kisrael

I got one of those Arcade1Up Star Wars machines. It's funny what you learn about the game by playing it so much, and/or doing more research, like I didn't realize the "do the trench run w/o firing until the end for bonus points" trick. One thing I wonder about is the layout and logic (and from there, best strategies) for the tower tops in the middle level. For a long while I didn't realize how they loop (I thought "destroy all tower tops" was basically impossible, not that you would get second chances) Also strategies for the trench run. I know some of it is pulling bullets to go where you don't need to be I dunno if it's sporting but I set it to easy and am seeing if I can finally beat OBI WAN's scores (I've beaten HAN twice)...

ahaha I never even notice that there's a status display of how many tower tops left to go!

Heh, yeah. I like learning new things like "you can shoot down laser blasts even through barriers" (which makes sense when you think about the computers involved) the towers is my favorite part, like it's the only part where you feel you're a bit less "on rails" ( https://arcadeblogger.com/2017/06/16/atari-star-wars-arcade-cockpit-development/ was a great read - interesting to see at first they tried to put you as the millenium falcon gunner, which is a little truer to the mechanics of the game - but about 1/10 as cool as darting around in an X-wing) It would be interesting to try and adapt the controller to other similar games - Star Fox 64 or Rogue Squadron 2. I guess most such games need more than 4 buttons though. The other Arcade1Up unit that appeals is TRON. But I'm not sure the space and budget make sense for me, as appealing as the spinner and "kakaCHOO! kakaCHOO!" sound is... (custom arcade control hacking scene must be fun! I'd almost love to see like "fidget spinners")

My 50th Birthday Gift to myself was an Arcade1Up Star Wars - I wanted one when we got the new place, but I'm glad I had to wait for the 40th anniversary re-release, since they make the front look a lot more like the original (the way the old version puts the name of the 3 games it plays on the front is like how halloween costumes used to put the characters face on the plastic poncho even if there was a mask...) Anyway, I always loved this game, but now I understand it a little better. (like how "use the force" means there's a bonus if you don't fire guns til the very end of the trench run) - but I still don't get "50,000 for Shooting All Towers". It seems almost impossible? Like I *think* the towers loop right, it's the same 3 or 4 sets? But then it feels like there always some off to the side... Anyway, these Arcade1Ups are pretty cool. I know purists don't dig 'em, and they ain't THAT cheap, but in terms of maximizing space (and weight!) and having respectable custom controls, they are pretty awesome. I'm sort of tempted by TRON, if they got that spinner right, combined with the sound of the lazer (Actually I would almost just love a desk toy that was the spinner that made that laser noise)

Glad it's still useful!

The "Into the Vertical Blank" podcast (didn't realize it was by twin brothers!) republished an old episode "The Best Atari Christmas Ever". I found the text of the episode on Medium ( https://medium.com/@steveafulton/the-best-christmas-ever-19f8772da082 ). Their story really resonated for me - growing up in the 80s with parents who didn't have a lot of extra cash, seeing computer stuff from afar, digging into the materials (I remember my mom buying me a COMPUTE! book on programming as a placeholder for a computer) - experiencing Atari 8-bit computers, and then (SPOILER ALERT) getting a jumpstart by inheriting an grownup's collection once they upgraded. The episode talks about Atari being having supply chain problems in 1983 and so releasing stuff to stores too close to Christmas. I think my Salvation Army family benefited from the liquidations and donations that followed (the church or thrift store wouldn't be allowed to sell the gear.) So my first computer was an Atari 800XL. (The article mentions that Apple stuff was at a higher price point even then, though also IBM was making its move - which I guess split the home market into "serious" and "fun") So my first computer was a fresh Atari, but within a few years the 8 bit wars tilted in favor of the Commodore 74 - that was the machine more kids had and could get you copies of games for, and so I'll always be grateful to the giant C=64 shipment I got from my Uncle Bill (especially the magazine-on-disk collection of Compute!'s Gazette - years later I made a whole website reviewing every game they published ( http://gazettegalore.blogspot.com/ )) I probably learned more on the Atari though, between BASIC (And Dr. C. Wacko Presents: Atari BASIC & The Whiz-Bang Miracle Machine ( https://www.kirk.is/2010/11/12/ )) and Logo, it was an easier machine to do cool graphics and sound with. (I did make a lot of sprites and plot out a lot of games with the Gazette Sprite and Character editors though.) People's relationship with money and consumer goods was different then - and catalogs and magazines and sometimes local clubs filled in for what we get over the Internet now (Man did I get into Antic magazine) I was a few years younger than the twins. Sometimes I think I missed out by either being a little too young or not quite smart + ambitious enough to get my stuff published in those magazine...

