DegasElite

Missile Command on the 5200, while I think it is a good game that is even better when played with the Trak-Ball controller, is actually my least played game on the console.  I'm really not a fan of the game on any platform.  When I first discovered a XEGS in 1998 and learned it had Missile Command built-in I did like the game a little more...but not enough to help it gain any replay value with me.  I have to say, though, that is probably the best arcade port I've seen. 

glad you liked it, thanks,
 
lance
www.atarisales.com

This is just a quick first look at the up and coming release, from Video 61 and Atari Sales, of HeliCommander for the Atari 5200.
 
 
thanks for looking,
 
lance
www.atarisales.com

Much of this is miles above my head, but I'm certain that a number of you here will be interested in this:
 
http://www.chzsoft.de/asic-web/
 
Christian Zietz has uncovered schematics for a number of Atari ASICs, including a 68K video shifter that is almost certainly related to the Atari Panther.  Most of what's discussed on his page is with regard to the Atari ST (hence my posting it to this forum), but he also found an incomplete schematic for the Atari Sparrow (Falcon prototype).
 
Here's hoping for more discoveries like these, and kudos to him for his efforts so far!

400 pages about the history of the Atari Corporation and a little East-Westphalian company which developed from the Atari ST demo scene, including 40 pages of interviews with the makers.
 

 
Volume 1 kicks off with the roots of Ataris 16-bit era and the transformation of bedroom coders to professionals. From The Union to Thalion. The Atari ST, followed by the marketing of the STE and TT. After the successful startup of Thalion the young computer freaks are confronted with an unexpected hard deadline business...
 
www.microzeit.com
 
 
 

I always thought the JagDuo prototype was complete, with the motherboard already installed and populated with components. Nice find, Clint!

It does exist! OMG. Let's duplicate and populate it! Well...wishful thinking.

Wow, what a discovery! Had it been released, I would have traded my Jag/CD for the Jag Duo in a heartbeat. I loved that case design! Thanks for sharing!
 

Thanks go to John Hardie for scanning this in. Confirmation that work was done on this and not just a case mockup!
 

The PS2 was an in-between system for me. I had a Dreamcast from pre-order so I stuck with it until the end. The only reason why I picked up a PS2 was when Gran Turismo A-Spec came out. I am a huge fan of the game having played the first two installments on the original PS. That is also the only reason why I got a PS3. It does have lots of good games and I am currently playing Xenosaga Episode 1 when I can.
 
I have to agree with a few others here. While I enjoyed the system and prefer the larger model over the slim model, I enjoy Dreamcast more. And the original XBOX still holds its own against the PS2 even in retro gaming. Then there is the Game Cube...but I only found a few games I liked on that console (Metroid Prime remains my top favorite on GC followed by Harvey Moon Magical Melodies).
 
That era was the game changing era for sure. PS2 is good but I stood by Sega as long as possible and when I tried out an XBOX...that was it for me. I went with XBOX and have been an XBOX fan ever since. The controllers are more comfortable including the Duke.
And I don't need a memory card. The original XBOX still gives me more entertainment value than PS2...although Xbox games cost more than their PS2 twins. I don't know how many PS2s I had to fix that wouldn't read discs.

I liked the PS2 because I liked to play "Capcom Classics Collection" on it. It had the entire "Ghost 'N Goblins" series, including the SNES game "Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts," a home video game sequel to the classic "Ghouls 'N Ghosts." I thought that "Forgotten Worlds" was the best game, including its Japanese counterpart "Lost Worlds" (basically the same arcade game, but in Japanese). Sure, it was emulated, but it played well. I also liked "Final Fight" on there. I think it also had "Street Fighter II" in there (the Championship Edition, I believe). There were eighteen games on that disc. It had game trivia and original artwork concerning those arcade games. Great series, for sure. I gave the disc to a friend of mine, and I believe that he still has it somewhere. He still has his PS2, by the way. I long to play it again. Oh, the memories…
 
Thanks for letting me share.

