Mindfield
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Posts posted by Mindfield
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Well, my theory, which admittedly is pure speculation based on a little development knowledge, is that the reason for the predictable results when frying (as opposed to completely random results that are impossible to reproduce twice) is that first, the power drain/spike during the frying process scrambles the 128 bytes of memory in a way that probably has something to do with the clock frequency. Consider how Intel chips generate random numbers; they use the system timer to seed the generator to create a pseudo-random number. But if you were to seed the generator at the exact same every time, the number generated would also be the same. There's probably something related this going on during frying, which would explain the often predictable results of frying. I think that if you could cycle the power at exactly the same interval, for exactly the same duration, you'd produce the exact same frying result every time.
That's just my theory, though.
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Not really. Two of the four simplistic PD demos seem to work on it, but that's just about as far as that goes. Nevertheless it's nice to see one that's getting updated. JagBag seems to be languishing, and JagEm is nowhere to be found, so I'm glad something's being done for the cause of Jaguar emulation. :-)
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Ranked in order of pure whim:
1. Tunnel Runner
2. Montezuma's Revenge
3. Keystone Kapers
4. Spike's Peak/Ghost Manor (they're both cool, and they're a set, so they both get in)
5. Star Raiders
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My guess is that if indeed Infogrames has taken any action at all against Lawrence, it's concievable that if they didn't believe they had a case against Lawrence (or if Lawrence succeeded in convincing them that his legal argument held merit) then they may have sent a vaguely threatening letter to his domain registrar. Although this wouldn't get Infogrames the domain name (at least, not immediately) it would be enough of a scare tactic to force the registrar to suspend it until the matter had been resolved one way or the other. Companies don't like legal threats, founded or not; it's bad for business, and they'll err towards caution every time. If I were a lawyer (bite my tongue!) and knew the other person's legal argument held more water than mine, yet I still wanted to try and bend them to my will, that's the sort of thing I'd do.
As far as that goes, if this scare tactic didn't work, I wouldn't be surprised to see Infogrames press a lawsuit. Even knowing they couldn't win, they'd bank on both Lawrence simply not being able to afford the legal fees (and Infogrames could afford to drag a case like that out), and on the hopes that he wasn't so sure of his own legal position as Lawrence might see Infogrames appear to be as a result of the suit. Both are probably true, and would probably result in Lawrence bowing out.
It's sad to see such underhanded tactics employed by a company we may have otherwise come to respect. Sad, both for the devious, weasely nature of it, and because regardless of how far in the right Lawrence is, if Infogrames decided to press the issue, they'd win simply by default because Lawrence couldn't possibly hope to absorb the legal fees that would be involved in such a drawn out case no matter how righteous he felt about his side of it. When it comes to lawyers, it's not about right or wrong. It's he with the greatest sum of money who wins.
Mind you this is a long speculative journey based on nothing more than a domain name not resolving; it could be nothing more than network troubles. Still, the timing is awfully suspicious...
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Seems I can't connect to the URL -- the domain isn't resolving anymore. Perhaps Infogrames succeeded in strong-arming Lawrence into giving over the domain? I hope not... I see enough heavy-handed lawyering coming out of Nintendo, I'd be rather disappointed to see the new Atari practise the same tactics...
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Yeah, the protection was defeated on pretty well all versions of the game. (Mind you the ST version wasn't cracked all that well, and there were a number of bad cracks that floated around, unplayable because you couldn't get a job, sleep at an inn, or slake your thirst or hunger at a tavern due to your being evil. Of course that didn't really matter much because every encounter resulted in immediate attacks and usually ended in death -- yours, since every smithy just threw you out, leaving you defenseless)
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I'd agree that there is still some room in the portable gaming market -- but right now, the GBA has the rapt attention of all the portable gamers out there right now, and with good reason; it is admittedly a very good system, rather on par graphically with the SNES (if scaled down a little) but with more horsepower. Still, Nintendo being the only entry in the portable gaming market does leave some room for someone else, and despite Atari's relative failure with the Lynx (which let's be honest was a great system, but was prone to fragility) I think they'd be able to pull something off. I do know from working in the retail electronics biz that the major complaint of those who buy the GBA is the lack of a backlit display -- a sacrifice made for prologed battery life, but I think a decent backlit system with a 32-bit processor, good active matrix TFT display (maybe that nice 4" screen Ben's using for his latest VCSp?) and some heavy talent on board could stand a chance. While I think the idea of portable gaming on cell phone hybrids is a good idea and Atari is good to get on board early, I think that it would be a good inroad to a dedicated portable gaming device.
