RickR

30917 - I switched to a Kraft joystick. 

Who remembers the Winamp "Visualizer"?  I think they stole the idea!

31,298
I stuck with a Sega Genesis 6 Button
but I'm no greenween!!!
 

30917 - I switched to a Kraft joystick. 

Agree.  I know it's just a Rasp Pi, but someone else has done all the hard work and it comes with a cool little case.  One could easily use this as the engine for an arcade cabinet. 
 
Having set up a Rasp Pi emulation unit myself, I can tell you...for $60 if it's all set up for you...that's a bargain. 

For $59 that would save someone like me time and energy. Something I lack these days. ????

Looks great. 

Twas me!

I just came across this on Facebook, what do you think?? I personally think it is pretty cool. You could hang out in any room in your house and take a collection of retro games with or take it to anyone's house. Thoughts?
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retroengine-sigma-mini-console-media-player-cool#/

If you have the "Activision Anthology" for any system, you can give this a try.  It's basically a graphics demo.

I think it was kind of a joke involved in a lawsuit. I forget who came up with Venetian blinds, maybe Bob Whitehead? It was used in many Atari games (Chess is the one that comes to mind first, perhaps the score in Space Invaders). When the 4 Activision guys left Atari, they were advised not to take anything with them, but the Venetian blinds technique ended up in some of their games (legs in Stampede is what I remember). This may have been after the lawsuit though, I don't think there were any examples before that. It's very subtle in Stampede. When Atari sued Activision, apparently this was going to be brought up, and David Crane made the Venetian blinds Activision demo as a joke because they hadn't actually stolen any trade secrets from Atari.

I just received my gifts! Thanks for the game and the ninja turtles keychains! Cowabunga!????

The best part of this story is the marketing guy who pushed to not release it.  A few small changes would have made the game a lot better.  Black background, blue maze, for example.  And remove the eye on Pac-Man.  They do mention that a lot of other programmers thought it was a tremendous accomplishment on the 2600, and it is.  Especially when you consider it was Tod Frye's first game!  But that's the frustrating part....just a few small changes.....
 
One part I still don't understand is the lack of oversight at Atari.  It always seemed like the programmer didn't have to listen to any input from other developers or a supervisor.  The decisions they made went unchallenged.  I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate, but it seems to be implied in a lot of stories like this. 
 
This was a good read, and thanks for posting it. 

For my final episode of The Atari 7800 Game By Game Podcast, I asked for people to vote for their top 5 and bottom 5 official Atari 7800 games. I got more votes than expected and put the results in the two videos below.
As far as I know, this is the first time such lists have been created using several users input.
 
Thanks to everyone who voted here on the forums!!!
 
Some notes:
Votes were weighted when voters listed the games in order of preference. The videos show the games in order with honorable mentions, making these more like top ten lists. The "Best" video has an extra honorable since Xevious & Asteroids were tied. The #1 Best & Worst game won by a large margin. Impossible Mission got a lot of "Worst" votes due to the impossible bug in the US version. Sport Games and Flight Simulators really suffered in the votes. The two sports games that got the most "Best" votes included Ninja Golf (Ranked #12) and One on One Basketball (Ranked #19). The only flight simulator to get "Best" votes was Ace of Aces (Ranked #28) Games that got both "Best" & "Worst" votes: Ace of Aces, Double Dragon, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Impossible Mission, Kung Fu Master, Midnight Mutants, Motor Psycho, One on One Basketball and Xenophobe The Top 5 7800 Games:

 
The Bottom 5 7800 Games:

 

Get thyself to the AtariAge store post-haste and get that Atari 7800 homebrew called Pac-Man Collection!, which contains the Pac-Man Plus you're looking for. Plus, it's an awesome cart all around. Has an improved version of Ms. Pac-Man as well as Pac-Man, Hangly Man (an old bootleg), Ms. Pac-Attack, and one or two others, and a "Plus" variation of every game. (meaning you can play "Hangly Man Plus," which never actually existed before!)

If you have the "Activision Anthology" for any system, you can give this a try.  It's basically a graphics demo.

It's an Activision prototype. I think it was supposed to just be a demo of some kind of graphical feature. More info:
 
http://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=2701

M-O-O-N, that spells Welcome! 

Not game related, but I did find this at a goodwill for $4.99! I thought ithat was cool. Found them selling on ebay for $45 shipped. It even has the key!
 

I do have Tron 2.0 Killer App!  I also have a copy of Tron 2.0 for PC which is pretty amazing too.

Wrapped (not very well, my elf was not feeling well, so my poor wrapping skills are on full display) & being put on the sleigh this morning.
 

TI has some really great games, and they are pretty reasonably priced. 

I've got an extra TI when you are ready.  We'll show her who's the TI master! 

I've got an extra TI when you are ready.  We'll show her who's the TI master! 

I like Tron stuff to Rowsdower
 

 
If you dont already have this game for the gameboy advance, its pretty awesome.  has the arcade tron game in it and Discs of Tron