zekish

I think the last game I played while drinking was Kaboom! Kaboom is prolly my favorite game. Sometimes, in between periods of a Flyers game, I'll take a break and play a couple games on the game TV (though it'd be neat to hook the 2600 up to the 50 incher). Of course, there's sometimes drinking while watching the game. But, believe it or not, I still kick ass at Kaboom! when I've been drinking Lagers. Doesn't really hamper me at all. = [ 08-12-2001: Message edited by: Zekish ]

I've been seeing a lot of that Galaga/Ms. Pacman hybrid out there lately. Must be someone's way of offering two classics in one unit for everyone. I haven't seen any other machines featuring other games like that (well, more than one I mean) so I assume many were made and shipped out to arcades and bars (I played one in a bar that I played a show at recently).

Yeah, my bass player is the one who tells me these things. I think he gets a mailer. Hell, I'm so out of the loop that I had no idea there was a thing in Philly until mere weeks after it was here. Then again, I didn't start frequenting these sites again until recently. Figures the next show in Howell is on a day that I gotta play a show in Philly. Same time, too. At least they happen more than once a year so I'm sure I'll get to another one soon.

quote: Originally posted by Gunstar: Now that's a game I don't remember ever hearing about, although if it's not from the states, that understandable. When and where was it made? (if you know) What kind of game is it? I'm very interested... Hmmm... it was this game where you are this little cartoon looking guy and you had to save a family (son, daughter, mother) from this weird, three level, side scrolling screen. There where a couple dogs (for lack of a better term) floating around on jetpacks, too. Family pets. Had to save them, too. Anyways, the boy was chasing a flying toy helicopter and the girl a balloon. Mom was tied up in a corner. You basically had to run and float around on your jetpack and pick them up, on whatever level they were on. There were trapdoors that opened to allow you to float from level to level. The things you had to fight, shoot, and avoid were just so amusing. Hairbrushes, floating magnets, knives, daggers, crazy creatures, man eating plants, etc. I'll copy that one for you when I get those disks copied. You'll love it. It's quite fun.

Hmm. I have the first big sprite version, as well. Maybe that's why it flickers so much, hehe. As for Legacy, I assume I have the first beta. That icon version does look cool, though.

8 Bit - Drol was an interesting little game. Not sure if it pushed parameters or not but it was like playing a cartoon. Smooth movement, great storyline/creativity, kick ass opening theme, bizarre characters, and a cartoon-like intermission. Fun game.

The Sega Genesis version was very true to the coin-op. Me and some friends "found" Rampart while at a bowling alley, I think. We loved it immediately and bought it when it came out for the Genesis. Some of us would have Rampart nights at my old place. We'd be up until morning feverishly pounding each other's castles to pieces, usually after a stop at Denny's. Those were the days.

Damn, you're not far from me and here I am as down on my luck as you, money wise. 'Fraid I can't afford to buy anything off ya. Sucks to be me!

I owe my ability to pick up programming for web pages to the fact that I learned Atari BASIC in that same way. Used to type in those programs and muck with them to get them to do different things. After many years of not programming I got into PHP and SQL, with the help of my friend, about a year ago. Even though I hadn't programmed with my Atari for years, it was easier to learn stuff because I still retained that general knowledge of how things were in BASIC, even though it wasn't object oriented. Someday I'll get to C++. = [ 07-13-2001: Message edited by: Zekish ]

The second Tempest has a '-' after his name. That's how he got through with that name.

Re: Infocom and Interactive Fiction: http://interactfiction.about.com/ Believe it or not, there's a cult following. And with the programming experience of the folks here, I'm sure you'd have no problem learning how to use Inform or any of the other languages. The weirdest thing about the Infocom games it that they were designed to work on a virtual computer, the z-engine. This would be running on whatever system you put it on. So, you only really had to program one version of a game and a z-engine for each system once. Made their work at Infocom easier, I'm sure. I'm in the process of re-reading the Hitchhiker's trilogy right now. Been quite a few years since I last read it. I'm still bummed we lost Douglas Adams. It would have been great to see him get the internet version of the guide up and running, though I'm sure folks are continuing with it.

quote: Originally posted by Gunstar: ...Unless I'm missing something, it appears that you can't choose a one player game? Hit the number 1 key (maybe 1 and 2, can't recall). There may be other combinations but I know that if you hit 1 key it goes to 1 player mode. If that don't work hit the 2, too.

