Clint Thompson

For those of you who love the Atari ST and Demoscene stuff, this book is now on kickstarter and I'm proud to be backing it! Truly love this stuff and always have enjoyed the countless demos encountered over the years.
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/901494542/the-atari-st-and-the-creative-people-rise-of-the-d
 
Will make a great addition to the Art of Atari, Business is Fun and Business is War books (when they come out) =D

Really love the manual designs, gives a futuristic design feeling or vibe! Congrats on the pickup =)

...
 
BRB, deleting all my posts.
 

 
 
 
Thanks.  Totally a lucky break.  The auction listing didn't even mention manuals, let alone picture them.  I'm trying my hardest not to dwell on what became of the other 2800 boxes that went with the manuals!  "Don't look a gift Auction in the mouth," or something!

I had quite the eBay score this past week.  I was doing my usual Atari searching two weeks ago when a fairly nice looking lot of 2600/5200 games went up for sale.
 

 
So, a mixed lot of about 50 games.  Pretty standard-looking, with some quality stuff mixed in: an Atari Video Cube, the Mario Bros. label variation I was missing, a clean-looking Sorcerer's Apprentice to upgrade the poor one that I had...  not bad!  Sure, there are a number of games with writing on the labels, but all in all... nice lot.
 
Then, in an instant... I saw it.  A heavenly chorus reverberated in my ears...
 

 
I got tunnel vision.... suddenly, I could see only the boxed 2800 Super Breakout.  The reality around me started to break down a bit, I think -- it's hard to remember exactly.
 

             [ATARI 2800 BOX DESIRE INTENSIFIES]
 
Then I notice the seller... it's a Salvation Army ARC less than 10 miles from where I live!  HOW?!  I've never seen a 2800 box on eBay USA in my months and months and months of looking, and now there's one being sold by a seller less than a 20 minute drive away?  Turns out they *also* had a separate lot with a 2800 console, so... perhaps someone brought their collection from Japan here?  Who knows.  Whatever -- I immediately realize that I have a secret weapon; an ace up my sleeve... not having to pay shipping if I win!
 
Anyway, to make a longer story slightly less long, I won the auction for a great deal less than I was prepared to pay.  I was (and remain!) super excited about that fact; I might very well make back most (all?) of what I spent by selling the duplicate games and the boxes I don't want.
 
So, Wednesday rolls around and I go to the Salvation Army location to make my pick-up.  They'd packed everything up nice and tightly since they assumed they'd be shipping it out to someone.  I just needed to make sure the 2800 box was in there before I drove off with my winnings.  Once I saw that it was tucked in there, I left on cloud nine.
 
Later on that evening I opened the box back up to have my first look.  Okay, nice, nice... lots of upgrades to some games in my collection, a few label variations, good... some good trade bait...
 
Then I get to the beautiful, glorious Super Breakout box.  It's a little bit rough, but it's all good where it counts:

 
I wasn't expecting the manual, so that was a nice bonus!  The box, I'll probably either flatten or try to re-shape a bit, but it's plenty good enough for me as-is.
 

 

 
For some reason the end of the cartridge itself is all chewed up... but it's no big loss since it's not a label unique to Japan.
 
Okay, let's look at these other boxes.  Any japanese stickers on the backs?  Man, that'd be sweet.  Nah, no such luck.  Okay, wait, I have three loose copies of Amidar here... what's in the Amidar box, then?  Please don't tell me it's a fourth copy of crappy Amidar...
 
I pick the box up -- it's HEAVY.  What the?  MY GOD...  IT'S FULL OF STARS MANUALS!
 
The corner of one catches my eye.  HOLY S#!...
 

 
Suddenly I find myself riffling through a stack of about 50 manuals, and glints of silver keep catching my eye.  This is crazy!


 
I didn't even have time to start wondering where the boxes for these might be, because my fingers stop on one of the two pieces of 2800 paraphernalia I was most wanting:
 

 
THE 2800 CONSOLE OWNER'S MANUAL.  The one thing that I didn't get with my 2800 that I'd really, really wished it had come with.  And now, here's one that's fallen into my lap totally out of the blue.  Serendipity!
 

 
"Table of Contents"
(learning Japanese I think I'm learning Japanese I really think so...)
 
I
 
It even still has the insert sheet explaining how to hook it up with a switchbox.
 

 
I'd love to see a Sears Video Arcade II manual now, just to compare!
 
Anyway, this lot is where many of my latest additions to my trade list come from.  I don't know if I'll ever get so lucky again.  One can only hope!

Here is one of the most decent Jaguar video reviews I have come across. It's from a guy named Dan Wood from the site kookytech.net. Despite one or two inaccuracies, on the whole this is a good overview and his assessment of the Last True Atari is right on.
 

All on the 130XE last night =)
 
Yoomp!
Dr. Mario
GTIABlast
 

And a Knight Rider TV Guide

The Good Ole Pac-Man Bank!

Here is another prototype cart for the Atari 8-Bit computer. This game is Super Huey UH-IX which was a cool helicopter game on Atari 7800 and was in development to be ported over to a grey cartridge release for the Atari XEGS.
 
