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Which model of the Atari VCS/2600 do people usually prefer ?


MaximumRD

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37 minutes ago, TrekMD said:

I have the 2600 adapter for the 5200.  I've been thinking of getting the System Changer for the Intellivision but they are going for quite a few $$$.

I purchased my 5200 VCS adapter NIB from Best Electronics several years ago, when Brad still had ample inventory. I’ve also had my System Changer for several years (eBay purchase). My ColecoVision and Expansion Module have been in my collection for about 2 years now. 

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11 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

I purchased my 5200 VCS adapter NIB from Best Electronics several years ago, when Brad still had ample inventory. I’ve also had my System Changer for several years (eBay purchase). My ColecoVision and Expansion Module have been in my collection for about 2 years now. 

I've had them all as well.  I sold off the Colecovision adapter and the Intellivision one too, but have kept the 5200 version.  My plan was to sell off all my Coleco hardware and just use the Phoenix, so that's been ok.  Similar plan for Intellivision -- sell off the INTV 2 and accessories and just keep the old Tele-Games version.  But I ended up keeping the Intv2 itself because it only has one working controller and franky, I like it better due to the small size. 

Another Colecovision came into my possession -- given to me because it is "broken".  It has a composite mod, and the colors on screen kind of have a shifting rainbow effect from left to right.  I figure maybe the wiring on the mod has a short, or just to replace the mod board.  But I haven't had time to investigate that one.  One of these days I'll make a post about it and I'm sure @CrossBow will know exactly what to do to fix it.

Supercharger - I'm one of those weirdos that bought it when it was new!  I don't have the box though.  But it still works great.  I have always been amazed at the level of upgrade the Supercharger brought to the 2600.  Supercharger "Frogger" is a masterpiece. 

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5 minutes ago, RickR said:

Supercharger - I'm one of those weirdos that bought it when it was new!  I don't have the box though.  But it still works great.  I have always been amazed at the level of upgrade the Supercharger brought to the 2600.  Supercharger "Frogger" is a masterpiece. 

I don’t remember when I purchased my Supercharger, but it was NIB. Frogger is excellent. Whenever we play Atari, my wife prefers this version of Frogger.

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2 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

I don’t remember when I purchased my Supercharger, but it was NIB. Frogger is excellent. Whenever we play Atari, my wife prefers this version of Frogger.

And I can't remember which multi-cart solution does it, but one of them (let's assume Harmony) actually does the Supercharger loading bars and sounds when loading the ROMS, albeit at a very fast speed.  I love that!  It built a lot of anticipation to see and hear that as the games loaded off tape. 

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1 hour ago, RickR said:

And I can't remember which multi-cart solution does it, but one of them (let's assume Harmony) actually does the Supercharger loading bars and sounds when loading the ROMS, albeit at a very fast speed.  I love that!  It built a lot of anticipation to see and hear that as the games loaded off tape. 

Just tested my multicarts. The laoding bars/sounds appear on the 2600 UNO cart and the Pluscart. They didn't show up on my Harmony, so I tried copying the ROMs from the UNO (just to make sure it wasn't something specific to the ROMs), but the bars/sounds still don't show. However, the games themselves run just as expected.

Btw, the Pluscart is one cool piece of tech. 10 year old me never expected to play Atari games on-line, complete with leaderboards.👍

IMG_1559.jpg

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I mail ordered my SuperCharger all the way back then when I saw images of Frogger.  I can't remember in what magazine I saw it advertised, but I knew I had to get it.  As soon as I got it, I started ordering more games because of how impressed I was with Frogger and Phaser Patrol.  The games were  cheap, so it was easy to get them.  So, I ended up getting pretty much all the games available, including the last two that only available to order by mail and had no box or even sleeve for the cassette cases. 

🖖 Going to the final frontier, gaming...

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1 minute ago, TrekMD said:

I mail ordered my SuperCharger all the way back then when I saw images of Frogger.  I can't remember in what magazine I saw it advertised, but I knew I had to get it.  As soon as I got it, I started ordering more games because of how impressed I was with Frogger and Phaser Patrol.  The games were  cheap, so it was easy to get them.  So, I ended up getting pretty much all the games available, including the last two that only available to order by mail and had no box or even sleeve for the cassette cases. 

SAME HERE!  I got the supercharger at a store (Stereo Superstore at Mall 205) and they had 5 games.  The rest (including Something Island and DragonStompter?) were mail order. 

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2 minutes ago, RickR said:

 The rest (including Something Island and DragonStompter?) were mail order. 

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are the ones you could mail order that were artless and boxless..  There are now sleeves for those cassettes and box art as well that has been created. 

 

Here's the cassette case art that is fan created for both...

SurvivalIslandCase.png.9201a3bc881081eb47e2d2003eda0c9d.png

SwordofSarosCase.png.de8ad6b8f5320fef858b70ffd8ffc4e7.png

Here's artwork that was discovered for the cassette case for Sworth of Saros that appears to have been made by Starpath...

SwordofSarosCase(Original).jpg.692ba9a6488a9a6ff3ad2341222ab4c6.jpg

And here are the boxes.  Unfortunately, these were made in limited numbers and are not available anymore.SwordofSarosSurvivalIslandBoxes.jpg.d9c4e691c903df788e82b981e42737d4.jpg

🖖 Going to the final frontier, gaming...

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16 minutes ago, TrekMD said:

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are the ones you could mail order that were artless and boxless..  There are now sleeves for those cassettes and box art as well that has been created. 

 

Here's the cassette case art that is fan created for both...

