CrossBow

My replacement Aquaventure manual arrived the other day. It is funny because I doubled checked all of my emails from AtariXP and none of them mentioned the manual and only the replacement carts. So I'm not complaining just odd that I didn't receive an email regarding it being on the way or anything.
In other news, I shipped my original carts back to them on Saturday, and they were already delivered by Monday?! USPS has been on their game with my shipments lately. I shipped a console back out to its owner on Monday afternoon and the owner got it yesterday morning?! It wasn't supposed to be delivered until today, so quite impressive times. And that was from here in Oklahoma to Connecticut.
I need to look carefully at the replacement manual, because it actually seems like it it might be smaller and more cut down content wise than the original was? But I only took a cursory glance through the original. Enough to verify the missing page anyway in my original.
 
 

Been a bit since there was any new content added to the Intellivision section here so I'm going to break up that ice a bit.
Did anyone else besides me who attended PRGE also pick up any of the new Intellivision games from the Intellivision Revolutionaries booth? I picked up 3 games:
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Bank Panic
Parsec
I've only played Raiders and Bank Panic so far but they are both pretty impressive games! Bank Panic especially surprised me with how well it actually plays using the default controller. Using the keypad on that game to control the shots for the left,middle, and right doors is simple and prevents any fumbling which, is critical for this game since reaction times matter. And the overall graphics while of course not matching the arcade, are still quite good and it is just a general blast to play!
Raiders... Hmm.. Okay. Now there are a TON of spoilers ahead for this game, so if you haven't played it or don't know how to play it and want everything to be a surprise, then do NOT read beyond this point. If you would also rather not read all of this and see it in action instead, then I did a live stream game play through to the end last night. It isn't very long since the game is pretty short to play if you know what needs to be done. Again, it is a complete walk through play of the game so only watch if that isn't important to you.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1636291689
I will have to give Parsec a try soon since I was told it does support the Intellivoice module and has all the same speech as the Ti original. Although I was never that good at the Ti version, more games for the Intellivision can only be a good thing!
 

United Federation of Planets Candy Dish

@socrates63 Oh yes I was most certainly there indeed! My wife and I were the other two folks working the AA booth to help out Al and April. You also have a Sears INTV that I installed an earlier RGB upgrade board into in addition to the 5200 btw. Although we should talk about possibly having me replace that older board out sometime with one of the newer ones that works much better on today's scalers.
As for PRGE I had a great time but it was also a lot of work for me this year. As some of you may or may not know, I had suspended my services to the public over the summer. The reason was because Albert commissioned me to work on a lot of consoles to have ready for PRGE this year. In total I upgraded and serviced 22 consoles that were all present at PRGE and setup for people to play and check out the new games on. So yes, it was more work than usual for me this year! I wasn't able to take many pics at all because I was so busy running around that I just didn't think about it honestly. But I did get a few pics of the setup after we had finished up late Friday night. Sorry for the bad lighting, but it was actually only about this bright during setup.




I didn't pick up nearly as much as I usually do when I attend events like this. But that was mostly because I was limited on space in my suitcase for the return home. And as many of the games didn't have their boxes ready for the show, I decided I would grab them later when they are being sold in the store next month. What I did get, I will post in the new pickups thread.
I do believe this was the most systems that AtariAge has has setup at once for any event. I think it was 40 systems in total? There were 5 Jaguars setup, 4 5200s setup, 7 7800s setup, and the rest were 2600s. It was one of the most visually impressive setups at the event this year!

Welcome Steve! It is a quiet corner here, but it is full of quality and that is what matters most!
 

Pretty much arcade perfect near as I can tell and all the quarter munching difficulty that comes with it too! I'm likely to live stream some of the new games over the weekend to give others a look in more detail. But I wasn't even able to finish the second board on my play of it a bit last night.
 

Trust me when I say it isn't much. Compared to what I know @sramirez2008 and @TrekMD picked up plus others I saw walking about with several grocery sized cloth bags full of stuff. No... mine is a pittance in pickups for what a person might normally get a convention. 
And to be quite fair, there are quite a few more AtariAge releases I plan to get, but since many of them didn't have the boxes ready at the show, I decided I will wait until they hit the AA store next month. 
One game I've quite disappointed about is E.X.O. It was supposed to get released at PRGE, but due to issues with the HOKEY still not working right with it, that wasn't possible. It has been told to Muddyfunster that E.X.O. isn't likely to come out until 2nd or 3rd qtr of 2023 possibly.
 

