JamesD

Just curious... do any of these "Conventions" have over 30 people attend?

Exactly what did he cheat at and lie about? Cheat: Fabriacted a situation that would not have existed otherwise. Lie: Trying to stir up shit about a "problem" that has long been becomming less and less of a problem on it's own. Actually, they were already selling to people that were too young for the rating so the situation already existed and I know that because I've personally witnessed a Best Buy sell an M rated game to a kid that couldn't have been over 8 years old. But then I've also witnessed a parent buying an M rated video game for what looked like an 8 or 9 year old. Exactly what evidence do you have to show it's becoming less and less of a problem on it's own. I wouldn't be surprised to see that same kid I witnessed buying that M rated game do the same in just about any other store. I've seen young kids buy R rated movies in a supermarket by using the self checkout lanes and the system didn't alert anyone to check an ID. Do stores still sell cigarettes to minors? Alcohol? You really think a "suggestion" is going to stop anyone from making a buck by selling M rated games to young kids?

The guy is obsessive and he may loose his license to practice law over some of his tactics... but he HAS already sued the FL bar association and won a $20,000 settlement so I can't say I'm surprised if they try to attack him.

Exactly what did he cheat at and lie about?

And what he's doing is totally legal. Annoying to some but still legal. He has never made any statement that indicates he hates videogames in general and I've heard plenty of politicians spewing BS on other subjects. Why is this so different. Good luck with a lawsuit here. I already talked about the previous lawsuit. In this case there is no chance of a lawsuit since he is just exercising his right to free speech. Before, he filed frivolous lawsuits just to block a product from market. Totally different situation. Entrapment? It's not even law and you even said so. People keep talking about harassment and Entrapment but they don't even apply in this situation. He's trying to bring public pressure on retailers to enforce the system. Totally legal and not anything the industry can do about it. The reason the system was devised was because congress was threatening to make such a system law. The industry came up with the system under the promise that they would deal with the matter on their own to avoid costly regulations. He isn't the only member of congress that has complained about the industry flaunting the rules they promised would be used to protect children. If no one complies then congress can always make it law and then it will really be something you won't like because congress never gets anything right when it comes to this stuff. So be glad he's just trying to cause a public outcry rather than entering new bills in congress.

Law enforcement has the legal authority to conduct sting operations, non law enforcement doesn't. Why do you think many of the people that sleaze ball Chris Hansen entraps end up getting off. So a parent doesn't have the right to send their kid in to try to buy a video game? You've gotta be kidding. <edit> The video game ratings is a voluntary system and he just wants retailers to comply. The sale of alcohol to minors is against the law. Anyone can legally send their kid in to try to buy an M rated game and they have a right to tell people if the store sold it to them. Funny how freedom of speech only seems to apply when someone likes what someone is saying.

There are Wiis, PS3's and XBOX 360s at my local WalMart and it's been that way for several weeks.

Kids are used by the police in sting operations against people who sell alcohol to minors all the time. By your argument it would mean they are condoning those sales.

While I don't agree with Thompson trying to send his kid in for political gain it does display a problem with the industry. If a parent doesn't want their kid to buy and play M rated games, there's absolutely no way to prevent it if the retailers don't enforce it. This argument has actually been around a long time. R rated movies for example. Some theaters don't check IDs and some do. Kids know which ones don't and they will go to the movies where they can get in. There was an uproar about this when I was a kid. Anyone remember the ratings system for music? Remember the name Tipper Gore? Same fiasco, different generation. When was the last time you got carded for buying a CD? BTW, Best Buy sue Thompson for harassment? The only reason that Take-Two had any legal argument was because Thompson was filing frivolous lawsuits against Take-Two. Lawsuits he didn't even follow up on after the initial filing and attempts to gain injunctions on the sale of Take-Two games. They were just intended to cause problems for take two. Thompson knew the actual suits would not hold up because the law they were filed under would not hold up to a free speech argument. So rather than follow through with a lawsuit, he just repeatedly filed to block sales. So he was using the law to keep Take-Two's product off of the market without letting them have their day in court. At least that's what it sounds like from what I've read. People have been using lawsuits to push their political agenda's on us for decades and that's conservatives and liberals. <groan> Take-Two has actually benefited from the attention overall since they are catering to a specific market that doesn't care whether or not it has an M rating and probably prefers the M rating where Best Buy could face protests or boycott from conservatives. Thompson also has a right to free speech and he really hasn't done anything yet that Best Buy can sue him on and even if he does cross that line Best Buy faces a public image problem if they go after someone that is trying to 'protect our children'. Take-Two has delighted in sales spurred on by the bad boy image but Best Buy wants to sell TV's, dishwashers and other items to everyone. If parents don't want little Johnny to play violent video games the only people that can prevent it are his parents. While I have some sympathy for their position (you can't be with Johnny all the time) there is no substitute for actually being a parent and not expecting society to do the job for you. Best Buy will make some sort of statement, limit sales to minors for a while and once it's all forgotten you'll buy any M rated title you want without the clerk giving it a 2nd thought. Fire the clerk? If they had no policy against selling M rated games to kids then firing the clerk leaves them open to a lawsuit. They will probably reprimand her for image purposes but firing her... could be a costly settlement and more money than the kid would make in years. Even if Best Buy could sue him and win, then he could just go after one retailer after another until he gets some sort of satisfaction.

