MayDay Today

And what did you think you learned from each of those threads?

And what did you think you learned from each of those threads?

 

Umm, the way that reads is that I didn't really learn anything, but just thought I did Which likely is very near the truth... they are just "favorite" threads and the academic value was not really considered when I posted them. I will however attempt to entertain your question with a few brief lessons that can be learned from each thread.

 

1. Atari Landfill Adventures- some people surely must believe that gravity doesn't exist because they can't see it or hold it in their hands. Several media outlets of the 15th century got together to create this massive conspiracy for no logical reason. The lesson here is the old...err... proverb saying never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

2. Knight Rider 2600 Project- how not to approach a game project. This guy announced his game and did everything backwards. There is a process to producing a homebrew, and he was chastised for not going about it in the right way. His reaction to this was not uncommon to the internet- saying he was a bigshot and blowing up, then promptly disappearing. I'm sure the forum is eagerly awaiting his game, as 2006 is almost here.

3. AtariAge Photo Thread- be a sport and introduce yourself. Find out who everyone in the forum is, it will make it more fun in the long run to know your Atari brethern.

4. Tempest's Meltdown Prototype- umm, wow. This will sound negative, but doing the right thing isn't always rewarded. The villain seemed to get the best of our hero in this tale. My heart goes out to the man.

5. Tronman Hack- be really, really sure that the actors are not wearing underwear if your exact replica requires the use of spandex. However, if you do make this mistake, having a sense of humor and the ability to laugh at yourself will bring good things to you in the end. If and when you get your fame, be able to handle it with grace like our friend Jay Maynard has. Talk to the people you should and get permission to do things. Doing it the right way led to a new friend of AtariAge.

6. Krokodile Cartridge- pay attention to the entire forum and not just the parts you are interested in. As homebrew authors know, emulation will only take you so far, and had I paid attention when I first got here, I wouldn't be in search of one of these.

 

Any different thoughts? -JD

I haven't read all of those threads, but I do recall KR2600 and you've got it right. Also, for KR2600 there are a few other teachings:

1. Beware of licensed properties. Whether it be a knock off, port, or spin-off, their lawyers & accountants will eat you for a bed time snack. Another advantage of original ideas is no-one has any pre-conceived expectations.

2. Never underestimate homebrew sales, that way each royalty is that much more special.

3. To elaborate on your summary:

a. Know your platform's capabilities. Yes, sometimes there are tricks or space vs speed tradeoffs, but there are limits.

b. Starting small and adding on is less frustrating than dreaming big and having to make sacrifices.

c. Ideas are a wooden nickle for a six-pack. All the wishing & planning doesn't mean squat. Skull sweat & long hours are how things get done.

 

You're also right that emulation does have it's limitations. But, 2600 emulation is quite advanced and active. So any differences between real life & emulation are investigated and fixed. (The same can't be said for other platforms.) However, even an imperfect emulator can be used for development as long as you understand the limitations (e.g. DMA cycle stealing on the 7800 or vector drift on the Vectrex) and sanity check on actual hardware (which can be community based).

How about the "Turbo prototype found" thread?

Several media outlets of the 15th century got together to create this massive conspiracy for no logical reason.

 

I was under the impression only one media outlet was uncovered, that stated they had actually been onsite during the event All the other media outlets since were just following suit after the fact. Kinda like urban legends are, even today, spread through local papers.

 

Completely BS storys that somehow make it in papers all over the country. You cant deny it, happens every year. In spite of the fact the story was written before the carts arrived, during the arrival and many many many times after the carts were supposedly crushed. No one thought to snap a decent pic of MILLIONS of boxed carts. LOL Can you imagine a sea of carts getting crushed but no-one thought to get a pic or video?

 

I recall a news station around that same time in VA reporting on a local video store that was renting duped tapes. They confiscated 100's of video tapes and crushed them with a bulldozer. Of course there was nice video so clear you could read the titles on the tape. Meh... Atari? They weren't big news in the 80's why bother capturing any evidence of this story. Either we have one shitty news reporter or I dunno,You explain that. Not to mention the fact the original author, who is still around, wont respond to requests for informatiom. Several Atari worker during that time have, they ALL say the same thing. Yep heard about it. Thats it.

 

There are stories that all the kids in town were carrying around ET carts and the pawn shops were saturated with them. But Not one person, even people that could walk to the land-fill had anythign to add except...Yeah I heard this. LOL Maybe I'm wrong. Honestly I believe in gravity. You can easily prove it exists. The people that believe this myth's only defense is why would a big buisiness have a reason to lie to us. HAHAHHAHAHAHA! Its funny to me.

 

Oh..These people also say, big companies do this all the time. It's no big deal. Sorry but Companies throw out trash, they throw out defective product they don't throw out perfectly good products and then open warehouses 6 months later to store products or order a second run of the very same title. There is zero shred of evidence also that the initial 5 million ET carts didnt sell. Everyone I know and you know has copies. This is a very common title for a cart that everyone returned. I mean to tell you, if the media knew about Millions...no 100's, not thousands...but millions of carts getting buried, there would be proof.

