PixlBit

This was emulated through MAME. There's even a site that tells you everything you need to know about the Astrocade and emulating it, Bally Alley, and that site helped me get it running on EmulationStation on my Steam Deck, which is what I was playing it on. Bally Alley actually has the entire Astrocade library on it, including homebrew games that were released long after the console itself was discontinued. 

I have seen Astrocades in the wild at Fallout Games, a Phoenix-area used-game store. Unfortunately, I failed to take advantage of them. Next time I see one I will definitely buy it even though I have it running on emulation. 

That tractor is over 70 years old. It belonged to my grandfather and was passed down to my mother. It still runs, though it needs work done on it. 

I learned about the Astrocade (and Odyssey2) through a book by Jeff Rovin, The Complete Guide to Conquering Video Games. Voice in video games at the time was expensive. Just having a game as close to the arcades as this one was was a minor miracle, given how home arcade ports usually looked. 

I remember Michael117. Very sad to hear of another community member passing.

You are already a Switch friend. I'm loving Mario Kart World myself. It's basic bones are a big improvement over MK8. Ongoing support will make it even better.

I had Munch-Man. It was one of the better Pac-Man clones. The pseudo 3D mazes and shape changing monsters kept it interesting, and it was really fast. My dad bought the TI in 1983 when they were winding down production of the computers. 

TI is actually a huge company. They made those $200 TI-83 graphing calculators my college math professors wanted everybody to have. They mostly do behind the scenes work, like chips for Apple and such.

I'm enjoying DK Bananza. I really like how Nintendo is going back to Donkey Kong's roots in Bananza and Mario Kart World, which started with the Super Mario Bros Movie. At the same time, they've kept a lot of the Rare lore. 

Anyway, Happy Birthday! Here are a couple of tickets to Namco's Wonder Eggs amusement park in Japan.

Same here. I didn't know that was where Oils Well had originated until I was an adult.

Oils Well is faster and smoother than Anteater. Despite the fact that it was technically the "clone," it was far better known in its day than Anteater, which was somewhat rare. 

Actually, the latest version of Atari 50 does include that system's port of Anteater. It's called Ant-Bear. 

Oils Well was on the C64. If it's not built into the C54 mini, can games be added to that? I know they can be added to the Atari 400 Mini.

The guy that wrote Anteater in the arcades also wrote an Atari 8-bit home version of the game, called Aardy the Aardvark. 

I missed out because the store websites all crashed. I'm going to make one last stab at getting a Switch 2 by hanging out at Gamestop the day before launch, as they say they'll have entras for in-store purchases. We'll see how that goes, as everybody else will have the same idea. I did sign up for an invite, but even though I signed up early, the only thing I've gotten is an email assuring me that I'm still in the invite queue. I'm definitely jelly. If I can snag a Switch 2, I'm probably going to get Cyberpunk with it.

I'm probably going to go ahead and get the Switch 2 at launch. Might as well. It is getting off to a messy start, but the games at least look great.