2600 Connection Issue #93 Now Available
A new issue of the 2600 Connection newsletter is now available. Articles in the May/June 2008 Issue (#93) include:
* Interview with Bruce de Graaf
* Toyshop Trouble Easter Egg
* Spotlight on Homebrews – Gingerbread Man, Stella's Stocking
* Rare Ware – Hot Shot Multicart
* Blue Print Prototype Review
* Letters
* News & Notes
* Classified Ads
The 2600 Connection is a printed newsletter published bimonthly. To learn how to purchase this issue or buy a subscription, please visit the 2600 Connection website.
Link: http://2600connection.atari.org/
From: http://www.atariage.com/
New Video Game Auction Site
Launched a month ago, ChaseTheChuckwagon.com is a brand new auction alternative for buying and selling classic video games, arcade games, pinball machines, vintage computers and electronic handheld games. It differs from larger auction sites in that there are no insertion fees, lower selling percentages, and lower cost listing enhancements. There are no charges for adding photos and you can choose your auction start and ending date and time at no charge. It was created by a collector for collectors. If you are looking for an alternative to eBay, then jump on The Chuckwagon bandwagon.
Link: http://www.chasethechuckwagon.com/
From: http://www.atariage.com/
Is the Golden Age of Gaming a myth?
Ryan Lambie of Den of Geek writes an interesting article about Computer Game nostalgia and tackles the myth about the supposed "Golden Age of Gaming":
It’s easy to look back over the games of the past with rose-tinted glasses, but the fact is at least 90 per cent of them were utter rubbish. For every classic Spectrum game such as Renegade or Jetset Willy or whatever, there were at least ten Hunchback equivalents. And that goes for every gaming platform or computer from then until the present day, not just the Spectrum.
Harsh but fair? Why not let him know what you think!
Link: http://www.denofgeek.com/captainsblog/40221/the_ryan_lambie_column_...
From: http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/
Christos releases STOT intro
Christos writes: 11 days before Outline 08 STOT would like to inform you about our activities there. And for a scene party what better way than a small intro?
Link: http://files.dhs.nu/files_demo/stotro.zip
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
Super Genintari
This 4-in-1 Atari 2600/NES/Genesis/Super NES combo system actually began its life sometime circa early 2002, and at the time it only consisted of a Sega Genesis/32X and Super NES. Soon after accidentally destroying the 32X (no big loss) and moving to the smaller Genesis 3 board, I decided to throw an NES into the mix, making it a 3-in-1 system. It went through a few redesigns before I finally chose to go all out and add the Atari as well since i'd already spent so much time on it. I worked on it on and off for several years (taking sanity breaks for several months at a time) and finally have a finished machine to show you! This is to date the most involved and time-consuming project I've ever worked on, and I'm happy to finally call it done.
The whole box measures about 14"x10"x5" and is made entirely of transparent bronze acrylic, formed and shaped on a homemade strip heater. All of the openings for the buttons, cartridges and controller ports were carefully cut with a cordless Dremel. The face buttons are clear acrylic domes with each system's logo epoxy glued in place and back-lit with orange LEDs when pressed. The entire system is incredibly easy to hook up, consisting of only one standard power cord and one A/V cable. It's a little on the large size considering the room needed for all the boards, cartridge connectors and built-in transformer, and there's also the fact that I refused to use clone systems since I wanted 100% compatibility and faithful reproduction. (No Yobos, Super Joys, etc.)
The basic idea of how this thing is wired is actually pretty simple, yet extremely tedious in practice. The system select buttons are hooked up to one of those little A/V selector switch boxes you can pick up from gamestop, but it re-routs the voltage through the unused s-video connectors, as well as the A/V signals through the RCA ports. This can be done electronically but I liked the clunky mechanical feel of the switch box. Relocating the cartridge connectors was probably the most difficult part, what with the literally hundreds of solder connections that had to be made.
Unfortunately, most of my progress shots were lost over the years due to the fact that they were taken with 5+ different cameras and moved from hard drive to hard drive until they were either misplaced or accidentally erased. But please, enjoy the following images below and check out the demonstration video on YouTube!
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFGQnU4TaYU
From: http://www.stupidfingers.com/projects/sg/
Shareholder sues Atari over sale price
Atari Inc., the target of a buyout offer by majority investor Infogrames Entertainment SA, was sued by a shareholder who claims the proposed $11 million price for the rest of the company is "financially unfair."
Directors at Atari and Infogrames failed to evaluate the transaction and engage in an auction with third parties, shareholder Christian M. Stanley said in a complaint filed April 18 in Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington. Stanley, in the lawsuit, seeks class-action status to represent all Atari shareholders and a court order barring the deal.
"The proposed transaction lacks any of the fundamental hallmarks of fairness," lawyers for Stanley said in the complaint. "Approval of the proposed transaction is a foregone conclusion. The company's minority shareholders thus will have no voice whatsoever in approving or rejecting the proposed transaction."