The Retronauts podcast recently covered the Maganvox Odyssey2 - I write about it here: https://kirk.is/2023/10/31 - the way there were generic reusable game graphics baked into the hardware reminded me of this character sheet from the Sharp MZ-700... it's just so evocative to think of how those might be reused. Like it's inviting you to make a Pac-Man game... I was trying to think of what other systems did that. Like Commodores had PETSCII, Atari 8bits had its thing, and even PCs had that ZZT thing...

Yeah, and combined with the "Marty Stu" protagonist and weak sauce world building... i remember liking the giant robot fight aspect but overall, bleh - especially since I know there are much more thoughtful works playing with games conceptually.

I finished "Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration" - I'm glad the podcast "Get Played" covered it, and reminded me to treat it as a museum exhibit, rather than a collection of games that happened to include a proper version of "Food Fight".Some things I learned or was reminded of about Atari:1. The arcade game "Crystal Castles" has a cool feature where the current high score initials are turned into structures behind the first level. That's pretty dope!2. The bat in 2600 "Adventure" is one of the best NPCs ever. I used to lock him away by stuffing him in the golden castle, but playing a round of Version 2 and letting him add his chaotic element to the game... it's brilliant, he just flaps around, carrying random items doing inscrutable bat things - you just catch these glimpses, then he gets interested in whatever you're carrying and swoop into steal it... but often you can grab him at the same time, so you and him and the item move around in lock step and you try to get done what you needed the item for before he wriggles free... just pure genius.3. The comic book that came with Yar's Revenge goes hard, like a Moebius comic. (Well... completely stupid story but the art is really cool.)And three criticisms:1. They really failed in covering 3rd party games (Activision, Imagic, etc) and even big licenses (Star Wars the arcade game, the Indiana Jones games, or even the infamous E.T.) I could understand if the ROMs would be hard to license, but as a historical reference they could have made SOME kind of referencing or cataloging.2. I think they shortplayed the whole Atari BASIC scene (and maybe the magazines, like Antic and Analog). Not to mention stuff like the Atari Program eXchange APX - the first big attempt to make a shareware community happen, like a "Steam" store for the 80s... But also the BASIC was good for sound and simple graphics, but it barely gets mentioned, except indirectly via ads from the era.3. Ernest "Ready Player One". Cline. Ugh. Such an overrated work, its tongue bath of the 80s pop culture is embarrassing even to a Gen-Xer like me who sometimes swims in the 80s retro. (Yeah I do have a grudge, having consulted on a much better novel centered on video games, "Constellation Games")

Got the Atari 50 thing, it's kind of lackluster selection of games made up for a great version of Food Fight. (especially if you use a controller with a bigger stick than a Joy Con) But it made me hungry for Robotron... What is this, just a lie or a misfire? https://aspenpellot.fandom.com/wiki/Midway_Arcade:_The_Williams_Collection

Interview: Jon Freeman & Anne Westfall (Archon, Archon II) - I found a link to this interview (grabbed off of Usenet) in a tweet to the Wayback Machine's view of my website - deserves a slightly less defunct home!

Interview: Jon Freeman & Anne Westfall (Archon, Archon II) - I found a link to this interview (grabbed off of Usenet) in a tweet to the Wayback Machine's view of my website - deserves a slightly less defunct home!

Awesome effect! though i admit i am worried about the name causing confusion with the Atari/Midway game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_(video_game)

Interesting data point... I was reading "Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon" and they mentioned So that caught my eye in terms of this convo... http://www.digitpress.com/library/magazines/electronic_games/electronic_games_jan84.pdf is the magazine in question, it's a division for "Videogame of the Year" and "Best Videogame Audio/Visual Effects" and in practice seems to split Atari from Colecovision. So at least for some things, even back in the day they were thinking about achievements based on arbitrary techie limitations that you wouldn't expect non-techies to be aware of. (The divisions are a little weird. Miner 2049er was so dominant they made up a new category for it ("Electronic Game of the Year"). Then there's "Videogame Division" (console), "Computer Game Division" and then a combined "Videogame Computer Game Division" with some different awards, and then "Coin-Op Games Division" (arcade) and "Stand-Alone Game Division" (handheld/tabletop))

I think that's a well-stated point; I'm certainly impressed but not that interested in the "wrote the book without the letter e" type stuff (sort of like the dancing bear- people don't talk about how well it dances, just that it's a bear that's dancing) so this is a good argument for not caring about adhered to limitations. I think the question it raises, though, is then why bother messing around with it on the Atari at all? Like personally while I'm proud of my Atari games I've had more fun with Processing/P5, stuff that runs in a browser and I can share (see https://toys.alienbill.com/ ) But thegoldenband kind of addresses this: I guess I'm a little more skeptical about "on the VCS in some meaningful sense". When I see Star Wars the movie playing back on an Atari- (see below)... I start to think we're not too far away from Quake on an Atari Cart. Now, to be fair, Champ games are doing things in a way that ARE much more Atari specific, it's a delight to read about some of the Atari Stella/TIA chip reuse, repurposing Playfield graphics and Missiles and what not. But since an arbitrary video stuffer could exist, what's the best language to talk about games that are in that kind of achievement space, vs ones answering the (to me somewhat more interesting question) "what COULD the *software* folks who just had maybe some bankswitching have done had they but known? Just how miraculously open-ended was this mid-70s machine to play TANK and PONG and OUTLAW, by itself?

