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KiwiArcader

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Posts posted by KiwiArcader

  3. Posted

    What is failed? The Amiga (and the Atari) were SHORT-TERM SUCCESSES. Short-term success? Long-term failure? I think the Amiga was a short-term success. Hi-tech is a mercurial endeavor. History is rife with short-term successes that significantly-influenced later generations. That's what the Amiga did. That's what Atari did, too. Look how long Atari (Atari "proper") has been dead, yet we're ALL HERE paying homage to the legacy of a relatively short-lived entity. Atari and Amiga were relatively short-lived (considering they've been making Playstations for 20 years, now). But they both inspired legacies that live decades-beyond the life of the original companies. That's what really matters, or you'd be on NintendoAge instead of AtariAge right now.

     

    Well, the way the Wii-U is going who knows if Nintendo won't be exiting the hardware market at some point either? The handheld gaming world is way different with game capable tablets/phones now compared to when the Gameboy & NDS arrived on the scene.

     

    I purchased Cloanto's Amiga Forever package and pay for every update so for me the Amiga still lives. I still get a kick out of powering up Deuteros, Sidewinder every now and again along with Garrison just to listen to the lovely intro music. I also do the same with Atari800Win just to play Jet Boot Jack, Computer War and listen to Ball Blazer. Can't say when I last thought about the ST? I don't miss it all that much. The 800XL is how I prefer to remember Atari :-)

    • Like 4

  4. Posted

    I think "some' people just create a thread like this to make themselves feel better that even a superior computer to their old Atari's also failed to last the distance even though the distance that the Atari lasted was shorter by some margin than the Amiga.

     

    Both the Atari and Amiga failed in the market place due to their respective companies not keeping up with the changing face of competition (from both console and PC markets) and failing to keep the computers relevant with those changes. Add to that the massive amount of piracy occurring on disk based systems and it was little wonder game publishers saw the potential for greater return on revenue from the cart based consoles of the time on one hand and the potential for greater revenue from mainstream business computers on the other.

     

    Personally I think the nail in the coffin for them was Compaq and others creating the ISA architecture thus making IBM-PC clones cheaper through not having to pay IBM royalties for their Micro-Channel architecture. It opened up the IBM market and it has never looked back.

    I owned an Amiga 2000 with upgraded RAM and onboard HDD's and as soon as I saw Chuck Yeager's Air Combat on my brothers 386-33 running VGA/sound blaster and using an analog joystick the Amiga went out the door. Flight sims were my thing and the Amiga couldn't hold a candle to the PC at the time and that was it for me.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    It would also be a fair statement that scanner hardware quality has come a LONG way since 2000 as well. Back then I think I used a Plustek OpticPro and it was total crap and I was only using it to scan my PlayStation/Dreamcast game covers back then. It's just a shame Mort & co didn't scan them at 300dpi or higher resolution at the time, store them on HDD's and downsize copies for sending out on disk and we likely wouldn't be in the position of redoing them all over again nowadays :(

     

    I freely admit I personally don't like the quality but I am also appreciative of the effort you guys put into doing them and at the end of the day anything is preferable to nothing being preserved. They were the only copies available in digital form for years and I think most people (myself included) probably haven't appreciated that over the passage of time.

     

    Now if I could just obtain a copy of issues 3 & 4 of Saturn Power that he scanned I'd be pretty happy as I have scanned the others for my website but haven't been able to source physical copies of those two issues to finish off the collection.

  8. Posted

    Yeah, there are several sites on the net (including mine) devoted to preserving old computer and gaming magazines where if they were interested could take magazines that have yet to be digitally preserved off your hands and converted into PDF/CBR or whatever. Like you said, even Archive.org do this and depending on where you live might even have one of their drop-off centers near you that have dedicated scanning equipment.

     

    Chucking out magazines you may have that are not preserved is just moving them one step closer to their never being preserved at all. If they haven't been turned into PDF's by now it tends to indicate that no-one with the necessary equipment likely has the magazine although if you haven't scanned a magazine, know that it can be a fairly involved process. It may be they also haven't got around to processing it in their collection too. Itemizing your collection would help those people to work out what they have/don't have....

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

     

    My advice would be to emulate all three (Amiga, ST, MS-DOS) and save your money until you have a clear idea of what you want. None of these machines are easy on the wallet.

     

    Agreed.

     

    A budget of $50 is pretty lean if you consider the cost of obtaining software. Or even finding the software you want for that matter!! If it comes down to that being your total available money you can outlay then I would have to say go for an Atari ST/STe as at least you can copy ST game images off the net onto a 3.5" disk using any IBM PC with a built in disk drive. Amiga disks which use the crappy format thanks to different drive hardware cannot be copied using PC disk drives so more costs and effort are required to be able to do that.

