To commemorate the 9th "birthday" of Eurocade, and just because we all hadn't seen each other for various longer periods of time, I organized a nice BBQ with the original Eurocade crew on 5th of september.

The only guy who couldn't make it there was Chris....who we missed dearly !!
All the other crazy guys were there, CKONG (Erik), Gyruss (Pieter), Patrick, McGyver (Etienne) , RobinHolland(Robin). Also there was Etienne's son Xander who enjoyed the best 8 bit computer of all times a lot ...... and last but certainly not least my lovely girlfriend Petra...

Was very much fun, it's so weird, put all these guys together and it's retro-game talk all over the place

There were some old Eurocade relics like the HUGE banner, a RGE DK competition banner and the all-mighty PONG piggybank !

Sadly, the weather wasn't very Eurocade-ish (which generally had very nice to very hot weather) but it didn't spoil the fun (although we had to dash inside with all the food at one point because of rain   )

There was also a little brain-storming about the year 2021. In September 2021 it will be 10 years ago that the first Eurocade happened.
We're thinking about doing some sort of reunion. Not a Eurocade like it used to be, but a fun, international, gathering which will be arcade-game related but also loads of fun "at the bar". SO keep a spot open in the first weekends of september 2021 in your agenda's. And of course...it all depends on this virus related crisis we seem to be having....but I guess it should be over by then....

Hey guys, I fully cleared out my attic and naturally some arcade parts surfaced..... selling everything. Some parts are new, some are very used. Some are still worth quite a lot less...please offer accordingly. I'm open to anything so don't hesitate .....

Parts could be shipped or I might be able to take them with me to some kind of arcade meeting in the fall of this year....or so.....you know.....

Payment: I GREATLY prefer the reliable an cheap (FREE for both sides) way of paying the EC has arranged for us and that is a simple bank-transfer using IBAN (and somtimes BIC). Everyone within the EU and some other countries (yes, even the UK !) can pay for free using this method.
If you insist we can also use PayPal but any costs will be on YOUR side.

Shipping is at cost and risk for the buyer. No guarantee on anything, sold as shown on pictures !

1) Atari PSU brick covers + parts. BRAND NEW....still in the box they came in from the US. These are absolutely great looking reproductions of the metal part of the Atari Power Brick. Loads of small parts included, even the labels. I have two of these. These don't go for just a few euro's....be sensible

My friends....

I kept them thinking about using them with a Jamma adapter thing (how are those called, Supergun) but....don't think it will ever happen.

So...I'm selling the following PCB sets:

1) Original Nintendo Donkey Kong                  250 euro
2) Original Nintendo Donkey Kong Jr.              200 euro
3) Bootleg Donkey Kong Jr.                            100 euro

The 1) DK board set also contains the wiring. Not sure if it is 100% complete but it does seem so.

AFAIR I tested them all BITD, but I will test them before shipping if you decide to buy so they are guaranteed to be good at time of shipping.

Shipping from The Netherlands. (or pick-up )

Hey my friends,

I still find some arcade parts here and there and I have little use for them anymore so....

Here's a NIB original ThisOldGame Star Wars yoke overlay.

I don't need to explain Rich's repro quality...

Do note that this has the US colors which are slightly different than the Euro/Irish ones.....and IMHO it should only go on a US cab......or you must have a yoke without any overlay or badly damaged one...

Anyway, they're 34 bucks on Rich's website.....make me a nice offer

https://www.thisoldgame.com/star-wars/star-wars-yoke-overlay

Want to upgrade a couple of Atari 600 XL's to 64 kRam.

Checked my box of RAMs. I have loads but not the required 4464 or 41464

If anyone has these and need other RAM in return, please let me know and also of course what you are looking for....

Hah.....was watching an old movie again.....The Philadelphia Experiment.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087910/)

I didn't remember much about the movie except for the main story line.

Was pleasantly surprised to see a scene where the two guys from the marine ship in 1943 have just been warped to 1984 and enter some gasstation/diner and there's a Battlezone and Lunar Lander there The machines actually play a "part" in the film as one of the guys gets (falsely) accused of "ruining" the machines with some electric sparks coming from his hand....

Here's two screenshots

Well....of course the A8 line of computers is very well known for the fantastic arcade conversions it got. Not only BITD, but even the more recent years some great things have arrived (like the mind blowing version of Space Harrier).

Now here's a new brilliant conversion: PANG !

The graphics and music (in Stereo if you add a POKEY to your machine ) are awesome.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G2udpSgCms

Thread about it right here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/187854-pang-on-a8/

We all know that Chris is one of the nicest guys on this forum.

