October 2024
•October 2024 Edition•
I have been spending money with Atari lately! I picked up a set of the new CX30+ Paddle controllers not long ago, I reported on that back in July. More recently I added the new content update for “Atari 50”, which I have installed in Steam on my PC (These days we seem to call this kind of update “DownLoadable Content” or “DLC”). Some great new interviews in there, and a bunch of additional games.
This has been an exasperating month for SPACE and myself! As I am writing this report I still don’t know where we stand for our monthly meetings.
I have only begun exploring - and there is much yet to explore and revisit in the original Atari 50 content as well! I understand that a second content update is coming yet this fall, most likely I will be adding that as well. Furthermore, I have put in my preorder for the new Atari CX40+ Wireless Joystick.
After filling out and sending her the form I expected bills for our past meetings, but instead she needed more information.
I do have a set of the old CX42 Remote Control Wireless Joysticks, those work but the form factor is huge and sort of ruins their usability for me.
All I can say is that I still hold the key to get into the Falcon Heights Community Center, so that is where I expect the meeting to be. My last call to Kelly to find out about our application for the permit was surreal!
She had two questions: 1.
Are there any members of our club who preside in the City of Falcon Heights, and...
2.
Can anyone join our club?
The new model seems to fit into the classic normal form factor, and use some kind of 2.4 GHz wireless signal between the controller and a receiver that plugs into the controller jack on the Atari. At least that’s my impression of how it works, looking forward to finding out for sure when I receive mine!
I answered “no” to the first and “yes” to the second. I then told her that I would send a payment promptly when received the fees due. Then she called me back and said because we didn’t meet the threshold for the number of local members in our group that she would have to discuss our situation with the local commissioner.
As you will read in Greg’s article, it is looking near-certain that we will need to find a new place for SPACE to meet soon. Be sure to join us this month to help determine how we will move forward from here, and stay tuned about the meeting location in the coming months!
My last call a couple of days ago ended when she said they were still working on our application and she would get back to me when they have an answer. So for right now we are still meeting at our regular place. I will keep you all posted to any changes that I get!
We will be fine; at least one very promising option has already turned up.
So, as for the Treasury we had a beginning balance on September 1, 2024, of $1,742.81 and sold three DOMs for $9.00 for the month to bring our new bank balance to $1,751.81.
Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting: Friday, October 11, 2024.
Please come to our October 11th meeting, as we have a lot to discuss. The future of our Club may be on the line! Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best!
–TABLE OF CONTENTS– PAGE ONE: The President’s Corner Treasurer’s Report Secretary’s Report Message from Captain Irata: “Life is grand! Atari is great! So, play your video games tonight, and don’t be late!” HOO-RAH! TRIVIA TIME! In the Atari 7800 game “Jinks,” digitized sounds from the arcade classic “Gauntlet” can be heard at the title screen of the game.
PAGE TWO: Atari 8-bit DOM Review Atari Multi-Platform Game Review PAGE THREE: Final Thoughts PAGE FIVE: SPACE Comics Section
HELLO WORLD! Well, it’s October of 2024 already, and it’s yet another Secretary’s Report. So welcome back, everybody! Let’s get started with the SPACE Meeting minutes! MEETING BEGINS: The September 2024 SPACE Meeting commenced on Friday, September 13, 2024, at 7:36 PM. There were five members present at the Meeting that night. MEMBERSHIP COUNT: The SPACE Membership Count is currently at eleven paid-up members. SPACE WEBSITE REPORT: Nothing was stated about the SPACE Website status, but we assume it is working well and within normal parameters. DOM REPORT: Again, we were presented with a great DOM for September by Glen K. It has a great game from the ABBUC Club in Germany called “Time Wizard,” where you use time to your advantage solving puzzles and collecting hourglasses. This is a great game and I will have more about it and other files in the DOM when I present the Atari 8-bit DOM Review later in this Newsletter. OLD BUSINESS/NEW BUSINESS: We had no old business to discuss at the September 2024 SPACE Meeting. But, for new business, we had a nice demo of the Amiga 500 Mini, presented by Tom L. It had mostly games originally for the Amiga (including. A cool demo of the classic first-person shooter “Quake”), as well as a demo of AmigaOS that Tom had stored on there. All I can say is kudos to the creators of the Amiga 500 Mini and to their efforts to keeping retro gaming and computing alive. It was quite fun playing those games as well. We did discuss the idea of having sales of disk images of the DOMs to members who have emulators and no physical Atari hardware to run the DOMs with, but we decided to hold off doing this until we can have a vote with all of the Officers in the Club at the Meeting first. I think it needs to be discussed and I have an idea for that sort of thing once it is discussed in a future meeting. This will be revisited at a later date. Recently, as our SPACE Treasurer stated earlier in the Newsletter during his Report, we are having a dilemma with future SPACE Meetings. It seems we may need a quorum of 25% of our members from Falcon Heights, and so far none of our members hail from there. This could be a problem for the future of SPACE Meeting at Falcon Heights City Hall. More information will be posted when we have it, so pleased keep reading for more information on our Meetings. MEETING ADJOURNS: The September 2024 SPACE Meeting ended at 7:51 PM, lasting approximately fifteen minutes. Well, folks, this concludes the SPACE Secretary’s Report. I hope we can keep meeting in the future in Saint Paul, but until then let’s keep negotiating for a space for SPACE! In the words of the late, great artist Stan Lee… EXCELSIOR!
