hansolo77

I wish Mom was able to rescue the stuff out of her storage unit rather than let it go unpaid and sold. She had our only VHS home movies, and I had intended to digitize it for a gift just to find out that it's gone.

Thanks dude.. appreciate it!

OOOOOHHHHHH!!!! It's too bad I actually have all the games they're offering, and then some. I wish they had Star Wars Galaxies MMO and that they never shut the server down.

I was like "meh" until he tilted it.. then I'm like.. WOW.

It's size defeats the purpose of mobility I think. You can't stick it in your back pocket while at work and pull it out on break. It's just TOO big. And yea, I know that's a lot of dirty jokes in that statement.

That first link is cool, but I'm not about to drop $70 bucks on a tool set like that. I bought a similar one (without all the screwdriver bits) for like $5. Don't remember if it was from Amazon or Harbor Freight.

A guy with some Linux know-how leaked out the BIOS password. Not much use, but you can overclock CPU/RAM, and disable the SecureBoot requirement. Piano18482

Always nice to see support for our high score forum. Thanks for keeping up the trend! Updated OP, DB, RSS

I always wanted a telescope. Seems too much work/cost for what's available in my area. Living in a city has a lot of light pollution. I'd like something substantial. Something that has counterbalance weights and a motor to control movement for long exposure photos. It's just another tick on my long list of "man I wish I had" things. But like I said, being in a city really limits what I can see so I've not really bothered to look much into them.

I'm still loving it. :P

Awesome perfect meme Draco! Happy New Year!

I can now confirm that YES, the SSD and RAM I purchased work great. I sent a few hours yesterday playing around with getting Ubuntu installed and then trying to get RetroPie on that. Ran into a problem where the repository for snes9x was offline and I couldn't complete the install. But I'm going to try again today with maybe ARES instead of RetroPie. might also look at Batocera. If you get an SSD, make sure you also order/buy an m.2 screw set. The console doesn't come with one, and most drives don't come with it either. I went to Microcenter and bought a kit: https://www.microcenter.com/product/600435/micro-connectors-m2-ssd-mounting-screws-kit

I noticed a problem when I first played with the classic controller, in that it wanted to be set up as the 2nd player. Looking back, I think it was because I had been originally using the modern controller first, turned it off, and then started using the classic. A day or so later, I turned the system on and used only the classic controller, and it worked exactly like it should. I need to test further but I think the system gets confused on the inputs if you have two different controller types active in the system at the same time. Rebooting and using a different controller seemed to fix it. So I'll need to test this. But right now it looks like it's one controller type or the other, and you have to reboot the system if you want to switch, rather than being able to switch it up on one boot, and you have to use 2 of the same type, not one of each. Kinda sucks if true, because Dad would most likely only be able to use the classic controller while I'd be better with the modern; and we couldn't play together. I never had any wired vs Bluetooth issues, other than what I said above. The one thing that confused me was identifying when the battery was dying while wireless. The inputs I was giving were sporadically different. Like it was thinking I was holding a direction longer than I was, or pressing the wrong buttons. Plugging it in resolved that. But the irritating part was not knowing how much battery life was left. I saw a post in Discord today while I was at work that explains a lot of my frustration. Apparently, when you're in a game (at least in Atari mode), the LED indicates if you're player 1 or 2, etc. When you're out of a game and in the Atari menus, the LED is indicating the battery life (4 LED's is full, etc). I thought the 1 LED when playing a game meant I had 25% battery life, thus the sporadic behavior. Now that I know that's not the case, the problem may be input lag from interference or something. Bugs like that aside, I'm still impressed with the console and thrilled to be a part of what is essentially beta testing a new Atari console. Waiting for the hardware upgrades is killing me because I want to see what else I can do, because right now Atari's offerings are slim at best. I did go ahead an buy the Vault 2. Still unsure where they're saying you get "over 100 games" in the first Vault. Seemed like maybe 25? Maybe I'm just not looking right. But the stuff Atari has available only SEEMS small; they have already announced a LOT more content is coming, they just want us to test the base system first, before they add all the other stuff. One thing I might look at is Anstream, but I've heard it's a subscription service. Don't really need that if you're in this hobby (if you catch my drift); but I'd like to see what it's all about/what they have.