I liked the PS2 because I liked to play "Capcom Classics Collection" on it. It had the entire "Ghost 'N Goblins" series, including the SNES game "Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts," a home video game sequel to the classic "Ghouls 'N Ghosts." I thought that "Forgotten Worlds" was the best game, including its Japanese counterpart "Lost Worlds" (basically the same arcade game, but in Japanese). Sure, it was emulated, but it played well. I also liked "Final Fight" on there. I think it also had "Street Fighter II" in there (the Championship Edition, I believe). There were eighteen games on that disc. It had game trivia and original artwork concerning those arcade games. Great series, for sure. I gave the disc to a friend of mine, and I believe that he still has it somewhere. He still has his PS2, by the way. I long to play it again. Oh, the memories…
 
Thanks for letting me share.

I like the colors on the Jaguar seen here. The red and black compliment each other nicely. I would probably not do it myself to either of my Jaguars (I have two Jaguar base units and two CD-ROM units each). It looks cool, do not get me wrong. I am personally afraid of taking away from their aesthetic collection value. I do not know if it would be like that. But, I shoot for posterity myself. Don't worry, I am not disrespecting the nifty paint job done on it, Bakerman. It's talented detailing. Great job.

I wonder. What if someone decided to cosmetically restore older video game systems and the accessories for those platforms for profit? To my knowledge, this has never been done on a grand scale before. It might be cost-prohibitive, but maybe not. Some of this stuff is forty years old or more, especially Atari 2600 products produced in 1977 for instance. I would love to do something like that. I am not sure how it would travel, however. I am a purist, per se, when it comes to restoring things to their original condition. I bring it up because this model of the Atari Jaguar VR system is beat up, but giving it some TLC to refurbish it for posterity (and to play it, of course) might be something lucrative. Of course, I could be barking up the wrong tree. I am not sure. But, one can dream. Thanks for letting me share.

I wonder. What if someone decided to cosmetically restore older video game systems and the accessories for those platforms for profit? To my knowledge, this has never been done on a grand scale before. It might be cost-prohibitive, but maybe not. Some of this stuff is forty years old or more, especially Atari 2600 products produced in 1977 for instance. I would love to do something like that. I am not sure how it would travel, however. I am a purist, per se, when it comes to restoring things to their original condition. I bring it up because this model of the Atari Jaguar VR system is beat up, but giving it some TLC to refurbish it for posterity (and to play it, of course) might be something lucrative. Of course, I could be barking up the wrong tree. I am not sure. But, one can dream. Thanks for letting me share.

I liked the PS2 because I liked to play "Capcom Classics Collection" on it. It had the entire "Ghost 'N Goblins" series, including the SNES game "Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts," a home video game sequel to the classic "Ghouls 'N Ghosts." I thought that "Forgotten Worlds" was the best game, including its Japanese counterpart "Lost Worlds" (basically the same arcade game, but in Japanese). Sure, it was emulated, but it played well. I also liked "Final Fight" on there. I think it also had "Street Fighter II" in there (the Championship Edition, I believe). There were eighteen games on that disc. It had game trivia and original artwork concerning those arcade games. Great series, for sure. I gave the disc to a friend of mine, and I believe that he still has it somewhere. He still has his PS2, by the way. I long to play it again. Oh, the memories…
 
Thanks for letting me share.

So I've located and confirmed existence of another Jaguar VR prototype that is fully populated - this will make the 3rd known unit in existence, outside of the other 2 empty headset shells. Just thought I would share the pics here as well:
 


 
Not sure I'm really interested in plunking down any money for this one, not that it's exactly for sale right now anyways, it appears to be in pretty rough shape. Not sure if it's functional or has the tracking base either but I do remain hopeful it's fully functional. 
 

Both of your Jags are really cool. 

I don't have a Jaguar yet, but I do have this:
 

 
I'm not sure if it's possible to find the guts of a Jaguar, or maybe a Jaguar with a cracked/broken case that I could transplant into this thing. But I'm keeping my eyes open for such a thing.
 
 

I was cleaning my custom painted Jaguar system today in preparation to give it all a re-coat as it has gotten a few scuffs and scratches on console and CD unit and worn areas on the controllers, etc. and I decided to take some pictures. These are the before shots and I will show after shots when the re-coat is done. I am a stickler for keeping my electronics clean and looking new. I decided to go with a two-tone custom job since I could not bring myself to paint over the logo and other printed surfaces (except on the controllers, i.e. pause, option, etc. on my pro-controller; I intended to replace with stickers, but never got around to it).
 
