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Same here. Have taken trips in a Tesla from Houston to central Wisconsin and back, as well as to Fort Benning in Georgia and back. Range is enough that Supercharger stops work well for meal breaks, and the car is usually ready to resume the trip before we've even received the check.

The ~730 mile trip to Fort Benning cost me $17 for charging. Charging in Georgia was included where we stayed, just plugged into the dryer outlet at the cabin - they also told us we could use an empty RV spot if we needed; while it would have been slightly faster, the dryer outlet was more than fast enough and way more convenient.

Interesting thought - I just took a quick look at the schematics of the CX2600 & CX2600A gaming systems at: http://www.atariage.com/2600/a...

and saw that there is only one main system clock which is roughly 3.58MHz - that means that this clock is not only used for the processor but for the video signal's NTSC colour burst (3.579545MHz).. I can't find a reference to the exact colour burst frequency tolerance (I thought it was around 20ppm or around 70hz) that is required for a proper TV signal output.

Having a colour burst outside of the tolerance would mean, at a minimum, messed up colours and maybe the inability for a TV set to be able to display an output at all. No way could a variation of 5% (1/20 of a second) be tolerated by a TV Set.

I guess all my NTSC knowledge/Skills/Experience are now worthless - except for trivia in cases like this.

No one will make games for your console.

False.

That cartridge did indeed exist, but it was very rare.
https://www.atariage.com/softw...

Very true, due to the proliferation of subchannels I'm pick up 129 channels here in the suburbs of Houston. My folks are a bit further south in Lake Jackson and pick up 105 of them - basically there's a few low power station's I can receive that don't reach them.

Very true, due to the proliferation of subchannels I'm pick up 129 channels here in the suburbs of Houston. My folks are a bit further south in Lake Jackson and pick up 105 of them - basically there's a few low power station's I can receive that don't reach them.

savings would be what I used to pay DirecTV ($146 a month) less purchasing shows à la cart - buying seasons via Amazon, iTunes, and physical media (Blu-ray & DVD sets).
...
I ended up saving $4575 over the past three years, for an average savings of $1525 per year!

YMMV

savings would be what I used to pay DirecTV ($146 a month) less purchasing shows à la cart - buying seasons via Amazon, iTunes, and physical media (Blu-ray & DVD sets).
...
I ended up saving $4575 over the past three years, for an average savings of $1525 per year!

YMMV

Over the holidays I took family to the iPic Theater here in Houston for a screening of Rogue One. They have some really innovative seating pods - pairs of recliners share a table, and have a short sound proofing wall wrapped around them to help cut down on noise from other patrons.

I posted some photos of them at the end of this blog entry - Two million pounds of ice on a subtropical island!

Atari 8-bit emulators do artifacting to simulate color on some games. http://atariage.com/forums/top...

There is a hacked version of ET that fixes most of the annoying design issues, check here -- or even play online.

Another major issue is, you really need to RTFM. It's not a very intuitive game.

I received a new View Master VR for Xmas. It's impressed the hell out of everybody I've shown it to, a number of friends plan to pick one up soon.

It uses your smart phone for the display so it's rather inexpensive - while the starter pack (viewer and a demo disk) has a list price of $29.99, Amazon has it for $20.95. It's compatible with apps written for Google Cardboard.

I've written a blog entry about it for anyone interested in more detail.

early adopters eventually got screwed as their gear no longer worked.

Not true, my gear from 2001 still works just fine. Sure it predates HDMI by a couple years, but that is easily solved with an HDMI->Component Video adaptor

https://atariage.com/howto/con...

Mapper chips were invented for Video Chess but weren't actually used in the final release, which was squeezed into 4096 bytes. (source)

Well, I would wager there was some form of license even then.

Just go check out some of the manuals and look at the scans. There's copyright and sometimes warranty info but no license. Back then you just bought a copy of some media and it was covered by copyright law, the end. Licenses were for fancy software, so fancy you needed dongles and/or license servers. And you might even have to sign something to get your authorization keys, which would get FedExed to you via next day. Now you have to agree to a license to see someone say hello to the world.

