RadioPoultry

Dracula!

Hello everyone! I found my way over here thanks to the plugs for Atari.io in the YouTube videos of NoSwearGamer and BTB, both of whom I've been subscribed to for a couple years now. I've been an active member on the AtariAge forum since 2014 (it's pretty much my main online hangout spot) and decided that it was time I branched out a bit and checked out some other sites that were recommended by the folks I enjoy on YouTube.
 
Sooo... here I am!

Dracula!

OK, played some more today and here is my score...
 

25,650
 

 
Always double check your photo before switching off your console. I actually had a slightly higher score of 29,350 but in my haste snapped this on my phone:
 

 
At least it gives me something to aim for over the course of the next two weeks! :/

Some of my recent thrift finds:
 

 
Always good to find some sealed 5-1/4 floppies. That's a Fred Meyer sticker on the right one.
 

 
Found this Power PC (Performa 6320CD) at Goodwill Outlet. It would have been $19 due to the weight, but they gave me a discount ($6 instead). It turns on and produces sound, but that's all I know so far, having no monitor (or VGA adapter), keyboard, or mouse that work with it. I must admit, I don't know that much about pre-OS X Macs.
 

 
And now for something completely different! I found these at a little thrift store in Kennewick that I usually only visit every few months. Paid off this time!

Oh man RP!  You found gold!  All three items are great. 

Some of my recent thrift finds:
 

 
Always good to find some sealed 5-1/4 floppies. That's a Fred Meyer sticker on the right one.
 

 
Found this Power PC (Performa 6320CD) at Goodwill Outlet. It would have been $19 due to the weight, but they gave me a discount ($6 instead). It turns on and produces sound, but that's all I know so far, having no monitor (or VGA adapter), keyboard, or mouse that work with it. I must admit, I don't know that much about pre-OS X Macs.
 

 
And now for something completely different! I found these at a little thrift store in Kennewick that I usually only visit every few months. Paid off this time!

Some of my recent thrift finds:
 

 
Always good to find some sealed 5-1/4 floppies. That's a Fred Meyer sticker on the right one.
 

 
Found this Power PC (Performa 6320CD) at Goodwill Outlet. It would have been $19 due to the weight, but they gave me a discount ($6 instead). It turns on and produces sound, but that's all I know so far, having no monitor (or VGA adapter), keyboard, or mouse that work with it. I must admit, I don't know that much about pre-OS X Macs.
 

 
And now for something completely different! I found these at a little thrift store in Kennewick that I usually only visit every few months. Paid off this time!

Found these yesterday at goodwill. The nes controller $2 and the DS lite $5 after charging all might the DS finally came on and it works perfect

Yea there was a guy who had the DS and a 360 in his hands when i went to the electronics. He put the DS down and i asked if this was his and he said ehhh no. Made me happy

It's not much to look at, but I found Beany Bopper to be surprisingly fun.

It's not much to look at, but I found Beany Bopper to be surprisingly fun.

You guys, the Mavica camera is AWESOME!  It stores the images on floppy much faster than I would have expected.  Quality is pretty good.  I had to clean the floppy drive up before it would work, but now it's fine.
 
 

Here's something that seems to be a rare item. (Found it at Goodwill a few weeks back.)
 

 
"Test Pilot" from Radio Shack. Can't find a year, but it might be from the early 90s? I think I remember seeing this in the old catalogs, but I could find hardly any reference to this on the internet. Not that great as either a game or a simulation (maybe it needed more testing?), but it has some interesting features. There's an LED on top that lights up at times as a warning, and the whole game vibrates when you start to go off the runway or crash.

Here's something that seems to be a rare item. (Found it at Goodwill a few weeks back.)
 

 
"Test Pilot" from Radio Shack. Can't find a year, but it might be from the early 90s? I think I remember seeing this in the old catalogs, but I could find hardly any reference to this on the internet. Not that great as either a game or a simulation (maybe it needed more testing?), but it has some interesting features. There's an LED on top that lights up at times as a warning, and the whole game vibrates when you start to go off the runway or crash.

Here's something that seems to be a rare item. (Found it at Goodwill a few weeks back.)
 

 
"Test Pilot" from Radio Shack. Can't find a year, but it might be from the early 90s? I think I remember seeing this in the old catalogs, but I could find hardly any reference to this on the internet. Not that great as either a game or a simulation (maybe it needed more testing?), but it has some interesting features. There's an LED on top that lights up at times as a warning, and the whole game vibrates when you start to go off the runway or crash.

