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Thorsten Günther

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Posts posted by Thorsten Günther

    Euro ST works in North America?

    in Atari ST/TT/Falcon Computers

    Posted

    Just for simplicity and reference. I have a UK 4 Meg STE running fine in the USA with no internal adjustments. Just external:

    [...]

    3. $25 Scart (RBG) to HDMI converter box.

    [...]

    The other solutions are great too, and I might just put in a USA TOS ROM, but for now there really is nothing to change and no visible latency when player games, etc.

     

    Are you also using that square metal box reading "HD Video Converter - Scart/HDMI to HDMI 720P/1080P" that is available off AliExpress (e.g.)?

    • Like 1

    Paul Norman's Adventure Trilogy

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    Sorry to revive this thread, but I also acquired a copy of this trilogy that read "Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64" on the package, yet mine only contained one disk labelled Commodore 64. I tried to boot it - back side up - anyway, but to no avail. And I was unable to find an ATR or even an ATX of this trilogy, only of the separate games. Does anyone really have a working copy?

    • Like 2

    Fallen Angels

    in Atari Jaguar

    Posted

     

    MasterBlazer looks and feels amazing - like a true, in-spirit, enhancement to the original Fractalus! Was it done by Julius ?

     

     

    Master Blazer on the Amiga was done by Thomas Schulz - known as "8Bitjunkie" around here. It was his first commercial game IIRC.

    • Like 3

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted · Edited by Thorsten Günther

     

    Whenever the Powerball jackpot is ridiculously high, i'll sometimes buy one, or maybe two tickets with a group of friends. It's a fun novelty and it's fun to imagine for a few hours what I would do if I end up winning. But that's about the only time I ever buy Powerball tickets or any kind of lottery or scratch off tickets of any kind. I once bought a ticket with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the clerk laughed and said I will never win with those numbers. I ended up saying while you are absolutely correct that I most likely am not going to win (It's a 1 in 292 million chance after all) I have the same exact chance of winning with that set of numbers as I do with any other set of numbers.

     

    I have spent small amounts on our national lottery several years back, but never won significant amounts (small "wins" only that required three correctly guessed numbers). I would never bet on a regular pattern though, because way too many people do and they all only get the fair share (proof: when on January 23, 1998 the drawn numbers were 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32 (we have to choose 6 out of 49 numbers, the forms arrange the numbers in a 7 by 7 grid, so these numbers looked very neat on paper) we had 222 winners who had all six numbers correct, each one winning the staggering sum of 84,803.90 German Marks; when on April 10th, 1999 the numbers were 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 26, more than 38K people had five of these correct and each of them won DM 194.24 - usually five correctly guessed numbers win a five-digit or even six-digit sum).

    • Like 1

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

     

    What about Atariage being liable for it's user's posts ?

    I mean, I know UK law, but I'm not 100% with US Law. But, posting in a pack mentality, with many posts really close to libel. Atariage, would/could be liable for it's user's posts. So, it wouldn't be you getting sued, it could/would be Atariage.

     

    You really they'd go to court against users and/or AtariAge because several people here wrote that the emperor has no clothes? I am not common with UK law, but in order to prove libel according to german law they'd have to provide evidence that the AtariBox exists and/or they are working on it seriously. If it exists, why didn't show it in their campaign? if they are working on it, why is there not a shred of information regarding the process in their campaign?

     

    If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, only a Centauri would refer to it as a cat.

    • Like 9

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

     

     

    There's no shortage of mini PCs out there

     

    You do not even have to look on AliExpress - the Fujitsu Esprimo Q series PCs are nifty little machines that are available with i3 to i7 CPUs (albeit the i7 is much higher priced than the AtariEmptyBox), you can get a previous generation one with i5 on eBay for less than 200 Euros (Q520 and Q920, e.g.).

    • Like 2

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    @Matt_B: I care to disagree with you here - if the Ataribox was just "hopes and dreams" and they had been honest about thatfrom day one, you were absolutely correct, but with their misleading videos depicting the two empty hunks of plastic as consoles - even announcing the May 22nd video as actual gameplay on a "VCS test platform" - they are obviously dishonest, and this is reason enough to say they are most probably scammers.

    • Like 2

    More games to come...

    in Atari 8-Bit Computers

    Posted

    Yep, it was Bagman, I think my Jungle Quest concept was suppose to have the underground levels resembling a mind shaft also. Maybe I can have mind carts in that game. Looks like Gilligan's Gold never made it to the Atari 8-bit either. The C64 has "BagitMan." There seems to be renaming of this game to evade copyright infringement, which is something I also intend to do. I may take advantage of the Atari 8-bit ability to have smooth scrolling screen instead of doing this one screen at a time. There was a game called "Elevator Action" that never made to the 8-bit either. Looks like I found more holes to plug in the 8-bit library.

