Tag Archives: Atari2600

How to set up your Raspberry Pi to play Atari 2600 games

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How to set up your Raspberry Pi to play Atari 2600 games

So after your brain hurts a bit and you're tired of learning computer science on the Raspberry Pi, you might want to relax with a bit of nostalgia and exercise your thumbs with some retro gaming. Want to revisit your childhood memories of Pong? Ping away. Maybe your kids have been hounding you for a video game console but you don't have the $300 to spring for a PS3. The Pi can help you with this and help teach your kids something, to boot. After some slight software configurations and a hardware purchase or two, you can relive the days of the almighty Atari 2600. Catch us after the break and we'll show you how to get your Pi to play all your totally legal cartridge backups.

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How to set up your Raspberry Pi to play Atari 2600 games originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Atari 2600s get PC innards, 22,857 times more processing power

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Atari 2600s get PC innards, 22,857 times more processing power

Atari games redesigned in HTML 5 may bring back a flood of nostalgia, but they leave out a key part of the gaming experience: the classic hardware. Hard Drives Northwest filled that void by gutting a limited number of authentic Atari 2600s and stuffing them with modern PC components. Packing a Core i7 3.4GHz processor, the retro console now boasts 22,857 times more processing power than it did in its heyday, according to Microsoft's calculations -- more than enough oomph to handle the recent remakes. Other internals include 8GB of RAM, a 120GB SSD and a Radeon HD 6570 graphics card with 1GB of video memory. With support for USB 3.0 and 2.0, eSATA, DisplayPort, DVI and HDMI, the system is well stocked on the connectivity front. Finally, the signature of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell acts as the cherry atop the faux wood grain-toting package. While the souped-up machines aren't up for sale, a pair of them are slated for a giveaway. Glamour shots and the full set of specs await you at the source.

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Atari 2600s get PC innards, 22,857 times more processing power originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Atari ports classic games to HTML5 for web and Windows 8, lets developers craft their own (video)

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Atari ports classic games to HTML5 for web and Windows 8 users, lets developers build their own video

Atari is big on nostalgia this year, but it hasn't had much in the way of software to reflect the trip down memory lane beyond the existing mobile apps. Its remedy to that shortfall is full of 2012 buzzwords. The new Atari Arcade includes modern takes on eight classic Atari 2600 games, all built entirely with HTML5 and free to play. As fun as that promises to be, our interest is most piqued by the game library's open-ended nature; this isn't just an alternative to firing up a smartphone. A new Javascript kit lets developers not only build their own games but make money as they see fit, whether it's through ads or in-app purchases. Whether they're new or old, titles work in multiple contemporary browsers, although Microsoft would really, really like you to know that the games are ad-free and touch-optimized for both Windows 8 tablets as well as Internet Explorer 10. We'll try to remember that when we look to relive our Combat memories on a Surface.

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Atari ports classic games to HTML5 for web and Windows 8, lets developers craft their own (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Atari: celebrating 40 years on the dots

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Atari celebrating 40 years on the dots

Forty years. That's a long time in the tech industry and Atari knows it. Today it celebrates four decades in the game, and quite the tale it is. Highs, lows and everything in between, Atari has been there. As one of the most influential brands both in gaming and technology, it only seems right to take a look over the company's history and chart some of the more significant twists in its less than straightforward journey. After the break we speak to the man that started it all and the one currently at the helm, as well as some of the many people whose lives were irreversibly changed by its influence. Happy birthday to you, Atari!

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Atari: celebrating 40 years on the dots originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Joyride to joystick: Atari controller custom-built from car seat adjuster

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Joyride to joystick: Atari controller custom-built from car seat adjuster (video)

So you've survived the robot revolution and you're waiting for either a full-blown apocalypse, or Mr. Anderson. But how are you going to kill time when our new masters are eating controller PCBs for breakfast? With a steampunk joystick, of course. Jason Torchinsky from Jalopnik has done just that, making an Atari 2600 controller by repurposing a power seat control switch panel from a 1980s Oldsmobile. It's no Avenger Controller Elite, but it certainly does the job, and due to a standardized wiring layout it's functional on other hardware of the same era. And for all you MAME heroes, Jason says it would be no more complicated to hook it up to a PC or Mac using a USB keyboard encoder. Follow the source link for a neat walkthrough of the project and jump over the break to see a video of the seat switch in action, shot in the mancave of yesteryear.

Update: We've removed the video at the owner's request, but you can check it out at the source link below.

Joyride to joystick: Atari controller custom-built from car seat adjuster originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 07:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Star Castle finally finds a home on the Atari 2600, gets a redesigned cartridge

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Halo may have made its way to the Atari 2600, but wouldn't porting a retro game to this '70s-era console be more appropriate? MAKE Magazine has the skinny on former Atari dev Scott Williamson's port of the Cinematronics shooter Star Castle. Though Atari execs decided the title was too complicated to bring over in the '80s, Williamson took it upon himself to make that transition possible. The result of some serious coding is 8K of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM's worth of good ol' space war. But he didn't stop there -- he redesigned the cartridge with a transparent casing and LEDs that flash during gameplay. Click through to the source link for the full step-by-step.

Star Castle finally finds a home on the Atari 2600, gets a redesigned cartridge originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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