What's new Pussycat too?

I think a bit more clarification is needed about what I said earlier on connecting two speakers to one channel, just in case any of you decide to try this for front and side L/R speakers. I forgot to mention that it also depends on the ohm rating of your speakers, and the ohm range the L/R outputs of your amplifier. And also if your speakers are singular or two and three way speakers (for example 3-way have bass, mid and tweeters). Two of mine are 2-way and two 3-way. But instead of me just writing it all here, I'm leaving a link that shows and describes how, with clear wiring diagrams on how to connect. The ohms change depending on how you connect the two speakers to one channel: in parallel or series. This will reduce the watt power to each speaker, but combined, it's the same watt power as with one speaker per channel if connected in parallel and the other way, connected in series, you lose some watt power overall. Hence I said it's for more powerful amplifiers, generally, than the small and cheap 5.1 surround systems bought at the local department store.

On my amplifiers, they have so much wattage potential that they'd blow my ear drums if I turned them up all the way, and they are quite loud for me in my small room, even if the volume is at 25%, so four speakers on L/R outputs just means I can turn the volume up to 50% for the same volume level I get from just two speakers for L/R.

Don't worry, you don't even need to know what ohms and watts means, just do the simple edition or subtraction as shown in the tutorial after checking the back of the speakers enclosure or on the speaker itself (on the magnet/coil end) for their ohm ratings and checking the back of the amp to make sure the speakers you are using, when added or subtracted (depending on the two ways you can connect them to one output) has the ohm range that can handle the combined speakers ohms, depending on which way you choose to connect them, in parallel or series. It may seem complicated here, but it is really not that hard and the tutorial will show you which way is best for your amplifier.

In the picture I posted of my Pyle amp, you can see by the connections the ohm range my amp can handle that allow me to do this. on my Pyle amp the range is 4-16 ohm for my L/R channels, and my speakers are all 8 ohms, so for me, I can hook them up either way. But I chose parallel giving more watts to each of the speakers. Your amp may allow the same, or only one way or the other, depending on the ohm rating of your speakers and the ohm range of your amp outputs. And the speakers don't even need to be all the same ohm rating, even though the tutorial gives example with speakers of the same ohms, they just have to be within the range the amp can handle when you add or subtract their respective ohms.

Anyway, here is a link to the easy to understand tutorial.

https://soundcertified.com/how-to-c...parallel_for_great_sound_AND_no_Ohms_problems

 

I look at it like this, if the person likes what they see or hear then it's the right item for them, that's not saying it's a good item, but if they like it then they are happy. As we know, flies swarm to shit, people are no better sometimes, sometimes the sheep-like hear a rumour that xyz is great, so they all go and get one without bothering to check it out first.

You could try and help them realise their mistake, but they tend to bond against you, so I leave them to it. They are happy and I don't need to hear their crap. I know there's much better gear out there, but I can't afford it, that's the boat most of us are in, we know the score and that is the main thing. As long as we don't let ourselves be ignorant to the possibilities, then we at least are being aware, unlike the sheep-likes.

 

Yup, I'm aware of the impedance side of things, my flat is small so I don't need to fill the area with sound too much, sure, a couple more speakers would help, but I rarely use my amp these days.

 

I live in a flat as well so wary of pumping up the volume too much. I normally use an Anker Soundcore speaker or a pair of Philips bluetooth headphones. I'm not an audiophile (or any other kind of phile!) so both do me just fine for listening to my collection. Also have a nice little Philips hifi and portable cd player for putting my original CD's through.

 

Don't forget to give Spirit of 77 a good ol run out on your hifi, Al - but don't wake the neighbours up else they'll want a copy too!

 

Already given it a bit of a listen Andy

 

Although I live in a home in the middle of nowhere and no neighbors to bother, and not a flat, I rarely get a chance to turn my hi-fi up loud as I have that brother of mine, who currently, until my mother passes anyway, is in a room directly next to mine, and though there is a wall with insulation in between us, we can still here everything the other is doing in his room. For example, my bed is on the opposite side of my room from our adjacent wall, but he snores at night and I can clearly hear his snoring as if he's in the same room.

