Most liked posts in thread: What's new Pussycat too?

Funny enough I was just thinking about Boots the other day. We had a massive branch in Glasgow and up on the first or second floor they had a big row of all the current home computers set up and working. The first machine I ever wanted was a Philips G7000 because it looked cool with it's flat keyboard! Back then Boots had a great range of software and toys as well, I remember getting lots of my Star Wars figures from it. Think my mum and dad might even have bought my first Atari 800XL from the same branch

Best thing about being a kid/teenager then was going into town and getting to look in Boots / WH Smiths / John Menzies and Lasky's at all the cool machines and type in the usual goto 10 program

Another time when the family was travelling down to Porstmouth I convinced my mum and dad to sit outside Lyons Corner House in London with me until Silica Shop opened for the day

Did you guy's have a favourite 'big' shop to visit, or how about an indie store in your home town?

 

Brilliant Andy! And how could I forget about Dixons?? Started work in there one Saturday morning and despite telling them I knew a lot about consoles and computers and video they put me out to sell car stereos (and extended warranties, remember the hard sell they used to give on those feckers). Went for my morning break and never returned to the store again.

 

LOL! Our minds work in similar fashions, Paul - very funny indeed and you and your mate totally out-witted us tit-heads - we were running around pressing buttons and setting the timers like junior safe-breakers on wine gums whereas you and your buddy were a tad more sophisticated and several tech-levels above us

Any road, harking back to 1985 and the garbage launch of a certain "electric trike" vehicle.

My mate Bill had only been at Wigfalls a couple of days when they took delivery of their C5 and of course all the sales reps wanted a go on it around the King Edward Street store. When it came to Bill's turn, one of the other trainee kids opened the store door and Bill shot out in it, he'd totally lost control of it and narrowly missed a queue of passengers lining up for a bus and actually ended up in the BUS LANE! Hilarious... no wonder Bill never got into sales. He wasn't invited back after his "introductory" week with Wigfalls and I sincerely hope that you did a lot better, Al!!

 

An out of control C5, is that possible?

 

Been busy with work and birthdays this week but did get the latest issues of Retro Gamer and Pixel Addict in the post.

Retro Gamer has a 6 page guide on Buggy Boy this issue, just after Andy talking about it. Think I'll need to load it up on the ST/Amiga/C64 and do a comparison.

Pixel Addict is a really nice little magazine. It focuses more on hardware and also does features on systems that I have never heard of (it's done a good few French computers). Really looking forward to next month though as the main feature then is a deep dive into Radio Shack / Tandy. Up until last month you could get the magazine in WH Smith but they've now went mail order only again as the distributors were taking too large a margin.

Finally, picked up a boxed copy of Combat for the 2600 from my pals store Forgotten Worlds. I already had the loose cart but wanted the instruction manual and it's nice to have the box on display as well.

I don't have any other purchases planned at the moment as I'm saving up for my summer holidays and The400 Mini that gets released at the end of March. Instead I've been clearing out any underused electronics and other bits (bluetooth speakers, cd player, diy tools, etc). In the process of doing that I found a lovely condition ST mouse and power cable in a box so they'll be getting put out on the STE at some point.

 

Nice work, Al, on getting the full blown Atari Combat cart, fab manual and box art etc plus finding those ST rodent accessories!
I also look forward to your Buggy Boy reviews on the various formats (yep, cosmic forces at work again there!) and your mention of the fab French machines in Pixel Addict reminds me that I must get my finger out soon and do a thread on Manu's Magical French Collection/Connection... coming soon, for sures as he has some amazing exotic beasts in his retro cavern Take care all and thinking of Matt and family and all you guys on here who know the sense of deep loss that our buddy's going through... R.I.P. all our nearest and dearest who have departed.

 

RESULT, Al!
Glad to hear of your success on the console and gaming/mags front.
Mackems went down to their 6th successive loss at Saints (thankfully Utd beat those Toffee nosed nobs) so I'm looking for a bit of retro satisfaction too and a good arcade racer does take some beating.
Probably the best I can hope for is good ol Pole Position!
Enjoy, mate - great buys - well done.

 

I obviously had not seen this post before, I asked if you had any games.

Having never owned an N64 and only borrowed one to play the Zelda and Mario games, so I can't really comment on those titles. Anything that is Burnout like floats my boat (usually), like you, SIM stuff leaves me bored. Seeing the replays on Gran Turismo on the PSX was nice, but the game, not so. I'm no petrol head. When it comes to cars I just want to drive it, I don't want to know how fast it gets to 60, I'll find that out for myself (BUT, I'm no boy racer, just did the advanced driving course for cheaper insurance)

To be honest, I've almost forgotten what it feels like to read a real mag, what with PDF's being the norm.

Enjoy the old N64 mate, I've emulated some games, but none really grabbed me bar the titles I mentioned.

 

Thanks Andy

Not a photographer at all, certainly nowhere near the class of Princess Kate of Wales (how's that for bang up to date topical then lads?). Just like taking wee snaps.

That jaggy looking building is our very modern transport museum. Looks very swish but it makes for a really poor museum. Not enough space inside and no atmosphere. They actually have the cars on a wall so you can't even see into them right, and the bicycles hang from the ceiling. The old museum was much better. In fact, your transport museum in Hull reminded me very much of it, really enjoyed giving that a vist.