He's so nice.....he actually gave me a very very nice present during the last Eurocade in Oldenburg.

It was a very familiar console which most of you will recognize but....in a slightly different version which makes it pretty special for Europe.

It is a Sears Tele-Games Video Arcade. This was a rebranded Atari VCS of course.

The relationship between Atari and Sears began when Atari was trying to sell their home Pong console to various companies, but no one seemed interested. Even at Sears, the electronics departement nor the toy department were interested.....however.......the SPORTS department (!!!!) WERE very enthusiastic about it and placed a really, really large order.
So that was how that started...Sears was probably the big launch that Atari needed for it's home products.

Anyway, naturally, here in Europe we had never heard about Sears, nor this version of the Atari VCS (Note that I am NOT using the 2600 name, the machine was _note_ called the 2600 yet then....).

So I only learned about it's existence much much later, only when the internet bloomed and there were lots of sites with Atari info I learned about them.

Sears sold the console from the very first day. So there were "heavy six switch" Sears machines, there were "light six switch" machines and there was the 4 switch machine. After that, a very special machine came out from Sears: the Video Arcade II. This was actually the Atari 2800, which was the 2600 version Atari tried to sell in Japan (without a lot of success). Sears really liked the design of the 2800 and so they got that one going. That was also the last one.

Now....the one Chris gave me is a light 6 switcher. This is actually more common than the 4 switcher Sears. With Atari machines, that is the other way around.

However this is the first 6 switch "Atari" I had ever seen up-close, let alone own

6 Switch Atari's bring me back to the days that I was walking the same route to my school every day....and there was this home where a 6 switch Atari was standing there on a small table in front of a television. The whole set-up was lined up exactly at a straight angle with the large window of the living room, so you could see it very well, but yet, it was quite a bit down the room....so that it also felt out of reach.....which was what it really was for me at the time. Very much out of reach with a retail price of DFL 599,- it was WAY to expensive.....

The way that that console stood there....unattended by the owners which were probably already out to work seemed like they did it on purpose. To show off. To make young boys like me drool in front of that window.....wasting time staring at it, imagining how it would be to own one of those space-age, hyper hi-tech machines (which they were in those days !!!).....

Only when the 4 switcher had arrived and the price was cut to DFL 450,- my brother (who already worked a bit) wanted to invest the biggest amount in it. I put some money in and my parents too, and man-o-man do I remember that day when we went out to buy it !!!

OK....so back to 2016.

The machine was a bit dirty and Chris said "you receive this unit fully untested of course" which I had to smile about (because Atari products of that era are usually fantastic quality and so usually WORK).

I had to wait a couple of months for a lazy sunday at home so I figured I'd do this gift some justice and hooked it up to my main TV. This is not capable of displaying NTSC signals (of course this is a NTSC machine) but I could see the picture in Black and White (and without sound) when I hooked up the 4-swtich NTSC Atari I had bought a few years ago.

So I dug up my replacement power supply, I opened the machine to replace the antenna cable (the US unit has an RCA plug at the end, we need our usual European style RF connecter), inserted a cartridge, hooked it up and let the TV scan for analogue signals.

Sure enough after a bit of time I was greeted with the attract mode of Demon Attack (my favorite VCS game) !!!!!

Now, I did notice that the power jack was pretty loose, and sure enough the machine powered down- and up when I jiggled the connector. The solderings had become loose so that was an easy fix by renewing the solderings.

Next I totally disassembled the machine to give the shell a good bathing. Also cleaned all switches with some alcohol and the cartridge slot too.

It's easy to see why Atari changed the system to the 4-switch system. The 6-switch system has a pretty complicated set-up and a VERY thick metal shielding. It really reminds me of the Atari 800 machine I have. The 4-switch system went to only one PCB which is of course much cheaper and easier to produce and it went to a much lighter shielding.

Re-assembled the whole thing and now it looks very very nice indeed. The only thing I'd like to resort is that cool silver lining on the edge of the switch bezel (the Atari has a cheap yellow or orange there, HAH ).

Look at that lovely wood-grain front.....doesn't that look MUCH more classy than Atari's ?

Anyway, the next step for this unit will be a video mod done by Mr.Atari, he already modded my NTSC 4-switcher and this has a great picture now.

Now......I really would need to get me a Harmony cartridge to play all those ancient VCS games. I know there's a lot of rubbish on the system.....but there are also plenty of really great ones and.......it will forever be the first REAL video game system we owned....and loved BITD.