SurvivalIslandCase.png.9201a3bc881081eb47e2d2003eda0c9d.png

SwordofSarosCase.png.de8ad6b8f5320fef858b70ffd8ffc4e7.png

Here's artwork that was discovered for the cassette case for Sworth of Saros that appears to have been made by Starpath...

SwordofSarosCase(Original).jpg.692ba9a6488a9a6ff3ad2341222ab4c6.jpg

And here are the boxes.  Unfortunately, these were made in limited numbers and are not available anymore.SwordofSarosSurvivalIslandBoxes.jpg.d9c4e691c903df788e82b981e42737d4.jpg

Ohh…I’d love to have the boxes. Mine are just in their cases. 

IMG_1564.jpeg

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48 minutes ago, TrekMD said:

I don't have the boxes either.  Those are from a post in Atari Age.  I've tried to see if more could be made but, no such luck.  I wonder if Marc would be willing to make them.  I've never asked him.  I have many images...  🙂

SurvivalIslandBox(1).jpg.622310c1c20839035ea7a1fe77d73a82.jpg

SurvivalIslandBox(2).jpg.475a7980eef168352a4259888af7b36f.jpg

SurvivalIslandBox.gif.f430f07bc6e8e2a0cc8fd0c06461576e.gif

SwordofSarosBox(1).jpg.e8cf5ab20032c04f4b955b3fc5807744.jpg

SwordofSarosBox(2).jpg.b1ec7201af97c2abc30ba1a0ea26961c.jpg

SwordofSarosBox.gif.3cb59a67ae12a21d9f19c460b4673ae5.gif

Definitely worth asking. However I don’t know if there are enough of us looking for these boxes, to make it worth his time. 
 

The boxes and labels look great. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Edited by sramirez2008
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21 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

Definitely worth asking. However I don’t know if there are enough of us looking for these boxes, to make it worth his time.

Well, he does make the box for Sweat: The Decathlon Game and that doesn't even have a tape!  So, maybe he'll be willing. 

Sweat-TheDecathlonGame.jpg.b93df2f182551b5b6dca0e127e38ae72.jpg

21 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

The boxes and labels look great. Thanks for sharing the pics.

You're welcome!  I've been saving them hoping someone makes the boxes again!  🙂

Edited by TrekMD

🖖 Going to the final frontier, gaming...

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On 9/30/2023 at 9:39 AM, RickR said:

I've had them all as well.  I sold off the Colecovision adapter and the Intellivision one too, but have kept the 5200 version.  My plan was to sell off all my Coleco hardware and just use the Phoenix, so that's been ok.  Similar plan for Intellivision -- sell off the INTV 2 and accessories and just keep the old Tele-Games version.  But I ended up keeping the Intv2 itself because it only has one working controller and franky, I like it better due to the small size. 

Another Colecovision came into my possession -- given to me because it is "broken".  It has a composite mod, and the colors on screen kind of have a shifting rainbow effect from left to right.  I figure maybe the wiring on the mod has a short, or just to replace the mod board.  But I haven't had time to investigate that one.  One of these days I'll make a post about it and I'm sure @CrossBow will know exactly what to do to fix it.

Supercharger - I'm one of those weirdos that bought it when it was new!  I don't have the box though.  But it still works great.  I have always been amazed at the level of upgrade the Supercharger brought to the 2600.  Supercharger "Frogger" is a masterpiece. 

Actually rainbow shifting you see in the whites and text...

is unfortunately just how the composite output comes out on the CV. On good quality TVs you can even make out some of this rainbow banding through the RF output on the whites although not as pronounced. 

Crayon King is kinda working on his own CV video upgrade setup that would provide RGB but also provide a new composite and s-video outputs too. If it comes out looking nearly as good as his other kits, it will be the one I'm likely to stock to have on hand for those that want composite and s-video even if they don't want or need the RGB aspect of it.

But, that said, his kit working the way it does, would also mean that the 2600 expansion module 1 would NOT come through the new AV upgrade. So you would lose that function unless the RF were left in place to handle that still.

 

See what I'm up to over at the Ivory Tower Collections: http://www.youtube.com/ivorytowercollections

 

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On 9/30/2023 at 11:23 AM, sramirez2008 said:

Just tested my multicarts. The laoding bars/sounds appear on the 2600 UNO cart and the Pluscart. They didn't show up on my Harmony, so I tried copying the ROMs from the UNO (just to make sure it wasn't something specific to the ROMs), but the bars/sounds still don't show. However, the games themselves run just as expected.

Btw, the Pluscart is one cool piece of tech. 10 year old me never expected to play Atari games on-line, complete with leaderboards.👍

IMG_1559.jpg

The loading bars are present on the SC games because that part of the emulated tape loader was added to the Uno and Pluscart. But Fred didn't see a point to them so he opted to leave that loader screen out when loading up SC games on the Harmony flash carts. 

That said, the Unocarts do have issues with multi-tape/load games. Survival Island for instance will basically lock up when you get to the island. New FW exists for the Uno that fixes this, but I use the newer FW that looks similar to the Pluscart and that hasn't been updated as yet.

 

See what I'm up to over at the Ivory Tower Collections: http://www.youtube.com/ivorytowercollections

 

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I have three different versions of the 2600: an original heavy-sixer, a short rainbow Junior, and a Sears Video Arcade II

I try to cycle through all three to make sure they get even usage, but the Sears is my favorite for a couple of reasons:  it has a very nice RF output (especially compared to the Jr.) and the controller ports are on the front, making them a bit easy to swap out.

SearsII.jpg

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