754 replies to this topic

[Wickeycolumbus]

I cant wait!

[Fort Apocalypse]

SpiceWare, on Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:12 PM, said:

http://www.retrothin...k-portable.html

Sweet! That is totally awesome! Will look forward to more videos!!!

[gulag picture radio]

Glad you guys liked it. We have TONS of great articles on Retro Thing about Atari & classic electronics as well as lots of other fun stuff (including a couple more videos). Please check it out and let me know what you think. we work really hard to produce so much original content, and it would be great to know if you're enjoying it too. We've got a Twitter feed too for those of you who like those sorts of things.

[SpiceWare]

gulag picture radio, on Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:52 PM, said:

Glad you guys liked it. We have TONS of great articles on Retro Thing about Atari & classic electronics as well as lots of other fun stuff (including a couple more videos). Please check it out and let me know what you think. we work really hard to produce so much original content, and it would be great to know if you're enjoying it too. We've got a Twitter feed too for those of you who like those sorts of things.

Yep, lots of neat stuff at your site - I've been reading it ever since you dropped me a note last March about Medieval Mayhem

Of your recent articles, I'm looking forward to the new Thomas Dolby CD, the new Red Dwarf episodes and the new DEVO album.

[Gregory DG]

Man I want one!

Does it have the difficulty switches too? I don't see them anywhere...

[Feralstorm]

WOO!

I'll be all over that thingy when(ever) it's available for sale!.

[gulag picture radio]

SpiceWare, on Wed Mar 25, 2009 7:40 PM, said:

Yep, lots of neat stuff at your site - I've been reading it ever since you dropped me a note last March about Medieval Mayhem

Yipe! Sorry, man... sometimes these things slip through my fingers. As you saw, we cover a lot of ground, and people get grouchy if we spend too much time in any one area. That said, I'll definitely do something about MM. We've written about the homebrew scene before, but I'd like to give special attention to a few of these recent titles. I still think it's brilliant.

[Retro Rogue]

Just noticed this post.

S1500, on Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:50 AM, said:

Does anybody know the phone number of those Famiclone knockoff makers in Asia? They can probably make a FB2 faster than Atari could pronounce "Flashback". Sure, it wouldn't be legal, but at this point, who cares?

Considering we own the FB2 chip and internals, and not Atari, we would care.

[SpiceWare]

gulag picture radio, on Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:25 PM, said:

Yipe! Sorry, man... sometimes these things slip through my fingers.

No problem, know how that goes - when you get to it, you get to it.

Quote

I still think it's brilliant.

Thanks

[mos6507]

Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles?

[Wickeycolumbus]

mos6507, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:22 PM, said:

Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles?

I was wondering this too. Does it support all the known bank switching techniques?

[brojamfootball]

mos6507, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:22 AM, said:

Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles?

I wondered the same thing. If it's just the partially compatible FB2 chip I'm out--and I'm betting that's what it'll be. Many of my favorite games don't run on it.

[Fort Apocalypse]

SpiceWare, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:18 PM, said:

Quote

I still think it's brilliant.

Thanks

I agree. That game rocks.

[Fort Apocalypse]

brojamfootball, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:56 PM, said:

mos6507, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:22 AM, said:

Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles?

I wondered the same thing. If it's just the partially compatible FB2 chip I'm out--and I'm betting that's what it'll be. Many of my favorite games don't run on it.

I might not have the money to drop on it at the current pricepoint, but once the price drops, if it runs at least 100 decent Atari games (although not necessarily loaded all at once), then it will be the only item on my Christmas list. And I think that the homebrew scene will really light up if that happens.

The only concern I have with it is the menuing system. I loved the FB2, but my kids had a awful time with it (but part of it also is that the idea of reset button and select button are foreign. I think it should be dirt simple and have a single list of games listed by either the filename (without extension) or pulled from a metadata file, and would be great to have it show screenshots of each game next to the list. It would be sweet if the game names were red and they did the chalice color effect when you had the game selected and just had to press the button to choose a game. Also maybe pressing the joystick right or left would page it down or up. And finally pressing select would be the same as pressing the joystick down (holding it down would continue to move down) and reset button would also start the game. LE can totally have that idea if they like it.

Edited by Fort Apocalypse, Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:22 PM.

[Fort Apocalypse]

Fort Apocalypse, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:23 PM, said:

brojamfootball, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:56 PM, said:

mos6507, on Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:22 AM, said:

Question is, would it be the "perfected" chip that can play everything including Supercharger titles?

