Mr SQL

I think it’s time we start a topic for discussing paranormal tales! Halloween is upon us and it’s a good time to share these haunting stories.
I’m surprised there haven’t been more off topic discussions about the paranormal, UFOs, unsolved mysteries, disappearances, enigmas, ancient civilizations, ghost sightings, conspiracy theories, weird stuff and stuff of the night. I’m sure Atari I/O must have fans of shows like The X-Files in here, or Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and George Noory, Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis, The ExoZone / Piercing the Veil, In Search Of, and others.
UFOs were one of my earliest obsessions when I was a kid. One of the most enduring UFO tales is the story of Bob Lazar and his time working at S-4 near Area 51. For decades I've gone back-and-forth between believing his story and thinking he’s full of it. I have to give him credit though, in over 30 years Bob Lazar hasn’t changed his story.
 
 
I’ve never listened to “The Joe Rogan Experience” until this episode, it turned out to be a decent, extended conversation with Bob Lazar and a deep dive into his story.
I thought we’d kick things off with Bob Lazar. What are your favorite UFO, Ghost and Paranormal Tales? Let’s hear your favorite weird stories! All the stuff that was on Coast to Coast AM, and all the other stuff that’s great out there. Sound off and share below!

Check out this video as well! 🙂

@Atari Creep had some nice coverage of the Atari XP games as well:
 
 

It looks like the current iteration of Atari is getting back into physical 2600 releases via a new imprint called AtariXP. Carts are made in small quantities here in the US. The first three releases are Yars' Return, Aquaventure, and Sabateour.
Of course, all of these exist on various collections and Sabateour was released by AtariAge years back. Still it's kinda cool to see an official cart release. Standard edition cart only packages are $49 plus tax and shipping. Limited Collectors Editions are $149 and have premium boxes, manuals, a digital copy for the new VCS, poster, certificate and enamel pin. 
I might pick up the Standard editions just to see what's up. They are all pretty solid titles. 
https://atarixp.com/pages/about
 

Atari's Pac-Man does look better in black and white and I played it that way many times.

Pacman has an awesome night mode.
Mr Do becomes less interesting using the same board color.
Missile Command is more interesting toggling night vision on and off between stages like you've got filter settings on the view.
Defender feels like a different game in black and white.
Video Chess looks sharper and the AI still dreams in color.
Which games do you throw the Black and White switch for?

All good choices on this thread! 🙂 Popeye, BurgerTime, Frisco, Gyruss and Moon Patrol have immersive captivating musical themes.   

I like the shields, VCS Asteroids with the multicolored asteroids and captivating Jaws theme is tremendously fun.  
I never knew about flip until now, I'll try that variation 🙂 
The Meteoroids prototype is also fantastic.

This is a cool thread! I used to have big stacks of BYTE, Personal Computing, Rainbow and Compute! 
My favorite way to enjoy old computer magazines and books is just to read them from the bookshelf and magazine stacks, but over time they disintegrated or were badly damaged. My copy of EDTASM+ Assembly Language programming by William Barden Jr. was probably the most severely dog eared damaged book I kept reading and rereading until it fell apart.
Preserving the stacks and books is a great idea, maybe put a few out on the bookshelf at a time to be able to peruse them and read them just like in the 80's, that's important imo. Books and magazines still have the best UI.
 
 
 

Hey guys,
Do you have any simple / efficient / creative ideas for storing magazines and catalogs that you want to preserve for a long time? I've been reorganizing my closet and bookshelf, and I'd like some good ideas for how to store old magazines and catalogs.
I have a bit of a collection of classic gaming magazines, of course, along with thicker catalogs such as vintage Sears Catalogs, Sears Wish Book, and catalogs from other clothiers. Some of them I would like to display on my bookshelf along with books but before long they begin to collapse. I also don't just want to toss them in a box and warehouse them.
I'm curious to hear what ideas you guys have come across and how you guys store your old magazines.

Here's my Jr.  It's my "daily driver" and I use this console more than any other that I own.  It has been modded to have composite output, and it works really nicely.  I like how small it is, which is helpful given my limited space.  I do not like how difficult it is to switch controllers. 
 

Super cool.  I have an Atari Jr. and what I love about it are how vibrant the colors are even coming off of coax. 

I had dug these out from a box under my bed to add to a list of people's Atari 2600 Jr.s on a thread elsewhere. Funny thing is, I really didn't even think I had any loose Atari 2600 carts left, some time ago, years in fact after getting a nice HARMONY CART that let's me load any 2600 rom on original hardware I had donated or gave away a box that I thought was the last of my original carts. I knew I had these two Jr's bundled together but didn't realize I still had some carts, kind of cool, think I will hold onto these ones if for any reason to have some original loose carts to stick into one of these little Jr.'s or any of my original 2600 compatible consoles I still have. Anyway, kind of cool I think, I really should give them more play time, though both mine are pretty much the same, I hear them identified as the Short rainbow on the label I guess, the long rainbow, I THINK PAL models are all black like that one 2600 VADER model? Not sure but man I would of loved to have had that one. Anyone else have 2600 Jr.s and like them or? Here are pictures I took, including various doubles and even a few 7800 carts, I still have a single 7800 as well fortunately  😎 Figured I would share the pics here as well. 


