Retro Rogue

Nice try. The moron comment didn't come until an hour and a half of going around in circles with you, after a very specific statement you made. It was said out of frustration of going around and around in circles with you. It was worse than trying to explain something to the black knight from monty python. The whole thing started when you stated in #rgvc "Yah, and it looks like my crappy Asteroids hack is on the FB2". (And so you can't try and twist that, the "crappy" was what you used in the intial description. I'm just repeating it.) The next hour and a half was spent going around in circles with you on the same points Curt just said. Likewise you stating it was fishy that Curt hadn't responded yet to your second reply. Semantics are a great thing, aren't they? Point being if they didn't see your rom or use your rom, it's not your hack on the FB2. Again, you stated "Yah, and it looks like my crappy Asteroids hack in on the FB2." I stated it's not your hack, Curt did it from scratch. Then we went for an hour and a half of going around in circles with you trying to pull stuff in to somehow draw a correlation between your hack and what Curt did. Just like above. Never said such a thing. You (here we go again) stated point blank that "it looks like my crappy Asteroids hack is on the FB2". I stated over and over again, no, Curt worked it from scratch, didn't see anyone elses. Then you try and spin it that even if it's done similar to yours, it's derivitive of your hack because you did it first. I explained in order for something to be derivitive it has to come from it in the first place. You stated that still makes it derivitive. I then went on to explain that your hack could be seen as just a reverse of how the original 2600 version was created (vector first and then filled in). So it cold be put using your logic that your hack was derivitive. It was to show you the flaw in the logic, not state that you copied someone else as you claim I said below. Initially, no. Pressing the point over and over again when told it didn't come from it, yes. I did no such thing. That seems to be what you're trying to do here. If I want to put someone down, I don't spend an hour and a half trying to reason with them. Just doesn't take that long to put someone down. That's not what I said, see above. Nice attempt at trying to twist my words. Not quite. Nice try though. Uh, again not quite. How about the full hour before that statement was made that lead up to that. Where I stated Curt had nothing to do with that and you stated Thomas sent him some hacks. I stated he didn't use them. And then you stated everyone has seen your hack. I stated I hadn't before this thread. You proceeded to post Atariage links to hacked roms, and I stated as before I hadn't seen it. Then another 20 minutes again of going around in circles with you pulling more stuff out of the air in relation to the above and then Kamino joins the channel and states "Wait? NE146 did an Asteroids hack?" That's when I typed that statement finally. Then you (once again) refined your statement to "Well, atari fanatics know about it." Again, what would be the point of trying to bring up "everyone" has seen your hack other than to imply that Curt actually did see it and therefore there was still the possibility he copied your hack? As I already told you on the channel, nope. It was an hour and a half of trying to explain to you that your assumption was wrong. Afterwords I wrote to Curt mentioning that you were concerned that he hadn't answered a post from you (which he didn't notice) and asked him to answer. You're just running here trying to repeat selective statements to twist things and gain sympathy from people who weren't in on the conversation in the first place. Told you it wasn't already. Franklin, there is a certain group just waiting for this project to fail and will latch on to anything negative they can that might undermine it. We've (unlike the original Atari) gone out of our way to make sure all authors (homebrew/etc.) have been getting full credit for anything appearing on the FB2. Even to the point of asking how they want to be listed. When someone starts posting here and stating on #rgvc that it looks like their hack is on the FB2, *that's* why I spent an hour and a half (seemed like even longer) trying to explain over and over that it wasn't based off of your hack. If it was, you'd most certainly be getting credit in the documentation like everyone else. I'd be the first in line to make sure of it (probably to find that Curt already beat me to it) I guess your statement just goes to prove that 36 year old engineers can act as childish as 6 year olds. Quite honestly Franklin, we had gotten along just fine on #rgvc in the past. The lengths that you're going to try and twist things, and the manner at which you're going about everything makes me realize that maybe my past friendly conversations with you were imagined. That now we're seeing the real you.

I wouldn't call that to much at all for what you got. If everything was loose it might be worth a little less, but both main items boxed like that ups the value. Good deal.

That's already been discussed 15,000 times in the 20,000 threads on the FB2. Yes, all the original legacy controllers will work. Marty

It's not how long it would take to say. It's how often it would have to be said, and what you'd all have to pay to have support staff to say it.

No, industry wise a production run is defined as the release of said product by the product's owner. When a company releases it's quarterly reports, they don't count clones. The Gemini and TV-Boy are clones not produced by the original manufacturerer. Otherwise you could say the NES/Famicom has never left production since it was released in 1983, since there's all the pirate/clone systems out there and NES-On-A-Chips still being manufactured.

Actually, they feel like the other JAKKs sticks. They feel like they use microswitches rather than dome switches. They are kinda loose. They don't have the "bending plastic" resistance effect of the originals. Still more than adequate. 859724[/snapback] Well actually, the originals (1977) used springs for all the contacts and had a looser feeling as well. These are more in line with those. The later ones (that most people are familiar with) used the plastic domes/ring.

