Retro Games THECXSTICK - A400

I sold it around 2010 with a bunch of associated hardware and manuals. It was the last but one 1980s micro that I had held onto, because it was one of the very few that was built to a spec rather than down to a price. For it's day, the hardware was astonishing - sprites, yes, but each line of the display could come from anywhere in the memory and scrolling it was simply a matter of changing a register. This meant that games could move serious numbers of pixels around on the screen smoothly and quickly.I have missed having it but a) it took up a lot of space and b) I also got rid of the old analogue TV.So the second I saw a review of this, I ordered one. It calls itself half-size - it's smaller than that. Perhaps it's around half the size of the 65XE which had an optional keyboard.The 720p display on the HD TV is great, with the option of making it worse if you really want it to look like a CRT analogue TV. As with the original, sound comes via the TV and there is no audio jack or Bluetooth so if you want to use a computer monitor, it either needs speakers or you want an HDMI audio splitter.Twenty five games are included - Airball, Asteroids, Basketball, Battle zone, Berzerk, Boulder Dash, Bristles, Capture the Flag, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Elektraglide, Encounter!, Flip and Flop, Henry’s House, Hover Bovver, Lee (AKA 'we couldn't get the licence to keep the original "Bruce Lee" name), M.U.L.E., Millipede, Miner 2049er, Missile Command, O’Riley’s Mine, Star Raiders II, The Seven Cities of Gold, Wavy Navy and Yoomp!If you had one, you'll know that includes some absolute classics.. and some that weren't. There are also some screaming omissions: the original Star Raiders, Pacman, Pole Position.. and that's just from Atari.Fortunately, a USB port at the back lets you plug in a USB stick with other games/utilities on in a variety of standard (for Atari archiving and emulation) formats. Remembering that cartridges had up to 8k of memory (16k for ones using fancy tricks) and the standard Atari disc drives held around 80k bytes - less than the size of the logos here - you can fit a LOT of things on a single stick. Sadly the flap on top that looks like the original cartridge cover is a non working fake, because it would have been so neat to be able to plug the USB stick in there.Also included is a USB joystick styled to look like the original (and terrible) Atari ones. They have some extra buttons because all the keys on the console are as fake as the cartridge cover lid. These can be mapped to any single key or you can plug in a USB keyboard. Similarly you can use (most) USB controllers etc.So for me, it's absolutely five stars. It costs less than I sold the real hardware for but is vastly easier to use and store.For you... it depends. The Atari 8-bit micros were fascinating and there's a lot of stuff out there that will run on this. Inside it is a ten year old Arm processor and graphics chip. You could get a Raspberry Pi and run the same 'atari800' emulation software as this one for less... but it wouldn't be as simple.UPDATE: it is VERY fussy about which USB sticks it will accept. Even when programs on your computer say the stick is FAT32 format with an MBR - what THE400 demands - it may not work. Formatting via Ubuntu didn't work, formatting via Windows 10 Explorer didn't work, formatting via the Windows command line didn't work. What did was using a Windows program, Partition Wizard, fortunately the free version.Given it's so fussy, why they didn't include a 'correctly' formatted stick is beyond me, as is why the Linux it uses is unable to read other formats it doubtless uses itself...Once you have the right format, it appears as 'media' in the carousel. Interestingly, it won't work with some ATR files that RetroPie does.UPDATE 2: I have agonised about it, but it's been returned. While running atari800 on a Pi isn't quite as simple as it could be, thanks to having to track down the ROM files yourself, put them in the right place etc, it does mean that when something doesn't work, you can almost always fix it.Here, I got no response at all from the maker's support email address over the USB stick issue. I still have no clue whatsoever why, say, Pole Position won't run on this, despite being able to run exactly the same files on the same emulator on the Pi, and there are no log files or anything else I can examine to see why, or emulation settings to tweak beyond the very few that this offers.

As per usual a top quality detailed unit which looks Great and very well packaged.I never had the Atari 400 as a kid but because i bought their other outstanding models, C64 Mini, A500 Mini. the full sized TheC64 and TheVic20 so it was a no brainer for me really.I'm not disappointed by a long shot.There are some great games i have never played built in and i have yet to try any of the thousands of games it will also play from the Atari 400, 800, XL,XE and Atari 5200 so looking forward to that. Everything is controlled via the joystick which also seems pretty solid and nice to use so overall if you owned an Atari 400 back in the day this is a must for you, If like me your a collector as well then this unit will not disappoint.

Nice little recreation of an Atari 400, in a very mini format, 4 USB ports at the front allow for a proper keyboard to be plugged in and other controllers like PS5 or X-Box may be used. There is a virtual keyboard available if needed. 25 decent games are preloaded and the ability to load in more Atari games via USB add in more utility. It comes with a HDMI cable to plug into tv or monitor and uses a USB cable for power. Only downside the traditional keys on the front are cosmetic but then it'd be a bit too tiny to type on anyhow!

I owned an Atari 800XL from 83-89 before getting an Amiga then every playstation since. I bought this to bring back fond memories from those early games. I did have an Atari emulator on my pc which did the same but this is so much better and simplier playing on my large screen TV in the lounge, everything runs well like its 1983 again I just dont have the patience now for most of the games like I had as a ten year old and kept giving up playing after a couple of minutes and wanting to fire up the PS5.The Joystick worked well enough for me.I did manage to finish a couple of old favourites though I never finished back then with the help of the rewind function which works great.Still recommend for the pure nostalgia, I also own the A500 Mini.

Perfect condition well packed and a lovely retro mini system.

very nice productbut please make reconfigure 50hz or 60hz setting more easier.If your TV or monitor cannot display VIDEO output and sound only, change your monitor and reconfigure 50hz or 60hz.

The 400 mini is impressive, but I was rather disappointed by joystick. The carousel is impressive, and a good selection of games.