This particular prototype version was not done yet but it was a great looking game.
 
Super Huey was released for the XL/XE on floppy but not on cartridge. If you've played Super Huey on the 7800 you'll remember how serious of a flight simulator it was. It wasn't a normal shooter game like Choplifter where you immediately start flying around and shooting. Since the time that we filmed this video I found original instructions for Super Huey on XL/XE. Once you get in the cockpit, you first press OPTION. Then you type POW to turn on the power to the helicopter. Then you press START to start the engine, and then you need to rev the engine up past 1600 rpm by pressing forward on the joystick. Then you press SELECT to clutch the rotor and being the throttle up to 3000 RPM. 
 
First off, I was wondering what was inside the prototype cartridge. So Steven took it apart for me, and low and behold, what appeared to be a stock Atari ROM, not an E-PROM. So far all of the proto carts I've received from Atari were E-PROMs. ROMs are for mass production. So I told Steven "bummer, most likely it cannot be copied" because it's a ROM chip, the legs do different things on a ROM, than an E-PROM does.
 
But, some can be copied, if its a one time burn E-PROM, which has no window, so it looks like a ROM. There are other versions also that I am not familiar with.
 
So I copied it, ROMs can be copied, but will not run as an E-PROM, and I do not have a ROM programmer. I was holding my breath as it copied. It should have been 64k. It turned out it was NOT 64k, and I was stunned, its 32k. On the floppy it was 48k. So I am assuming this is not a done version.
 
I burned it onto a 32k E-PROM, plugged it into an E-PROM cart, and turned on the computer, it froze solid, blue screen saying ready. Tried it again, got the same thing.
 
So I thought, I wonder if it will run on the Super Huey board, it should not, because of the differences in how the board is wired for roms. i plugged it into the board, put the board into my XE game machine, turned it on, got the same picture as the other one, but with one difference...
 
When I pushed OPTION, we got more action, then I typed in pow, pushed start, and we got lots of action, but both sides of the screen show pixilation. It's not done. Steve and I got it to fly, but it freezes sometimes. We got no further than that. There might be more, but it freezes sometimes. So I looked at the board, I saw some differences compared to other Atari XE Super Cart boards, and of course an E-PROM board.
 
It might be wired for use with an E-PROM, and or what ever type of one time E-PROM, or some sort of ROM chip that i was able to copy, all at the same time. Sometimes boards are wired differently, due to how it was programmed, and where in RAM the program resides.
 
All i know so far is that it's not like other E-PROMboards, or ROM boards.
 
So because of this, I was reading up on ROMs tonight. What i found out was there is a PROM chip. It's a one-time programable chip that is burned like an E-PROM. I bet that is what the Atari XE Super Huey chip is, and why I could copy it. It seems Atari was using three different technologies on their cart boards. This is the first one that I have ran into. Knowing Jack, it was for cheapness purposes. What ever was cheaper at the time, he used. I say this needs to be investigated and filmed.
 
So, I am going to try to get the board replicated, and we will test the game further. It's possible the board may have to be wired further, to tie the programming into certain parts of the RAM. I will keep you informed as we discover more about this game.
 
I filmed this video with the help of my good friend Steve who is an Atari.io member here under the name BlackCatz40. Here's a look at the Super Huey UH-IX prototype cart for the Atari XL/XE Series computers:
 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UH_nrLeCkc

Truth be told, the Jaguar didn't need games texture mapped to death gaming - it just needed the VR headset released with some solid, fast-paced polygon/gouraud shading goodness going on and I still think it would have had something to truly set it apart from the rest of the consoles at the time.

I never even gave much thought to the possibility of an AVP VR game but that would've been intense!
 
@atarilbc - I'm sure the lack of music in Doom helped a bit as well, since you can certainly hear and focus on the demons creeping up behind you! =)
 
So after HS:UL - you can always go for something a little more vomit inducing ;-) Checkered Flag in cockpit seating lol

What they most likely are, are charactor generators. Atari sold quite a few, and there were companies that used charactor generating cart sand disks. They were, and in some cases, still are used in airports, apartments, hotels, convention centers, etc. If you see a monitor or t.v. when you come in the front door, that scrools anouncments, that is what they are for.
 
I still get inquires from users, on getting them fixed, or the software fixed. but those systems are no longer supported by software companies that i know of. A prominent one was in Canada.
 
