Homebrew Have You Played Atari Today (on your Nintendo DS/DSi)?

[wavemotion]

That was the old familiar jingle on the Atari commercials... "Have You Played Atari Today?!" - and, of course, I have

I've been working on a DS cover for the emulators under my care (see draft below). Yeah, I know, not very original but it gets the job done.

A few people have asked me where to start with classic Atari 8-bit gaming on the DS and here are my absolute best recommendations to get going (I chose titles that cover a lot of ground... not just the seminal titles):

Atari 2600
Adventure
Atlantis
Beamrider
Chopper Command
Cosmic Ark
Laser Gates
Phaser Patrol
Pitfall
River Raid
Space Treat Deluxe (homebrew)
Yar's Revenge
Man Goes Down (the best homebrew of all-time)

Atari 5200
Berzerk
Bounty Bob Strikes Back
Centipede
Missile Command
Robotron 2084
Space Dungeon

Atari 7800
Asteroids
Astro Blaster (homebrew)
BONQ (homebrew)
Galaxian (homebrew)
Meteor Shower (homebrew)
Popeye (homebrew)
Robotron
Scramble (homebrew)
Wizard of Wor

Atari XEGS (8-bit)
Alley Cat
Bandits
Berks Four
Blowsub
Bosconian
Boulder Dash
Bomb Jack
Cavelord
Caverns of Mars
Donkey Kong (Arcade)
Drelbs
Dropzone
Elevator Repairman
Floyd the Droid Goes Blastin'
Gateway to Apshai
Ghostbusters
Jungle Hunt
K-ROBBO
Laser Hawk
Major Blink
Meteor Storm
Montezuma's Revenge
M.U.L.E.
Seafox
Shamus
Star Raiders
Star Island
The Eidolon
TimeSlip
Zork I

 

[MarioKartFan]

Really hoping you get the itch to port these to 3DS one day to take advantage of the better resolution and processor.

 

[Nikokaro]

No, I didn't have time today, I didn't have it yesterday either, and tomorrow it will be the same ... oops ... I think I thought aloud; and I also wrote it!

Forgive the stupid joke, I hope it didn't bother but I couldn't stop myself; in truth it was a pretext for a question I've long wanted to ask, if you have the time and kindness to answer.

First of all congratulations and good luck with your projects: one cannot but admire your passion and dedication towards consoles so old, forgotten and buried by the dust of time; but I wanted to ask you:
"would it be technically possible to emulate Atari Lynx on DS or DSi, whose games are graphically less rudimentary, crude and rough, while maintaining the same simplicity and immediacy? If the answer is yes, would you not be interested in porting it in the near future?"

Sorry for my strange "italenglish".

Greetings.

 

[wavemotion]

First of all congratulations and good luck with your projects: one cannot but admire your passion and dedication towards consoles so old, forgotten and buried by the dust of time;

Interestingly enough, the community around these Atari 8-bit machines is thriving. Tens of thousands of us gather over on Atariage to support or classic machines. More than 100 new games are developed for these consoles every year - many are sold commercially and the homebrew community is alive and well. That means as a classic game enthusiast, I can look forward to more new games released every year!

The Atari Lynx, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have the same lively following as the 2600, 7800 and Atari 8-bit computer line. For some reason it languishes in terms of support and love - and I'll admit I have no particular passion for a truly "dead" system

 

[Nikokaro]

Thank you for your quick answer.

Honestly I did not know that these consoles still aroused so much interest, while instead it is Atari Lynx, as I understand, to no longer receive the attention it deserves.
All the more reason then it should be unearthed and rediscovered by the new generations.

I did not fail to notice a slight, little concealed, annoyance in your answer.
I didn't understand if it's technically possible to bring it to DS, but instead I see that you don't have the slightest interest in it.

 

[lokomelo]

Nice looking cover man! I'm sorry I still not played Atari today, but I have a couple of things to talk about it.

I don't know nothing about any Atari console except the Atari 2600 witch is amazing! (and Stella emulator is amazing!)

my game suggestions are Hero and Enduro.

my system suggestion is indeed the DS, as the Atari shapes and art style works great on that screen, and the D-Pad make the controls way better than the real thing (that lever like controller).

For purists that want to play on the real thing, use a VCR with YPbPr out, the result is fabulous even on modern TVs.

 

[wavemotion]

I did not fail to notice a slight, little concealed, annoyance in your answer.

Yeah, sorry, not enough coffee yet
Admittedly, the terms "old", "forgotten", "buried" and "dust" caught me off-guard. I've put more than 250 hard hours into these emulators for people to enjoy - and it's okay if nobody uses them except me... but I'm going to defend my ancient turf

I didn't understand if it's technically possible to bring it to DS, but instead I see that you don't have the slightest interest in it.

It's definitely possible but would be harder. It's got two main processor chips: the "Mikey" which is an 8-bit CMOS chip running at 16MHz and a "Suzy" which is a 16-bit CMOS chip running also at 16MHz. That's a lot to process on the base Nintendo DS. Couple that with a very strange screen resolution that is 160x102 (much less resolution than the Atari 8-bit line) and it's going to look all kinds of small/stretched on the DS screen. Given that I have no passion for the Lynx and that it doesn't have a ton of homebrew support, it's probably going to fall further down on my list of emulators to get running.

I'm more likely to either do the TI-99/4a which I loved as a kid... or rework Frodo-DS for the Commodore 64.

 

[dub_the_old]

Good Atari 2600 game:
Grand Prix
the smurfs
hero
breakout

For the 5200, I prefer using computer with more games but much longer to load ;-)
I have read your post with xegs system can read xex game so "spy hunter, fort apocalypse, the goonies and decathlon if you want to break your console"

 

[wavemotion]

You guys are right-on... HERO is an amazing Atari 2600 game (and also has a port for the 5200 which is largely the same game). Still very playable today!

 

[Dust2dust]

I like your list of recommendations. I would add a couple of classics to it. We can't mention Bounty Bob Strikes Back without also listing the original, Miner 2049er. Rescue on Fractalus was an amazing 3D game on the Atari 800 from LucasArts. Ball Blazer is a great 2-player game, still fun to play. Archon is also a great 2-player game. And always fun to spend a few hours playing some Lode Runner.

I didn't know there were still some commercial games being released. Amazing! Back in the days (early 80s), my brother programmed a commercial game, Poussinet (very easy to find in atari rom collections). It's a platformer, admittedly not a very good one compared to Miner 2049er. Needless to say, It did't succeed very much, but he spent months working on this, and I admire his efforts.

Here's an advertisement published in 1985 in Antic magazine.