Lord Thag Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 I always liked the Vic-20. It's kind of the Atari 2600 of the early computers: it has terrible graphics and not a lot of memory, but it's FAST, and because of that, a lot of the games play really, really well, even if they are not the prettiest versions. Lot more good stuff on there than most people realize. Great port of Radar Rat Race too, fun game, I used to play that on my c64 a bunch. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 (edited) Teletext pages are quicker to select than any internet page when using a TV remote. Still the quickest way to call up a weather forecast. 1 tap for the channel, one for text and three for the page. Buffering has eliminated having to wait for pages and German/Austrian public channels still carry a lot of up to date pages. Teletext weather using a dedicated iOS app (yes, that‘s absurd) is usually more accurate than Apple weather app weather.... Teletext yeahhhh..... I hear this is still in service in my country.....I have no clue who still uses Teletext in the era of internet.... The weirdest thing is that there also still is an internet version of the teletext system..... https://nos.nl/teletekst Edited September 6, 2018 by slx 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 Same here, teletext is well and alive, constantly updated with news, sports, economy, weather, TV schedule etc. I use it nearly daily. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 Teletex??? Come on... but we are in retro so maybe I like the Spectrum Attribute low res look 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 Ha, Teletext, Ceefax and / or all that, didn't realise it was still about on the TV's. a few years back as my sight was starting to need reading glasses I stumbled in to it by accident (button mashing), took me ages to find my glasses to get to the exit button to get rid of the damn thing Can't say I was ever in to all that text bast TV related stuff.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 (edited) VidTex, Teletex all good stuff...and so many had no Idea it existed.... very sad for the public. Reminds me of when I showed folks CD+G was on their favorite music disks with everything from personal band member issues, notes and recipes. Cool stuff untouched by the masses, what to do? Edited September 7, 2018 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted September 7, 2018 Share Posted September 7, 2018 (edited) That's the problem, many were still bit technophobic so extended features like (I forget the name) DVD / Blu ray jumps to online stuff to tell you about the plot etc rarely got used because it was never really explained and kept as a feature "for the tech geeks" only.. Same with the CD+G stuff, all kept as a dirty secret for the tech brigade.. Shame....Just the way some folks still don't really know about film maker commentaries as extra's on DVD / Blu Ray.. If like me you are are and always have been fond of movie SFX (missed my chance) then stuff like the SFX guys voice over for the film Contact are wonderful, all the details scene by scene as the film plays...But again classed a geeks only. Even for the ordinary film watcher its clever to see how a scene in a window of a house could be a set in a studio a 1000 miles away but the FX make it look like its just through the window, seriously simple effect but people don't realise that a lot of what they see is fake.. Edited September 7, 2018 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted September 8, 2018 Share Posted September 8, 2018 Ha, Teletext, Ceefax and / or all that, didn't realise it was still about on the TV's. a few years back as my sight was starting to need reading glasses I stumbled in to it by accident (button mashing), took me ages to find my glasses to get to the exit button to get rid of the damn thing Can't say I was ever in to all that text bast TV related stuff.... Haha ok. Not me only as on each TV at some point I need to switch off tv to get teletext off screen as exit button etc does not work as it (imho) should... same with that transparent overlay mode... ok. Glad I am not the only muppet out there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted September 8, 2018 Share Posted September 8, 2018 Muppet Brothers! Soon it will be a clan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted September 8, 2018 Share Posted September 8, 2018 But hey, teletext is extremely popular here in Germany (I also like it). Every old and new tv from the 80s onwards has teletext available (okay there are a few exceptions). Back in the 80s you had to pay a little extra money to get teletext included with your tv, but since the 90s it is absolutely standard and not only the tube tv's, but also the LCD/LED/OLED tv's do have teletext, while they also have that shitty electronic program guide (EPG). Believe it or not, its not only the standard LCD tv's that do have teletext, also the full HD and even the 4k tv's do have teletext available. When they tested the brandnew 8k Samsung and LG tv's here in Germany, one of the things they critisized (besides the expensive price and no available 8k content!) was the missing teletext, hahaha Yes, we absolutely need full HD, 4k and 8k tv's to display teletext. It's like having an 80" and 4k monitor for the PC and asking if it still could display monochrome 320x200 or lower resolution... Thus, teletext is a must-have for the A8, at least here in Germany. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted September 8, 2018 Share Posted September 8, 2018 Things should be available where they are appreciated... Perhaps not Emkay tho Our grumpy old A8 rhino.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormtrooper of Death Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 I still use Dutch Teletekst (almost every day). It easy and good enough to provide me with enough information that i want. Weather forecast with just pressing one coloured button, news, and Dutch subtitles activated on some programs thanks to teletext. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormtrooper of Death Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 But to stay on topic, I also played Radar Rat Race on the Vic-20 when I was a teen in the 80s. And I liked it. So, thanks for this conversion to the Atari 8bit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 LOL, I swear that I don’t even have a clue how to get teletext screens to display on my TV those days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 LOL, I swear that I dont even have a clue how to get teletext screens to display on my TV those days. On is most of the time not an issue but how to get them close? I have the feeling that often you need to switch through several options on a non intuitive button (transparent, 2 pages, only header with some news etc) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 29, 2018 Share Posted November 29, 2018 Hi, I made a port of the old and very simple game Radar Rat Race to the Atari 800XL. It was originally written by the company Commodore back in 1982 for the Commodore 64. The game is based on Namco's arcade classic "Rally X", and, even if the game is so primitive, I liked to play it quite often on my C64 back in those days. Similar to my former conversions, the original Commodore program is just running 1:1 on the Atari 800XL computer, which has the same CPU as the C64. The Commodore's graphics and sound effects were replaced by more or less equivalent Atari 800 XL routines. This port was really very easy. Contrary to the C64, the nerve-racking in-game music can be switched on and off in my Atari version by the "Option" key. The program can be downloaded from my homepage at http://members.aon.at/nkehrer/ The xex and atr files can also be found in the attachment to this post. Here are two screenshots of the game on the Atari: Have fun. Norbert curious about other ports that were mentioned of this type to come? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oracle_jedi Posted December 7, 2018 Share Posted December 7, 2018 Just wanted to add my thank you for porting this classic to the Atari 8-bits. I love Radar Rat Race on the VIC20, and even the C64/Max version is pretty good too. This version is awesome too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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