Granted, that day's media is covered by today's copyright law, but first sale law and copyright law both agree that you can resell copyrighted media. Copyright law says that if you've somehow managed to make any copies, you have to destroy them, or transfer them along with the originals. That hardly seems to apply here.

Ah, apparently he auctioned off his fully commented disassembly

It's really a shame Colecovision's short-sighted licensing deals and messy bankruptcy left their games covered in the legal equivalent of toxic sludge that nobody will ever be able to scrub away cheaply enough to make a $24.95 embedded Colecovision-in-a-(joy)stick with the dozen or so most popular games ever viable.

I don't think its the legal issues... it's the controllers. Colecovision controllers were awful.
http://atariage.com/forums/upl...

The only ones worse were the intellivision controllers.
http://www.gratuitousscience.c...
Those actually made my thumbs bleed every time I used them. The lip next to that dial would literally peel your thumb nail away from your finger.

128 bytes? That's child's play.

it's the only thing the cable & satellite companies will understand - basically cut the cord and buy your content à la cart on DVD, blu-ray, or a streaming service.

I set up a Mac mini DVR at the end of 2012 for off-the-air content - based on my last scan there's 115 channels available via antenna here in Houston. Once I got everything working (my HDTV predates HDMI so I had to get a solution to convert HDMI to Component Video) I then cancelled DirecTV in January of 2013. I buy cable series on blu-ray and iTunes, as well as watch some series on Amazon via my PS3. I've saved over $2000 since then (what I used to pay DirecTV less content purchases).

I'm using the prior generation of these networked HDTV tuners. Since they're networked I can watch live TV on my MacBook Pro as well as on my iPhone and iPad.

more info in my DVR Project blog entries.

it's the only thing the cable & satellite companies will understand - basically cut the cord and buy your content à la cart on DVD, blu-ray, or a streaming service.

I set up a Mac mini DVR at the end of 2012 for off-the-air content - based on my last scan there's 115 channels available via antenna here in Houston. Once I got everything working (my HDTV predates HDMI so I had to get a solution to convert HDMI to Component Video) I then cancelled DirecTV in January of 2013. I buy cable series on blu-ray and iTunes, as well as watch some series on Amazon via my PS3. I've saved over $2000 since then (what I used to pay DirecTV less content purchases).

I'm using the prior generation of these networked HDTV tuners. Since they're networked I can watch live TV on my MacBook Pro as well as on my iPhone and iPad.

more info in my DVR Project blog entries.

it's the only thing the cable & satellite companies will understand - basically cut the cord and buy your content à la cart on DVD, blu-ray, or a streaming service.

I set up a Mac mini DVR at the end of 2012 for off-the-air content - based on my last scan there's 115 channels available via antenna here in Houston. Once I got everything working (my HDTV predates HDMI so I had to get a solution to convert HDMI to Component Video) I then cancelled DirecTV in January of 2013. I buy cable series on blu-ray and iTunes, as well as watch some series on Amazon via my PS3. I've saved over $2000 since then (what I used to pay DirecTV less content purchases).

I'm using the prior generation of these networked HDTV tuners. Since they're networked I can watch live TV on my MacBook Pro as well as on my iPhone and iPad.

more info in my DVR Project blog entries.

it's the only thing the cable & satellite companies will understand - basically cut the cord and buy your content à la cart on DVD, blu-ray, or a streaming service.

I set up a Mac mini DVR at the end of 2012 for off-the-air content - based on my last scan there's 115 channels available via antenna here in Houston. Once I got everything working (my HDTV predates HDMI so I had to get a solution to convert HDMI to Component Video) I then cancelled DirecTV in January of 2013. I buy cable series on blu-ray and iTunes, as well as watch some series on Amazon via my PS3. I've saved over $2000 since then (what I used to pay DirecTV less content purchases).

