played the 8-bit floppy version sometimes, but i always hated the load times on disc. once the 7800 version of super huey came out, that i played a lot, and forgot the commands. justin reminded me one day to read the doc's, oops, forgot that. i was hoping that the XE version would operate like the 7800 version, not to be.
 so steve and i went to the docs one day, read up on them, and tried a few things, no good. it might not be a finished product. its only 32k, its hard to believe its done. most XE carts depending on the banking, are 48k or more.
 its also something atari told me one day, that many of the remakes, they enhanced for XE versions, or included a little bit of better music and sound effects.
 no music at all on this one. it might not be done. once i get back on my feet, i hope to have time to delve into all of these games. its time to start to release of a few of them again.

i am not sure how many games i have that atari never released for the 8-bit computers. there were three dealers left that atari considered rewarding  their loyalty to atari, B&C computervisions, best electronics, and me, video 61.
 i have many, and perhaps more. i will get into this on the atari 101 history page.

Cool show! There's a lot going on in the Lynx world right now. Good job I really liked this show! 

here are some of the mock-up games shown when atari first showed the video system x. games included Football, Pac-Man, Galaxian, Asteroids, Adventure, Skiing, Soccer, Baseball, Tank Battle, and some others.

VIDEO 61 
ATARI SALES & SERVICE
 
(651) 462-2500
www.atarisales.com
 
 
 
NEW RELEASES 
 
ANNOUNCING AMOKBOTS FOR ATARI 8-BIT COMPUTERS!
 
 
 
 
NEW ATARI 2600 GAMES                                                     USED ATARI 2600 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI 5200 GAMES                                                     NEW ATARI 7800 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI LYNX GAMES                                                   NEW ATARI JAGUAR GAMES
 
NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE CARTS                                     NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE FLOPPY DISKS 
 
NEW ATARI ST/TT/FALCON/CLONES                                 DVD/VHS MOVIES
 
 
 
ORDERING INFORMATION
 
LOOKING FOR A GAME YOU CAN'T FIND?
 
VIDEO 61 MEMBER FEEDBACK!
 
 
 
 
 
  FREE SHIPPING IN THE US ON ALL ORDERS OVER $40 EXCLUDING HARDWARE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The owner of Video 61 was involved in an accident that will require many months of physical rehabilitation. So before you order, please e-mail us your order, so that we can let you know if we can fill part of it, all of it,or none of it, and the time frame involved. The owner is expected to make a full recovery. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Megaoids 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! LaserBlast X 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Amokbots 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95

VIDEO 61 
ATARI SALES & SERVICE
 
(651) 462-2500
www.atarisales.com
 
 
 
NEW RELEASES 
 
ANNOUNCING AMOKBOTS FOR ATARI 8-BIT COMPUTERS!
 
 
 
 
NEW ATARI 2600 GAMES                                                     USED ATARI 2600 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI 5200 GAMES                                                     NEW ATARI 7800 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI LYNX GAMES                                                   NEW ATARI JAGUAR GAMES
 
NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE CARTS                                     NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE FLOPPY DISKS 
 
NEW ATARI ST/TT/FALCON/CLONES                                 DVD/VHS MOVIES
 
 
 
ORDERING INFORMATION
 
LOOKING FOR A GAME YOU CAN'T FIND?
 
VIDEO 61 MEMBER FEEDBACK!
 
 
 
 
 
  FREE SHIPPING IN THE US ON ALL ORDERS OVER $40 EXCLUDING HARDWARE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The owner of Video 61 was involved in an accident that will require many months of physical rehabilitation. So before you order, please e-mail us your order, so that we can let you know if we can fill part of it, all of it,or none of it, and the time frame involved. The owner is expected to make a full recovery. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Megaoids 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! LaserBlast X 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Amokbots 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95

VIDEO 61 
ATARI SALES & SERVICE
 
(651) 462-2500
www.atarisales.com
 
 
 
NEW RELEASES 
 
ANNOUNCING AMOKBOTS FOR ATARI 8-BIT COMPUTERS!
 