So we try and respect each other make as little noise as possible to annoy each other. On top of that, he is without a job for two reasons. One, he is here to be with my mother when I work, and two, He has no driver's license to be able to got to work at this time even if he could, so my mother's income and mine support him until she passes. Now, he's working on getting his license back, but he has to pay off $5,000 in fines, which he will only be able to do once he gets his share of life insurance and savings of my mother's when she passes. That, split among us four siblings will come to about $10,000 each, basically just a bit of buffer for us until these things are worked out and we are both able to work full-time. I'm also hoping that one day my brother will be able to own his own home on our land and have our own personal space where we don't bother each other at all, since neither of us like the other (you can love family, even to the point of sacrificing yourself for them, without liking them at all, that's what blood is all about. Though much better if you did like each other too) and would rather have our own homes.

The point being, my hi-fi won't get used to it's full potential until he takes up residence on the opposite side of the house and is also working full-time, which hopefully will give me an hour or two here and there when he's till gone, whether working, or actually getting out of the house once in a while once he get's a life, and same for me there too.

But, a good hi-fi can still sound good at lower volume in my small room with all the speaker a mere few feet away, with me in the center reclining in my theatre style recliner. Also, I'm by no means rich, or even well-off, which is why when I needed a new amplifier I bought one that was less than $100 instead of one for hundreds, and also why I still own and maintain a JVC component stereo system that is 45 years old, though also because it's better made quality and far superior than the Chinesium junk that is sold today, unless you pay thousands for good quality Japanese, German or American (there are still a few companies over hear) systems from a dedicated audio dealer.

Which is also why I learned electronics and taught myself mechanics and construction and plumbing and electrical, etc. so I can build or restore and maintain what the masses consider old obsolete junk. Also if I self build DIY stuff, I make it to last, and I like older tech anyway because quality was better back then and stuff was made to last and be maintained, and not disposable junk like we have today. I know, not everyone has the time to learn or even repair for themselves like I do, and there's nothing wrong with that, for many reasons. I do and can because I remained single and being self-employed in my business allows for me to make my own schedule and I have a lot more time on my hands during the off season of winter.

I just happen to have been able to create the life circumstances I choose, being single. And of course that has the downside of never being in love, raising a family and the joys as well as tribulations that comes with that. It also means, unlike my mother, I will have no one to take care of me in my old age and may well end up in an elderly poor-house near the end after I can no longer work. Unless I remain healthy enough to build my business into something self-sustaining with employees to do the real work and I sit behind a desk and start making enough to save for retirement. I do have the advantage already of owning my home and inheriting 10 acres of land that is paid for, even if I also share that with three other siblings, with at least one that will probably never move here anyway. Possibly two.

I make do and make the best of what I have, and have the ability to improve and upgrade and learn all the tricks to get the most out of what I have, like making a near-equivalent of a 7.1 surround sound system out of older equipment combined with a newer 5.1 amp, that I know how to integrate with my older JVC "4.0" equipment once fixed, and in combination have something very good on the cheap, like this knowledge I've shared to use more speakers with a system not necessarily designed to do so. I just like to share what I know, so if any are in a position to take advantage of the knowledge and put it to use can also improve what they have on the cheap, if they can't afford something like a great 7.1 true surround system, and are in a situation to do so. We all have to make the best of our situations and the possessions we own and time we have.

 

Here, here, Matt.
Well said, mate.
You are a true make do and mend - and improve - and waste not sorta guy - and you look to respect folks, family, boundaries and don;t like to impose yourself on peeps, rather allow them time, space and opportunities to do their thang on the understanding that they reciprocate.
You look to the future positively and like to pass on your electrical skills and knowledge to those open to listen and once more, family is often at the centre of what you do - a lot of admirable traits, mate.
Yeah, you'll do for me, fella and of course I lurve the fact you lurve and admire your retro micros and retro hi-fi and all your reasons are based on hard fact - it was better-built back then - that's why it is mainly still around and cherished to this day as opposed to the cheap imported disposable crap we are persuaded is "hip" and "essential" and the "next big thing"... you smell bullshit like the rest of us old timers, Matt.
Fair play to you, buddy and continue to shine on, you crazy diamond - your folks are very lucky to have you there to keep a steady hand on the tiller.

