Atypical brag

[Originally posted to rec.games.video.classic.]

Why is this brag "atypical"? Because I'm bragging that I sold something rather than found something. My neighborhood had it's semi-annual yard sale this weekend and I decided to try to get rid of some OCs. I put out a labelless Frogger, three Combats, two SwordQuest Earthworlds, and a SwordQuest Fireworld (all for the 2600). I also put out an NES Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge. When my wife finally let me go look while she tended to things, some old woman came by and bought them all! I thought I'd be lucky if I'd sell one or two of them.

BTW, while looking, I found a "Darth Vader" 2600 with Lost Luggage (needed that!) and Congo Bongo (traid bait), plus a few others. Unforutnately, the LL board is loose and CB apparently needs cleaning because neither worked. All the other cartridges that I didn't care about work fine. 8( What is it with Apollo cartridges and loose boards? This is the second time I've found one.

I've also got to learn to look things over more carefully. They claimed the system and games worked, and I trusted them. When I got home, I discovered the RCA plug was missing on the RF cable (easy fix) and the power supply was for a Black & Decker drill. It's 1.5V and 100mA less than an Atari power supply.

I also found a Timex/Sinclair 1000 with some software, the manual, and an additional paperback book. (No power supply. It's 9V DC, but does anyone know the amperage/polarity?) I haven't tested it yet but look forward to playing the T/S 1000 Frogger tape I've had for a few years now.

Re: Stop me before I buy again!!!!

[Originally posted to rec.games.video.classic.]

In article <6qjhve$293@james.hwcn.org>, Chris Cracknell wrote:
>Arrrggg!!!!
>
>I got into this hobby to relive my childhood and fulfill of childhood fantasy
>of owning a shirt-load of atari 2600 carts. I didn't want to collect for
>other systems, just the 2600. It's what I had as a kid so why should I want
>to collect another system?

>I must curb this habbit. It all started out so innocently but now I'm
>running out of space. Stop me before I buy again!

It's not hopeless yet. You haven't bought any coin-ops. 8)

I started out like you: strictly 2600.

Then I found a 7800 and some games cheap, and justified it like you did.

Then my wife bought me a Gameboy for Christmas. The next year I got a SNES. Both get played very little, and luckily, I haven't bought very many cartridges for either...yet. I'm in trouble in a few years, though.

Someone gave me a Vectrex. Like you, I feel it's too cool not to keep.

I've had three friends give me Colecovisions. One included the Adam module, which I need to get rid of, but haven't yet. You wanna talk about a space hog?!?

I found an NES with a Power Pad and Short Order/Eggsplode and told myself it would be good exercise. And it was the six or so times I've played it since then. I told myself I would be very selective of the games I bought for it, but lately I've been getting this itch to buy NES games.

Then I bought an Intellivision because it was cheap and I was tired of not finding new 2600 games. So far I've succesfully kept myself from buying anything but complete, boxed games, so its' not out of control yet.

I bought a 5200 (w/ 2600 adapter) and a bunch of mint boxed 2600 & 5200 games a few months ago. I haven't even taken the time to test the thing yet! It's getting out of hand!

And this doesn't include the RCA Studio II, Microvision, one semi- and one non-working Channel F, and numerous dedicated consoles stored away in my room. And there's an original, non-working Atari Pong coin-op sitting in my garage waiting for me to fix it. Help!

Tip of the Moment (holes in walls)

Tip of the moment: Leave the holes in your walls alone.

In preparing a bedroom for our new baby, I needed to install a proper phone jack where the current one was simply hanging out of the wall on wires. In the process of fooling with it, I managed to make the hole bigger and bigger, so I had to replace a section of drywall before I could install the outlet.

[From my "Past Tips of the Moment and Past Thoughts" page. This was the seventh tip and 12th post overall. It refers to preparing what had been—up until that point—our guest bedroom/storeroom as a nursery for our first child. — 28 May 2009]

Piracy: Collectors' Friend or Foe (originally for Suite 101)

[Suite 101 articles introduction]

It is with regret that I tell you this will be my last Suite 101 article for now. But it is with happiness that I tell you the reason is because my wife and I are having a baby. I was hoping to be able to continue my Suite 101 duties during her pregnancy, but as the due date gets closer, there's more and more to do and less time to do it. I simply don't have time to even write a monthly article any more, which is why this article is so late. I apologize for its lateness and thank you for your patience.

Now let's see if I can go out with a bang . . .

Software piracy is a touchy subject with classic video game collectors. Some flaunt it, some do it secretly, some avoid it, and some ignore it. Software piracy is simply owning a copy of a piece of software (in this case, a game) that you do not own in the original or other legally licensed format. (In most cases here, a cartridge.) Today, most piracy over the Internet is copying the ROM chips within cartridges for use with an emulator. Approached from a strictly legal perspective, it's wrong. Period. Most collectors, however, approach it from a moral and ethical perspective. This is where the arguments begin.

Some that argue against piracy simply believe that the companies or individuals who wrote and/or released the games have the right to do whatever they want with the games, including nothing, since they own them. This is, for the most part, the same as the legal viewpoint. There is a great deal of merit to this argument. If video game copyright laws were done away with, developers would be hard pressed to make any money from their products because once one copy was sold, it could theoretically become the most popular game in the world without a second copy being sold. Without the ability to sell copies, the monetary incentive for creating games is gone, thus fewer games will be produced. True, some games would be produced just for the sake of doing it, but most developers would be unable to devote the time it would take to produce a game like Doom without receiving any pay for it. So, by disregarding game copyrights, we begin a breakdown of the system the is responsible for these games' development.

