There were a few 'upgraded' games that offered music or better graphics (Rocky Horror, Ultima V, Last V8, etc.) but most of the available 128 games were 80 column text adventures or homebrews. Even then there really aren't all that many (50 or so tops).

I've been running into a similar problem trying to land a job in CA (my wife is a native and wants to move back). I'm in MI doing systems admin/project manager work for one of the 'Big Three', and while I get tons of recruiters calling me, they're all for local positions (although not all in the automotive sector which I guess is at least one positive). I've had very little luck landing interviews with any company in CA and I'm fairly sure it's because I'm not already in CA even though I'm not expecting a company to pay for relocation. While my skill set is good (if I do say so myself), it's not unique, so I'm guessing companies would rather look for someone closer by simply because they can.

Unfortunately I'm a bit risk adverse, so moving to CA without a firm job offer is out of the question (I'm not putting my wife through something like that). The longer the cycle goes on the more depressed I get, but I keep on trying because there's not much else I can do.

I work at a large 'Top Ten' company and I see this sort of thing from just about everyone who is under 60 (the older folk seem to doodle on notepads rather than play on phones). It doesn't matter if it's a manager or an intern, if there are more than a handful of people in a meeting you're going to see this. I get tired of hearing exchanges like this day in and day out:

Speaker: And what do you think about that Johnson?
Johnson: (playing on his phone) Huh? What?
Speaker: What do YOU think about this?
Johnson: (glazed look on his face) Umm... Can you repeat what you said? I didn't hear you the first time.

Meetings grind to a halt when this stuff happens. Not only is it rude to the speaker, but you waste everyone's time when they have to go through everything again. Everyone swears they can play on their phone and listen at the same time, but it doesn't work. I understand the occasional emergency call (my favorite was when we could hear the guy shouting "The babysitter is doing WHAT? Stop her before she gets out the door!". I still have no idea what that was about.) but your day to day activities (work related or otherwise) can wait until the meeting is over with. It's just common courtesy.

I got married on Halloween so I'll be spending a quiet evening with my wife between bouts of handing out candy. It's tough to have a special day on a major holiday because you're always busy, but we knew that going in (Halloween is her favorite holiday). Still, we get to do some interesting stuff on our anniversary because it's Halloween.

Am I the only one who read that title as "DEA Argues ORANGUTANS Have No Protected Privacy Interest In Prescription Records"? I was genuinely interested then thoroughly disappointed.

Brought peace?

Umm... They do. Valley Fever isn't some new mystery illness that's popped up in the last few years, it's been around for a long time and pretty much everyone who lives in areas where it's common knows about it (or at least I they should). Maybe this is news in the UK, but it's old hat here.

Exactly. I tried 'traditional' dating for several years, but I could never meet anyone in my area that shared my interests, values, or my outlook on what I wanted out of life (being in a small town area didn't help). I had to go all the way across country to find the woman for me (I was in Michigan and she was in California). Without online dating I would never have found her and would probably still be trying in vain to find someone local. We've been married for 3.5 years and have never been happier.

Exactly. I had it as a kid and thought it was 'alright'. It wasn't good, but it wasn't bad either. I had a lot of fun playing around with it and even beat it a few times (looking back on it, it really isn't that hard). The 'worst game ever made' thing didn't start until the 90's and even then it's not a title the game deserved. There are a ton of worse games out there, but E.T. is so high profile that it's easy to pick on. Bottom line: Not a good game, but not a bad game either. Quite frankly I think Raiders of the Lost Ark (another Howard Scott Warshaw game) is worse than E.T. and it gets near universal praise. Go figure.