 

Hi guys this is new. So Happy New Year to everyone with the new English issue of RetroMagazine World. Download & Enjoy! https://www.retromagazine.net/getrm.php?id=17_eng

I hope you appreciate it.

 

Hey, I for one will be dipping in to your latest issue later today, Daz, and I have a funny feeling that Matt might be a tad interested in an article or two, too...



Many thanks, buddy - always good to get your (valued) contributions on the Atari Owner forum, fella.

All the best, mate.

 

Thanks, Andy. We're trying to keep this little creature alive thanks to many RC/RG passionate people around the world. It's always free and ad-free and we're always open to contributions if someone wants to tell us his story or his experience with software, hardware, peripherals, games, etc.

 

It's great that passionate folks like you keep adding new contributions to our hobby and scene, Daz.

Your enthusiasm, energy and strong contact with equally ardent article writers make your mag very much alive with much to keep the console, gamer, coder, arcade and retro micro fan interested.

My fave pieces in this issue are definitely the Bally Arcade article (plenty of historical detail that I'm sure will be of interest to Matt & others), but also the reviews of Impossible Mission on the CBM Plus 4 and also the darts program review of 180 for the C64. This Mastertronic release also came out on the Atari 800XL/130XE and, incredibly, Impossible Mission was also "homebrewed" for the Oric! I also enjoyed reading about Burger Time's arcade history (best game of 1984 - didn't know that) and how it's conversions faired on the console and micro market (the Colecovision's version seems to be the one to get). I was looking to see if "spin off" games such as Mr Wimpy were mentioned but these were probably just loosely based titlles rather than clones. Finally, the RPG reviews were also interesting but I've never quite got into this genre but who knows what 2023 will bring... am I right in thinking the Secret of Monkey Island (on the Amiga as well as other platforms) is one of the most popular titles of this type of game or am I mixing up icon driven adventure games? Someone will put me right. I'm at a funny age, you know!

I will look to contribute an article or two in 2023, mate.
Whether or not they'll be good enough for inclusion remains to be seen!! ;-)

Thanks again, Daz - it's a great little mag (format size - not contents wise - it's well-packed) and I'm sure that after reading this issue, back copies - especially those that cover the Atari 8bit - will be sought after on here by most members of Atari Owner.

 

I have a feeling there probably isn't much new in the article of the Bally Arcade that I hadn't already learned from other sources, mainly the BallyAlly website which is chalk full of history and whatnot. But, I've downloaded and will be reading it all anyway, for the other stuff and the Bally stuff just in case there is new info and maybe some stuff I want to refresh my memory about too, as I continue blogs about it on AA.

 

Thank you very much, Baz, especially for taking your time to browse through the whole magazine and express your equal opinion, much appreciated.

Your contribution in 2023 will be more than welcome. And I've read many of your pieces and stories in AOC and elsewhere and I'm pretty sure that your articles will be exciting, interesting and full of sane British humour. Can't wait to read them. Atari stuff (both consoles and A8/ST) is particularly sought by our editorial team. But Oric articles and many other retrocomputers and gaming consoles stories are always welcome.

 

So far I read the editorial and the Bally article. Both quite interesting, but as I thought, I already knew most of what was talked about in it aside from the names involved. In my restoration of my Bally and researching the memory chips used I found another type of dram chip that is a pin-for-pin compatible match to the original ram chips, which just happened to be the same chips that Atari used on their 16K ram boards, with the same power requirements of 5 and 12V. Though when used you don't get 16K, the Bally only sees the first 4K of ram, but they are less rare than the original Bally chips and better than hacking the motherboard for use with 5V only chips that are not pin and power compatible as I talk about below.