Well, welcome back to the Atari 8-bit DOM Review! This is going to be a short Review, as there are only five files to look at. It’s going to be fun! But, however, I must apologize in advance because the games on this October DOM didn’t load on my XEGS. Therefore, I don’t have pictures for them. So, sorry about that. I will need a composite video cable for my 130XE to run these games, so I hope to rectify this dilemma soon.
Music/Sound FX:
10
TOTAL SCORE:
40/40 (100% perfect score)
The next file is a music track called “Jeli to Jeli Tam (“If Then If There” in Polish),” by LisU. It’s a simple tune, with some pep and some beat to it. It has a moderate tempo and is really mellow. Sort of relaxing, actually. It isn’t a bad tune, rather it’s enjoyable. I will score it now. TOTAL SCORE:
8/10 (80%)
The final file on Side One of this DOM is called “xD Raider,” by Maciej Hauke. It shows a skull on fire, but it is rendered in grayscale. But, it is a really nice rendering. I am impressed by it. It really has a lot of detail to it.
I think this is a memory issue, since the XEGS only has 64K of RAM, whereas the 130XE has 128K. I will see what I can do about this. Thanks for understanding. I will still review the games, just without pictures. October 2024 DOM, Side One: The first file on this DOM on Side One is called “36 Days,” by Freddy Offenga. This is a 186-byte file showing a twisting graphic with the words “36 DAYS” glowing on each side of the graphic. The animation is fluid and detailed. I liked the look of it.
TOTAL SCORE:
10/10 (100% prefect score)
Now, let’s see what on Side Two! Side Two:
SCORE: Graphics: Animation:
9 9
TOTAL SCORE:
18/20 (90%)
The next file is the game “Caverns of Eris,” by Thomas Allen. It’s a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up. You pilot your ship throughout a cavernous planet, shooting and avoiding alien space ships. You can collect power-ups for your weapons and you have a shield. If you lose your shield completely, you lose a life. If you lose all of your lives, the game is over. There are multiple levels and big boss ships that appear after a certain amount of levels are completed. At the beginning of each level, your shield will replenish completely. The game is challenging. It also have great graphics and even parallax scrolling for a 3D effect during gameplay. The game really rocks with a kicking music soundtrack. I really enjoyed playing this game and it’s a lot of fun. I wish I had some pics to show you of this game, but it is a cool game. Take my word for it. It can be addictive. You will enjoy it. Here’s my score for this game. SCORE: Graphics: Animation: Gameplay:
10 10 10
Overall, this is a really accurate translation of the arcade game. For 8-bit technology, it does very well, but it uses a flash cartridge because the cartridge is so big (1 MB in size, if I recall correctly). But, this adds to the nuance. One can get really addicted playing this. So, with that, here is my score on this game. Graphics: Gameplay: Animation: Music/ Sound FX:
10 10 10 10
TOTAL SCORE:
40/40 (100% perfect score)
I will save the screenshots for last in this article, for your viewing pleasure. Thanks for reading! I will be back with more articles next month. Have a happy! I like the pixel effect on the fire. It makes it look more realistic. The skull looks sculpted, almost 3D in appearance. It’s really cool. I will score now.
I will score this file now.
You play as the Space Harrier, flying and running across a 3D landscape through 18 levels. You must shoot robots, dragons, ships and One-Eyed Mammoths. Plus, there are the massive bosses. They take multiple shots to destroy, of course, and can be really challenging.
SCORE:
Anyway, let’s get started!
It could be better, but it could be worse. After all, it’s only 186 bytes in size. But, I like the animation and colors. The colors do compliment each other and everything flows. It really is a fun demo to watch.