The video of the Earth is from the game running in VBXE mode. SInce the Player/Missile multiplexer program needs to load into RAM because of self modifying code, it can also be replaced with a VBXE routine that simply places sprites at the same screen positions. On start up Tempest Elite detects if VBXE is present, if not, it loads standard atari player/missile and related graphics driver routines into RAM. Lets say the player is intended to go at 40,60, and is single width and 14 pixels tall. The game VBI sets the positions and the index of that "sprite" in a prior frame. All a VBXE routine needs to do is multiply the horizontal position by two to convert the X coordinate. All the player (sprite) images are index. Lets say 1-16 are all the possible shapes for that Red X shape flipper. 1-16 will have the pointers inside the player source data that the multiplexer copies into the pm area at the start of the next VBI cycle. If on a VBXE area, it will have pointers inside a bitmap image source that the blitter will send to the VBXE screen. You can disable VBXE by holding down option when booting the cartridge. 

I haven't been very active in the forums for a while, so here's some of my better finds over the last few months:
 

 
It's a synth! No, it's a boom box! Wait, it's sort of both! I found this rather unusual Casio CK-500 synth over at a Goodwill in Kennewick, WA. Not in perfect condition (missing the radio antenna, power cable, and battery cover. Also, the right cassette player warbles a little). Helpfully, it did come with the manual. The sound is what you'd expect from a not-too-expensive Casio, but you can record what you play, switch tapes, and record with that as accompaniment.
 

 
A couple rare books from Goodwill Outlet in Pasco, WA. A first U.S. edition of C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength. And the book that was very loosely the basis for Who Framed Roger Rabbit... Gary Wolf's Who Censored Roger Rabbit.
 

 
I found this yesterday during a trip to Packwood, WA at a small thrift shop, For me, this one's a doozy: A Suzuki Omnichord System 2, complete and entirely functional! Still even has the disposable plastic overlay. A great deal at $25! You select a chord with the buttons, then strum the long panel on the side with one or two fingers. (Essentially, an electronic autoharp.) The buttons can also be used as a keyboard while you switch pre-recorded chords with a foot pedal.
 
They also had boxed NES and Genesis games that were way over-priced (sports games that were more than what I paid for the Omnichord) and some unpriced but intriguing educational laser disc with 3.5" floppy disk sets that came from a library.

I haven't been very active in the forums for a while, so here's some of my better finds over the last few months:
 

 
It's a synth! No, it's a boom box! Wait, it's sort of both! I found this rather unusual Casio CK-500 synth over at a Goodwill in Kennewick, WA. Not in perfect condition (missing the radio antenna, power cable, and battery cover. Also, the right cassette player warbles a little). Helpfully, it did come with the manual. The sound is what you'd expect from a not-too-expensive Casio, but you can record what you play, switch tapes, and record with that as accompaniment.
 

 
A couple rare books from Goodwill Outlet in Pasco, WA. A first U.S. edition of C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength. And the book that was very loosely the basis for Who Framed Roger Rabbit... Gary Wolf's Who Censored Roger Rabbit.
 

 
I found this yesterday during a trip to Packwood, WA at a small thrift shop, For me, this one's a doozy: A Suzuki Omnichord System 2, complete and entirely functional! Still even has the disposable plastic overlay. A great deal at $25! You select a chord with the buttons, then strum the long panel on the side with one or two fingers. (Essentially, an electronic autoharp.) The buttons can also be used as a keyboard while you switch pre-recorded chords with a foot pedal.
 
They also had boxed NES and Genesis games that were way over-priced (sports games that were more than what I paid for the Omnichord) and some unpriced but intriguing educational laser disc with 3.5" floppy disk sets that came from a library.

I haven't been very active in the forums for a while, so here's some of my better finds over the last few months:
 

 
It's a synth! No, it's a boom box! Wait, it's sort of both! I found this rather unusual Casio CK-500 synth over at a Goodwill in Kennewick, WA. Not in perfect condition (missing the radio antenna, power cable, and battery cover. Also, the right cassette player warbles a little). Helpfully, it did come with the manual. The sound is what you'd expect from a not-too-expensive Casio, but you can record what you play, switch tapes, and record with that as accompaniment.
 

 
A couple rare books from Goodwill Outlet in Pasco, WA. A first U.S. edition of C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength. And the book that was very loosely the basis for Who Framed Roger Rabbit... Gary Wolf's Who Censored Roger Rabbit.
 

 
I found this yesterday during a trip to Packwood, WA at a small thrift shop, For me, this one's a doozy: A Suzuki Omnichord System 2, complete and entirely functional! Still even has the disposable plastic overlay. A great deal at $25! You select a chord with the buttons, then strum the long panel on the side with one or two fingers. (Essentially, an electronic autoharp.) The buttons can also be used as a keyboard while you switch pre-recorded chords with a foot pedal.
 
They also had boxed NES and Genesis games that were way over-priced (sports games that were more than what I paid for the Omnichord) and some unpriced but intriguing educational laser disc with 3.5" floppy disk sets that came from a library.

The trailers remind me of how exciting it was to see commercials for Mario 64.  Very cool! 

That's honestly the nicest Pong console I've seen in ages. You're a lucky guy!

This thing is in such good shape. It looks like it just came off the shelf.

I found one at Goodwill Outlet last year (no box or manual), but I didn't realize it was quite that old! I second that request for manual scans!