Apparently the above was unknown to the Bally user community at large who were hacking the motherboards to allow the use of dram chips that used only 5V. And had never discovered my option with drop-in replacement chips, that I already knew of from doing my own hacking on Atari 16K boards to upgrade them to 64K boards (though with only 52K direct access and then the rest as bank-switchable memory with 3 4K banks allowing the use of all 64K dram.

Of course my Atari hacking did require the incompatible 64K dram chips, so in that instance I had to hack the ram board to work with only 5V chips similar to what Bally users were doing with their motherboards for another type of chip. But that meant I already had the chips on-hand for my bally ram work as the original 16K ram chips on the Atari 400/800 boards are those pin-compatible ones with the 4K ram chips used on the Bally.

As to the Atari hacking, that was all with the help of Claus Buchholz ram upgrade work he did with Atari 800's and XL's back in the 80's for extended memory and using his schematics as well as direct correspondence with Clause to do that work, which in the end I halted on before it was completed due to the Incognito boards for the 800 becoming available again, which I purchased to upgrade my 800 instead, because of all it's many extra features like a meg of ram with various compatible configurations, the CF flash drive, full XL/XE memory compatibility for a true 64K base memory, and lastly, it's built-in connector for full XL/XE PBI/ECI compatibility, which then led to me creating my own real PBI port out the back of the 800, similar to the one I had done to my 1200XL.

So being a new comer to the community I soared quickly in status among them for this reason above of finding pin-compatible ram replacements and also the way I upgraded my console with the keyboard and keypad. Not so much the keyboard part, in as much as other homebrew hardware gurus had integrated keyboards the same way as I did way back in the 80's, and in fact I used their documentation to do it. But, those DIY keyboards, integrated through the onboard keypad, in photos, always had a ribbon cable coming out the front of their systems where they had hacked the case slightly for that. But when I started doing my keyboard upgrade I was very curious as to why they did it that way because on my Bally console there is a 10-pin edge connector on the side of the consoles motherboard, but it's hidden under the case and doesn't have a "pop out" door like the expansion port on the back does. I of course just hacked a small square opening in the case which is hidden away still do to the cases slanted design on both top and bottom halves.

So I started asking why no one else doing the keyboard hacks were using this edge connector instead of a ribbon cable out the front. People were totally confused about what I was talking about, many assuming I was referring to the rear expansion edge connector originally meant for such upgrades like the Z-grass upgrade that some were making for themselves because all the documents and schematics for it were preserved on the BallyAlly site. After quite a bit of back-and-forth and me showing pictures of my motherboard and pointing out the 10-pin edge connector in the Bally's schematics, the confusion was finally cleared up on both sides. What it was all about was that apparently my motherboard was a very unique early model that no one else in the community owned, that had this edge connector that was soon removed completely from later revisions. It was labeled "keyboard connector" on the schematics and my motherboard, but since know one else had the same motherboard (which was soon discovered to have other unique features) everybody in the community into DIY hacking and upgrades ignored that bit on the motherboard schematics thinking, correctly it turns out, that this was something used only for in-house motherboard testing on the very early motherboards like the one I had and was removed for both cost cutting in later revisions and because it was no longer needed in-house for testing because by then any bugs in the design had been worked out.

It was not in fact, associated with the on-board keypad which also uses a 10-pin cable connector, which is why I naturally assumed it to be associated with it. But after I and another figured this out after collaborating in following the traces of the edge connector to their sources which in fact were not to the keypad connector as I had assumed, because may of the traces pass right by it and on quick inspection I had put two and two together and came to that original conclusion. Anyway, since I did have that edge connector, I merely cut the traces behind it and rewired the on-board keypad connector to that edge connector so I didn't have to have an ugly cable coming from the front of the Bally case.