Trust me when I say it isn't much. Compared to what I know @sramirez2008 and @TrekMD picked up plus others I saw walking about with several grocery sized cloth bags full of stuff. No... mine is a pittance in pickups for what a person might normally get a convention. 
And to be quite fair, there are quite a few more AtariAge releases I plan to get, but since many of them didn't have the boxes ready at the show, I decided I will wait until they hit the AA store next month. 
One game I've quite disappointed about is E.X.O. It was supposed to get released at PRGE, but due to issues with the HOKEY still not working right with it, that wasn't possible. It has been told to Muddyfunster that E.X.O. isn't likely to come out until 2nd or 3rd qtr of 2023 possibly.
 

My latest pickups are of course from PRGE 2022! I didn't get as much this year as I have in the past, but that was mostly due to just being very busy the entire weekend and also a lack of space in my suitcase for the return trip home. Additionally, I had a heads up that some of the new releases at AtariAge might not actually be available and boxes not available so I decided to wait until everything is in the store later for other stuff I'm wanting to get. That said...here is what I did grab.
First up is a new Atari 8-bit game from the AtariAge booth. I already own Adventure II with all the feelies for the 5200, but I know that Ron made some refinements to the game on this newer XE release and I just couldn't say no to that box art! The other 3 are new releases from the Intellivision Revolution booth. And yes, that Raiders is indeed a remake of the 2600 game but with enhanced Intelly graphics! Parsec is a port of the Ti-99 game and even retains the Ti logo in the background and makes use of the Intellivoice module!

 
These are my pickups mainly from the AtariAge booth. I was able to get the new release of Popeye for the 7800, along with Gorf Arcade for the 2600 and one of only about a dozen available working carts of Petscii Robots for the 7800. Petscii comes with a new SNES 2 Atari adapter that as the name implies, allows you to use the SNES controller with the game on a 7800. Astro Grover I picked up from John Hancock's booth and is one of the original 50 released and sold back during PRGE 2012. And I was even able to hand out a few of my new ITC cards to folks that were interested in console upgrades and services.

 
The last of my pickups came from the AA booth, Songbird, and another vendor that had some excellent prices on games and hardware. I picked up Asteroite for the Jaguar, a Jaguar Gamedrive (My biggest purchase of the event), one of Fred's latest Concerto's with a HOKEY chip pre-installed, an extra HOKEY to use in whatever I want, an extra AtariVox+ for use mainly with my Vectrex, and then an interesting but very decent controller and the Mr. Do and manual for the 2600. To give an idea on pricing, the Mr. Do with the manual was only $15. That was a great price and I saw at least one other Mr. Do at the event sans manual and with a much worse label that a vendor was asking $40 for?! 

So yeah, I didn't pick up that much but I still manage to spend about what I always do all the same LOL!
 

I recieved my replacements late yesterday and opened them this morning. I'm happy with the resolution. I gotta say, the quality of the new cart labels is vastly superior to the originals. If anything, this unfortunate situation should improve the QA for all subsequent XP runs.
Anyway, good on Atari for making it right.

I had meant to post this here earlier and forgot. But here is an example of why I have NO problem sending them my original non working carts. In the pics below you can see that my originally received Saboteur has a nasty bubble line across the middle of it where the lamination layer didn't take well. If you look closely, you can see something similar around the edges of the label as well and all three of the originally received carts have something similar on them. The replacement on the right looks great and doesn't have any of these issues, plus it actually works.

Well Saboteur was the worst of them. But they all have that odd light edging on them where the lamination layer is very obvious. This isn't seen on the newer labels. So yeah again, I've no issues with sending them back these sub part quality initial carts.
My current issue with both original and newer carts, is that there is some slop in the PCB because I have to kinda wiggle the cart when inserting it for it to actually seat and go into the slot properly. I don't seem to have this issue with other carts. But it is a minor thing.
 

Trust me when I say it isn't much. Compared to what I know @sramirez2008 and @TrekMD picked up plus others I saw walking about with several grocery sized cloth bags full of stuff. No... mine is a pittance in pickups for what a person might normally get a convention. 
And to be quite fair, there are quite a few more AtariAge releases I plan to get, but since many of them didn't have the boxes ready at the show, I decided I will wait until they hit the AA store next month. 
One game I've quite disappointed about is E.X.O. It was supposed to get released at PRGE, but due to issues with the HOKEY still not working right with it, that wasn't possible. It has been told to Muddyfunster that E.X.O. isn't likely to come out until 2nd or 3rd qtr of 2023 possibly.
 

Well Saboteur was the worst of them. But they all have that odd light edging on them where the lamination layer is very obvious. This isn't seen on the newer labels. So yeah again, I've no issues with sending them back these sub part quality initial carts.
My current issue with both original and newer carts, is that there is some slop in the PCB because I have to kinda wiggle the cart when inserting it for it to actually seat and go into the slot properly. I don't seem to have this issue with other carts. But it is a minor thing.
 

