Saturday 8 October 2011

Roundup of September 18th meeting

Thanks to Andrew for getting onsite early to open up as usual, and for sending out this communique which wraps up the last get-together, and puts a few things on the agenda for the next! Looks like I missed an interesting meeting!

In summary, it looks like we had a new piece of Atari hardware turn up; There was some more ST Offline Tournament activity with Ork and Son Shu Shi; Monty invited to host us (and show off his new magical music production den, I hope!) before the next meeting. Hopefully we can figure out what to do with his Falcon monitor requirements at the same time; and finally, courtesy of Roger we had a tinker with some Nintendo hardware and games.

Over to Andrew for the details!

Thanks Tom! Just to wrap up from our September meeting, I wanted to let everyone know that Reinhold and I had difficulty finding space in the cupboard for the Atari STE computer that Graham brought in, so it went back to my space. I intend to bring it back next time we meet at 479 Warrigal Road, Moorabbin as I have confirmed it is working, unfortunately this is more than I can say for the third party mouse that was with it, I have a feeling that when they do the quality testing at that same factory in Taiwan, those that pass get branded Atari those that don't get re-branded and shipped to Australia. There is a small switch on the bottom that is marked with Atari/Amiga and I made sure that was set on Atari, I figure it is there so that when it doesn't work instead of taking it back to the store, you'll give it to a friend with an Amiga.

In regard to the ST Online Tournament (STOT) hosted by www.atari-forum.com I went to post a score for the game Ork yesterday and realised that the cut-off was Saturday and they have moved on. For the next 3 weeks you can submit your scores for the game Son Shu Shi. A shame really as I discovered by accident that one of copy-protection question codes is actually eight zeroes and managed to get it to work after 2 goes at the meeting, just a fluke really. Quite a nice little platform romper. If you're planning to have a play around with it on one of the ST emulators I suggest you take a memory snapshot after completing the code to save yourself from frustration as I haven't been able to get it after 2 goes since.

Also the plan for the 9th of October, 2011 is to meet at Monty's Place. It would be handy if someone can bring along their technical expertise as I understand Monty has been trying without success to run an Atari Falcon computer through a flat-screen. The 'it's not working part' may have something to do with the Falcon only supplying a 60 Hz refresh rate, is this correct or have we both missed something. Perhaps if we can get a working Falcon to Moorabbin at some stage we can try running it through the overhead projector and see if that may offer some sort of solution. Along a similar vein if we are going to link 2 Atari computers together through MIDI cables I suspect we'll need another color monitor on hand.

And finally Roger has kindly offered to do the shopping for anyone who is wanting what looks like a battery powered Nintendo N64 controller that plays what appears to be a stack of NES games, what was the exact number again Roger? Roger has informed us they cost $4.95 if they're available and as demonstrated at the meeting they plug directly into a standard Video In socket such as found on most video equipment. Also we're informed that the little unit comes with a 2nd controller, a 'light' gun (like in the old days of Duck Hunt) and a 110 V power pack. Some of the timeless classic games to be found included Galaga, Bubble-Bobble and Space ET. So if you weren't at the meeting and are wanting one then let Roger know.

Kind regards,

Andrew

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