I've been talking in the Founder's Discord. You can install a bootable OS onto the internal m.2. The way it works, you have to select it in the BIOS as the boot device. There was a guy last night saying that the Windows 10 install would automatically boot up from a cold start after he installed it. But when he was trying to do that with Ubuntu, it wouldn't work and always went to the AtariOS first. But in either case, he was doing it off the internal expansion m.2. I can't afford a larger capacity m.2, but I ordered a 2tb one. You have to be careful though. It doesn't support NVME, only SATA. That limits offerings quite a bit, as most m.2 drives now are coming out as NVME. I just ordered a Samsung 870 Evo. Should be here by Monday. RAM is another thing. There was an interview with the CEO, I believe, where he was talking about the hardware. In that interview he said you can install up to 64gb (2x32), but now all the documentation says up to 32gb (2x16). The speed is also only at 2400mHz. So here's what I got coming: Samsung 860 EVO SSD 2TB - M.2 SATA Internal Solid State Drive with V-NAND Technology (MZ-N6E2T0BW) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07822SVMS HyperX Impact 2400MHz 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 CL15 SODIMM (Kit of 2) HX424S15IB2K2/32 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KB7L7QR Wait to make the same purchase until I can test and verify they work together (if You want the same).

@Draco1962 - Try giving Tempest a go in the VCS Vault 1 with the classic controller. The twist stick works well and the rumble is a cool bonus.

I have an Odroid N2. It's my new "RetroPie". It can play N64 perfectly, at 1080p rendering resolutions. I also have full fps support on DreamCast, Sega Saturn, NDS and PSP. It is capable of newer stuff via Dolphin and Ps2. The only problem is the cpu architecture on the N2 is ARM, and nothing has been developed yet that is ARM based for Dolphin or PSCX2 etc. The Atari VCS, however, is an X86 architecture CPU. And I've seen videos of people playing full speed Gamecube, PS2, Wii, etc on it. With it being capable of running Windows 10, you get stream access to the entire (well mostly) Xbox library. You can also play most anything in Steam. In-house and 3rd party devs building games to run directly in the Atari OS are using Unity (not sure what version), which is current gen tech. After typing up my mini hardware review last night, I did go ahead and hook it up to see what's what. ATTENTION DRACO... DON'T REBOOT IT DURING THE INITIAL UPDATE!!! I started it, and it looked like it got stuck at 83% for like 20 minutes. I switched it off and back on and the thing got stuck in an infinite boot loop. There is a way to fix it, but it's better to just let it do it's thing. I joined the dedicated first-users Discord and asked what to do. They all said it's expected behavior, and might take 45-60 minutes to complete. I didn't know that and was afraid I jacked it up. Fixed it though. The Atari OS is "meh". They have very little working and running on it right now. The PC mode is getting all the love from the community at this moment. The Atari offerings are weak at the moment. You have an Atari VCS Vault, which includes all (best I could tell) Atari 2600 games included, as well as a hand-picked assortment of early 80's Atari arcade games (Centipede, Tempest era stuff). That is it. They have a store, where you can buy Volume 2 for $4.99 but I don't know what it includes. They also have about 4 other games that were 3rd party developed for the console but are behind a paywall so I'm not inclined to look at them right now. They do offer a free game of their remade Missile Command (supposed to be a our special thank-you perk, although I'd be happier with a hat or t-shirt). They also have a "Prologue" game, which is very well polished and is probably just the first level for demo'ing, but it's free and I got it and like it. It looks like they don't have much else right now. They have an Antstream app you can get, which is advertised to bring a streaming option for retro gaming. From what it looks like, it would present games for you to play, and it downloads the rom to your system until you're done, then it erases it. Antstream is a subscription service (of which backers are supposed to get 1st month free) but I've got no need to do that right now. Besides which, chat in the Discord is that it doesn't work...logins not being accepted/working, and it requires a keyboard to login with no onscreen keyboard which was a deal breaker for a lot of people. Granted, we're still technically in a beta stage and the whole idea for us to get them before the rest of the world was to test these things out, and it looks like Antstream's partnership is broken at the moment. Still, all told, I'm excited to see what I can get running on this. I don't have any money but plan on getting some expansion on it soon. I'm going to wait though and watch some videos on what other people are doing. The way things look right now, the only way to run the PC mode is by launching an app on the home screen that triggers a reboot INTO the other OS (Which has to be on an external USB drive, not the expanded m.2). My guess is that it will then reboot back into the Atari OS every time, and only go into PC mode when you launch the dedicated app. Also, it looks like it has a remote wake via controllers, like current gen consoles which will be cool, but I didn't test it. I was shutting it down (off) and it gave the option to just "sleep" and allow remote wake up. Oh, I also installed the PLEX app. Don't like it on the VCS. Might just need updating. But a movie I tried to watch wanted to play the 2nd audio (director's commentary) only, even after switching it. Probably a codec problem. With the VCS still new, the PLEX dev's probably have gotten any reports on it's capabilities yet to know how to handle streaming to it.

