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Mindfield

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Posts posted by Mindfield

  1. Posted

    Yeah. First and foremost, Infogrames/Atari are about making money, and they won't likely spend it if they can't home to gain something out of it. Creating a new game would cost money, and unless they could reap some half decent ad revenue out of it, they won't bother.

  2. Posted

    For historical reference:

     

    - The 5200 was considered twice the machine as the 2600, and therefore bore double its number.

    - The 7800 was so named because it had 5200 graphics and sported 2600 compatibility (5200+2600=7800)

    - The 65XE, 130XE, 130ST, 260ST, 520ST and 1040ST were so named for the amount of RAM each had. (65XE = 65,535 bytes of RAM, 130XE = 131,072 bytes of RAM, rounded to 130,000, and so on. Yes, I know the math gets worse the higher it gets -- the 1040 ST technically has 1,048,576 bytes of RAM, so it was rounded to 1,040,000, from which 1040 was derived) The 130ST was never released, since there was virtually no RAM left over after the O/S was loaded. (GEM was disk-based at the time) The 260ST was released mainly in Europe briefly, but failed for the same reasons.

    - The 400 was simply pulled out of a hat, as it were. Subsequent models, up until the XE series, were loosely derived from that number.

    - The ST stood for "Sixteen-thirty two," which referred to the 68000 CPU processing internally at 32-bits, and externally at 16-bits. STe was simply "ST Enhanced." TT was "thirty two-thirty two," since it was a full 32-bit architecture internally and externally. Falcon arose from Atari's "predatory" era, from whence Lynx, Panther and Jaguar also arose.

  3. Posted

    It's rather stupid and ill-informed to blame one's own lethargy on Atari -- or anything but one's own motivation (or lack thereof.)

     

    The crux of the argument states that he blames society's overall laziness on the frustration of never being able to beat a game. This makes no sense to me; most of us knew there was no ending to a game, or that games had a tendancy to "wrap" when the last level was reached. The game is the thing; it's the play that keeps you enthralled, not some notion of a grand finale. We played the games because they were fun to play, not because we were determined to get to the end. Sure, for games where there was some sort of ending (the "closure" he spoke of) the ending was a goal, but it was the getting there that was the whole point of playing.

     

    Sure, I like kicking back and relaxing, chilling for a few hours -- but I work hard every day. The last thing I want to do is run around at home like I do at work. That's rather contrary to the whole concept of "relaxing." If relaxing is considered slacking, then I shudder to think of the sort of workaholic you'd have to be to avoid it.

  4. Posted

    I found this little event rather interesting. I work for Future Shop, a large Canadian electronics chain much like Circuit City in the US, as a Software Consultant. So, I deal with every type of software and game system query from the common to the obscure. We recently launched the GBA to incredible success, and aside from stock problems for the first few days, we've kept on selling it well.

    But the one event that fascinated me was the mother who came in with her little boy who couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years of age. She let the boy pick out his favourite colour of GBA as well as a game. The funny thing is that, faced with such great and kid-appealing games like Super Mario Advance, Pinobee, Chu Chu Rocket and so on, what game caught the kid's eyes straight away? Namco Classics. A kid who's too young to even remember the N64, much less the VCS, found old games more appealing than the new, colourful games on the rack.

     

    It was sort of an interesting observation on the whole retrogaming scene -- that you're never too young to enjoy the classics, and that even simplistic graphics and sound despite the machine's ability for better can grab your attention if the gameplay is all there.

  5. Posted

    I think that probably, Infogrames would be fairly pragmatic about hobbyist hardware projects 'n stuff -- like the new TIA project that's been talked about, or the VCSp and kin. For software stuff that's based on copyrighted material -- well, that may be a different story. No one knows at the moment what Infogrames/Atari plan to do with their newly acquired assets, so it's impossible to say whether or not they plan to put the copyrights they own to new use. If they do plan on it -- or even if they don't, they may decide to enforce their particular rights in the situation to prevent unauthorized copying, reverse-engineering or hacking. On the other hand if the goal isn't profit, but just mainly for a hobby, maybe charging enough to recoup expenses involved, they might not bother -- at least, I'm hoping they'd view it as just something fun that fans and hobbyists are doing just for the sheer pleasure of it.

     

    Time will tell, I suppose. But I still think it would be interesting to see what they'd say to someone who approached them to try and secure permission to at least distribute their old licenses and copyrighted games for the VCS. It could be revealing... :-)

  6. Posted

    Yeah, I was starting to get a little worried. After Dave's went lame and Emusphere shut its doors, I'd begun to think that all my favourite sites were either disappearing or just going bad. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and I figured something was up and that AtariAge wouldn't just up and disappear, not when it's just gotten its facelift and name change.