Well Saboteur was the worst of them. But they all have that odd light edging on them where the lamination layer is very obvious. This isn't seen on the newer labels. So yeah again, I've no issues with sending them back these sub part quality initial carts.
My current issue with both original and newer carts, is that there is some slop in the PCB because I have to kinda wiggle the cart when inserting it for it to actually seat and go into the slot properly. I don't seem to have this issue with other carts. But it is a minor thing.
 

My latest pickups are of course from PRGE 2022! I didn't get as much this year as I have in the past, but that was mostly due to just being very busy the entire weekend and also a lack of space in my suitcase for the return trip home. Additionally, I had a heads up that some of the new releases at AtariAge might not actually be available and boxes not available so I decided to wait until everything is in the store later for other stuff I'm wanting to get. That said...here is what I did grab.
First up is a new Atari 8-bit game from the AtariAge booth. I already own Adventure II with all the feelies for the 5200, but I know that Ron made some refinements to the game on this newer XE release and I just couldn't say no to that box art! The other 3 are new releases from the Intellivision Revolution booth. And yes, that Raiders is indeed a remake of the 2600 game but with enhanced Intelly graphics! Parsec is a port of the Ti-99 game and even retains the Ti logo in the background and makes use of the Intellivoice module!

 
These are my pickups mainly from the AtariAge booth. I was able to get the new release of Popeye for the 7800, along with Gorf Arcade for the 2600 and one of only about a dozen available working carts of Petscii Robots for the 7800. Petscii comes with a new SNES 2 Atari adapter that as the name implies, allows you to use the SNES controller with the game on a 7800. Astro Grover I picked up from John Hancock's booth and is one of the original 50 released and sold back during PRGE 2012. And I was even able to hand out a few of my new ITC cards to folks that were interested in console upgrades and services.

 
The last of my pickups came from the AA booth, Songbird, and another vendor that had some excellent prices on games and hardware. I picked up Asteroite for the Jaguar, a Jaguar Gamedrive (My biggest purchase of the event), one of Fred's latest Concerto's with a HOKEY chip pre-installed, an extra HOKEY to use in whatever I want, an extra AtariVox+ for use mainly with my Vectrex, and then an interesting but very decent controller and the Mr. Do and manual for the 2600. To give an idea on pricing, the Mr. Do with the manual was only $15. That was a great price and I saw at least one other Mr. Do at the event sans manual and with a much worse label that a vendor was asking $40 for?! 

So yeah, I didn't pick up that much but I still manage to spend about what I always do all the same LOL!
 

I had meant to post this here earlier and forgot. But here is an example of why I have NO problem sending them my original non working carts. In the pics below you can see that my originally received Saboteur has a nasty bubble line across the middle of it where the lamination layer didn't take well. If you look closely, you can see something similar around the edges of the label as well and all three of the originally received carts have something similar on them. The replacement on the right looks great and doesn't have any of these issues, plus it actually works.

@socrates63 Oh yes I was most certainly there indeed! My wife and I were the other two folks working the AA booth to help out Al and April. You also have a Sears INTV that I installed an earlier RGB upgrade board into in addition to the 5200 btw. Although we should talk about possibly having me replace that older board out sometime with one of the newer ones that works much better on today's scalers.
As for PRGE I had a great time but it was also a lot of work for me this year. As some of you may or may not know, I had suspended my services to the public over the summer. The reason was because Albert commissioned me to work on a lot of consoles to have ready for PRGE this year. In total I upgraded and serviced 22 consoles that were all present at PRGE and setup for people to play and check out the new games on. So yes, it was more work than usual for me this year! I wasn't able to take many pics at all because I was so busy running around that I just didn't think about it honestly. But I did get a few pics of the setup after we had finished up late Friday night. Sorry for the bad lighting, but it was actually only about this bright during setup.




I didn't pick up nearly as much as I usually do when I attend events like this. But that was mostly because I was limited on space in my suitcase for the return home. And as many of the games didn't have their boxes ready for the show, I decided I would grab them later when they are being sold in the store next month. What I did get, I will post in the new pickups thread.
I do believe this was the most systems that AtariAge has has setup at once for any event. I think it was 40 systems in total? There were 5 Jaguars setup, 4 5200s setup, 7 7800s setup, and the rest were 2600s. It was one of the most visually impressive setups at the event this year!

My latest pickups are of course from PRGE 2022! I didn't get as much this year as I have in the past, but that was mostly due to just being very busy the entire weekend and also a lack of space in my suitcase for the return trip home. Additionally, I had a heads up that some of the new releases at AtariAge might not actually be available and boxes not available so I decided to wait until everything is in the store later for other stuff I'm wanting to get. That said...here is what I did grab.
First up is a new Atari 8-bit game from the AtariAge booth. I already own Adventure II with all the feelies for the 5200, but I know that Ron made some refinements to the game on this newer XE release and I just couldn't say no to that box art! The other 3 are new releases from the Intellivision Revolution booth. And yes, that Raiders is indeed a remake of the 2600 game but with enhanced Intelly graphics! Parsec is a port of the Ti-99 game and even retains the Ti logo in the background and makes use of the Intellivoice module!

