RickR

SWEET! I'll get it started with the first Easter egg for my all-time favorite game. Adventure. Thank you!

That's right Justin. I've been thinking about getting one of those. They use fewer batteries, which is an improvement in itself.

A couple of PS2 games for cheap.

True story: I was playing the 8K version the other day when my wife arrived home from work. She watched for a while. When I died, I said what most of us have said: "Wow, if Atari had released this version, we would have all sh@t our pants in amazement". My wife: "This isn't the real version?". Me: "No, this is a homebrew". W: "Show me the real one". So I did. Her response: "Wow, that's terrible". Pac Man and Defender are the two games that shattered the illusion of Atari greatness for me. I was at that same show as TrekMD with Tod Frye. He's a nice enough man, but I don't think he'll ever admit any wrong-doing. It's always: "Atari policy on black backgrounds" and "Limited time" and "2nd player took up all memory". All bad choices. I think the Atari community would be a lot more forgiving if he'd just say "I'm sorry, I made some poor choices. I was new, and didn't have good feedback". Boom. Forgiveness would be his. All they had to do was get a group of kids to play test some of the games as they were being developed. I would think most kids at the time would have steered the developers in the right direction as the games were coming along. I never owned Ms. Pac Man for 2600 back then. I moved on to other systems by the time it was released. I was amazed at how good Ms Pac Man and Jr. Pac Man are when I started collecting. If Pac Man had that same quality, I probably would not have moved on. Most of the GCC 2600 games are incredible. Too bad they came along after a lot of games had moved on. I know it's so easy to go negative. I'm sorry. But I'm just being honest. I bought Pac Man and I played it a lot. What else could I do? That $30 was a lot of money for me back then. But I never liked the game. It's completely devoid of the charm of the arcade version. Tod Frye can stick that vitamin block in his fruit hole.

A few of my favorites.

Man, I highly recommend either the Harmony cart, or Uno cart for 2600. You can play all of these homebrew games using those.

I've been delinquent in my trade posts. Sorry! The rarer Atari games are from a trade with nosweargamer. The PS2 games and cool little figure are from a trade with Atari Creep. The run-down SMS project and a Virtual Boy game are the only loot I got from a trip to the Cowlitz Gamers for Kids show. Thanks!

This website has some really great choices too. I've gotten a lot from here: https://www.techsupportalert.com/wpotw

28,150. I'm playing on the Flashback 9.

I guess I should expand my answer with a little story. My mom worked on Saturdays, so every Saturday morning, my Dad and I would do the weekly grocery shopping. This was the very early 80's. One store we usually went to (Waremart -- it was renamed "Cub Foods" and is now "Winco", so it still exists) had a single arcade machine by the checkouts -- Pac Man! If I was "good", my dad would usually hand over a few quarters while he went through the checkout. And boy did I love that Pac Man game. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed in the 2600 version. Just way too different than the arcade version. Everything, from sounds to colors was just off. So my favorite version has to be the arcade one.

I don't know why, but I was thinking about Sears this morning on my way to work. "Toughskins". Remember those? I was just thinking about how this is another wasted opportunity by Sears. The whole "Carhartt / Dickies" high end work clothes market should have been dominated by Sears and that "Toughskins" brand. Every kid and his mom knew that brand in 1970, and it would have been an easy sell to go up-market to adult work clothes with the right marketing.

I also had 2600 Pac Man. I knew it was bad (word of mouth) before I bought it. But I played it. I thought it was just OK. Better than nothing. But the bad part was that this was the first game that was kind of embarrassing to take over to friends houses to play. Before Pac Man, getting a new game was a big deal, and taking it over to play with friends was always great. But this one? It always ended up being a rip session on how they messed it up. I think for most of my peers, this game was the one that signified the end of the 2600, and maybe it was time to move on to a next-gen system (home computer, Colecovision, or 5200). Pac Man on the Atari 8-bit was the next big one for me, and that one did not disappoint. I know it didn't have the intermissions, but it was such a HUGE step up over the 2600 version, I thought it was the best.

Very interesting indeed. But let's be honest...if this had come to pass, Atari would have screwed up the Genesis. Cheap, cheap, cheap just wouldn't have worked. Genesis didn't really reach it's stride against Nintendo until the Tom Kalinske era, when they had Sonic and other games that really showed off the system, and their brilliant and risky marketing (Genesis does what Nintendon't, Blast processing, the Sega scream, etc). With Atari in charge, none of that would have happened, and Nintendo would have killed them.

I just wanted to share that I enjoyed this challenge so much, I went ahead and purchased the Super Mario Land series of 3 games. I got them from a Japanese seller. And look, I beat my high score on the first try.

VERY COOL! From the link: Sega also revealed that AtGames, the company behind 2017’s poorly received Sega Genesis Flashback, is no longer involved in its production. Instead, longtime collaborator M2 is handling the ports, having previously delivered high-quality conversions for the SEGA AGES series and SEGA 3D Classics Collection. The following 10 games were unveiled for the North American and European editions, with more to be announced over the coming months. Sonic the Hedgehog Ecco the Dolphin Castlevania: Bloodlines Space Harrier 2 Shining Force Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine ToeJam & Earl Comix Zone Altered Beast Gunstar Heroes

I'm sorry it took me so long to get a score in and spread the word. But that flooring project at home (it's done now) set me back a few weeks on the gaming front. Special thanks to RadioPoultry for posting the emulation guide. That was super helpful.

I've tried to get new people involved via the Atari ST Facebook group with a couple of posts. But I probably should have tried earlier.

I totally understand your point of view. But I can tell you, the Gotek upgrade is totally and easily reversible. You can put it back the way it was in 15 minutes with just a screwdriver. In my case, my floppy drive no longer worked. I've kept the broken drive so I can put it back if I ever need to (and I figure out how to fix it). It's also possible to use an old PC floppy drive instead, but they usually don't fit exactly right.

Those are the exact models I have too! It's too bad they didn't have the foresight to call it the 520 STFU. That would have been a mic drop. The secret of the Gotek drive is to buy one that's been pre-flashed for use on Atari or Amiga. Because flashing them yourself is a total PITA. If you get one pre-flashed, it's a pretty simple matter of taking some screws out, disconnecting two cables and re-assembling. Very easy. Although in the Amiga, you probably want to replace the leaky battery while you are in there.

Thank you! I love the Gotek drive. I have one in my Amiga too. Let me know if you need help upgrading at some point.

66800

48550 and a few pictures of my setup.