Lance
www.atarisales.com
 

I stumbled across these and found it to be intriguing! I wonder what exactly they used them for and how the phone jack connections work and with what. If I didn't have a million other things going on I would probably pick these up but hard telling how much they'll end up for. Typically I would say the XF551 drives alone would be worth it but seeing as how it was definitely constantly used, I wouldn't put much money on them being functional or at least much longer, if so.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Atari-Broadcast-system-130XE-customized-XF551-with-disks-/121951625046?hash=item1c64e21f56:g:ScsAAOSw8RJXCm3L

I stumbled across these and found it to be intriguing! I wonder what exactly they used them for and how the phone jack connections work and with what. If I didn't have a million other things going on I would probably pick these up but hard telling how much they'll end up for. Typically I would say the XF551 drives alone would be worth it but seeing as how it was definitely constantly used, I wouldn't put much money on them being functional or at least much longer, if so.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Atari-Broadcast-system-130XE-customized-XF551-with-disks-/121951625046?hash=item1c64e21f56:g:ScsAAOSw8RJXCm3L

I stumbled across these and found it to be intriguing! I wonder what exactly they used them for and how the phone jack connections work and with what. If I didn't have a million other things going on I would probably pick these up but hard telling how much they'll end up for. Typically I would say the XF551 drives alone would be worth it but seeing as how it was definitely constantly used, I wouldn't put much money on them being functional or at least much longer, if so.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Atari-Broadcast-system-130XE-customized-XF551-with-disks-/121951625046?hash=item1c64e21f56:g:ScsAAOSw8RJXCm3L

I stumbled across these and found it to be intriguing! I wonder what exactly they used them for and how the phone jack connections work and with what. If I didn't have a million other things going on I would probably pick these up but hard telling how much they'll end up for. Typically I would say the XF551 drives alone would be worth it but seeing as how it was definitely constantly used, I wouldn't put much money on them being functional or at least much longer, if so.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Atari-Broadcast-system-130XE-customized-XF551-with-disks-/121951625046?hash=item1c64e21f56:g:ScsAAOSw8RJXCm3L

Truth be told, the Jaguar didn't need games texture mapped to death gaming - it just needed the VR headset released with some solid, fast-paced polygon/gouraud shading goodness going on and I still think it would have had something to truly set it apart from the rest of the consoles at the time.

I never even gave much thought to the possibility of an AVP VR game but that would've been intense!
 
@atarilbc - I'm sure the lack of music in Doom helped a bit as well, since you can certainly hear and focus on the demons creeping up behind you! =)
 
So after HS:UL - you can always go for something a little more vomit inducing ;-) Checkered Flag in cockpit seating lol

What can be said about id Software's Jaguar port of DOOM that hasn't already been said? Famous for being the best console port available upon its release in late '94, the game features full screen action, 24 maps, great use of color and textures and full weapons access via that wacky Jaguar gamepad overlay.
 
I spent about 40 minutes tooling around the world of DOOM using the Takara Dynovisor. I played the game in a darkened room so no light crept into the helmet from the bottom of the facemask. This enhanced the Dynovisor's isolating effect and I'll probably use it like this moving forward. The sound effects, particularly the growls and gurgles of the monsters around you were much more pronounced and impressive than when run through a TV. In fact, this has been the case for the few games I've played with the helmet. I think Takara really nailed the audio. Visuals on the other hand were less impressive due to the helmet's low-res display. That said, once my eyes adjusted it wasn't much of an issue. The helmet prevents you from referencing the overlay so if you're not familiar with the keypad's button layout, this could cause some fumbling. I did get a little queasy from the speed of the game but I've had this issue before with both DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D so I don't want to pin it on the Dynovisor. I'll have to see how I do with other games.
 
Because this is DOOM, the game was as fun and frenetic as ever. What the Dynovisor added to the experience was a sense of immersion. With the outside world blocked from view, I did feel a little more connected to the game. Unlike Missile Command 3D, DOOM was not designed with the HMD in mind. Still, the game's first person perspective lends itself well to the technology and it's no surprise that John Carmack is onboard for the Oculus project. For me, the Dynovisor was a fun way to play DOOM. Gimmicky? You bet. But the kitsch of using the Dynovisor is part of the appeal.
 
Next up: Hover Strike UL

I'm still waiting on my Raspberry Pi Jaguar VR converter box to make an appearance....

Yeah I don't get it. I mean you can't be mad at their optimism but it certainly didn't help. It's hard to bad mouth your own project or games from a company you're working for.

I'm just glad the Jaguar molds are shifting hands to Albert completely so there will be no bastardization of one of my favorite consoles and we'll most likely definitely see a steady stream of replacement cart shells available for homebrews.

I'm just glad the Jaguar molds are shifting hands to Albert completely so there will be no bastardization of one of my favorite consoles and we'll most likely definitely see a steady stream of replacement cart shells available for homebrews.

I'm just glad the Jaguar molds are shifting hands to Albert completely so there will be no bastardization of one of my favorite consoles and we'll most likely definitely see a steady stream of replacement cart shells available for homebrews.

Coleco Chameleon Boss Confirms Console “Officially Tabled For Good”
 
 
 Well thank goodness he cleared that up, you know confirming what most have known for weeks now. LIKE HE HAD A CHOICE. So many holes in MIKE'S claims which is obvious to anyone who has been following this fiasco from the start, since his post though others on AA continue to shed the light and truth, not sure why he continues to think he can fool people, it is getting real pathetic at this point ! People really need to stop listening to this guy and giving him the benefit of a doubt, if anything sounds like he is attempting to appease people once more before he introduces his next great project. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npOrT6clYW8
 
Post on Atariage (his original post to read for yourself, of course most of his claims are already being kicked into the dirt where they belong) 
 
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247145-coleco-chameleon-hardware-speculations/page-315
 
Mike just STAHP