RickR

If you want Lunar Lander, buy it. And check out YouTube reviews for honest opinions. Yes, the SD card slot allows more games to be added.

As far as I know, they are homemade. It involves removing one axis pot and replacing the other with a radial potentiometer (from a 2600 paddle). I haven't tried it with Tempest, but I should! The best home version of Tempest is the one that comes free on the VCS using the classic controller (which has a dial). It's the arcade ROM.

I have one too, and it is awesome with any game that has side to side motion. Space Invaders, Galaxian are two that come to mind. It's a complete hoot to play those games with a paddle.

Thank you! No, I've never had one for myself, although my youngest kid had one. I never touched it. I *do* have a PS3, so this won't be too strange. I also have a whole stack of discs that I've found and kept over the years. 40 games, according to my spreadsheet. 🙂 Thanks for the response, I may contact you with more questions. Right now, I'm charging up some AA batteries. Do you know if I have to create an account or anything? Factory reset is a good idea?

Something very new to me! An XBOX 360. From a family friend: "Do you want this or should I take it to the dump?" Me: "Hell yes I want it". Can someone please help me with this? I have so many questions: What model of 360 is this? Should I factory reset it? The controllers shouldn't need wires, right? WTHeck is that weird plastic gismo off to the right? I assume it goes with some game.

Captain Pike had the party quarters.

Maybe they fit in sideways??? It sucks for sure.

We've been looking at smaller houses, and that is one urgent "want" on our list is one room for Rick's junk. It's going to be a tough transition when it ever happens, as I've got a lot of space in our current house (the kids moved out years ago).

I think so too, and that was my exact point. The 2600 had catalogs in every single game box, and they constantly updated and refreshed them. Think about the game box art on 2600 games. Those were full blown paintings! Did they have to do this? No! Most game companies didn't. But Atari did, and it made the whole experience more special. At some point in the Warner era, they lost this idea of doing more for no other reason than expanding the customer experience.

I do remember these, thanks for posting. But it's not quite the same as the 2600 catalogs. First of all, the 2600 catalogs were 50+ pages. Many games got a full page, with some getting two. 5200 catalogs seemed more style over substance. There should have been huge screen shots, the cartoon presentation, and more info given. For a system that seemed to be designed with "Big is better" mentality, they sure did skimp out on catalogs!

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

We absolutely deserved a 5200 catalog in this style. I can't tell you how many times I read every single page of these things and dreamed of playing every single game.

Sad. Atari got so much right, either by luck or good design, with the 2600 -- given how everything was new and undefined at the time. Yet with the 5200, they kind of tripped over their own feet in ignoring some of those ideas. Like simple controls (the 2600 had a huge advantage over the Intellivision in this department), sweet catalogs, and cartridge end labels. They reversed course and went back to the ideals with the 7800. For my own 5200 carts, I just used a basic label maker. It doesn't look as good as the ones shown above, but it works for me. 5200 is a beauty. Great design. It looks like it belongs in one of those audio cabinets with stereo equipment. It's too bad they skipped the end labels. It is interesting to note that the Colecovision did not make this same mistake.

From post #1 in this tread: The console is $129.99 with a CX-40+joystick and 10-in-1 cart. Additional joysticks are $29.99. The CX-30+ Paddles are $39.99 and comes bundled with a 4-in-1 cart. If I recall, shipping adds $12. It is possible the 2600+ will be available at retail locations, maybe even for less (or more).

Makes me wish I didn't already have a 5200 collection 😞 Great deal. I'll spread the word. Someone needs to grab this.

Uh oh! Thanks for bringing this up. Hopefully, it's easy to get a fix or replacement.

Good idea. I'm interested to see what you come up with!

The $80 Vectrex at the end took my breath away.

Last night, my wife and I went to a local pasta restaurant for my BD and had a really nice time. Dinner was great, and it was a calm and relaxing time for sure. I'm sorry, but I didn't get any pictures of that. Today for lunch, I went for my annual tradition of salad, personal pizza, and soda at a long-time Portland establishment called "Pietro's". Delish as always. I *did* get a picture of that.

GREAT write up and advice. You are a true asset and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.

The firmware update was simple. As you said, I just placed the file on the USB stick and followed the instructions. After that, the image files show up and load quickly. The system allows flags in the filenames to automatically set up port 1 joystick control. In fact, there are complete downloadable libraries that have this all set up already. This is to solve the annoyance of how some games use port 1 and others use port 2. That fix and the quick loading are a big improvements over a real C64.