 

I've been impressed with the MISTer Multisystem

 

As ever you've been a very busy retronaut, Al - well in, mate. A good ol rummage in that warehouse and no mistake.
Enjoy the reading all cosy indoors as it sounds like the weather's against ye for any further external investigations... we're heading (of course) to the Stadium of Doom and another appointment with... defeat? Could well be as the past 6 matches have gone that way! Only QPR know if they're up to the challenge or not Mackems down to the bare bones, players-wise. Nope, no retro gaming this end by the looks of it but DO let us know what was going on around this time of the year in ST/Amiga World back in the late 80s/early 90s, Al... any of those handheld scanner things launched or dare I ask, any "new fangled" CD ROM drives out yet?!

 

Ha ha...Mr Tinker...Glad its proving some fun. Frontier, Elite II uses any accelerator and smooth the gameplay. I used to sit and watch the intro on my 1200 with 68030 in, really nice. Hope the SD's are handy for you, the Expert Cart for the C64 was never tested by me, I used it back in the day but never tried that one. Just loved all the POS it came with..

PS, do you have a 3DS Richie, might have a couple of free games for you if you do, so far I'm the only person on here that has one.

 

You know what they say Paul. If youc can't remember it then you are probably still living it

 

Not had much of a chance to play with the N64 this week but going to give it a good run out soon. I'm not a big fan of FPS but I do like a game of Doom now again.

Glad to hear you are giving the Atari ST some love. I really think it's an under-rated machine. I know the Amiga is generally better but the ST was my first 16-bit computer and I have some great memories of it. I have an STE with 4 meg and a 1 meg STFM set up a the moment. The STFM has a gotek fitted but the STE I'm keeping as original as possible. Thinking about getting a grease weasel to move some images on to floppy disks for it.

Saw your post in the chat Richie and I already have a PS2 and Xbox 360 but if you are thinning your 8-bit herd at any time then I'd be interested in anything Amstrad, BBC or Oric related maybe...

 

Oh you bitch....

 

Nothing new in the way of retro this week (unless you count a couple of vintage look metal signs for the mancave and a Now compilation of Jukebox Classics). Did have a play with the Nintendo 64 earlier. Ridge Racer is excellent on it but I'm really going to need to do a deep delve and try out some of the titles I haven't heard of before. Bitmap Books have just released a new N64 book so I'll pick that up at some point as they are always worth reading and finding a few undiscovered gems in.

Less than a week now to the release of the Atari 400 Mini - really looking forward to that one.

 

So long as they made it through, Al.
I guess the seller thought "I've made next to nowt on these so screw packing em up carefully/well... I can't be arsed" etc.
I;ve had stuff sent to me after I've bagged a bargain and they've similarly arrived in shabby packaging... human nature, I guess but never mind - they're now gonna be very much appreciated by you and that's all that matters.

 

My thoughts exactly Andy, at least he did actually send them!

Some nice articles in them but I probably enjoy looking at the old adverts the most

 

Bootiful, buddy, truly bootiful.

You've got a sweet-looking flush there, Al.

 

It's a very well put together piece of plastic that's for sure @Andy Barr

Getting on better with the joystick than I expected, it has a nice feel to it and the display is very good as well. Played Basketball and Missile Command which are built in and the emulation was excellent.

The only issues I have found are that some games loaded from USB have the top or bottom of the screen cut off. You can adjust the aspect ratio but it doesn't have a wide enough margin for every game yet. A lot of titles like Pole Position, Leaderboard etc that I have played are fine though. Also it would be nice to be able to select more than 128kb of ram and VBXE options in the emulation for games that require it.

Overall though I can see it getting a fair bit of use from me, it's a neat little system and stuff like being able to easily save games or rewind them (very useful when you lose a life during a game!) are excellent quality of life improvements.

Most importantly it feels authentic when you are playing it and gives you that hit of retro that we all chase after

 

It's just nice to see our A8 range get a bit of recongition amongst all the other systems that have been revisited the last few years

Who would have thought that in 2024 you would be able to buy a new VCS or Atari-8bit system lol

 

Nice one Richie, always good to see the ST getting a bit of love

 

Do you have an archive of your PD/Shareware library Allen ? Which library was it ?

 

It was called PD Force (yes, original I know). Only sold locally at first by advertising in the regional newspaper. Back in those days I would deliver the disks in person sometimes and even show people how to use them! Built up a steady customer base using word of mouth and also attending any local computer fairs around Glasgow back when we had things like the Microfair. Also had a very early stall at the infamous Barras Market that totally confused people when they asked for pirated games lol.

Sadly I don't have anything left from that time like catalogues or the original disks. Wish I had kept them as I remember working on my catalogue disk for ages and making it pretty neat.

Somewhere in my archives I probably have a photo or two from those early days, will need to look them out and scan them into the PC sometime.

 

Yeah, keep a look out and if you ever dig any classic retro photos of you "at large" on the Glasgow micro marketplace, manning your stall or copying games "live" as the cops make a bust (!!??) then you know that this is exactly the RIGHT PLACE to display such photographic evidence, Al!! I know exactly what you mean about spending hrs putting together disk games directories and software lists and I recall Brenski sending me a smart piece of software for the Atari 8bit classic which was piss easy to update/edit and then you went through your list with a joystick and the list flew up/down the screen and you could dump it all to printer... again, if I manage to find any old tat/evidence from this era then I too will upload it here "for old times" sake.... memories are made of these, eh, fellas?