Infogrames, which owns about 51 percent of Atari, offered last month to buy the other 49 percent for $1.68 a share. Atari, which has reported one profitable quarter in the past three years, said in November it would stop producing new video games to focus on distribution.
Infogrames, Europe's third-largest video-game publisher, under previous management sold Atari's assets to lower its own debt, reducing Atari's ability to create new games and build sales.
Directors of Lyon, France-based Infogrames should have structured the deal in a "fair and non-coercive" manner, allowing Atari shareholders to consider the proposal without threat of "economic retaliation or intimidation," Stanley said in the complaint.
Link: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/B...
P2AM -- PS/2 mouse for your 16-bit Atari/Amiga
Dear Atari users,
once again, we have some nice stuff for our beloved machines. We've got tired by fixing old Atari mices, "spamming" recent Atari dealers / hardware makers if they really are out of stock with Atari mices and/or converters for connecting some recent (PS/2, USB) ones.
Fortunately (for you ;) we have made a decision to produce own batch of hardware. What is this all about? Yes, we're going to produce completely new batch of PS/2 adapters for every Atari 16-bit computer! You can use any PS/2 mouse and connect it to your Atari. No need for soldering or changing the original case -- everything fits into nice little box connected by thin cable directly to your mouse port.
In case you already owns our previous piece of hardware -- SatanDisk -- you're aware of the fact we mean it seriously, you can count on quality, good support and communication and mainly -- damn fair prize! One PS/2 converter (we call it P2AM -- as PS/2 to Atari Mouse) will cost you only 15 Euros! Compare that prize to PeST or any other PS/2 converter...
But we're not done! Not only you can use this device for your Atari but in case you own also our enemy from the past (read: Amiga ;) you can use it here, too!
And finally, you can ofcourse buy (nearly) any of that fancy USB->PS/2 converters and connect USB mouse to your Atari in this way!
Since the SatanDisk production we gained also a lot of experiences and got quite a feedback from you, users, we've completely remade our "business websystem", you're going to be damn surprised how friendly and professional looking is now ;)
One last note: there wont be pre-order phase. So please take a very good look, when is the deadline for payment shipping. After this date we can't guarantee you will be able to buy anything. And of course, please, tell all your Atari/Amiga friends about this, you wouldn't believe how very late we received some requests for SatanDisk availability... be careful this time! ;)
Link: http://p2am.umpc.sk/
2600 Cabbage Patch Kids Proto Found and Released!
Another long-lost unreleased prototype has now seen the light of day, thanks to a discovery by Alex Handy at a flea market in California. Alex located a cache of old EPROMs, later realizing he had come across a copy of Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park for the Atari 2600, a title released for the ColecoVision but which never saw the light of day on the 2600. With the help of long-time Atari enthusiast Joe Grand, all of Alex's finds were dumped. The bulk of the dumps were ColecoVision related, but the Cabbage Patch game for the 2600 turned out to be the find of a lifetime for Atari fans. Alex quickly posted all of the dumped binaries on his blog, including 10 different versions of the Cabbage Patch game.
As luck would have it, Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park is an impressive game, comparable in quality to many modern homebrew games. Cabbage Patch Kids is a side-scrolling game, similar to Pitfall! in this regard. The game consists of various screens that have different obstacles that must be overcome in order to proceed to the next screen. These include water-filled pits, bouncing balls, floating platforms, bees, and fires. You must complete ten screens on each level before a timer runs out. While traversing the screens you can also use trampolines to collect objects hidden in the trees for additional points.
Our thanks go out to Alex Handy for graciously sharing all of his impressive flea market haul with the classic gaming community. For more details about Alex's flea market finds, please visit his blog. You can grab the "Final" version of the game and view some screenshots in our database here. For detailed reviews of each of the 10 versions of Cabbage Patch Kids that were dumped, please visit AtariProtos.com. You can discuss Cabbage Patch Kids and Alex's other discoveries with Alex (whose alias is VonGuard") and other AtariAge members in our Prototypes Forum.
Link: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=2767
From: http://www.atariage.com/
DASM Version 2.20.11 Released
A new release of the DASM Macro Assembler, an important tool in developing Atari 2600 homebrews, has been released. DASM is a versatile macro assembler that supports several 8-bit microprocessors, including the Atari 2600's 6507 CPU. Andrew Davie has maintained DASM for the past several years, but has now handed over the reigns to Peter Froehlich, who's already setup a new DASM homepage and project page at SourceForge. This new version of DASM fixes several issues with the previous release (from 2004) and paves the way for more active development of the assembler.
Link: http://dasm-dillon.sourceforge.net/
From: http://www.atariage.com/
M68K Releases for MiNT
Mint OSBernd Mueller announced on usenet:
CVS 1.11.22 I've build a newer version of cvs ( 1.11.22 which is the latest gnu cvs ).
less 418 I've build a newer version of less ( 418 which is the latest gnu less ).
They are for m68k-atari-mint and you can download them as follows:
Link: http://ragnars-world.homelinux.org/atari/
From: http://www.atari-users.net/