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Thing is, the randomness of frying was what produced some interesting results, sometimes. Although there was randomness, the results were often predictable -- there were usually several messed up but semi-stable results that would still let you play or mess around with it. Messing up RAM by hand and searching for a random address to start at just won't have the same kinda results -- and you could only save 'em by doing a save state.
I'd often thought of whether or not frying was emulatable. I sort of gathered the authentic style frying wasn't, but a simulation of it could be reproduced, I think.
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That's pretty well the same with me. I carried that self-teaching paradigm into my later stages of learning, picking up Atari BASIC, then Turbo Basic, and then -- after years of pure confusion at how those amorphous three-letter expressions could possibly be understood followed by sheer epiphany and sudden understanding from following example -- 6502 assembler, which I learned to love for its subtle simplicity and its complex potential for powerful, compact routines.
Even today I tend to educate myself in an ad-hoc manner, learning what I feel I need to know when I need to know it, and leaving the rest until it becomes necessary. I haven't learned to program on the PC these days -- with the exception of HTML, and a few spots of Javascript and VB. But it gets my by for my purposes, and in a way harkens back to the days when computers still mystified and entranced me. :-)
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There were to be seven titles, all told.
Released:
- The City (A8, C64, Apple II, PC, ST, Amiga)
- The Dungeon (Same)
Unreleased, but rumoured to have a beta at the time:
- The Palace (third in the series)
Unreleased, and not even started:
- The Arena (Fourth)
- The Wilderness (Fifth)
- The Revelation (Sixth)
- The Reckoning (Seventh)
The entire series had, at the very least, been concieved of by Philip price -- he knew where everything was headed. Unfortunately the death of Datasoft squelched any hopes of seeing the series even begin to reach a climax. Last I heard (from Phil himself, no less) he does have the rights to the games, and does plan on excersizing them, but at present is pressed for time to do so as a result of his regular job.
Here's some tidbits I thought I'd share about the game for anyone interested:
There were some striking differences between the 8-bit and 16-bit/PC versions of The City; On the ST, Amiga and PC, streets and areas had names (on the 8-bitters they were merely "A street," "An Alcove," "A Cul-de-Sac," etc.) You were also able to join Guilds, get a job (and a watch by which to arrive on time), and be judged in degrees of good or evil by your actions (which determined your acceptance at public establishments, and the frequency and type of encounters that occurred) None of these variables were present in the 8-bit versions of the game. And here's a little trivia: One area of the game (known as Price Commons in the 16-bit versions of the game) when mapped out, spells "Philip Price." Another bit of trivia: If you tried to play a copied version of the game on the ST/Amiga/PC, your character would be generated pure evil with no hope of redemption.
[ 07-14-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]
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Around $250 US -- with a small discount if you trade in an old 2600 that Ben can cannibalize for parts to make more VCSp units.
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Hasbro Interactive = history; now under the management of Infogrames, who have now officially decided to chance their name to Atari for brand recognition. Currently, Atari have released the "Anniversary Edition" -- a package of classic arcade emulations -- and are striking a deal to make pay-per-download remakes of old arcade games for use on WAP-enabled cell phones.
Beyond that, who knows? The new Atari are taking a few baby steps, and their direction is ultimately unclear, but at the very least they're doing something. It's not much of something, but they're probably still formulating plans and strategies...
