The first great part was just standing in line to get in. I started chatting with the fellow in line behind me, who not only was familiar with my Atari version of Anguna, but had actually bought a copy just a few weeks before the convention!
The convention itself was a blast -- the biggest highlight was meeting (in person) many homebrewers that I've gotten to know in the AtariAge, NesDev, or NESDev twitter communities. It's nice to finally put faces with names (or real names with internet names!).
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Other than that, I spent a lot of time hovering in the background, watching people try out the Quadtari. It was fun seeing people pick it up and give it a try. (What surprised me most was the number of teenagers who had no idea how to hold an Atari joystick.) At one point, Joe Decuir, the engineer who designed much of the hardware of the original Atari, made a stop by to see it!
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| As they were walking away from trying Quad-Tank, I overheard of these guys say, "That was the most fun I've ever had playing Atari!" |
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| Albert, the mastermind behind AtariAge, hard at work. |
Now I have a lot of work to do. The first prototype took me hours of soldering, about $25 in parts, and is already getting a little unreliable after being jostled so much. So it's time to design a proper PCB and it get it properly made. I've got a board designed that I hope is the same as what I prototyped, and I'm in the process of getting quotes on PCB fabrication and soldering assembly from a place in China. We'll see what happens!
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