I'm using the prior generation of these networked HDTV tuners. Since they're networked I can watch live TV on my MacBook Pro as well as on my iPhone and iPad.

more info in my DVR Project blog entries.

it's the only thing the cable & satellite companies will understand - basically cut the cord and buy your content à la cart on DVD, blu-ray, or a streaming service.

I set up a Mac mini DVR at the end of 2012 for off-the-air content - based on my last scan there's 115 channels available via antenna here in Houston. Once I got everything working (my HDTV predates HDMI so I had to get a solution to convert HDMI to Component Video) I then cancelled DirecTV in January of 2013. I buy cable series on blu-ray and iTunes, as well as watch some series on Amazon via my PS3. I've saved over $2000 since then (what I used to pay DirecTV less content purchases).

I'm using the prior generation of these networked HDTV tuners. Since they're networked I can watch live TV on my MacBook Pro as well as on my iPhone and iPad.

more info in my DVR Project blog entries.

It seems like writing a terminal driver is a rite of passage. :-) I did one for our DSPs, and most recently, the Intellivision.

Yep, 113. There are quite a few religious channels that I never watch. Likewise there's channels in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Farsi that I'd never watch.

Thankfully EyeTV 3 lets me filter the channel listing, so when I call up the Guide it only shows info for the 33 channels I'm likely to watch.

I second the recommendation for the HD Home Run Dual tuners, I got a couple of them a year ago and have been documenting about my Mac mini DVR Project in my blog over at AtariAge. I've saved $1300 so far since canceling DirecTV in January 2013.

Looks like they're about to come out with the next generation HD Home Run Dual, they've added support for DLNA.

Depends on which part of Houston you're in as 34's one of the low power stations. They're owned Mako Communications, a company in Corpus Christi that my sister works for.

I'm in Fresno, about 4 miles SE of the broadcast towers in Missouri City - I can see them from my backyard. Reception for 34 was marginal when I was first testing out my setup. After I moved the antenna into the attic it came in just fine. A couple months later I switched to a rooftop antenna as I was having problems with Fox 26 breaking up all the time. Neither antenna is powered.

TVfool has some online tools that might help. I also follow this Houston DTV Blog, though they've not posted anything since May.

Depends on which part of Houston you're in as 34's one of the low power stations. They're owned Mako Communications, a company in Corpus Christi that my sister works for.

I'm in Fresno, about 4 miles SE of the broadcast towers in Missouri City - I can see them from my backyard. Reception for 34 was marginal when I was first testing out my setup. After I moved the antenna into the attic it came in just fine. A couple months later I switched to a rooftop antenna as I was having problems with Fox 26 breaking up all the time. Neither antenna is powered.

TVfool has some online tools that might help. I also follow this Houston DTV Blog, though they've not posted anything since May.

Depends on which part of Houston you're in as 34's one of the low power stations. They're owned Mako Communications, a company in Corpus Christi that my sister works for.

I'm in Fresno, about 4 miles SE of the broadcast towers in Missouri City - I can see them from my backyard. Reception for 34 was marginal when I was first testing out my setup. After I moved the antenna into the attic it came in just fine. A couple months later I switched to a rooftop antenna as I was having problems with Fox 26 breaking up all the time. Neither antenna is powered.

TVfool has some online tools that might help. I also follow this Houston DTV Blog, though they've not posted anything since May.

I get 113 channels OTA here in Houston. With that many channels it's not uncommon to have 4 shows being recorded at the same time (especially older series that are broadcast just before/after midnight). I've been recording older shows like That '70s Show and watching them in order. Have seen a number of episodes I missed back in the day. Also recording cable series I'd missed in the past, like Burn Notice and Psych, that are now being broadcast OTA.

I purchase other cable series, like Dexter and The Walking Dead, à la cart from iTunes or on physical media. I've saved $1300 since dropping DirecTV in January (savings = old DirecTV bill - à la cart series).

