[7800 oddity - a Maria that kinda? Works?]

Fascinating.  I wonder what kind of problem in the chip would cause it to "almost" work like that? 

Nice work fixing it!

 

[Disneyland in a Monsoon]

15 minutes ago, MaximumRD said:

Awww man, sorry Rick. I am glad you still had fun, I mean that's the way to be, right? Accept the circumstance and don't let it stop you! Don't let it rain on your parade....er....well you get what I'm saying 😁

Exactly.  We were together, we were adjusting and managing.  It could have been much worse!  We saw several people that were very upset about it to the point of tears.  It is understandable, but what can you do?  Roll with the punches, baby. 

 

[Disneyland in a Monsoon]

We still had a lot of fun.  But the rain made it pretty exhausting after a while. 

I've been to the Florida parks when it has rained.  The difference is that in FL, it rains HEAVY for a while and then stops.  This rain was different...it was heavy and never stopped.  While we had fun still, it was sobering to think that there was flooding in the area.  Hopefully, everyone in the area and their property are all ok. 

 

[Disneyland in a Monsoon]

PS - flights were good, hotel was nice.  We ate well.  Stayed healthy.  Very much to be grateful for. 

[Atari 5200 Thoughts]

And lets not forget the awesome Trakball they made for 5200.  It feels like a real arcade controller. 

[WHY DO ATARI XEGS CARTRIDGES RATTLE?]

I always wondered why some of the XE style carts had that little lip on the back.  Great info, thanks.

 

[To Mod or Not to Mod?]

I would mod it.  It's easy to do and I've done a few of them for others before.  And yes, there is a space limit, but it is pretty large.  Enough for most favorites.  Which games?  I usually go to "videogamecritic.com" and sort a system's games by letter grade.  Grab and try all the "A" titles. 

The easiest flashback to mod is the PS1 Classic, which can simply boot off a USB stick.  Remove the stick and it's right back to stock.

 

 

[Day Trip to Evergreen Air Museum]

If you go, make sure to also go to the "Space" building, which is part of the same complex and included in admission.  Since it's a separate building, a lot of people skip it.  The space stuff is neat, but it also has a really good collection of helicopters. 

[Day Trip to Evergreen Air Museum]

It does! 

But I'll tell you:  my photo doesn't capture the sheer immensity of that plane.  It is HUGE. 

[HOW I SURVIVED 4 INCARNATIONS OF ATARI IN 40 YEARS]

Incredible reading.  Thank you so much for sharing this!

[An introduction.]

I'm also in Oregon.  I agree on the rain reputation.  The best part of the weather here is the lack of high humidity. 

Welcome to this forum.  I look forward to learning about your projects!

[Memories Make Objects Valuable]

21 hours ago, Justin said:

Very cool item @RickR! Now that I see this I remember selling these Nyko cases at Toys R Us during the Game Boy Color era. When I first saw it in your post I thought it was a TurboGrafx-16 Turbo Booster Plus, and remembered these cases always used to remind me of those even when they were new.

The GBC was indeed from Toys R Us, which was our go-to for GB games at that time.  I'm sure the Nyko case came from there. 

Oh how I'd love to have one of those Turbo Booster Plus!  I'm using RF output with my TG-16.  It looks pretty good that way, but composite would be better.

[Memories Make Objects Valuable]

I've got the Lynx pouch!  It is very nice quality. 

 

[How Alternative "Budget" Packaging Helped Keep Atari Developers In Business]

Same here, this blog post is awesome.  I remember riding my bike to a computer store as a kid.  I was a VIC-20 owner at the time, not yet Atari.  And I was astounded at all the games available on tape in a ziploc baggie!  I think I bought a few that looked like fun, but was pretty disappointed with them when I got home and tried them.  Well, the good news was that my disappointment turned into "I could do this better".  And the best thing about tape games was you could actually see the source code.  So I ended up learning a ton. 

[First Time Playing Crossbow]

Oh yeah!  G-Loc!  Who could resist?

Even those silly "hunting" games with the arcade shotguns were pretty dang sweet. 

[First Time Playing Crossbow]

10 minutes ago, CrossBow said:

Crazy, the actual arcade cabinet was semi common when I was kid and I always drawn to it. And you know it was different because games like Operation Wolf and the later other Gun games never interested me, but anytime I saw a Crossbow cabinet I had to play and see how far I could get my friends. But like all arcade games back then, it was much more difficult than home versions and I think I was only able to get them to the ice caves before getting wiped out. Might have made it to the jungle screen, but again just way more difficult compared to the home versions.

So yeah, I was very familiar with the game and it was actually Crossbow and Xenophobe that made me want a 7800 when I was younger in the late 80s. I never was able to get Xenophobe as I don't remember being able to find it, but I remember seeing it on the Sears wish catalogs back then. But Crossbow I was able to get and I'm pretty sure I got it from Toys R Us at that time.

 

ANY game with a real-looking crossbow controller was going to get some serious attention from us kids!  Lets be honest, the games with sweet custom controls were the best games of all.  Sit-down Pole Position, Battlezone with two sticks and the periscope, Stunt Cycle, even Tron with its black-light enhanced controls.....

 

[Just a simple but kinda cool project?]

I haven't 3D printed anything all year.  I need to...I've got a VIC-20 multi-cart that needs a shell.  I find it to be such a PITA to remember how to do it.  I think I may just give my 3D printer away to a local kid or something. 

Your video has an important piece of info about the AtariVox I didn't know...that it has a separate audio out.  That's kind of like the O2 "The Voice" module, except no built in speaker.  Given that thought, I wonder how well a small speaker built into a new bigger casing for the AtariVox would work?

[Just a simple but kinda cool project?]

That custom 7800 case though.  👌

[Loctite and ABS = Gallium and Aluminum...]

I've always used hot glue for this type of thing, which works ok but can fail over time. 

 

[Loctite and ABS = Gallium and Aluminum...]

Who knew? 

Thanks for sharing.  I would have probably tried Loctite myself, so thanks for the warning.

[A New Challenger Approaches! - A7800 BackBit Pro Adapter has arrived at the ITC!]

I guess this is as good a place as any to add my notes on the HOKEY chip.  I initially got one that sounded terrible with a game whose soundtrack I'm very familiar with (Ballblazer).  Fred sent me a replacement, and that one sounds just right.  It still has the volume issue (POKEY sound isn't as loud as it should be), but at least it sounds correct.

I'm leaving the new HOKEY in my Concerto cart and will keep that POKEY I was using as a backup or maybe even sell it. 

[A New Challenger Approaches! - A7800 BackBit Pro Adapter has arrived at the ITC!]

This is getting really good, and I appreciate your testing posts very much! 

 

[We all make mistakes... Keep better track of the screws!]

Honesty is a virtue.  Thank you for sharing.  It's true we all make goofs like this.  It's just a matter of time. 

[The Ivory Tower 5200 got some TLC]

Really nice work and I'm glad that you share it here.  It's cool to revisit an old project and redo parts with the new knowledge gained over time. 

[Old DOS and CD-ROM Gaming, Part 3....]

Agreed.  However, DOSBox does an amazing job of sorting this all out.  It works great.  On a machine like this, there is no option to use expansion cards, so DOSBox is a savior.