  10. Posted · Edited by KiwiArcader

    My advice would be to go to www.amigaforever.com and purchase their Amiga emulation package for $30 (or $50 for the premium edition)

     

    This will get you a really good emulation of Amiga's from the 1000 - 4000 with legitimate ownership of the Amiga ROMs all packaged into a nice, click and play front end. Then it's just a case of downloading games from any of a multitude of sites off the internet and you're good to go. It even comes with a selection of games to get you started. There are a couple of reasons to go down this path:

     

    • Ease of access to games
    • You can play games or use any version of Workbench in the package which is great for seeing where Amiga came from and went to over its life
    • PC joysticks and gamepads are out of this world better than those used on Amiga and older home computers. Try using an Xbox wireless gamepad :-)
    • PC mouse - ditto
    • Hardware - you can emulate any Amiga. And you are not reliant on having to try and source the Amiga's disk drives when they fail or buy an expensive SD card adapter etc

    You can get the same emulator engine (WinUAE) for free but you don't get legitimate Kickstart ROMs or Workbench etc and I believe it is a small price to pay for that. Then just play with it and if you like what you see and want to go backwards in regards to joysticks/ hardware reliability etc by all means grab a real Amiga.

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    Oh, they have plenty of content scanned by me and purloined from my website thanks very much. NGC Magazine, Official NZ PlayStation, RISC User and a whole lot more.

     

    That's not a big deal. I have no problem with spreading the love so to speak to ensure magazines are not lost forever. If I was really concerned about others using my scans I'd just do what other websites do and watermark pages with an embedded image on all my scans. But I don't.....

     

    However, I do find it irritating that Archve.org allow people to upload straight rips of publisher released content. Games tm is one such magazine where someone has uploaded copies of the PDF's sold on DVD by Imagine. Retro Gamer was another title where the first 50 issues released on DVD were also available there although that seems to have disappeared so maybe someone did remove that at some point? Official Xbox Magazine is another ...

     

    However a LOT of content really is sub-par quality wise. You can make the comment that anything is better than nothing which is true but you'd think that they'd apply some level of quality control on content. E.g., cropping raw scans and recompiling into a more aesthetically pleasing product. It seems to be their philosophy of just getting as much content up as they can. On a positive note I do like the fact they make content available in different formats even if magazines themselves aren't suited to epub style formats.

  12. Posted

     

    I have heard this argument from others and while I respect your opinion, the ultimate goal of preservation is to get the content into as many hands as possible. This makes extinction even more unlikely. Archive.org has the juice and like it or not, there are a lot more people reading Compute, Compute's Gazette, and Creative Computing now than in the past 20 years (or whenever these magazines all but disappeared).

     

    Unfortunately their "juice" seems to be rip off everyone else's scans or MAME ROMS while not actually providing anything new themselves. That's what irks me. If they scanned new magazine content themselves I'd happily amend my thinking but from what I can tell they simply don't.

     

    Additionally, they hide under the umbrella of being associated with the Library of Congress so that somehow makes it legal for them to make arcade game roms available without the owners permission. If they do have the copyright owners permission for the complete MAME rom set on their site and can prove it then again I'll happily bite my tongue on that as well but from what I have read they don't which really makes them no better than any other site pirating content out there.

  13. Posted

    Well, if you have an interest in UK gaming magazines or want to see what the magazines from down under (Australia & New Zealand) feel free to drop by my website and grab a magazine or two if you have a tablet. There's even a small selection of non-gaming PC content as well but it is mainly Australian content. OoPA is also good for UK content if a lot smaller due to slower output by their members. And of course Retromags caters more to USA users but again most of the content is gaming oriented.

     

    Don't let one person piss here you off too much.

     

    Some members here have truly stood up and been counted in the interests of preserving magazines. Thumpnugget has scanned a veritable deluge of Atari content over the years (books and mags) along with many an issue of Byte magazine for example with other also contributing scans or sending mags to people to scan. The big issue is actually finding magazines, especially the less common ones or those that people never thought worth keeping (I dumped years worth of US PC Magazine and PC Gamer issues for example and am gnashing my teeth now) and if I had a dollar for every visitor who has commented that "they have blah blah magazine and will scan them" and never fronted up I'd be a heck of a lot richer now so I guess I understand some of the comments from people if they have had similar experiences. I burned a whole raft of post-2000 mags after a disagreement with a site op of another site and I got banned and accused of being a Nazi book burner so the comments here are pretty tame in comparison. LOL

     

    Ultimately your mags are yours to do with as you please and no-one can deny that so do with them what you will. My only advice as a scanner would be that if the magazines you have in your possession haven't been scanned by now then most likely no-one else has them or is in a position to scan them so it would be a waste if you decided to dump them without at least giving thought to the idea of getting them scanned by someone. Otherwise it just becomes another mag lost forever and which after a while no-one even remembers which is kinda sad given the love that a group of people put into creating them. That's why I scan my magazines.

