RickR

Oh Ye Gads! I just downloaded the manual for my TV and LOOK at this monstrosity! Samsung! NO! BAD!

I've been struggling lately with our main family room entertainment setup and I'd like others' opinions. What do you use, and do you like it? Let me describe what I have and the issue I'm trying to solve. I'll post pics later if necessary, but I think you've all seen my family room setup in various high-score contest pictures. TV: Samsung 50" (we love it, such a beautiful and bright picture. Replacing this is not on the table) Audio: Sony digital receiver with Bose 3.1 speakers. Sounds really great with a deep bass boom. This has been our setup for years, so we are very used to it. 8 HDMI inputs. This is the heart of our system. What is connected: Main item: A Roku streaming device, which we use daily. Also: A blu-ray player, my PS1 Classic, an empty HDMI cable that we use for laptops or other gaming, and a USB thumb drive full of music. The problem: The Roku sound is terrible. This is a new (withing the last six months issue, and it isn't just me...MANY people have this issue and Roku seems oblivious). It will often either get REALLY loud or really quiet. Very annoying. My experimentation: Hooking the Roku directly to the TV helps. The sound issue occurs MUCH less often. Let's say twice a week instead of twice a day on average. However, the TV sound is pretty weak with NO bass boom. It also appears that the picture is cleaner this way, although I don't know why. My idea: I've been thinking of ditching the digital receiver and speakers and simplifying. Instead, how about adding a nice soundbar (with subwoofer) to the TV, and then an HDMI switchbox. I could use the extra space that the receiver occupies for another gaming console (like the VCS). I'd play it more if it were down here. What do you all use? Any advice greatly appreciated.

I think we had this exact box! This one reminds me of how hard it was to share toys with my older brother. Always telling me what to do and how to do it and making sure I didn't "mess it up" or break it. Sigh. I guess this is why I love my Atari 2600 so much, as that was the first toy we had that I kind of took ownership of and didn't have to take any guff over.

Somebody needs to track down the Intellivision DK developer and ask though 🙂 I'm kidding of course. That one is worse than the 2600 version IMO, but probably due to the limited time to develop.

You guys have me beat in the feedback dept. Very impressive!

I watched last night. Excellent! Very enjoyable to watch and hopefully this puts the issue to rest. Personally, I liked 2600 DK a lot. I remember buying it at Toys R Us and being so excited on the car ride home to play. I know it had it's limitations, but it was a lot of fun and definitely captured some of that Donkey Kong magic in my eyes.

No, but this is going to be me if they don't send me one on Oct 6:

Congrats! oh my...I looked mine up. I showed this to my kids and they were legitimately startled.

This is a really cool idea. It can not only fix a broken or failing keyboard, but also make a huge improvement.

Check out this site: https://atariemailarchive.org/ It appears to be authentic and there's some interesting stuff here. What do you guys think? 1983 - 1992 skips the early days, but we get a lot of later history.

"The Stinker" by Auguste Rodin.

FYI - I have the 7800 gamepad from these guys and it works really nicely. It has lasted a long time too. I'd definitely buy again.

From Stephen King's "The Beeping"

Here's one that I completely forgot about until I saw this picture.

Anything would be an improvement over the stock TI sticks, but I can promise this thing will be the top quality pad you can get for TI: https://retrogameboyz.com/products/ti-99-4a-ti-99-4a-joystick-controller-game-control-pad-texas-instruments

Best wishes to you too. Old perhaps, but ready to fight and do what we need to do to get ready for 2025.

Well, we *have* been looking for a smaller home now that the children are grown and flown. But sadly, there will be no travel this year due to medical issues.

This joke is a retread.

This looks great! If I was in that area, I'd plan on going for sure.

That's a sweet setup and I've been thinking about doing something similar. Because having a gaming setup right there where I spend most of the day (working) may mean I play games more. I'll think more and come up with something.

The model has been authenticated, and here are some more detailed pics. Credit to Doug Drexler and Gary Kerr.