And here I thought the comments about Atari loosing money on the 400/800 series would result in at least 1 comment.

BTW, that's a link to the online text of the magazine, not the auction.

I found a copy of the March 84 issue of Creative Computing on ebay and decided to check what's in it online. Published right during the computer crash days. Articles on Timex, Coleco, Apple, Atari, Ti, IBM, Commodore, etc... covering the who's who of machines that fell by the wayside or almost did and it may even give you a few ideas as to why. http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/index/?issue=v10n3

I started setting up by trying to go directly to games and then quit after it asked too many questions. Then I clicked on the web link to set up a new account and didn't have to enter all that info.

In this day and age I'm leery of any system that asks too much personal info. Why on earth would they need anything more than my email address?

Bubble Bobble was a really fun game. I'd love to see this completed.

Anyone have a copy of the source that has been converted back to a form that an assembler will like?

I've already had USB FLASH drives die but I can't be certain it was the FLASH chip that's the problem. Many of these devices are overrated as to writes. Kinda like the MTBF ratings of hard drives. In the real world they tend to experience a much higher failure rate than the manufacturers advertise. However, there are also chips that will have a longer life span so if you buy the right drive you shouldn't have a problem. With the price of the devices there's no reason you couldn't buy a couple and back up everything periodically.

Having something in development doesn't mean much. If the company is strapped for cash they wouldn't be able to afford to bring in to market even if it were completed. The Aquarius is typical of a lot of machines that came out around that time. Trying to throw *any* computer at the market and throwing one that was already years out of date. The ADAM wasn't really out of date. It was comparable to other machines on the market at that time. However, it was built on some assumptions about the market that were just plain wrong. I think they were trying to appeal to the average person that wasn't buying computers. Problem was... they *still* weren't buying computers. Given that... the tape drives and printer weren't what people who *were* buying machines wanted. Top that off with a few bugs to annoy the people that did buy the machine and they were sunk.

I thought Mattel was having money issues aside from the Intellivision at that time. That being the case I just don't see them surviving the crash. Although some other company bought the Intellivision and continued to sell it, that doesn't mean it sold large numbers. Coleco threw too much money at the Adam and the ColecoVision was too expensive to produce to compete with newer game/computer systems. At least in my opinion. At a time when real computer sales were driven largely by price they introduced a computer based on tape drives and you had to buy the printer with it. If it had just been the computer and you added peripherals like other computers it would have cost less, sold better and would have been cheaper to produce. I think they misread the market badly and paid the price for it.

A lot of NES versions changed the look and feel of games too much. Ever play Archon on the NES? Way harder and not nearly as fun.

BTW, I saw one of the places selling the twin on eBay accept a "Best Offer" of $28 (+shipping) but YMMV.

I was talking about the standard FC model, not the twin. I've been thinking of getting a twin myself. My FC was around $20 US shipped off of ebay btw.

I have a Yobo and the only problem I've experienced are that a few games don't sound quite right. There's some sort of difference in the sound hardware. The sound is enough like the original that you may not notice if you aren't listening for it. All my games play fine but I don't know about the ones you listed since I don't have them. Well... I have a Duck Hunt/Mario Bros. cart but no light gun and just haven't tried it yet. I have a Silver Yobo and it matches my Silver PS2 nicely. Black would have been my 2nd choice and the new NES slimline unit look is pretty cool. There's always someone replying to any Famiclone thread that you have to use the original hardware and Famiclones suck. Ignore them... they probably have a bunch of money invested in the original hardware.

Even if you disassemble the original game you may not be able to use much of the game logic. The way the 2600 works is so different that you'll pretty much be designing a game from scratch that plays similar to the original.

While I like collecting the original games I just can't justify keeping all my collection where I can get at it. The multi-carts make it easy to play anything I want and they reduce wear and tear on my collection. Besides... when you buy a game that is New Old Stock and it's in a sealed shrinkwrapped box it's kinda nice to keep it that way.