As to the keypad part, apparently no one had ever thought of integrating a full-stroke keypad and also weren't aware that 24-key keypads (the same amount as the onboard keypad) even existed. But I decided to search for one so I could have both a full stroke keyboard and keypad as there was no way I was going to be using that terrible onboard keypad for any type of Basic or machine language programming! So that was another new thing I unwittingly introduced the entire community too, again surprising all the long-time Bally hardware Guru's amazed at the ingenuity of this Johnny-come-lately to the community. It's interesting how stuff learned and done for another machine can help to discover new ways to do things on a completely different machine and surprise an entire community as a new comer who had been doing things differently for years and a new set of eyes can help them realize things about their machines that they never realized and knew themselves.

In the end, my DIY upgrades is part Z-grass upgrade and part homebrew DIY as I did utilize the rear expansion for the 32K ram upgrade as the Z-grass upgrade would have done if it wasn't vaporware. This bit is an already available upgrade in the community though, not an invention of my own. And this upgrade of course allows large Basic programs, but also better Basic implementations have been introduced to the community, as well as a machine language cart created by those who worked on the Z-grass project and continued to support the community after the Z-grass expansion was abandoned, so that home-brewers could still expand their memory and use something other than the rudimentary Basic it had. And a multi-cart that contains the entire library of games, newer Basic implementations and many homebrew machine and Basic programs created over the years by the homebrew community. I also own the original Basic cart for the ability to connect a tape recorder for saving programs to tape, and I also have another cart that can utilize burned eproms for those machine language programs that can only be utilized through the rom cart port.

What I refer to in the paragraphs above can be seen in my blogs on AA, they are the 2nd and 3rd entries at the top: https://forums.atariage.com/blogs/blog/597-gunstars-blogs/



As to the editorial, I guess I can be included in the Guru/Sorcerer hardware group, though I don't offer services to fix anything for anyone, but of course often offer advice and knowledge on maintaining these old machines. It's basically the only reason I went to school to learn electronics; to make it a hobby and ensure I can keep my old electronics running for many years to come. And I LOATH not using original hardware.

 

There's a typo, I'm sure, in your reply:

You obviously meant to type insane, but you typed sane by accident.

 

PMSL!

There you go, Daz.

You got two for the price of one there.

Matt putting the record straight on my version of Brit humour (sane as a box of frogs) and the complete recount there on his Bally Arcade RAM investigations & implementations, rare motherboard with the front edge connector combo and how those new set of eyes he introduced from his previous work on the Atari's RAM led to his blazing onto the existing Bally scene as the new guru on the block!

Great work, Matt as I seem to recall the Bally looking a little worse for wear in the early days of your labour of love and your progressive improvement work on the old timer brought her back to looking and running better than ever.

I'm sure there's a future RMW article in there somewhere!

 

Thank you for the download Daz, looks like some very good articles in this issue. I'm looking forward especially to the Bally and BurgerTime ones (a favourite arcade title of mine) and lots of other varied stuff to read. Thanks again, all the effort you guys make is very much appreciated.

 

Well, it is apparent that hardware articles are included in the magazine, I believe the Bally/Astrocade community is far too small too warrant a hardware hacking/upgrading article in the magazine. A history is a whole different story as it's probably introducing most readers to a machine they have never heard of before and therefore a great curiosity piece for such a magazine. But after being on the scene for a couple years now, my guess is less than 100 people in the world, probably all in the states, since I don't believe it ever sold out of the states, actively involved in the community, maybe even less than 50, quite possibly even smaller! I'm sure there are a bit more than 100 people that own them as collectors items, but are not really users or active followers or contributors to the community. But it seemed to me there were only about a dozen people actively involved through this strange email-forum I'll get into below.

The Bally Arcade/astrocade forum on AA, is the only actual forum for the system on the internet, and only the one web site with any info is BallyAlley.com, which I referred too in my last post. And the AA forum is quite dead the vast majority of the time, with only a few semi-regulars that post there. The only other place that is more active is actually this strange sort of e-mail forum where all communication is sent through emails. There is an actual site to post at instead of using the emails to post and reply, but it is very confusing to follow the conversations that way. It's very hard to explain, and it's not an open thing either, it's private and you must apply for membership and get approved, which everyone who does gets approved, but it's just a very convoluted and buggy system that most involved ignore, basically just relying on the email to do the communicating.