I diagree, from first hand experience. Running the museum area at every Midwest Gaming Classic as well as at Jagfest 2K1, I've had the fortune to observe kids [ages 4 through 12, as well as teens] being introduced to pong for the first time (via the plethora of home pong consoles I have on display). All had a great time, and got in to playing it. Sees where? Did you go to an arcade that still has a Pong and observe people saying it's not worth their time? Go to a show and see a neglected pong console with people saying it's not worth their time? I saw no mention of what your sources were for the article, other than your personal opinion. What you did (by your own admittance) was take Pong and compare and contrast it as a modern release and write down your thoughts on it from this perspective - "Yeah, I certainly remember what it meant at the time. But that fascination hasn't remained with me, since it was almost immediately overshadowed by what followed. It just blows my mind that people still play Pong today and act like it's fun." Statments like that, and "The thing is, die-hard classic gamers often play this game and act as though they ENJOY it." and "But we shouldn't go so far as to try and convince ourselves that Pong's actually FUN. I mean, that's taking it a bit far, don't you think? " are personal opinions, not facts. Objective = "Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices". Those are not objective statements. Hence, the article reads more like and Editorial Review than an Objective one. Which means you wrote your personal opinion. If you're not seeking to actually research and see what other people think, it's your opinion and thoughts. Nothing wrong with that, but don't promote it as being objective then.

Yes, that was the production box just before E3. Climber 5 got a name change as did several other things. The shots of the box that Albert took are the latest. Other things might change as well by the time of the final production release.

Thanks for the pics Andy. Yes, there's lots of cool stuff in the works thanks to Curt. Also, so people know - the units on display at E3 are special 10 game units without the special menu. Hence the spartan game listing in the one photo.

Just put up an E3 preview, including full game list - ClassicGaming.Com

I think Stern still has the rights. They're still around, they just only do pinball. 853966[/snapback] No, they were sold off a long time ago - that was Stern Electronics. The Stern now is Stern Pinball Inc., a legacy company created by Sam Stern's son, Gary Stern. The original Stern Electonics was from '76-'84. It was split up and Gary went on to restart the pinball under Data East Pinball in '86 after creating selling a business plan for it to Data East. He was hired as general manager. That was then sold to Sega and became Sega Pinball and then Gary went and bought Sega Pinball from Sega in '99 and renamed it Stern Pinball Inc. I've taken a tour of the place several times and met with everyone involved including Gary. Great guy. I did ask him point blank what ever happend happned to the Stern Electonics properties and who owns the video game rights. He honestly could not remember. My guess is his father Sam (who died in '86) had more to do with that.

I believe the CV led to the Spectravideo, and the Spectravideo led to the MSX. I am almost 100% sure about the Spectravideo/MSX part. No, the CV was designed independantly of Spectravideo back in '81. Initially started by Coleco themselves and then handed off to a design firm in the midwest. In answer to Ferris' question, it's because (from what I was told by people at that firm) the CV was actually designed with a personal computer architecture in mind rather than a scaled down console architecture (similar to what Atari was originally going to do with the Atari 400 and later done properly with the XEGS). Hence the expansion bus, and "off the shelf" parts. Several Microsoft historical/profile books cover this, though I don't have any in front of me right now so I'll go by memory. MSX was the brainchild of Kay Kishi (head of Microsoft Japan - Kay's ASCII) in an effort to standardize the "older" 8 bit market in Asia and Europe as Microsoft proper moved on to the "16 bit" PC processor world. He worked with several other companies (mainly Spectravideo) to create an 8 bit "standard" hardware wise that also conviently included a MS Basic interface/dos. My own interpretation is that it was Kay's attempt at "playing Bill Gates" with the pacific rim market which (like Europe) was emerging with a plethora of 8 bit micros.

Well, the CV's graphic's chip (or VDP - Video Display Processor) the Texas Instruments TMS9928A is supposed to be able to handle an external video source and mix the signals for the final project using the input signal as background (such as take input from a laser disc and lay graphics over it). Though TI's manual for the 9900 series leads me to believe that this feature was not available on the CV's chip since it states: The TMS9918A is pin-for-pin compatible with the TMS9928A/9929A, except for three pins, the composite video output, the external video input and the CPU clock output. These pins are replaced with the Black/White luminance and composite sync (Y) output and two difference pins, Blue (B-Y) and Red (R-Y) ouputs, respectively. Of am I interpreting their statement wrong?

I'm surprised you didn't apply that reasoning to the guy who said this (which easily could be done): I think that passage plays the same way. Insulting people he doesn't know, and has no clue what sort of fans they are or passion they have, what care and work they've put in to this and is making sweeping statements before the game list or anything else has been released. Let alone hasn't even seen the console. These "people" took the time to develop and push for reproduction of actual 2600 hardware, which is what's under the hood. These "people" took the time to get new games. These "people" have been working with homebrewers and others to include their games. These "people" have been working their asses off to try and infuse some of the original Atari back in to the "new" one (which by the way, is a seperate entity from that "French" company. They have a stake in it but basicly leave it alone). It just pisses me off to no end when I see some of the statements that have been made by people in this thread. Don't want to buy it, fine. I've seen some good and fair reasons people have given for not wanting to. A good deal of the rest of them have been based on some ridiculous assertions though.

right here http://mediaviewer.ign.com/mediaviewer.jsp...6type%3Dpartner 845760[/snapback] That's not a real photo, that's a mockup of the box (one of many that were done) that appears to have leaked.