I went a little overboard on the Mac mini setup (Drobo raid system, extra RAM, CPU upgrade, etc) so it'll probably be another year before the savings pay off the hardware investment.

If anybody's interested, I've been documenting my DVR Project in my blog.

He came up with the concept of Air-Sea Battle

Wow that guy was awesome

With this guy's age, it would not surprise me if they named the Atari game after his work.

I've saved an average of $119 a month since canceling DirecTV in January. Here in Houston I get 100+ channels OTA. I pay à la cart for cable series like Watching Dead on Amazon Prime and iTunes. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/blog-148/cat-150-dvr-project

There is a 4K hack of Pac-Man:

http://www.atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1010

Video of it playing at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYuBcuvIww

Not retro enough. I alone have made over 6 Atari 2600 games.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/207626-mmsbc-2-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/196946-mmsb-of-cincinnati-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169496-nitebear-on-sleepystreet/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/166569-candybar-for-atari-2600/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201771-s3-the-sensational-santuci-sisters-wip/

Not retro enough. I alone have made over 6 Atari 2600 games.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/207626-mmsbc-2-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/196946-mmsb-of-cincinnati-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169496-nitebear-on-sleepystreet/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/166569-candybar-for-atari-2600/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201771-s3-the-sensational-santuci-sisters-wip/

Not retro enough. I alone have made over 6 Atari 2600 games.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/207626-mmsbc-2-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/196946-mmsb-of-cincinnati-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169496-nitebear-on-sleepystreet/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/166569-candybar-for-atari-2600/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201771-s3-the-sensational-santuci-sisters-wip/

Not retro enough. I alone have made over 6 Atari 2600 games.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/207626-mmsbc-2-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/196946-mmsb-of-cincinnati-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169496-nitebear-on-sleepystreet/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/166569-candybar-for-atari-2600/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201771-s3-the-sensational-santuci-sisters-wip/

Not retro enough. I alone have made over 6 Atari 2600 games.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/207626-mmsbc-2-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/196946-mmsb-of-cincinnati-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169496-nitebear-on-sleepystreet/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/166569-candybar-for-atari-2600/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201771-s3-the-sensational-santuci-sisters-wip/

Not retro enough. I alone have made over 6 Atari 2600 games.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/207626-mmsbc-2-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/196946-mmsb-of-cincinnati-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/169496-nitebear-on-sleepystreet/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/166569-candybar-for-atari-2600/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201535-cyber-willy-done/
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/201771-s3-the-sensational-santuci-sisters-wip/

Due to subchannels each station can broadcast multiple shows at the same time. Because of that there's 100+ OTA channels here in Houston. Sure I don't watch them all (as I don't speak Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese or Farsi) but I didn't watch all the channels available on DirecTV either.

I cut the cord a couple months ago and for shows I can't get over the air I just buy them streaming via Amazon, iTunes, etc. or on blu-ray compilations. I've saved $162 in the past 2 months over what I had been paying DirecTV.

If you're interested, these are my blog entries about my DVR project.

You must be thinking of the Atari 2600.

There were no unlicensed games for the 7800 until very recently (2001 or so). That was because a 7800 cartridge needed a valid checksum key to boot into 7800 mode.

http://www.atariage.com/7800/archives/encryption.html?SystemID=7800

There was nothing Atari could do about 2600 games other than to make sure most of the third party cartridge cases did not fit the cartridge slot correctly.

from the Days of the Dreamcast the first breakthrough homebrew console

Say what? The Atari 2600's first homebrew came out in 95, a few years before the Dreamcast was even released.

I've got a few 2600 projects underway. One's Space Rocks, an updated version of Asteroids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi2r8hnH9B8

another is Frantic, an updated version of Berzerk/Frenzy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRxdl2T8nlQ

ROMs for both can be found at my AtariAge blog. They can be played in Stella (cross-platform 2600 emulator) or on the real thing using a Harmony Cartridge. http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/148-spicewares-blog/

The third (and possible fourth) project will be announced later this year.