I made two errors the first time around that I intend to fix with the new paint coat: I didn't spray the seams of the CD unit well enough and I at first attempted to cover the pause and option buttons on the pro-controller to save the print, but it didn't look good, so I sprayed over it which then left a ridge where I had covered it at first. I have sanded the area smooth so that will be fixed after the new coat.
 
Some of you may have seen my Jag system before as I showed it off at AtariAge a few years back when I first customized it. But I thought some others might enjoy seeing it, I do like to show it. It does have a blue LED power light, not shown here, too, bright enough to light up my controller ports and the ceiling in a dark room (I use a projector a lot). It also gives the my Jag's red a purple hue in the dark, which is cool looking.
 
The first time I showed it, some people commented that it looked like I had done a less-than-perfect paint job as there was an orange-peel effect, but this is not the case, it is the natural texture of the plastic and just looks that way from glare when taking photos. In real life it is apparent that it is the consoles texturing.
 
I also want to see other's custom jobs up-close, I've seen one or two in Avatar pics, but that's not good enough and maybe there are other proud owners who want to show off theirs? Painted, custom cases, what ever.
 
Sorry if the pics are dark, they looked too bright through my phone camera so I turned down the exposure, only to see them too dark when I loaded them up to my PC. I will do better with the after pics. I am currently downloading a picture edit program, but didn't have one right now to adjust the pics.

The part of the problem with said AtariBox is just that, it doesn't have anything specifically unique to it and is just another off-the-shelf components slapped together in a shoddy box which comes across to me as nothing more than a money grab. It'll probably just be an Atari-branded SteamOS and nothing more.
They haven't shown what the controller, joystick or input device looks like yet... nor have they confirmed any original 3rd party (or first party for that matter) titles in development for such a... product.

I just learned more about the Ataribox. It will run Linux, and has an AMD processor with Radeon graphics. It will be a PC experience, linking music, social media, et cetera, while playing games. That makes things a little better to me concerning the fact that it runs Linux. But, I am still not so sure. Could be promising, like TeddyGermany said. IMHO, and I know it may go down lumpy with some of you, I was wishing it would run RISC-based technology like the Jaguar. That would make it somewhat unique, to me anyway.

Better he supports the new Ataribox!

Oh s*** just get a bypass cartridge. Don't go chopping up your Jaguar CD player to just to play unencrypted CDs.

I would definitely want it. Way to go, V61! I am sold, too.

Here’s A Quick And Easy Cosmetic Mod That Anyone Can Do!
 

 
 
I posted this photo of an Atari 7800 joystick on our Instagram this week. You may notice it’s a little different, and I had a few people comment asking about the controller.
 

 
 
Robert has a good eye. I wasn’t even thinking about it when I took the picture. I have a small stockpile of Atari 7800 joysticks, but the one I grabbed for the picture happened to be one of my original 2 joysticks from my Atari 7800 with the cereal in it that I talk about here.
I was never that happy with the stock 7800 joysticks. (was anyone?) I always sought ways to mod the controller or make it better. One of the earliest mods I made was when I was 12 years old: a cosmetic change to extend the aluminum “streak” from the handle all the way through the top of the controller.
I thought the Atari 7800 joystick looked and felt kind of cheap, as though something better had been designed and the guys in the accounting dept. took a look at it and said “Nope, nope, nope. Too expensive. Let’s save money by cutting costs here, here, and here.” The aluminum band on the console spans the full width of the 7800, shouldn’t the aluminum band on the joystick span the full length of the controller?
Below is an abbreviated version of the slideshow I posted on Instagram as a response to the questions I received about the controller. Obviously this is only a cosmetic mod and won’t improve joystick responsiveness (there are other things you can do!) but this is a quick and fun DIY mod that anyone can do. It looks good and has stood the test of time. If you’re into it and up to it, here’s how to do it:
 
What You'll Need:
 
☑️ Atari 7800 Pro-Line Joystick (cleaned with alcohol)
☑️ Aluminum Tape (HVAC Duct Joint Foil Tape)
☑️ X-Acto Knife
☑️ Q-Tip
 
 
In Pictures, Here's What To Do:
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
And that's how it's done!
Now you have a unique Atari 7800 joystick that
looks like it was always meant to look that way.
Enjoy!