I wondered the same thing. If it's just the partially compatible FB2 chip I'm out--and I'm betting that's what it'll be. Many of my favorite games don't run on it.

I might not have the money to drop on it at the current pricepoint, but once the price drops, if it runs at least 100 decent Atari games (although not necessarily loaded all at once), then it will be the only item on my Christmas list. And I think that the homebrew scene will really light up if that happens.

The only concern I have with it is the menuing system. I loved the FB2, but my kids had a awful time with it (but part of it also is that the idea of reset button and select button are foreign. I think it should be dirt simple and have a single list of games listed by either the filename (without extension) or pulled from a metadata file, and would be great to have it show screenshots of each game next to the list. It would be sweet if the game names were red and they did the chalice color effect when you had the game selected and just had to press the button to choose a game. Also maybe pressing the joystick right or left would page it down or up. And finally pressing select would be the same as pressing the joystick down (holding it down would continue to move down) and reset button would also start the game. LE can totally have that idea if they like it.

By awful time, I mean they had an awful time with the menu. I always have to do that part for them. And by red text, I mean red text on black background.

Edited by Fort Apocalypse, Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:28 PM.

[Fort Apocalypse]

Ok, I've got it, and I think this would be the best, simplest, and most fitting menuing system for the 2600. NO menuing system. The system could get a redesign and have a single button to the left of select that would select the game. This would reset the FB2 and load the next game. While this seems like it would be a pain to scroll through all of the games, it would be extremely simple for kids and adults to use, and would get them focused on using the buttons on the unit to do things. LE can have that idea for free also. I'm not against getting mailed a free FB2 portable though or for them to include Fort Apocalypse in the FB3!

Edited by Fort Apocalypse, Thu Mar 26, 2009 8:43 PM.

[Math You]

It might be worth asking Atari for their written consent before anything is made.

[ZylonBane]

White Knight, on Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:49 PM, said:

Awesome! Any idea how big the HD will be? How many games can it hold?

Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card.

[jbanes]

You could store a large chunk of it on a floppy disk.

ZylonBane, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:21 PM, said:

Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card.

Fixed that for you.

Looking at the AtariAge rarity guide, it appears to catalog ~1000 titles. A 1GB card could give each of those 1000 titles over a megabyte of space each. There's more than enough space for everything ever produced for the venerable 2600. You could probably even fit the entire library in something as snug as a 32MB card.

Edited by jbanes, Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:34 PM.

[Retro Rogue]

Math You, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 12:09 PM, said:

It might be worth asking Atari for their written consent before anything is made.

None needed, the internals are ours. And any patents technology wise expired a long time ago. We're not using the Atari name or logo, and we'd be licensing some games from them and Activision anyways.

What we need right now is an investor(s).

[Wickeycolumbus]

IIRC, there is 2MB of flash for game storage.

[Fort Apocalypse]

jbanes, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:33 PM, said:

ZylonBane, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:21 PM, said:

Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card.

Fixed that for you.

I wonder how much space every rom and ever revision of every hack and homebrew ever invented for the 2600 would take up. Actually it might. However, I wonder whether the FB portable will be able to have that many games available at once in the portable?

[Wickeycolumbus]

Fort Apocalypse, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:44 PM, said:

jbanes, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:33 PM, said:

ZylonBane, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:21 PM, said:

Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card.

Fixed that for you.

I wonder how much space every rom and ever revision of every hack and homebrew ever invented for the 2600 would take up. Actually it might. However, I wonder whether the FB portable will be able to have that many games available at once in the portable?

A lot more space, but most of those revisions don't exist anymore. I must have made over a thousand revisions of Vong, but only about 78 still exist. Code is often tested when only a few lines have been changed, and after that revision is tested, it is overwritten. I only kept the major revisions.

[S1500]

Fort Apocalypse, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:44 PM, said:

jbanes, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:33 PM, said:

ZylonBane, on Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:21 PM, said:

Why on earth do you think there'd be a hard drive in this thing? You can already store pretty much the entire Atari 2600 library on a cheap SD card.

Fixed that for you.

I wonder how much space every rom and ever revision of every hack and homebrew ever invented for the 2600 would take up. Actually it might. However, I wonder whether the FB portable will be able to have that many games available at once in the portable?

For a given system with all the games bundled, I wouldn't want every revision or silly gfx hack. One copy of the game would do.

[gulag picture radio]

I believe that on a 32 meg card, you can have the entire Atari collection (including PAL and most variants) a couple times over. I think that when I filed my Cuttle Cart it worked out to something like 8 megs.