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almightytodd

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About almightytodd

  • Birthday 01/31/1960

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    Orlando, Florida
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    Professional programmer (C++, C#, SQL, BASH script)
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    Blues harmonica
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  1. Happy New Year to all! Thank you for keeping this thread going for all these years!
  2. In the case of AI - and I mean REAL AI, where adaptability, creativity, and problem solving far EXCEED what any human mind is capable of, I don't think history is of much use. There simply has never been anything like this. For all of history ("our-story") the human mind has been the only source of abstract thinking on the planet - and beyond, so far as we know. To inform this conversation, it would really help to read the short story, "Manna", because it presents two alternative viewpoints for an AI-dominated future. One of them IS more hopeful and utopian; presenting a future where everyone shares in the bounty provided by intelligent machines. But you, the reader, are left to assess which future is more likely - and in the case of the dystopian future, with respect to the utilization of incremental advances in AI by corporations in capitalistic competition with each other, the history of human beings with massive power and wealth is applicable to the outcome for the masses. ...and it doesn't look good.
  3. My concern with AI isn't with the AI itself - it's that it's being applied to a Capitalist system that rewards profit growth above all else - which will inevitably widen the income gap and eliminate the middle class. This story presents a very plausible illustration of how this might happen. Any business enterprise would undoubtedly be more profitable if its entire labor force is "owned". If a computer is smart enough to drive you safely to your workplace, why couldn't it be made smart enough to just do your job too? As to the suspected loss of creativity in the current culture, the author of this book argues that since we're always looking at someone else's content on our little mobile screens, we never have the opportunity to be "bored" and to daydream and be creative ourselves. We're just constantly recycling other people's thoughts. Things like Chat GPT take this even further by scanning the entire Internet and combining the ideas it finds in sometimes novel ways. Sure, people laugh about how AI is just in its infancy now, and it hasn't done anything stunning. But remember, the Wright Brothers' Flyer only travelled a few hundred feet and less than 70 years later Astronauts were walking on the Moon. Compare the "Eliza" program of 50+ years ago to Chat GPT today, and then look 50 years into the future. Now apply the greed and ambitions of people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to these technologies and what happens? I'm actually glad I don't have grandchildren...
  4. The thing about Pac-man is that it seems like Atari felt like they had to do a port, simply because the arcade game was so iconic. It was like when they came out with Video Chess just because there was a chess piece on the original VCS box. The Space Invaders port was just so good, and it came out almost two years earlier. Tod Frye asked for the extra ROM space to do Pac-man right, and he was turned down. The Amidar port may be technically worse, but Amidar was not a huge arcade hit (compared to Pac-man anyway), so it doesn't seem deserve the number one worst port spot, in my opinion. It just adds insult to injury that they hyped Pac-man so much, and then made it the pack-in game. I'm sure the "pack-in" status must have been the most significant factor to it ending up as the 2600's best-selling game. When Ms. Pac-man came out later and demonstrated what Pac-man should have been, and then Jr. Pac-man followed after that; it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, I must be the only one who feels that none of the 2600 driving games ever connected with the groove that was established by the coin-op Night Driver. There was just a smoothness to the way the road reflectors wind towards you that I've never seen anywhere else. Activision's "Enduro" comes close, but I don't know; maybe the additional features in that game are a distraction from the simplicity that Night Driver represented. Even in later coin-op games like Pole Position and Cruisin' USA, they didn't seem to flow the way Night Driver did. It may be that the view from behind the car you're driving makes it harder to feel like you're "in the car". I would love to see a night-time road racing game set on a two-way mountain road with cars coming towards you in the other lane and having to pass slower cars in your lane without getting into a head-on collision (I'm thinking of the descent into Santa Barbara California, heading south on San Marcos Pass, if you've ever seen that stretch of road). It would be cool if it could be done on a retro platform, but it could have real potential even on a modern platform if done right.
  5. Wow, I didn't know this discussion was going to devolve into post-apocalyptic scenarios. I think the TS 1000 becomes useless far sooner than any situation where a steady low-voltage DC current would not be available. The real problem for the Timex machine is input and output. The membrane keyboard was never designed to be enduring. The "mass storage" device of choice was audio cassette, with magnetic tape that degrades over time; and good luck finding a working cassette player. On the output side, you need a display device that can accept an NTSC broadcast signal. But for me, this lovely little machine lives on forever in emulation, and you don't even have to install it. You can just click this link and be instantly transported back to the 1980s. And if you use a tablet device, you can even experience the full effect of the original smooth-surface keyboard (...which was so horrible back then, but now we're all totally okay with "buttons" that don't really "press").