It'll probably be Christmas Day or middle of next week before I see it running on my tv. Still, nice to have it before Christmas. I already plan on putting in some more ram and m.2 drive, just broke at the moment. Of course we're all getting that HUGE $600 stimulus (that's a joke btw, bazinga!). I'm thinking about putting Windows 10 and GameEx on it, but might just go "RetroPie" on it since there's setup already working. GameEx would require going back to my old setup and re-building everything again. Would love to though, I still need to check out Evolution. I mean, I did buy it after all and I'm kinda posting this on THIS forum lol. Windows has Steam going for it, and there's already people talking about how it's better than SteamBox (SteamOS). Of course the base AtariOS has lots going for it too. Various prebuilt-in streaming video apps, the entire Atari Vault, and online stream gaming through services (that I've not heard of) like Antstream. Lots of stuff to play around with. I will say though that I did "unwrap" the console and controllers. I was concerned about the new gamepad's D-Pad, it looks terrible. But it feels ok. The grips on the controller are lacking any kind of texture or rubber, just flat plastic. But meh.. The joystick feels good in the hand, but the "ribs" on the base feel like they'll be instant ridges on your hand after playing. A small nuisance but they could have gotten away with just bands of gloss and matte finishes instead. The stick actually feels kinda weak. I remember the Atari 2600 sticks had a nice rubber resistance to them. These guys feel very flimsy and feel like they could snap off. There is a feeling of tactile switches inside the stick, so it's definitely a digital stick rather than self-centering analog (like current-gen thumb sticks). The "paddle" feature that I pride myself in suggesting to Atari and then see become fully official feels "ok". I mean, it's a first gen idea and could be improved, but it just feels weird. It's got a "clicky" mount and sensor, like a brand new mouse's wheel. Definitely digital and not analog like the old paddles used to be. But it's better than nothing I guess. I'll have to play a few games like Breakout and Ka-Boom to see if it holds up ok. What'll be really interesting is if I use an emulator and it detects it as a paddle like it should, without having to go find a mouse alternative. As for the console itself, it's definitely got some heft to it, which is a good thing. It's probably 2 encyclopedias heavy, if that helps picture it. Definitely not some cheap materials to cut costs like a version 3 PSONE or PS2-Slim or whatever. It's just looks awesome too. I'm surprised though that the Fuji logo is actually cut out of the wood grain front rather than it illuminating from behind it like they said it would, maybe I just remember wrong. Looks like it's got USB3 ports front and back, which I didn't think they were going to do since pre-production photos showed only ports in the back. That's cool. Of course the controllers are all bluetooth so you'll never actually see wires except out the back for power/network/video. I think it's got wifi too so might not even need the ethernet. The ports are mostly for expansion like hard drives, or 3rd party controllers. That's it for my "unboxing" review. I'll post more when I hook it up. I'm excited though. I've actually seen people in the official Discord and Facebook groups saying that it runs Cyberpunk 2077 fluid and flawlessly, which is awesome considering they didn't build it to compete with 9th generation consoles,, but apparently it does.

"Unboxed" it (from the shipping box) yesterday. Haven't hooked it up yet, have a lot of things to do before Christmas. But... take that you nay-sayers!

I too got the shipping confirmation. Hasn't arrived yet. Original it was slated for Monday the 21st but has since been updated to Tuesday the 22nd. Still, before Christmas is cool. Can't wait to have it!

Wow that is absolutely incredible. Who comes up with those ideas?

Hopefully they'll still have them in stock after the Christmas Holidays, or at least be producing more. I'd still like to get one but can't afford it right now.

Here here, we need more Happy this year.

You know.. I still haven't managed to trigger that myself, even though I've seen some videos. I should try to manage that some time on my day off.

Be sure to let us in, spoiler free!

I backed Atari VCS. I used their Backerkit system to order an additional set of Joystick & Contemporary controllers. As of today, I got an email from them saying my card has been charged and the shipment is getting prepared for final shipping. Offered me to update my shipping address a few days ago, and again today. Things are "appearing" to be moving forward.