On the other hand, most of the games classic video gamers are interested in are 10 to 20 years old. Their commercial life would seem to be over. Most of the companies that produced them either no longer care about them, no longer remember them, or have completely dissolved. If the company no longer has any interest in them and has already made their money off of them, what's the harm in those that still want to play them sharing copies?

Well, the harm comes when products like the Stella Gets a New Brain CD come along. The CyberPunks went to a lot of trouble to get legal permission from the game owners to create the CD. As a result, it was far more than pirated copies of the game code. It contained scans of as much Supercharger-related material as they could find and other tidbits. The CD has been universally praised by those collectors lucky enough to get one as an outstanding piece of work.

There is also harm when sales of a commercial product like Activision's Atari 2600 Action Packs are hurt by the availability of emulators and ROMs. The first two sold well, but the third one didn't do as well. When the first Action Pack was released, there were no other Atari 2600 emulators available, but there were several by the time the third Pack was released. Admittedly, this is not the entire reason the third pack sold poorly, but it must certainly figure into it.

Having the permission of the owning companies to sell some sort of product that uses game binaries is the absolute best way to make sure these games survive, as the Supercharger CD has shown. Unfortunately, some companies seem to value their past games only when it is convenient for them. They turn a blind eye to the piracy on the Internet, but as Glenn Saunders, head CyberPunk, puts it, "Common sense indicates that inaction = consent, and ultimately breaking the letter of the law is rewarded whereas go to these companies and seeking to cut a deal PERPORTIONATE [sic] TO THEIR LIMITED COMMERCIAL VALUE, PARTLY DUE TO THIS PROLIFERATION OF PIRACY, and they spout off unrealistic figures or fail to deal with you at all."

This creates a catch-22 situation. The games' best chance of long-term survival, particularly prototypes stored on EPROMs that will eventually go bad, is through their use in emulators. Unfortunately, the companies involved don't seem to want to be reasonable about their licensing fees, thus the images are pirated, thus the commercial appeal of releasing licensed packages is reduced, and so on.

So what are collectors to do? Should they condemn piracy in the hopes of getting more licensed products? Or should they go ahead and keep as many ROM images as they can get to help preserve them? Frankly, I don't know, but if we don't start doing something soon, we will begin losing rare prototypes that hundreds of people might otherwise have gotten to play and enjoy.

Copyright 1998 i5ive communications inc. Used with permission.

$50 Brag

[Originally posted to rec.games.video.classic.]

Last night, I purchased a 5200, some 5200 stuff, and 2600 games from a former co-worker. I had made the offer over a year ago (when he was still my co-worker), but it took me a while to save up the $50 I offered. I know that sounds like a lot, but he had over 60 games ... *and* keep in mind as you read this, that EVERY GAME WAS COMPLETE WITH MANUAL AND BOX!!!

Personal Highlights

• Complete, 2-port 5200 system in box (no packing materials)
• 2600 adaptor for 5200 (Okay, he didn't have the box for this.)
• 5200 games:
  • H.E.R.O.
  • James Bond 007 (!!!)
  • Star Wars: The Arcade Game
• 2600 Tron joystick (!!!) in box with Adventures of Tron & Tron Deadly Discs (No packing materials, but the $57.95 price tag was still on it.)
• 2600 games:
  • Sears' Chase, Outer Space, Tank Plus, & Target Fun all in the ORIGINAL (Intellivision-style) type boxes (!!!)
  • Beamrider
  • Crackpots
  • Megaforce
  • Stellar Track (Sears)
• Two 2600 keyboard controllers

I never thought I'd see in person, much less own the Tron joystick. The same goes for Intellivision-style Atari 2600 cart boxes. (Too bad they're Sears instead of Atari. I'd still like to see one of those.)

BTW, before he left my company, he had given me some mint condition folders with arcade game logos on them (Centipede, Tempest, Space Invaders, etc.) and a Robot Tank poster.

The Rest

• 2600 games: Adventure (Sears), Air Raiders, Amidar, Asteroids, Atlantis, Barnstormer, Berzerk, Breakaway IV (Sears), Capture (Sears), Codebreaker (Sears), Cosmic Ark, Defender, Demon Attack, Dragonfire, E.T., Flash Gordon, Frogger, G.I. Joe: Cobra Strike, Gunslinger (Sears), Haunted House, Keystone Kapers, Laser Blast, Memory Match (Sears), Missle Command, Ms. Pac-Man, Pitfall, Raiders of the Lost Ark, River Raid, Robot Tank, Seaquest, Sky Jinx, Space Invaders, Spider Fighter, Star Master, Star Raiders, Star Wars: Jedi Arena, Star Wars: RotJ -- Death Star Battle, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Superman, SwordQuest (EarthWorld of FireWorld, I forget which), Video Pinball, Warlords (Sears), Yars' Revenge
• 2600 controllers: Two stock joysticks, one pair of paddles.
• 5200 games: Countermeasure, Joust, Pac-Man, Pole Position, Popeye, Qix, Vanguard

[While I still have almost all these items today, I've decided to sell the 5200 console and games. I'm just not that interested in it and something's got to go. — 17 June 2010]