Ancient Newsgroup post from 1982 :)

[XT]

Hi all,

 

Google.com recently purchased the dejanews's usenet service and complete backups from other various sources. you can search for anything from todays date back to 1981! I found stuff on the introduction of the atari vcs, and i even found some old pre release information on my old car. Their are even people talking excitedly about the launch of the jaguar and what they hope it will be. Just go to google.com go to the groups icon, click that and then click advanced search on the very top, then set your date options and off you go, this is awesome stuff

 

chris

 

this is a example of what i found :

 

From: ixlpc!johnc (ixlpc!johnc)

Subject: ATARI VCS + Games For Sale

Newsgroups: net.games

View: (This is the only article in this thread) | Original Format

Date: 1982-11-25 01:56:50 PST

 

 

ATARI VCS (8 months old) for sale with 10 game cartridges. Games include

Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Missile Command,

Laser Blast, Adventure, Star Voyager (a 3D IMAGIC game), Breakout, and

Combat. Price: $215 (Regular value about $400). Contact me via netnews

or mail or by phone (979-0762).

 

From: ihuxw!rung (ihuxw!rung)

Subject: Atari 5200 or Colecovision?

Newsgroups: net.games, net.games.video, net.general

View: (This is the only article in this thread) | Original Format

Date: 1982-11-25 00:14:00 PST

 

 

Being a lover of video games, the time has come to purchase

a unit for home use. After many hours of reading, I have

come to two choices, Atari 5200 or Colecovision. Each have

pros and cons. This is a plea for help. If you have an

opinion about either of these units and hopefully a conclusion

as to which one you would buy, I am interested. Please give your

reason why you chose either system. I presently own no home

computer or game unit presently. Your help would be greatly

appreciated.

 

 

Pete Rung

Bell Labs - IX

ihuxw!rung

 

 

From: houxq!3255fah (houxq!3255fah)

Subject: Swordquest on the VCS 2600

Newsgroups: net.games.video

View: (This is the only article in this thread) | Original Format

Date: 1983-04-10 22:49:25 PST

 

 

Interested in opening correspondence with players of

Swordquest (Atari VCS 2600).

 

I have spent some time on Earthworld and am currently in Fireworld.

 

For the uninitiated, Swordquest is a series of four cartridges

that require you to derive clues by traversing rooms and leaving

objects in them appropriately. Clues to date have directed you

to pages in a comic book (supplied) which contain "hidden" words.

 

Atari provides deadline dates for each cartridge and offers prizes

to those who "find" the correct clue words. As the Earthworld

deadline has passed there should be no limitations on discussions,

as for Fireworld - we all have until July 15 to play .....

 

Please rsvp via net mail - thanks, Fred Hicinbothem at above path ...

 

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: XT ]

[Albert]

I discovered this last night, much to my shock and horror. I started another thread about it over here, where I included links to some Atari-related posts I made over ten years ago.

 

..Al

[DanBoris]

I like this thread from 1992 about writing an Atari 2600 emulator:

 

Atari 2600 Emulator Thread

 

and I especially like this quote from the thread:

 

"Once this emulator is written, then what? Is this going to be an

underground thing, where people illegally copy the code stored on

the carts and pass it around to people with the emulator who

can run the games?"

 

Nah! That would never happen

[Albert]

This quote is even better,

 

"Writing an Atari 2600 emulator on any contemporary piece of computing hardware is next to impossible unless you are an incredibly experienced real-time programmer - and even then, it would be incredibly difficult."

 

Taken from this post.

 

Ha ha! That whole thread is amusing, in hindsight.

 

..Al

[XT]

sorry, didnt know u posted it already but it is some pretty cool stuff eh??

[Jess Ragan]

It's pretty freaking amazing. I don't know what shocks me more... newsgroup posts from the early 80's or the fact that Google has them archived.

 

JR

 

P.S. This is even more proof that Google kicks butt.

[Cassidy Nolen]

Does anyone else think its ironic that someone posted a system and games 20 years ago for about the same price ebay gets for one now? How long we have traveled and how short we have gone.

 

Neat find!

I never knew boards existed that long ago, in the primordal ooze.....

 

Cassidy

[Ze_ro]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albert:

"Writing an Atari 2600 emulator on any contemporary piece of computing hardware is next to impossible."

---

 

Keep in mind that the idea of "contemporary hardware" back then in '92 wasn't what it is now. Hell, I can hardly run a 2600 emulator on my mom's P90, and that's a lot more than they had back then. Of course, 30 years from now, we'll look back and wonder why we even bothered emulating the Xbox....

 

It's strange that the Atari is actually a very difficult system to emulate.

 

--Zero

[mos6507]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ze_ro:

Keep in mind that the idea of "contemporary hardware" back then in '92 wasn't what it is now. Hell, I can hardly run a 2600 emulator on my mom's P90, and that's a lot more than they had back then. Of course, 30 years from now, we'll look back and wonder why we even bothered emulating the Xbox....

 

It's strange that the Atari is actually a very difficult system to emulate.

 

--Zero

---

 

That guy posted from SGI too. So you know he had access to fast hardware.

[ubersaurus]

I already question the reasoning to future emulating of Xbox.

[Albert]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ubersaurus:

I already question the reasoning to future emulating of Xbox.

---

 

I bet the Xbox will be fairly easy to emulate, given that it's based on a PC architecture. It runs on an Intel CPU, an nVidia 3D chipset, the same audio hardware found in the new nVidia nForce motherboard chipset, an IDE hard drive, USB-based controllers (just with proprietary connectors), and games are written to the DirectX API. About the only weird thing that I can think of is the fact that XBox DVDs are written in a reverse spiral from the outer tracks to the inner, vs. the inner to the outer of normal DVDs. There are certainly some other differences, but nothing like with the Playstaton 2 and Gamecube (incidently, the Gamecube has many parallels with modern-day Macintoshes).

 

I agree with you, though, that I don't see any reason why someone would even want to emulate the XBox. Certainly it's not going to be a huge technical challenge like emulating the 2600. And more importantly, there probably won't be very many exclusive games to the XBox. Just about everything will be ported to another system, released simultaneously on several platforms, or be a port from another system. I just don't see there being much enthusiasm for emulating the XBox, although someone probably will do it someday just because they can.

 

..Al