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About this blog

Mostly Atari-related projects, and other ramblings. Home of the Artie the Atari comic strip.

Entries in this blog

 

RF addendum

In my previous entry about improving RF on a 2600, I mentioned that I wanted to try two additional changes: A different, more flexible RF cable A different F-type to RCA adapter So, I made those changes! And now I'm blogging about them! Exclamation points!!   (I figured a new blog entry would be better than trying to squeeze all of this into the other entry's comments.)   For the cable, I went with another cable from Blue Jeans Cables, this one using Bel
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Once more unto the breach

As with last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and even the year before that, (and all of the years before that before I had a blog), it's the end of the school year here at CalArts, and I've been buried in work, putting our student animation shows together. This is number 22 for me, if I'm doing the math right. No guarantees there, by the way. Last weekend... no. Ummm... wait
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Blog's Up!

Well, I've been pretty busy lately, but things are finally starting to calm down now.   Except for the electrical fire in the server room at work yesterday. But hey - that wasn't my fault.   Anyway... the school year at the college I work at ended a few weeks ago. This time with a twist - I graduated along with everyone else!   Well... not everyone. But the graduating class of 2007. Even though I haven't been a student since 1994.   It's a lonnnng story, but I was supposed to graduate in
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Frozen - Spoiler-free review

So I went to see Frozen a few days ago. Opening week, Black Friday, afternoon matinee, packed house, tons of kids. Now I've been in movie theaters before with lots of kids, and if the movie doesn't completely hold their attention, it's a miserable place to be. They get restless and bored, never sit still, and never stop talking. If a movie is too complex for them to follow, they never stop asking questions. If it's too scary for real little kids (and the parents too irresponsible to recognize th
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Homebrew Art, part 3 - The Krokodile Cart

Krokodile Cart (2004) The Krokodile Cart, by Armin Vogl, was a flash memory based cartridge that let users load and run almost any binary on a real 2600. I say "was" because it's been out of production for several years now, although you might be able to find a used one. This was the first contest I won at AtariAge, and given the number and quality of entrants, it surprises me to this day that my label was chosen. What was particularly cool about winning this contest was that it was a pro
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Homebreviews - part 17

Climber 5 4/5   Climber 5 is an adaptation of a game (also called Climber 5) originally created for the Atari 8-bit computers. I downloaded and tried out the original version prior to writing this review. The object of the game is to climb up a building that's under construction, and retrieve a baseball that's been hit up there. You have to climb ladders, and avoid girder beams moving back and forth. That's about as far as the original game went, and an adaptation of that version is included o
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

The wrong way to do it

Buried somewhere in this blog, I've been keeping a running list of apps I've gotten for my iPhone. (I suppose if tags were actually working in the blogs, I could tag the entry with something useful so people could actually find it. )   One app I won't be getting is the recently released Namco Arcade.   Even though it's free.   Of course, it's not really free. If you want to play the games, you have to pay for them.   Now, this should come as no surprise, since Atari does the same thing.
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Care and feeding of your Atari 2600

I really liked the way the 2600 I drew for my avatar turned out, so I decided to see what else I could do with it.   Here are a couple of illustrations I did for an AtariAge flyer, which Albert is packing in with shipments from the AA store.   They're black and white since, well, they get printed in black and white.       Feel free to make up your own captions.
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

So close...

I used to play Nintendo's Vs. Golf back-in-the-day-when-you-could-actually-play-it-in-the-arcades. When I got into MacMAME (now 20 years ago!!!!) I picked it up again, and the best score I shot at the time was 59: That was 13 under par (the course changes, so the overall par changes as well). Recently, since I got MAME running again properly for the first time in years, I've been playing it again. I've gotten to where I can birdie every hole on the course... just not always in the same
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

An incomplete history of portable racing games - part 1

If you didn't grow up during the 70's, it's hard to relate just how cool it was the first time I saw a digital watch. Not the kind we have now and are so commonplace they're given away in cereal boxes and gumball machines, but the red LED ones that cost a fortune and drained batteries so fast you had to press a button to turn on the display.   They were undeniably the coolest thing in town.   That, and pocket calculators.   There was just something magical about those glowing red digits.
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Let's get lame, boys!

"Weird Al's" latest album - Mandatory Fun - may ironically be his last. With this album, Al reaches the end of his 14 album record contract (not including his collaboration with Wendy Carlos for Peter and the Wolf/Carnival of the Animals pt. 2, which was on a different label). The reason it may be his last, is that while he could certainly seek out a new contract, he's stated that he'd be able to be more timely by releasing singles digitally, rather than waiting the two or three years it takes t
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Homebreviews - part 38

Back to the venerable 2600, and two games that have some of the best label art ever!   K.O. Cruiser 5/5   K.O. Cruiser is a boxing game that harkens back to the arcade classic Punch-Out!! You control the transparent outline of a boxer, throwing punches and dodging blows from your opponents. You win by either knocking them out or going the distance and getting the judges' decision. If you get knocked down, you have only seconds to get back up before you're counted out.   K.O. Cruiser is a
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

The Turbo that never was

Time for another... Stupid Game Idea! (idea... idea... idea... cookie... idea...)   Turbo was one of my favorite arcade games, and was the best arcade racer until Pole Position came along. Even then, it was still a groundbreaking game that would pave the way for others like Out Run, Cruisi'n USA, Chase H.Q., and all of their various sequels and spin-offs.   Sometime back I wrote up a little blurb on my involvement with the 2600 Turbo prototype. Initially, I was brought in to create artwork f
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Inside Out - Spoiler-free movie review

Pixar has an interesting history of making terrible trailers for what turn out to be great films. The trailers for Inside Out did nothing to pique my interest in seeing the film. But at the reception to this year's Producers' Show, I talked with some people from the studio who were genuinely excited about the movie. Now, if the people who have to spend day after day working on something, still like it after several years, that's a good sign. From my standpoint, I was just glad to see Pixar makin
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Cheer up, sleepy Jean...

Davy Jones passed away at 66 today.   I'll admit it - I'm a Monkees fan. As a kid, I grew up watching syndicated reruns of the show in the mid-70's. It was silly, irreverent, had fun music, broke the fourth wall, and was an enjoyable guilty pleasure, just like other favorites of my youth - Batman and Gilligan's Island. Silliness for silliness' sake.   The music was a huge part of the show, although I didn't think of it as anything but part of the show at the time. I had a little tape recorde
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Homebreviews - part 12

Continuing with the latest batch of reviews. This time: Puzzle Games! AStar 4/5 AStar is a puzzle game with a unique play mechanic. The object of the game is to move a yellow pie-shaped character (Bob) around a maze, and collect various items. What makes it unique, is that you can only move in straight lines, and can't stop until you run into something. To help you navigate the maze, you can switch over to another character - a yellow square (Alan) - that moves the same way. Using the two ch
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Siri-ous TV

Apple has been rumored to have been working on an Apple-branded TV for years. They've actually released several products along those lines, such as the Macintosh TV, the first Mac Mini-sized Apple TV, and the current super-tiny Apple TV (seriously, you have to see this thing in person to appreciate how small it is). None have really solved the "TV problem", however. All TV services and DVRs have some shortcomings, and some are downright annoying to use. While I generally like U-Verse, I'm beginn
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
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