Pole Position is one of many games that Atari had the exclusive rights to sell in North America. They even went so far as to add an "atari banner" flying over the racetrack.

ATARI FORCE - In the year 2005 Earth is facing ecological devastation and Atari is the savior of the world, and so too are their "Atari Force" superheroes! Try not to laugh too much. I literally bought the game just so I could read the comic (the game was not bad either). I was also a loyal reader of Atari Age which was just a glorified advertisement for new games released every other month.

Description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Force
Whole series - http://www.atariage.com/comics/index.html
Geek Encyclopedia - http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/AtariForce/

Tandy? Pfffft!.

Atari Force forever!

http://www.atariage.com/comics/index.html

Another issue that most of the accounts are written by Americans, and the Apple ][ ruled in the USA.

Actually from what I understand, the Commodore 64 was- if anything- most successful in the USA, in part because it was sold so cheaply there (for what was actually a very good computer at the time) due to Tramiel wanting to win the home computer market. AFAIK the Apple II did well in educational and early business markets, but the C64 was *the* home computer in the US.

But you're absolutely right- there's a problem with history being written by the victors, because it gives a misleading picture of the time. Sure, the IBM PC (and MS-DOS), predecessor to today's Wintel PCs, was big in the business market, but in its early days it wasn't a home machine. Who'd want to pay thousands of pounds for a machine with (at best) CGA graphics and *very* primitive sound when you could get a C64 for a fraction of the cost? Kids at home probably didn't give a **** about some horribly expensive green-screen machine that wasn't even that hot at games.

I've heard that part of the problem with the C64- and the reason Tramiel was forced to leave C= - was that Tramiel was *so* aggressive with the price and driving competitors out of the market- that C= weren't actually making that much money on them (even though apparently they'd been exceptionally good at driving down the production cost, in part by becoming vertically integrated).

I have to admit to having mixed feelings about Tramiel, as from what I've heard some of his business practices were very questionable, with- for example- some blaming him for contributing to the downfall of Synapse Software (well-known for developing many well-regarded early Atari 800 games) when he reneged on a supposedly binding agreement after taking over Atari's computer division. YMMV, there appears to be an interesting (archived) discussion here. (One comment; "Not paying suppliers, forcing them into bankruptcy, and them making them an offer to settle lawsuits for pennies on the dollar was a standard practice for him").

At any rate, I think he at least deserves some credit for his successes- mainly with Commodore (and some level of respect for surviving Auschwitz) even if there were some aspects to him that were questionable.

Somewhere between orange and purple lies the true hue of a human.

Imagination has infinite resolution with eight billion times anti-aliasing.

It's still there in Win7. Not a bad compromise between quick-n-dirty and full-featured apps for some things, but nothing I'd use more than 5 minutes.

Maybe they took it out of the default path, then. Dunno. I just remember typing "wordpad foo.txt" at a prompt and getting an error. I perhaps do a little too much from cmd.exe windows. ;-)

[...] but the reliable, pre-installed aspect of Notepad/Wordpad is a slam dunk for basic needs. The four keystrokes to open Notepad (nine if you use the "Run..." window in XP) have become reflex when I sit at someone else's PC.

Oh, indeed. In fact, that's pretty much the biggest place I use it: Other peoples' computers, since I know it's there. Also, if I'm writing generic instructions for Windows users, I know I can refer to Notepad if needed.

(BTW: retro console stuff in your sig. looks like fun.)

It is! I'm helping someone port Colossal Cave Adventure to the system right now. Hop over to AtariAge.com if you're interested in banging around with any of these old machines.

I find it interesting that they targeted a barely used domain instead of going after http://www.atari2600.com/ which actually sells merchandise or http://www.atariage.com/ my guess is that they're going after the low-hanging fruit first.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/167235-byte-magazine/