What's new Pussycat too?

Go ahead and send some tea, not knowing Andy included some in my package, and with the excitement over the magazine, I accidentally through out the package apparently with the tea still inside somewhere! And garbage pickup happened before Andy told me it was in there after I shared here, so there was no chance for me to dig through the rubbish and save the tea.

 

Sad individual that I am when I was over in West Virginia visiting my better half early in December I took a box of Yorkshire tea bags with me. Best cuppa ever

 

Bloody marvelous! I found the tea @Andy Barr sent me! Apparently I did, absent minded, take it out of the package and I placed it in a little drawer under my 3D printer! I just went to print something today, first time using the printer in months, and there is the tea bag pouch,starring back at me!

So I'm going to have a mug of Twinings English Breakfast tea for my new year's breakfast, about 1 pm your time, 7 am mine.

 

Bloody brilliant -

Get a brew ON, Matt!

 

I'll organise a packet of Yorkshire tea over the weekend, I hope it an OK thing to send?

Don't want it confiscated at the last leg..

 

Couple of new aquisitions today....

After a 50 mile round trip to a branch of CEX I got Gripshift for the PSP (£2). It's been on my wishlist for ages so when I saw it appear in a 'local' branch I just had to make the trip. Thankfully the manual was in the case or it would have been a wasted journey. Picked up Rockstar Table Tennis for the Xbox 360 (£1) at the same time.

I really like the wishlist on CEX and check it at least once a week to see if anything I'm looking for is nearby. Now down to just two games on it and hopefully I'll be able to pick one of them up next week. I know CEX has its detractors but I find them really good in general and have found them pretty decent for trade-in prices too.

Final addition to the Al Cave is the return of an old friend. A Sega Saturn MkI console! I regretted selling my last one and have been keeping an eye out since for a replacement after managing to blow up my Japanese console (oops!). Picked up a slightly tatty looking but working fine MkI PAL console and after trying it out with my Action Replay cartridge it runs CD-R backups and imports without any hassle. Happy days

 

I want to get another Saturn myself, and wish I hadn't sold off my quite large collection in favor of a new Dreamcast and a couple games back in '99.

My new toy is a TRS-80 Deluxe joystick. Normally selling for about $50, I found one for $25 shipped. It matches my Coco 2's color scheme. This of course means that the two original TRS-80 standard joysticks are open game for some crazy ideas I have using them with my Atari 8-bits!



I may have to do a bit of retro-brite on it so it matches my mint Coco 2 a bit better though...

 

Never missing a modding chance

 

Well, the retro-brite is more of a restoration attempt (before breaking out the paint). Now using the old standard joysticks from the Coco for Atari projects is a "never miss a modding chance."

 

I finally received my Infocom-like text adventure game 'Hibernated 1: Director's Cut' a couple of days ago. Pre-ordered and payed for last June, supposed to ship out in August, delay notice finally received in December...though it was supposedly a manufacturing issue and everything else I ordered from Poly-Play, like my Avalon Hill titles, all arrived quite quickly considering coming from Germany. It came with a small poster and a couple other extras souvenirs like the Infocom titles used too.

I'm in the middle of a full cleaning and repaint/touch-up of my 'XL Command Center' and waiting on some poster tacky to arrive tomorrow before adding this poster to the rest I have. New pictures of it all, with new flooring and trim too, coming soon.

 

Bootiful new goodies there, Matt.

Great packaging and contents as we like to see and gratefully appreciate.

We await images of the new refreshed and touched-up Command Center with bated breath, budster.

Hope you guys are steering well clear of those blizzards that we've heard a fair bit about on the news affecting Cape Cod and Boston... could they be heading your way...or our way next?

Let's hope not - it's snow joke.

Ohhhhhh, I'll get me coat, lads and put the kettle on for another brew (Yaarkshire tea of course!)

 

I really like the 400/800 advert Matt, very retro looking.

Not much new this week, but I did mark another couple of my PSP wants off my wishlist and picked up a couple of old football games for it at the same time. Grand total of £3.40

Also got the latest printed issue of ZZAP! Amiga in the post as well for a bit of reading.

 

Funny you should mention that advert, as right after I took that picture I moved that ad on metallic plate to it's new home in my office trailer...



That red and black joystick is the last item that will be painted to match the rest of the 800CX system there.

 

Superb looking man cave that is now thoroughly looking "the business", Matt - it is starting to resemble a 1970s office (if you ignore the black modern monitor and PC keyboard).

A very classy look indeed, fella.

I'm liking it and it nudges me towards "tidying up" a bit in my colossal heap...

 

Only change I'd make are new blinds..

 

LOL! Yeah those old things came with itand crumble if you touch them. They don't even fit any of the windows either. So yeah, those blinds will be changed out asap. I need to apply new weather stripping to all the windows too, currently you can feel a breeze through closed windows! The door too.