     

    And thank God I was right...

  8. Posted

    I'm hoping so, too. At the very least Infogrames seems to be a little more enthusiastic about assuming the role of the "New Atari." And I don't think they'll be another Hasbro, simply using the name to peddle sub-standard wares. (Of course, Infogrames have usually released some pretty good stuff, while Hasbro's usually been about barely passable to relatively lousy material)

     

    But the whole issue of emulation is a different story entirely. The likes of Activision have of course been quite positive about it, releasing their own VCS titles emulated to perfection on several platforms, as have Namco and Midway. I suppose I just like the trend of bringing legitemacy to the realm of emulation by legalising the distribution of ROMs and disk images, thereby helping to shed the "warez" stigma of emulation in general, and I'm hoping to see that trend spill over into things Atari. Even if it's an area not considered to be a tremendous threat to the new Atari's revenues as a whole, I think it might still be rather nice to know without a doubt that it's entirely legal. I'd still use the emulators and associated images/ROMs regardless, having been an Atari nut since the early 80s, but if I could do so legitemately in all respects, I think it'd lend a nice, comfortable air to the whole thing and widen the spectrum of VCS emulation -- particularily where, as you pointed out, new game creations like Combat II are concerned.

  9. Posted

    Okay. This is sort of a question that's occasionally come to mind, but it's never really been of particular importance to me to have it answered. But I've lately noticed that the trend of retrogaming and, particularily, the obtaining of legal permission to distribute old games from old machines by fans, has been on the incline. BBC, Spectrum, Vectrex, and most prominently of late, Amiga. What I've been wondering is, has permission actually been obtained for some or most of the 2600 titles out there? (Protos excepted) Or has it been mostly an area where such permission has been deemed largely needless in the VCS realm?

     

    Mainly though, I ask because of Infogrames relatively recent announcements of their intention to assume the Fuji whole-hog. With their seeming fervor for resurrecting these old bones, it seems that perhaps they might take an interest in the whole retrogames concept. They'll be releasing the "Atari Anniversary Edition" shortly (basically repackaged classics that Hasbro already covered two years ago) so they obviously have an interest in that market. I just wouldn't want to see them take up a harsh stance against VCS emulation.

  11. Posted

    Nothing's worse than someone who posts pointless messages for the purpose of trying to earn more stars.

     

    NOTE: This pointless message is in no way to be confused with the likes of those depicted in the above sentence, but should be considered an affirmation of the act of purging the board of said posts. Yes, indeed.

  13. Posted

    Funny thing. Until I read this thread I didn't even know of the existence of Wasteland, but from the sound of it, it sounds identical to the online game of the same name back in the BBS days; I used to play it to death on the rare few PC-based Telegard BBSs I called. I then started writing a port of it on the ST. (Never did get it done, but I got it far enough to walk around the map and enter the base compound, complete with monitored RAD and health stats)

     

    Now I'm gonna hafta look the real game up and play with it...

  15. Posted

    Thanks, Albert - and you're welcome! Yeah, the nostalgia factor is why I started collecting them once I discovered them. They're a great blast from the past, especially for the Atari user. Memories of a more colourful time in technology's history, and of a time when all this technology was readily available and much in demand by the likes of us. Plus, the cheesiness of many of them offers a real sense of pure camp. :-)

     

    They'll eventually all be offered on a forthcoming website to make browsing 'em easier.

  17. Posted

    You can grab loads off my site. Currently online, there are:

     

    10 Apple commercials (mostly G3 ads)

    9 Atari (Hasbro) ads

    47 Atari (Warner/Tramiel) ads

    4 Coleco ads

    23 Commodore ads

    1 Magnavox ad

    4 Mattel ads

    2 NEC ads (Japanese, for the PC Engine, a.k.a. Turbo Grafix 16 in North America)

    4 Activision ads

    2 Imagic ads

    1 M-Network ad

    27 Atari (Warner/Tramiel) promo clips

    1 Commodore (Gateway) promo clip

    1 retro music video by GS1

    4 Atari radio ads

     

    Almost enough to make a CD! :-)

     

    You can grab it all here.

     

    Any contributions that I don't have are always welcome.

  18. Posted

    Heh ... the reference to "Atari Labs headquarters" in the Technical Advisor position seems to indicate that it is indeed true. Looks like we got ourselves a new Atari.

     

    The thing I find interesting is, in fact, in the Technical Advisor position; they mention the requirement for an awareness and/or expertise in, among other things, hardware. Perhaps a portent of things to come? I mean, it could be a stretch, but it might just mean that the new Atari could be pondering the possibility of a new console...