 
 
 
NEW ATARI 2600 GAMES                                                     USED ATARI 2600 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI 5200 GAMES                                                     NEW ATARI 7800 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI LYNX GAMES                                                   NEW ATARI JAGUAR GAMES
 
NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE CARTS                                     NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE FLOPPY DISKS 
 
NEW ATARI ST/TT/FALCON/CLONES                                 DVD/VHS MOVIES
 
 
 
ORDERING INFORMATION
 
LOOKING FOR A GAME YOU CAN'T FIND?
 
VIDEO 61 MEMBER FEEDBACK!
 
 
 
 
 
  FREE SHIPPING IN THE US ON ALL ORDERS OVER $40 EXCLUDING HARDWARE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The owner of Video 61 was involved in an accident that will require many months of physical rehabilitation. So before you order, please e-mail us your order, so that we can let you know if we can fill part of it, all of it,or none of it, and the time frame involved. The owner is expected to make a full recovery. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Megaoids 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! LaserBlast X 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Amokbots 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95

VIDEO 61 
ATARI SALES & SERVICE
 
(651) 462-2500
www.atarisales.com
 
 
 
NEW RELEASES 
 
ANNOUNCING AMOKBOTS FOR ATARI 8-BIT COMPUTERS!
 
 
 
 
NEW ATARI 2600 GAMES                                                     USED ATARI 2600 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI 5200 GAMES                                                     NEW ATARI 7800 GAMES 
 
NEW ATARI LYNX GAMES                                                   NEW ATARI JAGUAR GAMES
 
NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE CARTS                                     NEW ATARI 400/800/XL/XE FLOPPY DISKS 
 
NEW ATARI ST/TT/FALCON/CLONES                                 DVD/VHS MOVIES
 
 
 
ORDERING INFORMATION
 
LOOKING FOR A GAME YOU CAN'T FIND?
 
VIDEO 61 MEMBER FEEDBACK!
 
 
 
 
 
  FREE SHIPPING IN THE US ON ALL ORDERS OVER $40 EXCLUDING HARDWARE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The owner of Video 61 was involved in an accident that will require many months of physical rehabilitation. So before you order, please e-mail us your order, so that we can let you know if we can fill part of it, all of it,or none of it, and the time frame involved. The owner is expected to make a full recovery. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Megaoids 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! LaserBlast X 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95
 
 
 
 

 
NEW! Amokbots 48K Cartridge for Atari XL/XE 1 Player $39.95

Cool show! There's a lot going on in the Lynx world right now. Good job I really liked this show! 

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Released by Basic Fun (basicfun.com) this year (2016) this little minicade is actually quite a bit of fun.   It has the same cabinet design as the earlier Pac Man but the packaging is much different.  Whereas the Pac Man minicade had a sealed plastic shell you had to cut apart, Space Invaders comes in a regular flap top box!  plus it has some great artwork on it, so makes it worth to keep you minicade in the box on the shelf when not in use!
One of the cool features of this little minicade is it has the arcade sounds of Space Invaders!  from the march of the invaders to that awesome sound when you shoot the ufo, this minicade as it all!  The controls are very responsive and it does feature a auto power down feature (if the unit is left alone for 60 seconds it will shut down).  In addition it has a pause feature and a 3 position volume control (off, low, high).
The LCD represents the arcade game quite well, although shots are hard to see on the display.  I like how they used the classic invaders of the arcade game, really adds to the experience!  The game does have a timer that starts at 999 and counts down.  I belive the was done due to the invaders not speeding up as they dwindle in numbers so it makes the game easier than the arcade version.  The object is to see how far you can get in the levels and how high a score before you die or the timer runs out.
Pros:
Great packaging Authentic arcade sounds Responsive controls High score retention Nice plastic case with great decals Cons:
Invaders do not speed up as they dwindle in number like the arcade Shots difficult to see on the screen Overall I really like this Minicade!.  Not as much as the Pac Man one Basic Fun released, but this one will have a happy home on my shelf and be played!
Rating: (3 out of 5 Minicades)

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