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I'd have to agree that the chances both of Atari making a new machine, and, if they should bother to do so, of the chances of it succeeding are as near to none as makes no odds. If a giant like Sega admits defeat in the face of Nintendo and Sony -- particularily when, until GT3 was released earlier this week, 99% of the PS2 games pretty well sucked -- then what of Atari's chances? Nintendo's Gamecube is currently slated for November 5th, with Microsoft's XBOX less than a week behind on the 10th. Add to that the already-growing pantheon of titles for the PS2 (despite most of them being exceptionally lacklustre), and you can see that the gaming market is pretty well nose-to-tail, with barely enough room to spit through the cracks. Atari would have to come up with something pretty spectacular, launch it with a veritable cornucopia of titles and third party support, release it before or at least shortly after GC and X, and market it at a price point below even the GC, in order to have a singular chance at success. Given the enormous costs and tremendous resources that would be required to pull off such a feat, I'd have to say that, at this time, it would fall on Infogrames' list of priorities just above "re-hire Sam Tramiel to run the new Atari," but below "New Atari Spokesman: GILBERT GOTTFRIED!"
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I had a 600xl; it was the first 8-bit I ever owned. I didn't have any means of storage -- no tape or floppy drive, and I had no software whatsoever when I bought it. I had to satisfy myself with typing in the example programs in the back of the manual. That of course led inevitably to my curiosity piquing about what would happen if I changed certain values and such, which ultimately led to my learning to program -- and writing those programs down in a little booklet I made. It wasn't until some time that I borrowed a tape drive off of a friend who had a whack of 8-bit stuff, and then eventually upgraded to an 800xl with a 1050 drive and my first floppy game (Boulder Dash! :-)
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Most of the Infocom games made it, up to (but excluding) Zork Zero. The Atari ST and Amiga saw a few of the ones the 8-bit didn't get; Zork Zero, Beyond Zork, Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail Of It (hillarious game, by the way -- anyone have an image of this one? It's damn impossible to find!) and one or two others. The rest -- Return to Zork, Zork Nemesis, and so on -- only made it to PC (possibly Mac, too). I didn't much like these tho, as they became "interactive movies" and so lost their classic touch, becoming more common with the then-glut of such games (Myst, et al) Curiously, only the Amiga got the Infocom Collection 1 and 2; for some reason they never released that on the ST.
Personally I liked Zork Zero; it was still purely text, but there were simplistic graphics in the form of a map that showed where you were and where you'd been. Plus, where else could you beat someone up with a shelailagh? :-)
As for Douglas Adams -- yep. He was involved in several, starting, of course, with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He went on to write a few more, all, of course, rife with his wit and sense of humour. (Mind you, Planetfall and Stationfall, while funny, weren't quite as offbeat as one might be used to when reading Adams' stuff) I was morified to read of his death; he was a legend in his prime who had hardly begun to write in earnest. I was really looking forward to another Dirk Gently novel; I kept anxiously awaiting a third installment while he was working on Last Chance to See... he is sorely missed.
<moment of silence>
</moment of silence>
Returning to the larger topic at hand, I did the same with AR -- adventuring well beyond the game's climax, mapping everything, discovering all the secrets, items, etc. It was just that kind of game where, even when you've seen the culmination of all your efforts bear fruit, you still want more. I remember anxiously awaiting The Palace, as that was to be next, and hearing of beta versions floating around (though I never came across such). Then I heard of Datasoft's folding and subsequent cancelling of the project and very nearly died of apoplexy. And as good as the Ultima games were, they couldn't hold a candle to AR, so were scant consolation. I always wanted to continue the series myself; I was even writing an ATASCII version of AR in MAC/65 to be played on Oasis bulletin boards (believe it or not -- and it worked! Clunky visuals of course, but the 3D was there!) I left the 8-bit scene before I got anything playable done though... *sigh*
One of these days...
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lol... that ad was kinda funny. The Golden Arches could work, but that text was pure lithography. :-)
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Although not Atari-related, I was in the Value Village on Queen at the 410 in Brampton yesterday, and they had two Genesis systems (ohe original, one re-release, smaller version) and a Sega Master System, each for $4. I didn't pick them up since I'm not actually ready to begin any sort of classic console collection yet, but it was the first old console I'd seen in a while (other than an original Gameboy) No games there though... just those consoles and a bunch of ancient PCs. I might have actually picked one or both of them up if they had some carts...