    Elevator Action was a great arcade game, there also was an inspired game on the Amstrad, Atari ST, C64, etc. named Mission Elevator that added some adventure elements to the formula.

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

     

    The N-Gage belongs on that list for real.

     

    At least these crappy products/services did make it to market.

     

    The N-Gage was way ahead of its time - nowadays gaming on mobile devices has become so commonplace that hardly anyone remembers that this was a totally new concept back then. Additionally, the N-Gage was a rock solid tri-band mobile phone with a dedicated MP3/AAC decoder providing excellent audio quality in stereo (very uncommon for the time) and an MMC card slot that gave up to 1 gig of extra memory (2 gigs didn't work on mine, I have heard a later firmware revision did fix that). Just the design of the case was awkward.

    • Like 1

    Cdi information?

    in Classic Console Discussion

    Posted

    The main problems have already been mentioned, although for the controller issue there is an Arduino based workaround called SNEStoCDI. The advantage of the CDI being a very early CD based system is that there is neither regional lockout nor copy protection, so you can find every kind of software online, burn it to a CD-R, try it out and then decide whether an original copy is worth purchasing (I can recommend "The Apprentice", "Dimo's Quest" and "Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam" - the FMV games are also good if you like that style of games).

    Cdi information?

    in Classic Console Discussion

    Posted

    Agreed, an MPEG card is a must for any CDI - several games require it, as does most of the interesting/curious/exclusive stuff (Sting's "Ten Summoner's Tales", The Cure's "Show", Thyssen's "Von der Elbe an die Spree" (a promo CDI that was part of that company's massive campaign to make our government fund a Transrapid connection between Hamburg and Berlin), etc.).

    Cdi information?

    in Classic Console Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Thorsten Günther

     

    The MPEG card is no great shakes, by the way. It works fine, but video playback makes it very clear where compression losses were considered acceptable. Not advising against getting one, necessarily, but there are also other things you could spend the money on. Probably only worth it if you're trying to build out a complete CD-i collection.

    Actually, the CDI Digital Video format videos have a slightly higher(!) horizontal resolution compared to the later White Book standard Video CD, and it allowed for real subtitles similar to DVDs ("subtitles" on VCDs, in comparison, are just part of the video stream), although only one subtitle file per disc was supported. You have to take into account that TV sets were much smaller then, they were all 4:3 CRTs and most users were accustomed to VHS "quality", to which the VCD/CDI Digital Video was at least on par with (with the added benefit that it does not deteriorate with repeated use and/or moist storage conditions).

     

    The main problems of the CDI IMHO were the outrageous price tag for the full system and the weak marketing by Philips of both the video playback capabilities and the gaming qualities (most decent games came out very late in the CDI's lifecycle since Philips initially didn't bother at all and focused on edutainment software instead). It didn't exactly help that owning pre-recorded VHS tapes was not quite "the thing" as it was with CDs and (much later) DVDs, at least most of my VHS stuff was recorded from TV or rented.

    • Like 1

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    Oh ... I just saw the Cnet video. On the Ataribox website they wrote that they will use real wood. Real Wood ? In fact, they mean real plywood. A very very ugly, extremly thin, low quality, misaligned plywood ...

    I seriously doubt that - plywood consists of multiple layers of veneer, glued atop each other, usually each layer turned 90 degrees against the prior one. For decorative purposes, you usually only take a sheet of decorative(!) veneer (which Atari failed to choose wisely, as the chosen one looks very dull, the only thing they did right was choosing sliced veneer over peeled veneer). Personally, i would have gone for root wood veneer (similar to the Sears 2600s), but I also would have liked the intense red of Padouk or the purple of Amaranth.

    Why no custom resolutions on the ST? (Engineering reasons?)

    in Atari ST/TT/Falcon Computers

    Posted

    Why exactly aren't there more variety in resolution/color options on the ST?

     

    Was the ST Shifter chip simply too limited? Would there have been relatively easy changes that would have enabled some customization of resolutions?

     

    I know there are overscan techniques, ways of getting more colors per line -- but why not actual fundamental and native different resolutions?

     

    There was a simple hardware modification to the ST called (Autoswitch) Overscan or (Auto) Lacescan that provided custom screen resolutions. I have no idea why Atari didn't incorporate this into the GSTSHIFTER when developing the STE models or why they didn't add a 160x200 pixel 256 colour mode, though.

    New Atari Console that Ataribox?

    in Atari 2600

    Posted

    i just can't imagine it as anything but an arm box running some kind of linux with a custom ui and digital storefront.

     

    I can imagine it as a Windows 10 box also, with the exact same features (custom - gamepad controllable - UI and digital store front(s) to e.g. GOG, Humble Bundle, Steam, etc.). Perhaps with some pre-installed Atari emulators, too. Might IMHO work if it is far below the price range of the Big Three, e.g. in the 150$ range.

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