Not sure about the flagship thing, but I do recall the Enterprise while recharging, now that you mention it. I think it's a random occurence. If you have to do something to make it happen I couldn't tell you what it is.

This is a spoiler for anyone who actually cares to go through the game and never figured it out. My take on it (unfortunately after I'd submitted my answer for the contest they had for it) was that to get the staff you had to go to that first oasis, the one that was south of where you start the game, right? Well, to drink at an oasis, you have to kneel, or get on all fours like you're crawling. Then you walk through the game and complete your puzzles. At the end you're done, kinda like you're old and retiring, so you use the cane to complete your quest. So, it's kinda like the real riddle of the sphinx: What's got 4 legs at birth, 2 during its life, and 3 when it gets old? (or something like that) Think they meant it to be similar that way by making the staff appear at an oasis? -Z

It says DOS 2.6, always has. Dunno if it's a hack or not. Could be, since it's the only DOS I've seen that changes the background black. Can't recall any other differences, if there are any, at the moment. I'm almost out the door to go to band practice right now so this may be kinda short. Why is it that I can't recall what I did two days ago but I remember what POKE 710,0 does? Or POKE 752,1? Gunstar: I'll have to email you my address so you can send some disks to me. I don't have Eidolon, but I do have Koronis Rift, Ballblaster, and Behind Jaggi Lines. And I got other stuff, too. Some DOSes, a hacked Boulder Dash where you never die, and other kewl stuff. I'll get around to that when I ain't getting ready to go beat the hell outta my drums, though. =

quote: Originally posted by Nukey Shay: The program you typed uses the XIO command for disk I/O...useless if you don't have DOS already loaded. Well, don't that just figure! Back to the drawing board then. While we're talking DOS, what was everyone's favorite? I liked 2.6 a lot but 2.5 allowed for double density (or close to it) formatting. 3 was evil. Pure evil. I got it with my 1050 drive and never used it. I used 2.6 mostly until I got 2.5.

Koronis Rift. Hmm. Never finished it, if there is indeed an end. I got kinda far but got at an impasse after awhile. I never knew what objects did what things. It was soooooo trial and error. I didn't have a manual, either, so I dunno. Did the instructions help any or was it really trial and error to find good shields, weapons, etc.? And a lot of objects didn't seem to do anything. What were all the things objects could do?

Gunstar, if you need to format some disks, try this program. It's something my friend wrote yearrrrrrrs ago. I stumbled upon it yesterday while going through an old BASIC programs disk I had. Your post couldn't have come at a better time: 5 GRAPHICS 1+16 7 OPEN #2,4,0,"K:" 9 POKE 16,128: POKE 53774,128: POKE 9,255 10 POSITION 2,1: ?#6;"QUICK FORMATTER" 20 POSITION 5,4: ?#6;"---------------" 30 FOR DE=1 TO 500: NEXT DE 35 GOSUB 30000 40 GRAPHICS 0: POSITION 2,1: ? " QUICK FORMATTER" 50 ? : ? : ? : ? "HOW MANY DISKS TO FORMAT";:INPUT NUM 60 FOR LOOP=1 TO NUM 70 ? "INSERT DISK #";LOOP;" AND PRESS RETURN." 80 GET #2,A 90 TRAP 100: XIO 254,#1,0,0,"D:" 100 IF PEEK(195)>1 THEN ? "*ERROR #";PEEK(195);"*": POKE 195,0: GOTO 70 110 NEXT LOOP 120 ? "ALL DONE" 130 ? : ? : ? : ? "PRESS START TO BOOT OR SELECT TO GO TO BASIC." 140 IF PEEK(53279)=6 THEN POKE 580,1: GOTO 20000 150 IF PEEK(53279)=5 THEN NEW 160 GOTO 140 20000 ? "PRESS RESET" 20001 GOTO 20001 30000 OPEN #3,6,0,"D:*.*" 30001 DIM A$(500) 30002 ? "WOULD YOU LIKE A DISK DIRECTORY":GET #2,A: IF A<>89 THEN CLOSE #1: CLR: GOTO 40 30003 TRAP 30005: FOR L=1 TO 20: INPUT #3,A$: ? A$: NEXT L 30005 GOTO 30002 Hope this helps. If not, I typed it for no reason. Hehe. Hey, guess I learned how to format a disk today. Cool.