It's run by the same guy who operates the BallyAlly website, and very frustrating to use either way, at least for me, where I kept running into all kinds of issues of emails not going through or received many times, depending on what email service one uses. And I had to change the email service I was using three times as unusual and buggy things constantly occurred for me, including random blocking of emails and being blocked from the actual site too, that was not done by the guy who runs it all. He was constantly having to look into issues I was having, and suggesting I just re-apply for membership to solve the problem. Communicating through the site or emails, the way it's all setup is very confusing and convoluted and I could never get used to it and figure out how to use it better, no matter how much people tried to tutor me.

I just got so sick of it that the last time my membership was blocked/revoked and emails lost, and he told me to re-apply and I should probably do it through a new email address from a service he used, after trying through the three I already had. I just stopped using it at all and told him from then on I was only going to post on the AA forum, that only a small handful of the small handful of regular users even use, since it's relatively recent and most seem to be satisfied with the email communication and have stated they don't care for the type of forums like AA and would just as soon keep doing it through emails. He said he would copy and send any posts I made on AA since he was one of the very few that did frequent the AA forum too.

Other's didn't seem to have the issues I did. Except issues they had when I was attempting to post and reply, or start a new conversation and the way it all worked was everyone sent posts and replies to a general email account on the site, and then everything was forwarded from there to the individuals email addresses. it's all quite strange. And every one else there were too stubborn in their ways to convert to a standard internet forum. They all seemed very strange to me for those reasons. Most seemed quite nice and all that otherwise.

I haven't even bothered to post in the AA forum either since about a year ago, so I guess I was really only involved in the community for about a year, since I haven't bothered even with posting on the AA forum for that long, since there are so few replies and I've been busy with other things in life and have also been focused on other systems more since.

Everything about the community is as strange as the way the Bally Arcade works internally, as briefly describe in the article in this issue of RMW. I'd be happy to contribute with hardware hacking/upgrade articles for the Atari 8-bit and Dragon/Coco range, but I don't know how interested RMW producers are in those systems, but I guess @AlexDrito would have to answer that one. This is only the second issue I've been exposed too, and if you recall, I put my foot in my mouth complaining about lack of coverage of the Atari 8-bits and some other unflattering remarks I spoke openly of, upsetting Alex, not knowing he was directly involved at the time, or else I would have been more tactful in my remarks about the magazine.

I still found little of interest in this issue to me, beyond the editorial and Bally history article, since once again, it was mostly about systems I don't own and never plan too, aside from possibly the C64, but since I don't own it yet and don't know if I ever will, I have little interest in the articles about it either right now. I skimmed through the rest of the magazine, but mainly looking for something else that pertains to machines I own, and found nothing once again. Now I do know that Alex said before, when the previous issue was released, that they planned to do for regarding the Atari 8-bit and other Atari machines, but no one writing for the magazine already had much interest and hoped for more contributions from outside writers who were more interested in contributing Atari related stuff. Even the most popular Atari of all time, the 2600 only got a small blurb of recognition in the Burger Time article, I was hoping maybe some of the homebrew/clone versions done in recent years for the A8, 5200 and 7800 might have been mentioned, but nope, which is another clear sign to me that there just isn't much interest in Atari machines from the writers or readers in general.

But is there really much of an audience from within the regular readers for the Atari or the Dragon/TRS-80 Coco machines to justify me bothering with articles about those machines? If there were, I think some of the other readers might have contributed those articles by now to this current issue. Of course I would be willing to attempt to re-edit some of my AA blogs to article form if Alex or others involved think any of them might be well received by them and their audience, beside the few of us here, that is.

 

I'm stunned by the extent of the problems you encountered and the trouble you went to, to keep in touch with the Bally Arcade fraternity / forum, Matt, and get them up to speed with your enhancements, fixes and upgrades etc.