 

But whatever, you might be right. It happened, but no-one can prove it.

Sorry but Companies throw out trash, they throw out defective product they don't throw out perfectly good products and then open warehouses 6 months later to store products or order a second run of the very same title.

 

In some industries, it's very common for companies to throw out lots of unsold product and then later produce essentially the same thing. When a typical paperback publisher supplies books to a bookstore, they want to receive within a reasonable time cash for the books that sold, or the covers of books that didn't. They don't want the unsold books for anything; all they want is proof that they were unsold and destroyed. On the other hand, the fact that a book didn't sell out everywhere doesn't mean the publisher won't print more. It's just cheaper for a publisher to print a new copy of a book than it is to recover, inspect, and sell an unsold copy.

 

I don't know what the various costs of cartridge production and packaging were during E.T.'s heyday, but if Atari wanted to make any change whatsoever to the box or its contents, it may have not have been worth the expense to open up the old boxes, remove the contents, and repackage them.

Sorry but Companies throw out trash, they throw out defective product they don't throw out perfectly good products and then open warehouses 6 months later to store products or order a second run of the very same title.

 

In some industries, it's very common for companies to throw out lots of unsold product and then later produce essentially the same thing. When a typical paperback publisher supplies books to a bookstore, they want to receive within a reasonable time cash for the books that sold, or the covers of books that didn't. They don't want the unsold books for anything; all they want is proof that they were unsold and destroyed. On the other hand, the fact that a book didn't sell out everywhere doesn't mean the publisher won't print more. It's just cheaper for a publisher to print a new copy of a book than it is to recover, inspect, and sell an unsold copy.

 

I don't know what the various costs of cartridge production and packaging were during E.T.'s heyday, but if Atari wanted to make any change whatsoever to the box or its contents, it may have not have been worth the expense to open up the old boxes, remove the contents, and repackage them.

 

Yeah but we're not talking about a few pallets of books. Can you imagine getting rid of a MILLION of anything? This would not be like going out back and throwing away some books. So you would have me believe after paying 21 million for the licence to make this game, and the fact they were already losing cash hand over fist they would spend more money to destroy a sea of perfectly good merchandise losing more money and then 6 months later produce more? If it cost even $2 to produce an Atari cart (I have no idea that sounds low) They just lost $2 million on the product alone, not to mention the expense of transporting, crushing, digging, and pouring concrete on this great mass of carts.

 

Compare E.T.s initial production run of 5-6 million carts to PAC-MANs 14 million. E.T'.s are one of the more common carts. Everyone has one, everyone back then had one, I find it hard to believe everyone took them back. Gimmi a break. The story that almost all the people who bought E.T.s took them back should automatically be discredited because all you have to do is look around. ETs are everywhere. I probably have 10 copies myself. Pretty damn amazing considering they were all returned back in the day.

 

Thats the urban legend. ET has been painted as the worst game ever, the game that took down Atari, the game that was so bad consumers rejected it and Atari was forced to bury them. I say it's BS. ET is actually a damn good game. I think it's more likely they made up the story to get a huge tax write off. They called up a pal that worked for a local paper and gave him a scoop to print so they would have some "proof". (That and probably a few bumps of cocaine) The person ran the story others picked up on it after the fact and the rest is history. They got their write off and didn't spend a dime. (well maybe a few bucks to the reporter to make it worth his while) Like you honestly think big corporations don't pull fast ones?

 

One of the people that work for Atari back then I corresponded with said he heard that they were buried, but in a secret location, that the initial site given was to throw off the media! LOL More like someone did investigate back in the day, found out it was BS, brought forth the info and it came out that oh no..it wasn't Alamogordo landfill...it was another. Too funny

 

I dunno, maybe it is true, maybe they did bury them. It amazes me all these people in the area and that worked for Atari only ever heard of the story...just like the rest of us. It amazes me a media reporter was onsite when it happened but failed to get any conclusive shots of the act. I mean I know a million carts would me hard to photograph... but come on, the dude was a professional!!

I haven't read all of those threads, but I do recall KR2600 and you've got it right.  Also, for KR2600 there are a few other teachings:

1. Beware of licensed properties.  Whether it be a knock off, port, or spin-off, their lawyers & accountants will eat you for a bed time snack.  Another advantage of original ideas is no-one has any pre-conceived expectations.

2. Never underestimate homebrew sales, that way each royalty is that much more special.

3. To elaborate on your summary:

  a. Know your platform's capabilities.  Yes, sometimes there are tricks or space vs speed tradeoffs, but there are limits.

  b. Starting small and adding on is less frustrating than dreaming big and having to make sacrifices.

  c. Ideas are a wooden nickle for a six-pack.  All the wishing & planning doesn't mean squat.  Skull sweat & long hours are how things get done.

HardWork is back... I wonder if he learned any of these lessons?

Just read this; thanks for the kind mention, Mayday.

Whatever happened to all the posts by trigun, anyway? I meant to read back through them the other day and they're gone. Anywhere I can read them? Good post, btw. All of these are invaluable.