If anyone has any blank disks or knowledge of where I can get some 5 1/4" floppies I can copy some stuff. I can't get anything for an emulator but I can give you what I got on disk for the pooter! Yeah, that intro to LSF was cool with the ship and all. Played the game for a few weeks trying to figure out how to get more energy until we found out that the sun was the answer. Gotta love playing bootlegs and never having instructions.

quote: Originally posted by Mindfield: - Behind Jaggi Lines was "leaked" before Lucasfilm released it under its more common moniker, Rescue on Fractalus. As I recall, BJL was entirely combative -- in other words, you didn't have to rescue marooned crew members. Jaggi was the same. You had to rescue so many pilots before the mother ship would arrive. The alien was fun. Of course, if he was in view when running up to the ship you would see his head is green and didn't have to wait for the knock. quote I never played Star Raiders 2 so I couldn't say but I do have Starfighter. Good game. quote: - Lucasfilm's famous Ballblazer also had a pre-release beta leaked, and was known prior to release as Ballblaster. It was file-based, rather than a full boot disk, had no loading animation/sound, and the music was a little different, as was some of the attract mode text. All the main elements of the game were present, however. The music is different? Ahhh! Here I am discussing the music on another section of the board and I have a different version! Someone has to make a sample of the Ballblazer and Ballblaster music so we can compare. quote Hmm, I never did get through that game. Got to a point where I couldn't figure out how to get further or something. I should play it again sometime. That was one that required Translator. -Z

Don't ask me on this one cuz I have the disk version of Behind Jaggi Lines. Can't recall if there's an intro or not. I'll have to play it again!

quote: Originally posted by Nukey Shay: ...But the Translator disk had problems with is programs that used the third and fourth controller ports. These were removed in the XL & XE models, and the memory locations controlling them were now used for memory management. Being that Robotron used two sticks in the arcade, did it use two in the home version? Could this be why my Robotron never worked? As for the rest of that post...wow. What an assload on info! Kudos. Funny how I'm learning more about that darn pooter more now than when I used to actually play with it more. -Z

So, who here has owned or does own a 600XL? I never knew anyone, personally. Seemed it was pointless. Since I was bugging dad about getting a pooter I figured I'd go for the 800XL. I wanted a pooter cuz my friend had one and it was cool. He started with a TI model, the dinky little thing, can't recall the model number, though. Then he got a 400, I believe. After that he got an XL and by then I had convinced my dad to get me one. His keyboard is nicer than mine, though. I got mine at Sears. I wonder if that's why it's different? His feels stronger, more like a typewriter. On mine the key tops are convex, as opposed to normal concave keys. And they're a lighter, harder plastic. I hear the 1200XL had a beautiful keyboard? Last, but not least, I think I'd kill someone for a 1450XLD, only cuz I'm poor. Gawd, I'd love that 2700 on eBay. Must be nice to have money to blow on stuff like that. = But, really, what's the story behind the XLD? Anyone know of anyone with one? I'll arm wrestle ya for it (and lose). -Z

Archon. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. =

Well,I don't remember exactly what issues the Translator addressed but it was necessary for some older programs (programmed for the 400/800) to run on the XL and later computers. This discussion of older versions of programs reminded me of it. Does anyone remember what those differences were?