I think most folks, myself included, would have given up and walked away almost immediately but full credit for trying, trying, trying, trying and trying again as it sounds like their archaic system was trying you from the word go.

As for contributions to Alex's (aka Dave/Daz/Cercamon) mag, from my point of view, it's ages since I've had a crack at writing an article so it'll be a fairly novelty retro "project" for 2023.

He sent me an Oric article in Italian to "proof read" several years ago, as it was already semi-translated into English, and I quite enjoyed helping out with that.

What to base my article on though...

Oric (underdog machine) vs Speccy (everyone at school had one except me) articles have been done to death;



Did/Do you have to be a Boffin to own a Beeb? That would be as boring as the title suggests;



Atari? Aint they expensive and you can only play games on em? Why were Atari 8bit micros commonly seen as mere game machines in the UK in the 80s? (Again, this has been covered umpteen times already);



Hmmm, I'm in need of novel, micro motivation and some retro subject that I'm au fait with and can get my (box of frogs) teeth into

IDEAS on a beermat to the usual address, guys.

 

By the way Andy, I did finally receive the Christmas card you sent two days ago, along with the CD for '77 and, of course the tea bag! I'll have the tea after dinner this evening while I give the CD a play. Cheers!

So only 13 days after Christmas...

 

Better late than never, Matt.

It must have left here around Dec 10th, I reckon, so it's taken about a month to reach you Stateside.

Whatever - you can enjoy a good Yaarkshire brew anytime, mate!

After all, if it's good enough for him...

 

Thank you for downloading and taking a look! It's good to count you among our readers.

 

Hey Matt, you're always welcome! We are always open to contributions, no problem! And we do this only for passion and fun. Everything is free and ad-free. Since when we started, mostly because of geographical reasons, some 8- and 16-bit platforms did not receive the coverage they deserved (for example Atari 8-bit and ST, Oric, even MSX, etc.) - the most popular platforms of the 80s and 90s (especially in Europe) always receive a lot of articles concerning hw, sw, games, programming, etc. So we often invited members of Atari forums and FB groups to send in their experiences, knowledge, and stories about their favorite platform. We did the same with Jupiter Ace, ZX81, Archimedes and Acorn fans, but the feedback has always been poor or occasional.

So Matt, I can assure you that if you decide to send an article or two, we'll be glad to publish them. Your valuable experience in the retro-scene is clear so we can only expect nice and interesting stuff from you.

 

I think I get the joke, the bit about the large bag of tea for a bloke that is clearly addicted. But am I supposed to know who this guy is also? Is who he is supposed to be part of the joke? Is that one of your recent fly-by-night Prime Ministers that I missed while my head was still spinning from the other's coming and going so fast?

Though sometimes I wish we could get rid of some presidents that fast...you know, like a 30 day probationary period and if they don't live up to expectations, fire them and grab another bloke off the street to give it a go. It would HAVE to be a more effective way of choosing the next leader of the free world than our corrupt mail-in voting system, since Covid, both literally and figuratively!

The clown we ended up with is a testament to that! His campaign slogan should have been "Make America the joke of the world again!" Or, maybe a twist on the slogan from above the gates of Hell in Dante's Inferno "All who enter [a vote for me] abandon all hope!" With either slogan he probably still would have won in an honest election based on his refreshing honesty!

Of course the recently elected Keystone Cops Republican House of Representatives are doing their part in making America look like a joke too! And we actually thought they might be the answer to helping stop Joe's destruction of America! We actually thought we were taking a page from The Who's song 'Won't Be Fooled Again." And what fools we were. Is Yorkshire Tea good for cleaning egg off the face too?

Sorry, it was easy to get on a roll with the political jokes, when our politicians are such a joke!

I guess both the U.S. and U.K. are cornering the market on being the jokes of the free world these days!

If I could just be King for a day, before we have our next election cycle, I'd outlaw political parties, political lobbying and impose term limits for all politicians and term limits for all unelected appointed government agency officials and lastly a nation wide law requiring in-person voting with legal ID's required. Those things alone could turn the country around overnight!