Starpath Supercharger seems kind of cool....

[MaximumRD]

Starpath Supercharger for 2600.

 

Anyone have one? I don't but hope to someday just for collecting purposes more then anything, will have to wait though until things improve but always found the concept intriguing. So my understanding is the device plugs in like a cartridge and has built in memory (and maybe some other bits) to play more advanced games on Atari 2600 compatible systems? The original games came on cassette I know but various sources has converted them to mp3 so any mp3 playback device could be used instead.

 

I even have most of the games that were converted back to ROM format which I use on my Harmony Cart and yeah the games are pretty impressive, I played Frogger and could not believe the difference! I guess between my Harmony and converted roms there really is not much reason to own an original Super Charger other than the cool factor, well I think it's cool, that's why we love this stuff right? , what you see in this picture is about the only thing I have relating to the device, Stella Gets a new Brain v2.0, these are a collection of the Starpath compatible games on a CD in MP3 format, this was included with something I bought off Atariage a few years back I think, so when/if I do ever get one I can either use a CD player or transfer the MP3 from it and use an MP3 player to load the games.

 

Furthermore there was a collection called Worship the Woodgrain (4 cd's I think) that was a large collection of games converted to audio, over half of which could be played directly through the Supercharger and the other half IF you did some kind of mod to the Supercharger. Well, that is all I know about it through some quick searching BUT please if any of you guys actually own one feel free to chime in, correct anything I have stated as I am sure I am either missing some info or made some errors. Also, anything you like to add as far as what you think about the device, do you think it is worthwhile having and any other relevant thoughts thanks. 

 

 

[Rowsdower70]

I had one as a kid and loved it!   Naturally, as a D&D nerd growing up...Dragonstomper was WAY ahead of its time and right up my alley.  

 

I've mentioned in chat of my dream of someday running a Supercharger on my System Changer through my Intellivoice, through my Intellivision II.   

 

I know you can load the games via MP3.

[VectorGamer]

I had one BITD and I loved it. Frogger and Commie Mutants were my favorites. Since I have a Harmony cart I have no use for it - although it's moot since someone stole mine.

[Atari Adventure Square]

First game I heard about being used with SC was Frogger.

And Commie Mutants was one I wish I had played.

Even at the risk of facing the commitee. Or being blacklisted.

 

Yeah, Supercharger upped the capabilities of the cool little VCS but was very hard to find around here (Eastern Canada).

Too young for mail-orders and easily impressed by current 4-bit cart powers so it never came to be.

[VectorGamer]

I will add this...

 

At a time when you were getting ripped off for buying a crappy game like Pac-Man for the 2600 the Supercharger gave you your money's worth. When you played a Supercharger game you could feel, see and hear a more advanced game than what was the status quo for the 2600 at that time.

 

I just read an issue of Electronic Games from 1982 that reviewed the Supercharger and they said games only costed $15. What a bargain.

 

I remember having Phaser Patrol (of course since it's the pack-in), Commie Mutants, Frogger and Mindmaster. I recall Fireball and Suicide Mission but they may have been the demoes included with the other games.

[RickR]

I've got one and have loved it for 30 years.

[Arenafoot]

I was going to get one - found a great deal online ($24.99). But they sold it recently so I'm waiting for them to get another back in stock.

[Yo-Yo]

I've never used a Supercharger but I always liked the idea of it. And that you could get those CD/MP3 compilations. I thought the games looked closer to the NES or at least Coleco than some of the regular 2600 games that were out at that time.

[Rowsdower70]

The Frogger port blows my mind to this day.  It just makes the 2600 feel like a whole new machine.

[AtariBrian]

Get one they are awesome, I only have a few tapes (never tried them) I load everything off of cd, works great.  The best part is showing your friends the tapes!

[StormSurge]

I never knew this existed until it came up on the 2600 GBG podcast. I still haven't played any of the games yet, but those will be ther first ones I check out, if/when I get a Harmony cart.

[fergojisan]

I love the Supercharger. I don't use it as much now since you can play the roms in Stella. The games I've played so far are pretty great!

[Sky7]

I have always wondered why the Supercharger was not more successful? The games do look and play great considering they are running on a 2600. I know a majority of the cartridges were published by Atari. Just wondering why the third party publishers didn't take advantage. 

 

-S

[nosweargamer]

I have always wondered why the Supercharger was not more successful? The games do look and play great considering they are running on a 2600. I know a majority of the cartridges were published by Atari. Just wondering why the third party publishers didn't take advantage. 

 

-S

 

The General Public hates add-on when it comes to game systems. They want simple and don't see the need to pay more to play games on system they already spent a lot of money on and already has a bunch of games available that doesn't need an add on.

