RickR

YES!  And it is SPECTACULAR.  You'll look at the Intellivision version with disdain once you try it.  Take THAT George Pimple-ton. 

The black gunk is conductive grease that dries up and becomes non conductive over time. 

Good job StormSurge!!  I knew you could.  And nice pictures. 
 
I don't know if you have "AstroBlast", but if you do, try that one with paddles. 

YES!  And it is SPECTACULAR.  You'll look at the Intellivision version with disdain once you try it.  Take THAT George Pimple-ton. 

Glad I could help you find this cool, little community!

The black gunk is conductive grease that dries up and becomes non conductive over time. 

You can play AstroBlast with paddles?!

Happy Atari Day! Justin's work inspired me to make some more Atari animated gifs, of which there are far too few on the internet.
 
P.S. Cool photos, Storm! How are the paddles doing now?
 
 
 

Intense!

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. 

Ah, so those are the normal sprites from the game?  I got fooled. 

That Kool Aid Man easter egg is pretty neat.  But what do the "K" and "W" mean?

Recently I showed an Easter Egg for the Atari 2600 version of Kool-Aid Man and reviewed the games Commando (NES) and Crypts of Chaos (Atari 2600)

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. 

Intense!

There are many spectacular paddle games to try.  And it's such a unique control that doesn't emulate well, it is totally worth playing them on real hardware.  Good luck with your repairs, and I'm here if you need any tips. 

Our friends at The Retroist posted this on their blog this morning in celebration of Atari Day:
 
Happy Atari Day! Enjoy MTV's Exclusive Pole Position TV Commercial! http://www.retroist.com/2015/09/26/atari-day-enjoy-mtv-pole-position/
 
 

Let's hope they aren't. It's a cool idea and I want to root for these guys. Seems like they have no idea what they're doing though

I've never really said this publicly before, for the sake of avoiding unnecessary flattery, but No Swear Gamer is someone I've listened to and held in very high regard for many years. I was really happy to see him take a leading role in this community. I don't know him personally but feel like I know him through his podcasts and probably listen to him as much as anyone else. Phil has always struck me as a very humble, very genuine person. He gives opinions based on fact not hype (in my opinion this is what John Lester / Gamester81 does) and Phil has been very fair in his approach I think. To see him share some of his own trepidations about the Retro VGS make me feel a little bit more at ease with mine. I don't want to unfairly hate on something or be overly critical, yet that's how I felt about myself. Really until just now. To see Phil No Swear Gamer say "This is getting ugly" makes me feel like I'm not alone in thinking the same. And I think that's an ominous sign for Retro VGS. Just my 2c.

There are many spectacular paddle games to try.  And it's such a unique control that doesn't emulate well, it is totally worth playing them on real hardware.  Good luck with your repairs, and I'm here if you need any tips. 

Happy Atari Day to you all! I'm hoping to take my paddle repairs today and then introduce my daughter to Kaboom! and Circus Atari.

I'm going play realsports baseball on the 7800 in honor of atari day and cubs going to postseason

Happy Atari Day guys! I'll have to check out that crypts of chaos review, I'm still on 7800 ace of aces and mean 18