For purposes of this discussion, I'd vote no it was not. It's well known as an enhanced cart. Nor would supercharger stuff, even though that came out during the same era. For me the only question is 4K vs 8K.

Well, since the conversation is going on again, but isn't getting TOO heated... I'll chime in with a new (to me) perspective. So, "legacy" coding and tech-assisted coding are asking two answerable questions; but they're unanswerable in different ways. Legacy coding (like, unassisted hardware, 4K or MAYBE 8K ROMS) get the question "What is the most impressive, innovative, and fun way this old hardware could be pushed". It's not an answerable question because it's a matter of opinion, but it's "bounded" in some ways. And great feats with these limitations are doubly impressive because they COULD'VE been done back in the day, but it took more recent (personal and support group) innovation to do it. (It's like how programming is so impressive because you can make anything by "just typing") Tech-assisted coding the question is... I dunno. Like "what's the most impressive, innovative, and fun thing we can make, but still funneling it through the A/V channels". But because the other side of funnel is unbounded, the answer to it is also unbounded. You only reach a limit when you start asking "look, why are we bothering to limit it through the 2600 funnel, if it's basically a full fledged modern system squirting A/V through that limited pipe." Maybe you love the details of that pipe, maybe you just love the idea of still technically "runnong on Atari". And while modern debuggers and emulators mean even coders in the "legacy" limits are more empowered than pros of days gone by, there are more barriers to entry or at least production - you're bringing in hardware. Question: what's the best list for hardware schemes (bankswitching and/or RAM and/or coprocessor)? Like when (regional pride here, these are MIT guys) GCC started doing Atari 2600 carts, IMO Atari went from lagging Activision to surpassing it, on an A/V standpoint. And now I'm curious, what kind of schemes Battlezone or Pole Position were, because they really blew me away back in the day

Right. That's what this whole conversation is about! Atari 2600 offers certain more challenges to becoming a dumb terminal, but if we have some hackers putting entire movies like Star Wars into a cart? Maybe something that physically fits into a cart can't do GTA5 but certainly one of the GTA3 series, given that it plays easily on cheap mobile devices now. We are very close to a hypothetical tech that merges Star Wars cart "display whatever image you want, the atari is a dumb terminal" and "hey even small cheap hardware (that fits in a cart) can run GTA3" and we are asking, is there an ability to recognize that (astounding!) hardware achievement against an (also astounding but in different ways!) vanilla 4K ROM that bleeds every last cycle and breaks new ground on the 2600? It's absolutely a spectrum of achievement. Shades of gray. No one is "cheating" because the hardware and software hackers are playing different metagames, but we don't have the common framework to keep each to its lane and then compare games against their reasonable peers.

Yeah. It's all about proper categorization. And transparency. I might agree that "cheating" is weirdly loaded, but some of these things are such different styles of achievement (and to an outsider all look like "well just runs on an atari) that sometimes it's good to discuss how we should draw lines and do leaguing, so to speak. Relevant: here's GTA 5 on a Gameboy https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/01/random-heres-gta-v-being-played-on-a-game-boy-yes-really

Confirmed. But should it be? It seems to work either way.

(oh sorry didn't read closely enough, yeah I'm not sure about background color but Karl knows more than I ever will)

I am not an expert at the kernels- I had @Karl G help me with the kernel parts at https://alienbill.com/2600/atari-background-builder/ (and so my imagination of what kernels CAN do is mixed up with what flexibility i built into the editor. But : 1 pretty sure colors are an option for 48 because there's time to change the color, but 96 too much is happening 2 i think they can stack vertically but yeah nothing horizontal- no time for the cpu to figure so much stuff out. 3 same for overlap - there's just not enough time. so you should probably work to get a little familiar with kernels in general, like maybe skim some simple asm tutorials like http://alienbill.com/2600/101 thst said, much of my knowledge might be out of date with the new hardware assisted carts, where the chip on the cart does more of the thinking. sky is probably the limit there but it's a different style than these kernels

Added a requested "Invert All" / photo negative button

That, and a browser if you want to use some web-based graphic of music tools I forgot about this: https://alienbill.com/2600/bbkickstart/ I updated it this Spring to be Atari Dev Studio centric - but reading it now I think it does a good job setting things up, using a web tool to get a sample program, then explaining what the sample program code actually means. It might be a little less overwhelming to start with than some of the more comprehensive archives

Fixed a bug where the height of saved projects was not being loaded properly