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Infocom games were great. I especially loved the ones Douglas Adams had a hand in. (Bureaucrasy, THHGTTG, Planetfall/Stationfall) They left you with no choice but to use your imagination, as there were no visual cues. As you said, it was like reading a good book, only except that you were able to take part in it. Ironically, several books were released based on several of the Infocom games; I bought both the Enchanter and Sorcerer books, though each was written by a different author. They weren't epic fantasy as you'd expect from the likes of say, Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind, but they were cute, in that Piers Anthony Xanth sort of way.
However, The AR series were no less adept at telling a good story, even if it was mostly visual rather than mental. The plot was excellent, the gameplay was phenominal, and the story evolved in new and interesting ways as you played, which is just what a good book -- and a good RPG -- should do. Most RPGs try, but they tend to have tired, archetypical plots with predictable plot twists and action; there's little to fire the imagination and plenty to get bored of after the first time through. AR was good enough that, even when you've been through it, you want to go through it again and again -- also the mark of a good book. And it takes a skilled developer to create an engaging world that you want to revisit even after you've toured it extensively and repeatedly.
It's a pity modern developers simply don't take heed -- or can't because of deadline destrictions.
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It wasn't Mercenary. But just for posterity's sake, the wireframe 3D Mercenery: Escape from Targ and the Second City data disk were released on the 8-bit. The ST had Mercenary: Escape from Targ + The Second City in all its wireframe glory, Mercenary II: Damocles + Mission Disk, and Mercenary III, both in solid 3D polygon. Great games, those were.
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It was a good article -- and the first I've seen that didn't cast retrogaming in an eccentric light. If anything it did more to suggest that retrogaming, especially with the grandaddy of all consoles, was gaining more of a mainstream following, being more popular in the classic gaming venue than Nintendo or Sega. I must commend them for that; they placed Atari right where they should be: as the forefathers and the preeminent champions of the video gaming era past and present.
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Actually, http://www.atari.org has some stuff in their "Services/Toys" area... you can grab the Fuji in several 3D formats (most useable to PC being DXF and 3DS formats -- these are convertable with a program like 3D Exploration) as well as a few other bits and bobs. (If anyone wants this converted to a different 3D format, or just a really big Fuji JPG, let me know and I can do it quite easily; specify size and background colour) I also found a set of Atari fonts if anyone's interested. I had a hell of a time getting Windows to install them, though... perhaps I have too many fonts installed already. :-)
[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]
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For those interested, the new version of Atari800Win is out, though I suspect we'll see a newer one in the not-too-distant future that's based on a newer Atari800 kernel.
Anyway, you can grab it at http://www.atari-area.net/PLus/index_us.htm
(NOTE: Page doesn't work properly in Netscape or Mozilla, so for those of us who try and avoid anything Microsoft-related, you'll have to drag Internet Exploder out to view this one...)
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Someguy:
It's the principle of the thing. The fact that someone's getting royally waxed for something that isn't worth half what he's paying is just wrong. Look at all those damned O'Shea auctions; someone went and bought up those O'Shea's commons and turned around trying to sell them on E-Bay to the highest bidder. I mean, if I ended up paying $10 or $20 or something, only to find out later I could have gotten it for $1, I'd be quite peeved about it -- especially when I came to the realization that this is exactly where the actioner got them from in the first place.
As for the topic at large, I'm in Canada as well, and just don't shop on E-Bay for that very reason. Between US conversion and any extraneous charges (paypal, for example) it drives the price of the thing you're bidding on up enough that it makes the 'bargain' you might have otherwise got nearly irrelevant.
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At the moment, regardless of Lawrence's usage of a trademarked logo and name, I think his site still falls under fair use guidelines. There is nothing derogatory about it, unless you construe the allowance of opinionated and occasionally vulgar dissertations to be posted on his discussion boards, which I don't, and his site is neither commercial, nor are there any advertisements (other than one pointing to his own GameSX webfront), so he is in no way profiting, directly or indirectly, from the usage of said trademarks. To me, that's fair use -- using a trademark for no other reason than that you like and appreciate the company and want to show your appreciation in some small way by dedicating a site to it -- or a site that relates to it in some fairly significant and relevant way. And so, I still maintain that Infogrames don't really have much of a case, since Lawrence's usage of the trademarks and domain name are in good faith.