 

From the Sega 32x to the NES Aladdin Deck Enhancer, they just don't succeed in the long run. And publishers want to target as big as an audience possible, so the go with the main system more times than not. Even the Sega CD, which was one of the most successful add-ons, failed to reach 10% of the user base of the Sega Genesis. And remember when Nintendo made the Expansion Pak for the N64? The basically gave them away with copies of DK64 and some systems to get users to adopt them. And even then, most N64 games did not take advantage of it.

 

The gamer geek in me really likes add-ons, but for practical economics it seems to always fail in gaming. 

[RickR]

What he said.  Plus, Supercharger was released right before the big crash started.  I bought mine new on clearance sale! 

[Rowsdower70]

I think it was a year or two late to the party, and was in limited release.   If it had a few years to get some momentum, I think it could have been a big deal.

[Dan Iacovelli]

I got my supercharger from 4jays and used it when I got the stella CD(which came the day after I got the supercharger)

still have both but don't use it since the harmony cart came out now just waiting for the 7800 version of harmony.

[MaximumRD]

Funny how the internet preserves everything, had not thought about this in ages, then on another forum someone posted that pic of me in the first post holding the Stella Gets a New Brain CD, of course I Google image search Stella Gets a New Brain and find my image then click that just to return full circle back HERE lol. 

From a blog entry I did a couple years ago about the Starpath Supercharger, or rather the Blog entry Justin made from this original post, I never did get my own Starpath supercharger.  Now I kind of want one again, sure I can play most games on my Harmony Cart but would be cool to load as intended. 

The original blog HERE : http://www.atari.io/starpath-supercharger-atari-2600/

[TrekMD]

Talk about going full circle!   I remember when I first saw the SuperCharger years ago and I knew I had to have it.  It is a great piece of hardware for the 2600 and I really enjoyed the games on it.  The Frogger version for it is still one of my favorites to play.  It wasn't until last year, though, that I managed to finish my collection.  I was missing Party Mix and Sword of Saros and I finally got them. 

[Starbuck66]

Saw one of these at Destiny Games in Detroit for 50 bucks... I really had to restrain myself to not pick it up!

 

With the Harmony able to play the games though it just wasn’t a good buy for me... 10 bucks more and I can pick up a Harmony which can do so much more.

[DegasElite]

I bought a SuperCharger from V61 back in the day. Back then, it was about $29.95, I believe. That was about twenty years ago. I still have it and it works beautifully. I would like to get a Harmony cartridge as well, but it is too cost-prohibitive for me at this time. Maybe, I will do that in the future, but I am pleased with the SuperCharger and the fact that I have the Stella Gets a New Brain CD. If you can find a copy of that CD and a SuperCharger, I would say get it. Otherwise, you could try to get the ROMs converted to Harmony-compatible binaries. But, I would still love to play my CD on the original hardware, because I can. Thanks for letting me share.

[CrossBow]

I would like to have a Supercharger cart...not really for collecting, but for use as part of my suite of games and items I use for compatibility testing when working on 7800s. I saw one at PRGE for about $35 but passed on it and I likely shouldn't have.

The Harmony does have versions of the starpath games that have been combined to work on that cart. But then you can do the same with the Unocart as well and I think the Uno is still a tad cheaper overall. It can't play any of the advance homebrews that are using additional hardware, but it can certainly play all of the released titles and protos that are out there.

 

 

[Mr SQL]

The SuperCharger was a tremendously powerful device capable of putting a file system onto a tape drive like the ADAM and it's potential never fully unlocked and explored - the SuperCharger could have enabled 1.5 MB Tape games, it beat Microsoft and Apple to the punch (but not Xerox) with it's sleek GUI OS with starfield screen savers and a help system.

I've been working on something like RS-DOS for the SuperCharger (SuperCharger Disk Extended BASIC) so that operating systems and and disk based application suites can be built for the Atari 2600 and serious productivity applications even.

It's already in BETA, and I have a example here of an Atari 2600 Operating System demo with a suite of four delightful applications for SillyVenture2020 🙂 

Give this serious application suite a try

The Atari is always tremendous fun for games, but give this serious OS and it's application suite a try and see the OS comparison graph - how does the SillyVenture operating system stack up against an OS running on your phone or your Desktop, besides the SillyVenture OS?

It's been a lot of fun working on this interesting project with awesome help from Al_Nafuur, Batari, Dirty Hairy, Jetsetilly, Alex79, Eric Ball and Eckhard Stolberg and many other great programmers at AtariAge!

Here is a pic of the Disk BASIC programming Manual I am updating shown on my Atari running on the PlusCart - it's backward compatible with Flashback BASIC:

The PlusCart viewer technology looks a lot like the TRS-80 Color Computer and is fantastic for reading the BASIC documentation and part of the fun! 🙂

[TrekMD]

That is cool.  I love the Supercharger.  🙂  Wrote an article about it for The Retro Gaming Times and an expanded one for Old School Gamer.  

[HDN]

If I had more money to spend I'd definitely get a SC and some audio files off the internet.