 

 

 

 
 
 

They made the movies fun! 😎🤘

I changed up the look of my Jaguar for this year. I think this gives the Atari Jaguar a stunning high-tech look. It's a minor change that makes all the difference in the world. On my original Jaguar that I received the day it was released in November, 1993, I changed out the red power button for the clear power button from my Coleco Chameleon Atari Jaguar console. (Clear shell with NOS Jaguar motherboard placed inside). I've seen the white dental consoles, the painted and modded ones, but for me this is hands down the most handsome look I've seen on the Jaguar.
I just moved into a new home and have been setting up my living room. I was using the clear one as my "main" Jaguar, but felt like a change this year. I swapped out the buttons and love the handsome and high-tech looking results! The clear button looks like a "jewel" placed into the face of the console, and it picks up the red glow from the power light really nicely. It's a cool effect.
I also took the opportunity to disassemble the Jaguar, give it a thorough cleaning inside and out including vacuuming dust from the "vents" at the back of the system, and soaking the plastic shells in water and Dawn overnight. (Notice the "LAW" initials/lettering written in paint pen on the underside of the shell. I wonder what this was about.) The Atari Jaguar came out looking like new! Then I added felt padded feet to the bottom of the Jaguar system so it could slide around more easily and not rub or scratch the wood in my credenza. 
 

Here are some of the unique items I found while digging in the attic.  First of all is the "high score" board my brother and I made for VCS games.  We did it in pencil so we could erase and overwrite new high scores.  And a pic of the SuperCharger and Atari 8-bit tapes I came across.  I still have the manuals for those SC games. 
 

Here you go. I don’t know what was happening but for a while I was having some trouble uploading things.

It's a kind of silly thing to share, but these two Atari cart holders have been with me forever.  I made them back in grade school wood shop (either 7th or 8th grade).  I'm kind of amazed that they've held up this long.  They are held together with glue and brads.  I remember proposing these items to my teacher (Mr. Eide) and he allowed me to do them on my own time (after school in the shop).  He wanted to see real cartridges in them, so I took a few in to school.  He said that the construction was pretty simple, but the real challenge was measuring them out correctly before cutting and assembly.  I got an "A" for them, but more importantly, I created boxes that I'm so glad to have kept (and used) all these years.
 

You may be cool, but you're not "Sears Heavy Sixer on a Sony Trinitron" cool. 
 
 

Finally!  I found a tiny Sony Trinitron.  9" model.  I've been an LCD guy for a long time, just because they are so much smaller and lighter than CRT TV's.  But I always kept my eye out for a small Sony, and I'm so happy to have found one.  The Sony Trinitron tubes have the very best picture quality for CRT TV's.
 
Here's a picture of me testing using an Atari flashback.   I'm going to dig out my NES so I can play those light gun games in style.
 
 

2600 systems..

I spent some time today re-hanging these CNC cut aluminum pieces after painting my office.  I bought them a few years ago from AtariAge forum member "Crazy Climber".  I made a little wooden jig to get them up evenly spaced and level. 

Exciting news -- Now that the kids are both away at school, I'm getting some space back in our gaming room.  I just expanded the Ikea shelves with a few extra shelves.  The idea will be to keep my systems out instead of in the attic.  I plan on moving the desk left (with a TV on it)  to be next to the shelves and have the right shelving unit for my old systems.  Intellivision, 7800, Colecovision will always be out now and available to play! 
 

I've updated my TI 99/4A collection with a flashrom cart.  It allows me to play almost any game available for the system, and it's a pretty nice and neat compact format.  Also needed is the 32k memory expansion loaded off the right side of the speech synthesizer. 
 
I highly recommend collecting the TI 99/4A for several reasons:
It's pretty inexpensive.  The systems are cheap...less than $50 for a nice computer in working condition.  The memory expander and flashrom are about $100 combined.  Not bad for every game made for the system. There are some really unique games on this system.  Alpiner, Parsec, etc and really fun, and there's nothing else like them on other systems.  There is a very passionate community of enthusiasts.  They love this system, and it's a lot of fun to get involved and learn from some really nice people/experts.  I've always found it really fun and interesting to compare the common games to other systems of the era.  In general, TI versions of Atari games, for example, look great.  They tend to play a little slower.  But they are really a blast to play.