>I still HAVE my ataris, the 2600 and..was there a 2400? i swear i have one of the
Here in the US there was the 2600 (originally called the VCS) with 6 switches on the front and woodgrain trim. Then they went to a 4 switch model, moving the difficulty switches to the back, then there was an all black 4 switch model. A few years later they released the 2600 Jr. It was a sort of flat wedge shape a little bigger than a video tape with the cartridge slot in the center. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?
>first ones. Haven't pulled it out in years but still got all my games. Most of them
Me too. Plus I ended up with all my grandparents' games after they passed away.
>like star wars are lame but you gotta love it! My paddles don't work and neither
Uness it's a broken wire, the paddles should be easy to fix. Take them apart (take out the screws in the underside) and spray the pots (the round guts) with some cleaner/degreaser spray from Radio Shack. You could probably also use some of their TV Tuner and contact cleaner, but one thing I read said there might be an issue of 'plastic rot'. Never had that problem personally. Spray them so that the spray actually gets inside to the works of the pots, then twist the knobs back and forth to clean the contacts. If it's too hard to get to the pots, I believe you can remove them by pulling off the knobs and then taking off the nut that holds them in the plastic case. (been a while since i took mine apart). The same cleaner spray would probably help if the buttons don't register. Test before putting everything back together and repeat if necessary.
If that doesn't work, you can probably find someone or somewhere to buy a working set from on the net for a few bucks.
>does one of my joysticks..i took it apart and managed to get it halfway
Standard Atari joysticks were notoriously fragile. What would usually happen with mine is that the little metal bubble switches would crack, or move off the contacts. I'd just cut the sticky plastic over them and use a piece of clear sealing tape. It's ultra sticky and works pretty good. You can find tons of joysticks for sale on the net too. Wico joysticks are good and built to last (Wico made arcade controllers).
>operational. But the simplicity of those games was wonderful..I remember I
>absolutely LOVED playing "combat" with my brother. I'm kind of bummed those
Combat was actually the second Atari game I played. My grandparents bought their Atari under the Sears brand name and it came with Air Sea Battle (called Target Fun) and months, that was the only game I played. They always lived downstairs from us, so I was down there every day playing. One day they went out and when they came back I went down to find my grandfather playing one of the plane games in Combat. I knew it used cartridges and that the idea was to make other games for it, but at the time it blew me away to just come in and find a brand new game! After that, they got new games every month or two and I ended up with my own Atari for Christmas, which came with Combat.
>game systems and games never gained any value..sorta like record albums
>(tho there's always a few people will pay more for). Because not everybody kept
>theirs and not all of them are in working condition. YOu know it took me a long
A few are worth money. People are willing to pay insane amounts for Chase the Chuckwagon (horrible promotional game), Crazy Climber and especially Cubicolor (Supposed to only be like 50 in existance).
>while to figure out how to hook that up to my tv when I played a year or so ago,
>because used to there was the tv/game converter switch and I wasn't sure if I
>had to use it anymore...lol
I think you can get an RCA to Coax adapter so you can plug it directly into the cable connector.
>I'd love to check - I know a few games tried to be based off of older movies like
According to the Killer List of Video Games site (
www.klov.com) the Tron arcade games were being developed at the same time as the movie. Check these pages;
http://www.klov.com/D/Discs_Of_Tron.htmlhttp://www.klov.com/T/Tron.html>star wars (not sure what year that trend started) but movies like "Cloak and
>dagger" i think came first and then the game. Then it got popular with
The arcade game of Star Wars came out in 1983 (according to the KLOV). Cloak and Dagger was being developed under another name and when the producers of the movie heard about it, they wanted it in the film, and the name of the game was changed to coincide with the movie's title. See section 2.6 of this FAQ;
http://www.atariage.com/5200/faq.html?SystemID=5200>Ghostbusters and stuff..and that game was horrible. I never could figure out tron, i
If you mean the 2600 version, I agree, but if you mean Ghostbusters in general, then I disagree. I loved that game on the Commodore 64. Of course I could never resist cheating. If you placed both guys exactly on top of each other in the ghost catching segments, then when you fired the trap, the ghost would freeze in place. Made it REAL easy to catch them! :)
>remember the game you stood up and it was inside a booth. But i really really
>sucked at it. ;-)
Discs of Tron. I never played the arcade machine myself (not that many large arcades around here), but I did play it under MAME. Of course, being emulated and not having all the arcade controls available, I didn't do that well. I spent several minutes trying to figure out how to jump across the discs before realizing that he does it automatically! :)
>My favorite arcade game was the Black Knight Pinball machine and Centipede.
I never got into actual pinball machines that much. I do enjoy playing good computer simulations of them though.
>As for my atar games I loved Fast Food, Haunted House, pitfall, Combat and
>PONG!
I never had Fast Food and I got frustrated with Pitfall (every time I'd need to time a jump over some obstacle, those stupid logs would come rolling out!). I liked Haunted house though. You might be surprised to learn that people are still creating games for some of these systems and one author has just written Haunted House II for the 5200. He's having a run of cartridges made, but no word on whether he'll also release the ROM for use under emulators. Check out the Atari Age site;
http://www.atariage.com As for other games, I really got into the more detailed ones like Starmaster, Robot Tank, River Raid etc. My favorite was/is probably Phaser Patrol for the Starpath Supercharger. In case you're not familiar with it, the Supercharger was a giant cartridge with a cord attached to it and the games came on cassette. It added more memory to the 2600 and games could load in stages. I also liked Tunnel Runner (3D maze game), Mountain King (large scrolling mountain treasure hunt) and Solaris (late Atari space game). Oh, and Midnight Magic, a *MUCH* improved pinball game that makes Video Pinball look like a joke.