This game can run on 64K or 128K, so it’s compatible with the XEGS and the 130XE. I think you would have to upgrade the RAM on pre-XE computers to play the game properly. But, it’s a real gem, with spectacular graphics and sound.
The final file on this DOM encompasses all of Side Two. It’s a game called “Time Wizard,” and it’s really challenging.. It’s a puzzle game where you play a wizard with the ability to manipulate time to your advantage to solve the puzzles in the game. You must collect all of the hourglasses in any level. If you do, you advance to the next level. You have a time limit for each level. You must complete each level within the time limit, or it’s game over. However, you can reverse time to replay certain moves in a level. That’s the beauty of the game. If you use time to your advantage, it’s a real lifesaver. Also, the game gets much more challenging as you advance in it. Even though I don’t have pictures to show of this game in action, I did play it. It is astounding. It’s a real mindboggler. You have to really rack your brain to play this. I will score this game. SCORE: Graphics: Gameplay: Animation: Music/Sound FX:
10 10 10 10
TOTAL SCORE:
40/40 (100% perfect score)
As I stated before, this was going to be a short Review, and it was. I will close now and I will be back with another Review next month. Carpe Diem, fellow Atarians, and thanks for reading! See you at the Meeting! ATARI MULTI-PLATFORM GAME REVIEW By Steve Peck Hello, folks! Today, I am going to review “Space Harrier” for the Atari 8-bit computer. It’s amazing that the people who made this version of the classic Sega arcade game were able to port to the A8 at all! In fact, for an A8 port, it isn’t really that bad. It is spectacular.
NOTE: Screenshots have been corrected and sharpened for enhanced visibility.
FINAL THOUGHTS By Steve Peck This has been a wonderful year for us SPACE Members and Officers. I feel that, if things change for us, we can adapt well to change. Change may come soon in the next few months. So, let’s be prepared for it. SPACE has entertained us for over four decades, and I hope we last for a few more decades. I think we will, because nostalgia is a continuing fad, and retro gaming is definitely in that genre. People love retro things in TV, gaming and collecting. If we have to go to another location, I think we will do well, if not better than before. As long as Atari games are a popular thing, we will be popular. Of course, Atari is a popular brand name, and will continue to be. People are going to need other people like us. If things need to change with SPACE, I think we should go with the flow here. I think that, if we decide wisely, change will work in our favor. We are a resourceful group filled with intelligent techy people. People are going to need our knowledge of things. We are essential. I do not fear the changes ahead for SPACE, because I know SPACE will soldier on as a successful user group. We will have challenges, but so far we have faced them and prevailed. Plus, SPACE has grown in membership. If we can stand together, we will be fine. So, I wouldn’t fret he next few months. I think we are set. No worries. I think we will be better than ever soon. This concludes the Final Thoughts for today. I will se you at the next SPACE Meeting. Until then, thanks for reading, and be happy.
Playing TV Is Just As Fun As Watching It, So Have Fun!
UNABLE TO MAKE IT TO THE NEXT MEETING? Then, sign into our Discord server On the night of the physical Meeting! Here is the permanent invite link To the SPACE Discord server: https://discord.gg/r9Q4AxuNmQ NOTE: This link has been corrected. Sorry for the inconvenience as it was misspelled in the September 2024 SPACE Newsletter. You can copy and paste this URL link on your browser in the search bar. Once on the SPACE Discord server, Go to the Meeting Stream in the sidebar on the Discord page. There is a screenshot of the sidebar on this page with the Meeting Stream link circled. THANKS FOR COMING VIRTUALLY AND PHYSICALLY!
We need your articles! If you wish to channel your inner F. Scott Fitzgerald and want to send in an article, please feel free to send them to the SPACE Newsletter Editor! Please try to send your articles within two weeks of the Club’s occurrence every month. They then will be posted. The SPACE Newsletter Editor’s contact information is, of course, on the back of every SPACE Newsletter! Thanks for posting and for supporting your SPACE Club! We hope to see more articles soon!
SPACE Comics Section! The Misadventures of A-Man and C.D.
Ferret Fracas!
Vice President: Brian Little E-Mail: demomantna@gmail.com
https://space.atari.org The next SPACE meeting will commence on Friday, October 11, 2024, at 7:30 PM, local time! We hope to see you there! Thanks for coming!
Another Message from Captain Irata: “That’s all she wrote, SPACE Cadets!”
E-Mail greglites1@outlook.com
HOO-RAH!