I've been into classic game collecting since the mid 90's (back when the real Atari was actually still around). Up until last year I had a massive gaming collection that spanned multiple systems from the Atari 2600 to Neo Geo (many were boxed as well). For the longest time, anything classic would sell. Loose 2600 games, common 5200 games, Vic-20 cartridges, Colecovision stuff, anything as long as it was pre-1985ish. People were reliving their childhood, only this time they had access to a much bigger allowance and they wanted everything they were denied back when they were kids. Then after awhile I started noticing that no one wanted the loose stuff anymore, people were now paying big bucks for manuals and boxes (originally people wouldn't give you much if anything extra for the box). The reason behind this was that all the big time collectors had the loose games, now they needed something new to collect so they went for the extras (boxes, manuals, catalogs, etc.). Loose games would sit there on gaming convention tables gathering dust other than a handful of very rare titles. Now we're getting to the point where the big time collectors have all the common and uncommon stuff they need, boxed and otherwise, so it's only the rare and extremely rare stuff that's selling. Those will always be worth money because there aren't enough of them for every one to have one. So everyone that was hording common and loose classic gaming stuff like it was gold are discovering that their Pac-Man cart is worth exactly 10 cents and not the $10 they were lead to believe. Unfortunately it would appear that many brick and mortar gaming shops still haven't gotten this memo.

Another thing to consider is the age of the collector. Back when I got into the hobby (mid 90's) Pre-Nintendo stuff was all the rage because that's what the current collectors grew up with. We were all 20 to 30 somethings who grew up with a 2600 joystick firmly affixed to our hand and that's what we wanted to collect for. However about 7 or 8 years ago I started to notice that the classic stuff I grew up with wasn't selling as much as it used to, and it was NES stuff that was starting to go for big money. I found this odd because up until that I point I was grabbing NES games out of bins at flea markets for $2 each, and suddenly even the common games were going for six or eight bucks, while boxed games were going for $80-$100 or more depending on the title. Then it occurred to me that the kids who grew up with the NES were now old enough and wealthy enough to start buying all the games that they missed out on as a kid. So the valuable and collectible games had shifted from Atari era stuff to NES era stuff. That doesn't mean that the Atari stuff was worthless now, but only the rarer stuff kept its value, the rest started to slip. Now we're starting to see SNES and Genesis stuff rise value (the NES stuff hasn't started to fall off yet, but its coming) and eventually we'll see the Saturn and PSX stuff skyrocket as well (although the rarer stuff already has).

So my point is, yes classic gaming can be a good investment, but only for a short time. However unless you're constantly selling off and buying at the right time (before the next trend hits) you're eventually going to lose money or at best break even. The days of mega cheap games that are going to rise in value are over, because people are already looking for what's going to become collectible in the future even with the current stuff (sort of like comic books). That's why we always say not to get into classic game collecting for the money, because there really isn't any. Get into classic gaming because you love the games.

I got lucky because I bought the bulk of my collection when people weren't thinking of what it would be worth in the future, we were thinking of the here and now. When I decided to sell off my collection due to an upcoming move to a smaller house, I actually made a good deal of money on it. However that's because I bought it back before the collecting boom happened, if I tried to recreate my collection now (or even ten years ago) and then sell it I would have lost a fortune.

You can see pictures of what my collection used to look like here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/146921-tempests-game-room/ and what it looks like now that I've slimmed it down (it looks bigger, but it's not, I just concentrated everything into one room): http://atariage.com/forums/topic/210908-tempests-new-new-game-room/

>>I just recently had a chance to play Wasteland on a PC and boy, did it suck, compared to the graphics that was available on the Apple ][s.

OK, I'm going to have to call bullcrap on that one. I grew up with the Apple II version and loved it (I think it was the only game I played for over a year), but there's no way the graphics were better than the PC version (unless you're talking about the CGA version). Check out Mobygames if you doubt me: http://www.mobygames.com/game/wasteland/screenshots

The only thing the Apple II version had going for it over the PC version were less bugs (the PC version was buggy as hell for some reason).

Yes, that membrane keyboard was a pain (quite literally), but not nearly as bad as the pain from waiting 20 min for your game to load from a tape on the 410 only to have it error out at the last minute.

I'd say the Atari computer line was more successful than the TRS-80 line. Maybe I'm a bit biased though as the Atari 400 was my first computer.

Can I fifth this or is it redundant by now? The mobile site doesn't offer anything worth switching for and I'm getting tired of that damn popup.

The seaman looks up and maneuvers the boat toward shore. He cries out "I have waited three ages for someone to say those words and save me from sailing this endless ocean. Please accept this gift. You may find it useful!"