Actually, it turns out that's not quite the case. I have one I recovered recently that has a March '78 manufacturing date. It also has some interesting oddities - it has a slot on the bottom for the channel 3/4 select that is unused and the center post of one of the right internal speaker mount has been molded extra high so it would be impossible to lay a speaker in it.

Just in case you do any future searches - Atari always spelled it Trak Ball, there's no ck.

JB, come on now - nobody said the famiclone chips were emulations (emulators). There's a defined difference between an emulator and emulation (see above). The Famicom chips can be classified as simulations - they are reverse engineered to provide the same functionality of the NES hardware. In the case of the Flashback the original 2600 and 7800 games were re-coded to run on the pirate NES hardware present in the device Not a good comparison - by definition they'd have to be running original NES code to be an emulation process. The lockout chips were reverse engineered to duplicate a verification process (not to run original code), and therefore qualify more as a simulation process anyways. Athlon would qualify more as a chip that provides simulation of the Pentium 3 capabilities to provide compatibility. It also provides it's own Athlon specific capabilities as well.

No sir, that describes you more aptly. Your need to argue is clear across many threads and the people who have noticed. As another well known hardware homebrewer described it: "an emulation means that *real game code* is being run a simulation means *no real code* is being run." Very simply put, emulation means you're running game code that runs on the native hardware on something other than native hardware. In the process of the emulation you simlute the hardware. That simulation can be in software (such as in emulation on your PC) or hardware (such as the NES on a chip). Hardare based is faster (and more accurate) than software based since in software based you're mapping it to your pc's architecture. Hardware based there is no mapping, the chip itself is designed to function like the original hardware. Again, emulation refers to a process (vs. an "emulator" which you took it as in your initial response). Again, yours (and others) confusion seems to be in not being able to seperate "emuation" the process vs. "emulator". In the case of the Flashback, the original game was re-coded to run on the pirate NES hardware present in the device.

Well duh, that's what hardware based emulation (or simulation) is. Nobody stated it was a chip running an NES emulator. In your usual haste to argue at all costs, you forgot to read. My original statement was: "The original code was ported over to run on NES architecture, which then runs on a hardware based emulation of the NES hardware (the "nintendo on a chip") on the Flashback." Clearly the words HARDWARE BASED are there. So in one of your usual selfserving posting attempts your "Has it occured" nonsense is simply restating what I already said. See below. Ummm, I know. I was arguing against wgungfu's silly position that these things are running emulated NES's, which in turn run ported games. Obviously if that were the case, they would have ported the games directly to whatever the native hardware was. Huge difference between emulation and simulation. As I'm sure you're aware the latter is FAR less resource-intensive. The only one being silly here has been you in these responses which are clearly being written in a prolonged attempt to argue. Nobody stated they're running "emulated NES's". See above and below. And you're wrong - the huge difference is between hardware vs. software based, not "emulation vs. simulation". Technically, all emulators are based around simulators - they are "simulating" the original hardware to emulate the functionality and run original game code. Emulation describes the act of what you are doing (using an aproximation/reproduction of the original hardware to run original game code). Simulation describes how it's done. In the case of hardware based emulation (a single chip dedicated to simulating or "recreating" as you put it, the original hardware) it is faster (and often more authentic) than a software based emulation (a software based recreation/simulation of the original hardware) scheme. As previously stated, these games (like the INTV one) are ported over to the NES architecture and are being run on an "NES on a chip". The chip itself is a recreation or "simulation" of the NES allowing it to emulate it's functionality and run actual NES roms. It's a hardware emulation vs. a software one.

This statement is gibberish. The statement is self explanitory, not gibberish. And certainly not the selfserving one liners you seem to be posting in this thread instead of actually contributing. The original code was ported over to run on NES architecture, which then runs on a hardware based emulation of the NES hardware (the "nintendo on a chip") on the Flashback. The same thing was done with the INTV multigame system.

Well technically the Pong, etc. forum should be ammended to Pong, Dedicated, etc. and it can just be discussed there. That's all these things are anyways - dedicated systems.

My review is up at ClassicGaming.Com as part of our 2004 Holiday Gift Review. Took some screenshots off the widescreen projection TV I have, as well as comparison shots, etc.

They're both emulations of ports. Both systems use the same "NES on a chip", and both contain atari game/rom code ported over to the NES.

Well considering the 5200 is 1979 technology as well, I don't see that as a viable point of discrepancy. Remember, the 5200 is just an Atari 400 in different clothing.