  6. During the 8-bit era, there were a number of computers designed to take advantage of both the 6502 and the Z80 CPU (...usually for the purpose of running CP/M as noted). The two most well-known examples would be the Commodore 128 and the BBC Micro. But I think speculation on the ZX81/TS1000 with a different CPU misses the point. The motivation for the design of this machine (and its predecessor, the ZX80), was to get a BASIC-language microcomputer into the hands of as many people as possible (by making it super inexpensive). If you read about the history of the development of BASIC language and computer time-sharing at Dartmouth College, you will find very similar objectives. BASIC language was not designed as a pathway to computer science (although for many of us, it was). It was designed to expose Dartmouth College students in majors other than mathematics and engineering to computers; as the mathematics professors there realized that computers would eventually come into our homes and into our lives. The Z80 was based on the Intel 8080, while the 6502 came from the Motorola 6800. Sir Clive probably reasoned that there would be more engineers familiar with Intel than Motorola microprocessor design. A very thorough understanding of the CPU was crucial to the integration of the pre-tokenized BASIC character set with the membrane keyboard, the ULA chip, and the 8K ROM that stored the BASIC interpreter for the ZX81. I've never read anything about why Wozniak decided to go with the 6502; or if he ever considered the Zilog CPU. For Commodore, I think Tramiel realized early on that Commodore would be able to buy MOS Technology and prevent a repeat of his experience with Texas Instruments when they were starving his calculator business of chips in favor of their competing TI calculator models.
  7. I know I'm super late responding to this thread for the New Year 2023, but during the past week, the wife and I have been watching the Star Trek movies on HBO, and of course, "The Wrath of Khan" is filled with Moby Dick quotes. It would seem that, "HardWork's" elusive white whale of an Atari 2600 super-game honoring the talking-car television fantasy of years gone by, continues to ply the world's oceans of unrealized dreams. But this thread lives on, and the yearly ritual of gathering together for a collective laugh brings joy to those of us who were here when it started, and those who joined in somewhere along the way.
  8. British 8-bit computers were brilliant. My first computer was the Timex/Sinclair 1000 - The American version of the ZX81.
  9. I believe Apple's ultimate triumph in the 8-bit market was due to their aggressive marketing (and heavy discounting) to K-12 schools. My supporting evidence is mostly anecdotal, however.
  10. Here's a video I made arguing in favor of the Timex Sinclair 1000...
  11. The ADAM was a brilliant idea that was not brilliantly executed. If it had been delivered on time, with robust, reliable hardware, and at the original target retail price, it would have changed the world. Centering the system around a letter-quality printer solved the core problem all other home computers had; yes, little Timmy could use the computer to learn things, but he'd have nothing to turn in to the teacher. An affordable and reliable Adam system could have taken millions of American kids from middle school to college. Kids could have focused on learning better writing structure and content, instead of the drudgery of writing papers using cursive. I'm sure K-12 teachers would have loved grading typed papers instead of cursive. I'm excited to see the project move forward.
  12. Apologies in advance if this idea is not even remotely possible... In the arcade version, each "wave" of invaders is more difficult to defeat, because they start one row closer each time. This works, because SI displays in portrait orientation, so there is a lot of "room" for the invaders to advance. In the original VCS port, the columns of invaders are reduced from eleven to six, but the one-row-closer idea remains, meaning that the invaders remove the shields after the first, what? four or five waves? After that, the advance of each new wave stops (It has to). I think a better challenge; and one more in the "spirit" of the arcade, would be to start with six columns of invaders, and then add an additional column with each wave, until eleven columns are reached. Again, this is probably not possible due to technical limitations (...I wouldn't guess that I'm the only one who has thought of this, so it probably would have been done by now). That being said, Thomas has once again shown his mastery of 6507 programming on the VCS platform. The row-by-row movement of the invaders is a perfect compromise between moving the entire "invading force" as a single unit (something that most Invaders ports do - including the original Atari VCS port and the 7800 home brew), or moving the individual "invaders" one-by-one (which, as I understand it, is why the invaders speed up as their numbers dwindle in the Arcade original). I'm really looking forward to watching this game evolve. This view of the development process for these games is one of the most intriguing aspects of Atari Age. I thank all of the developers here for sharing this with us.
  13. I find this argument baffling. Which is the better vehicle? A Chevy Spark? Or a Ford F-150? The 5200 was a stripped-down Atari 400, which was itself a stripped-down Atari 800. The Spectrum was a ZED-X 81 with sound, more memory, color capability and a slightly better keyboard. But it retained the primary design objective of being a computer that normal humans could actually afford to buy. Did the Spectrum's sound and graphics approach those found on the 5200? No. Did the 5200 provide a platform for tens of thousands of aspiring young programmers to begin life-long careers as software engineers? No. Personally, I've never owned either machine. But I did and do have a 2600 and a 7800. And I did and do have a TS 1000 (the American version of the ZX-81), and it did inspire the software engineering career I've enjoyed for the past 30 years. I choose to spend my time here in the Atari Age forum to take a break from all of the things happening in our world that people are arguing about right now. I hope the argument here is good-natured and tongue-in-cheek - I'm going to try and take it that way. But seriously guys - it's all just good natured ribbing; until it's not.
  14. I went to bed early last night... ...sorry I missed it. Nice to see the tradition continue though. Happy New Year everyone!
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