Also @Andy Barr , I have Sophia 2 board installed in my 800CX, currently in DVI mode with an adapter to HDMI on that modern display. Eventually I plan to get a nice white CRT 4:3 VGA monitor for the 800CX and reprogram the Sophia 2 for VGA output. And the PC keyboard gets stashed away when I'm actually using the 800CX. So eventually, and most of the time it will look 100% late 70's early 80's retro...except for the 3D printer...sorry, that stays put. Of course there is a PC hiding at the end under the Syn-series and Net Worth app boxes.

I made a couple last minute changes with the wall art; a picture of the IBM 'ATARI' PC my 800CX is in homage too, and an old ad I pulled out of a Compute! magazine for 'Your Personal Net Worth' app I use for my private and business finances. I use Syncalc and Synfile+ too for my business. And I brought out Atarilab software since I already have all my Atarilab Interfaces in the office/lab.



The 800CX will be mainly used for application, educational and lab projects, and my 1200XL will be mainly used for computer programming, art & music creation and viewing/listening, word processing and of course gaming. I'm sure I'll be playing the occasional game on the 800CX too. And my TRS-80 Coco 2 is now being set up next to my 1200XL, where the 800 used to be, and it too will be used for programming, art & music and gaming.

I'm still working on my revamped 'XL Command Center' so pictures on that will come later. It's nothing major, mostly it looks the same, just re-organized and some touch-ups from use damage over the past couple years, new flooring underneath and some hidden shelving under neath mostly to hold and hide power strips and PSU's, but a few other items as well. Of course my entire bedroom/man cave/XL Command Center is being finished and re-arranged better. I have disassembled and removed my glass display case. It just took up too much room and I got a new dresser drawer so it had to go. It will return one day, after me mum passes and my brother takes over her room I'll be expanding mine.

 

Great plans and 20/10 for overall effect, Matt.

You should be rightly, immensely proud of what you have created here - a real slice of late seventies/early eighties Atari heaven in your own colour scheme take on this period.

A micro masterpiece, I tell thee!

PS. Sorry, I didn;t even notice the 3D printer over on the left... god knows what I thought that was... some eccentric microscope or some such devilish device ;-) Rock on, Matt - it all goes very nicely in there indeed. Again, immense credit for REALISING the dream from thought to fruition.

 

Thanks! I did a bit of editing while you were replying...a new picture, etc. added above...

 

It all OOZES class, Matt. I love all the original Atari "killer" apps that you are still using too plus the Atarilab hardware. It's all very definitely still in daily use and very definitely still very lurved - you clearly get immense pleasure from your CX and XL Command Center setups and of course the CoCo treats to come.... lucky you, fella!

 

Just arrived this week the essential C64 programmer's literature, amended, fixed and printed with a rigid cover.
C64 User's Guide and Programmer's Reference Guide printed by Lulu.com following the releases as they came from this site: https://pickledlight.blogspot.com/p/commodore-64-guides.html

This amazing project completely revised the two books, and it is continuously updated. My copies were printed using the version of January 23rd. The result is amazing, top quality. Recommended.

 

Lovely looking but the price gave me a wake up (on Lulu.com).

The programmer's guide was another one I lost bitd...Nice to have a PDF.

 

Well, it's about 50 euros for both the printed books. Not cheap, but a good deal imho.
The PDF files alone are worth it, as they were nicely corrected in detail. Perhaps other print-on-demand services may offer a lower cost. Lulu.com made a good job.

 

They certainly look the part but 60UK is too stiff for me but a huge thank you for the PDF. I rarely coded on the C64 but it was nice to have the details. My most thumbed book, Mapping The Atari, I have both versions (real), bitd on most days you would find me on Omnimon with Mapping the Atari open

 

I made the mistake recently of not reading a listing close enough, thinking I was buying a TRS-80 Coco 2 bound original user manual and what I received was a PDF on a CDR. With a nice label. I already have the PDF I downloaded for free and could save it on a CDR or print it out any time I want! But at least it was only $10 with shipping.

My latest addition to my original Atari software collection is another Infocom game, which brings my total Infocom collection up to 4 titles including Zork I, The Lurking Horror, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and now...


Leather Goddesses Of Phobos. CIB in good condition.



Including my recently arrived Hibernated 1 Director's Cut, that's 5 original, complete, and boxed (one brand new) text adventure games now in my physical collection.

 

Ah, that game brings back memories Matt. Think I played it but can't remember if it was on the A8 or maybe even the ST.

I did pick up some stuff from my pal's store including the two Atari Lynx collections for the Evercade console. But the biggest thing has been me finally giving in and opening the sealed Hotwheels Atari models I got as a Christmas present....