 
These are my pickups mainly from the AtariAge booth. I was able to get the new release of Popeye for the 7800, along with Gorf Arcade for the 2600 and one of only about a dozen available working carts of Petscii Robots for the 7800. Petscii comes with a new SNES 2 Atari adapter that as the name implies, allows you to use the SNES controller with the game on a 7800. Astro Grover I picked up from John Hancock's booth and is one of the original 50 released and sold back during PRGE 2012. And I was even able to hand out a few of my new ITC cards to folks that were interested in console upgrades and services.

 
The last of my pickups came from the AA booth, Songbird, and another vendor that had some excellent prices on games and hardware. I picked up Asteroite for the Jaguar, a Jaguar Gamedrive (My biggest purchase of the event), one of Fred's latest Concerto's with a HOKEY chip pre-installed, an extra HOKEY to use in whatever I want, an extra AtariVox+ for use mainly with my Vectrex, and then an interesting but very decent controller and the Mr. Do and manual for the 2600. To give an idea on pricing, the Mr. Do with the manual was only $15. That was a great price and I saw at least one other Mr. Do at the event sans manual and with a much worse label that a vendor was asking $40 for?! 

So yeah, I didn't pick up that much but I still manage to spend about what I always do all the same LOL!
 

@socrates63 Oh yes I was most certainly there indeed! My wife and I were the other two folks working the AA booth to help out Al and April. You also have a Sears INTV that I installed an earlier RGB upgrade board into in addition to the 5200 btw. Although we should talk about possibly having me replace that older board out sometime with one of the newer ones that works much better on today's scalers.
As for PRGE I had a great time but it was also a lot of work for me this year. As some of you may or may not know, I had suspended my services to the public over the summer. The reason was because Albert commissioned me to work on a lot of consoles to have ready for PRGE this year. In total I upgraded and serviced 22 consoles that were all present at PRGE and setup for people to play and check out the new games on. So yes, it was more work than usual for me this year! I wasn't able to take many pics at all because I was so busy running around that I just didn't think about it honestly. But I did get a few pics of the setup after we had finished up late Friday night. Sorry for the bad lighting, but it was actually only about this bright during setup.




I didn't pick up nearly as much as I usually do when I attend events like this. But that was mostly because I was limited on space in my suitcase for the return home. And as many of the games didn't have their boxes ready for the show, I decided I would grab them later when they are being sold in the store next month. What I did get, I will post in the new pickups thread.
I do believe this was the most systems that AtariAge has has setup at once for any event. I think it was 40 systems in total? There were 5 Jaguars setup, 4 5200s setup, 7 7800s setup, and the rest were 2600s. It was one of the most visually impressive setups at the event this year!

Strangely I've NOT gotten any notices about the manuals. Only the notice that my carts had shipped and been delivered. Nothing since. It isn't that big a deal but I did already replace the carts with the new ones that work and have the originals boxed back up an labeled ready to send back to Atari XP in Philly.
I'm kinda surprised there are folks that don't plan to send their originals back as they feel it is part of the story and collection of the games? Funny to hear these same folks get bent out of shape about the games now working and demanding Atari fix the issue and then also feel okay with keeping the buggered carts? I hope that Atari XP has their card info on file and charges those folks for at least the cost of the replacements and shipping. If they had given the option, that is one thing, but they specifically ask in the emails that we return the originals, and there is a letter in the box with the replacements asking again to send back the originals.
The recycle process is likely nothing more than gutting them open to reuse the shells in future releases and I think that is fine. The current Atari and their smaller companies they are working with, do at least appear to be trying and I can give them credit for that and I feel we can all do a small part to help. If they want the originals that don't work sent back, then I say do it. They provided better looking and working replacements, with some extra goodies we didn't have to pay for. The cost of the non working and ugly labeled originals they sent us going back to them, is a cost I'm happy to pay.
 

It will be worth the wait once you get them. Wait and see...
I've also heard that some folks have gotten notice about replacement manuals on the way too. I'm assuming to correct for the missing section that exists in at least the Aquaventure manual?
 

@TrekMD you even managed to catch me in two of those pics! Rare to catch a pic of me among my natural environment like that.
 

Welcome Steve! It is a quiet corner here, but it is full of quality and that is what matters most!
 

Well my plan to pick up a 32k sidecar or something didn't happen as it appears that the Brewing Academy didn't actually setup at PRGE. Although they were on the floor plan I never saw them. So I guess I'm back to looking for the best way to have a 32x expansion an still be able to use the speech module?