     

    I mean, consider for a moment the climate of the console market. Tentatively, as of early November, Gamecube, followed shortly by the X-Box, will hit the market, with the PS2 having gained a wide lead in the console market. With Sega having dropped out, it leaves a bit of a gap in the competition; with PS2 being expensive as it is, the X-Box being planned at around the same price point, and the only "cheap" console being Nintendo's GC, there's a good opportunity for the new Atari to re-enter the console market with a competitive console at a price point better than Sony and Microsoft and, at the very least, competitive with Nintendo.

     

    Just a thought...

  19. Posted

    I dunno how much use it will be, but CyberRoach definitely has a very cool Jaguar section on his site.

    http://www.cyberroach.com/videomisc/default.htm

    (contains the Sears Cartridge Telegames System Video Arcade Manual and a 7-Up Pac Man commercial from the early 80s)

    http://www.cyberroach.com/jaguarcd/index.htm

    (Contains all kinds of JagCD info and video clips, including stuff on unreleased games, Jag commercials, flyers, catalogues, etc.)

     

    Just as a note of interest, Cyberroach is also the one doing the Digital A.N.A.L.O.G. project.

     

    [ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

  20. Posted

    If you find something is lacking in the translation, chances are it's something lacking in the emulator. Try a different one. XL-It! (DOS) and Atari800/Atari800Win, both primarily 8-bit emulators, both emulate the 5200 to exceptionally accurate degrees.

  22. Posted

    Rummage around that theyer trailer trayash. Y'all'll prolly faind sum breyad sumwhar eyen amung them bottles o' moonshine an' rawhide chew sticks...

  23. Posted

    Actually, my path to discovering 2600 emulation was quite indirect. I first learned about emulation on the Atari ST way back in the early-mid 90s, starting with a Sinclair ZX-81 emulator, which I found intriguing. Having discovered the concept of emulation, I searched high and low for an Atari 8-bit emulator, since the 8-bit was my first computer. I found Derek Mihoka's ST-XFormer, which was a nice idea, but was pretty early -- no P/M graphics or ability to run binary programs; just BASIC stuff, which was mostly useless. Then I discovered a Sinclair Spectrum emulator called Speccy!, which was quite fantastic. I never owned or even saw a Spectrum; they never really made it out of Europe, certainly not to Canada. So it was a lot of fun learning and using this machine through emulation.

     

    Then when I got my first PC about 4 years ago, I naturally looked up anything emulation-related I could, starting with the machines I used to own. (Colecovision, Atari 2600, various Atari computers, etc.) I was in heaven, and I've been collecting ever since. Now I've managed to amass virtually every emulator in existence, and learning of those myriad machines I'd never even heard of and yet existed along side the "big 3" back in the day (Apple, Atari, Commodore) has been a wonderful and enlightening experience.

     

    'course, back then I would have disparaged anything that wasn't Atari, but having bit the bullet and bought a PC, it's given me a certain perspective that lets me evaluate each machine on its own merits, and appreciate it for what it was, and the following it had.

  24. Posted

    For the longest time I had the Epyx 500XJ. It was probably one of the most comfortable sticks I ever used, and the microswitches were clean and responsive.

     

    Other joysticks I liked:

     

    - The joystick/paddle combo that came with the Coleco Gemini

    The corrugated, hard joystick dug into the hand after a while, unfortunately, but despite that it was comfortable, and the integrated paddles were a great idea.

    - Colecovision's joystick

    Really comfortable; the flat-topped joystick made controlling with the fingers or the palm of your hand just as easy.

    - The Wico SlickStick

    Fairly comfortable and very solid and reliable, but I could never get used to the fact that the stick had almost no play to it. It was kinda the joystick equivalent of a membrane keyboard; very little tactile feedback. Still, it was built like a tank.

  25. Posted

    Cafeman: Infogrames didn't buy Hasbro, they just bought Atari's assets from Hasbro -- for about 14x what Hasbro paid for it in the first place. I believe Hasbro just decided to divest themselves of the PC interactive market.

     

    As for Infogrames' ownership of Atari -- well, I can't say whether or not it's good for the Atari name, but it *can't* be worse than Hasbro's unfortunate ownership, which amounted to little more than pimping the Atari name around to sell a few cheap games. Infogrames produced some very fine titles on the 8 and 16-bit platforms, as well as on the PC. I enjoyed most of their releases, quite honestly, so that, at least, bodes well for them chucking the armadillo-on-acid and donning the Fuji. Only time will tell how well they treat it. I do know that they're planning to have a token release of some classic Atari games for the PC -- some anniversary release which appears to have absolutely nothing different about it than Hasbro's previous release of the same package. *shrug* Just shopping the name around I guess, keeping the Fuji well known 'til they have something original to show for it.

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