  14. Posted

     

    ... selfish ability to read with no power. <----- JOKE

     

    as far as the other sites, check out archive.org.. Jason Scott is doing good work in preservation.

     

    Archive.org is an abomination.

     

    Bucket loads of content is simply taken from years old torrents or magazine preservation sites and posted verbatim so in reality they simply steal the work of others, make no effort to acknowledge where they got it from or make submitters say where they got it from, and apply no level of quality control whatsoever.

  15. Posted

    Hi Ed,

     

    Don't take things too seriously here. It's just great that someone who frequents the site happens to have some of the mags that are yet to be preserved. I know I don't have any of this particular title or I would have scanned them for my website. Well, I might have. I have over 1200 mags in my collection awaiting scanning so they would get done at some stage as time and scanning preferences go anyways.

     

    I used to use (still do for some mags) an A3 flatbed scanner but given the sheer volume I have I purchased a Fujitsu A3 document scanner as I decided that the PDF meant more to me (trying carrying 100 mags to read while on holiday vs a tablet) than having the print copy so it was an easy decision for me to debind my mags. Each to their own though. Some of my site contributors scan on a flatbed by pressing the mag down while others have also gone down the doc scanner path. I am happy with whatever comes my way at the end of the day as having them preserved is more important than missing a few millimeters from the spine.

     

    If you do decide at some point that you want them scanned I am sure someone here will offer to take them off your hands. Of course, that assumes those same people don't alienate you by making you feel like a leper for your current stance causing you to turn you back on the idea forever. Of if you decide to have a go yourself, get a scanner that suits your preferences and go for it. Scanning using a camera in my opinion is a waste of time. I've never seen results that equal using a scanner.....

  16. Posted

    As someone who has worn out three Dreamcast consoles and got sick of trying to source new GDI drive mechs (from experience I don't believe those EBAY sellers saying their GDI parts are brand new) I can say that now that DEmul/ Makaron, even with graphical glitches etc are far more reliable at loading/playing games than the console in my basement. And the Xbox 360 wireless controller for the PC is even better than the Dreamcast controller.

     

    Keetah has a point.

     

    While it's always nicer using the original hardware to play games the ability to keep those consoles running is largely down to the mechanisms used. A N64 is far more likely to stand the test of time than the Dreamcast or an Xbox. Any console that used proprietary disc mechanisms like GDI or has encryption built into the mech is far and away more difficult to obtain replacement parts as time goes by and time has taught me that cartridge based systems are easier to maintain if you are a non-uber tech person or don't have ready access to someone who is (assuming you can source the necessary replacement parts). Assuming an emulator is developed that is accurate enough to run games for a system at a level that the user is happy with then it certainly removes the need for maintaining a large collection of computers/consoles in ones possession.

     

    Interesting to me is whether people think the latest consoles (Xbox One and PS4) will actually be easier in time to emulate than the X-360 and PS3? Both use x86 CPU's and PC oriented GPU's so it would seem to me that if someone were to crack their TPM/security it 'should/might' be easier in theory to emulate on a PC (ala MacOS running on PCs) due to the lack of needing to emulate Cell/PowerPC used in the previous generation. I am thinking Taito X here as an example. Then again has Sega's Lindbergh arcade hardware been cracked yet?

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    GayStation 2 = a name commonly used at the time of it's release in forums by fanboys of competing systems. I didn't create it, I simply recalled that I'd seen it like a bazillion times and used it here as a means of implying that it was inferior to the Dreamcast rather than it being some kind of homophobic slur or whatever.

     

    GrayStation = I am gray but I certainly didn't take any sort of offence at such a slur on us older people. LOL when I read that.

     

    Ridge Racist = what a funny person. Never heard of that one before. Haha

     

    I had both the Dreamcast and the PS2 and games made for both systems such as Crazy Taxi and Hydro Thunder exhibited poor texturing on the PS2 in comparison to Sega's console. In fact I experienced repeated lockup's on Hydro Thunder on the PS2 as well. I ended up with the Dreamcast staying my collection until it died (those GD-Rom drives are getting impossible to replace) while the PS2 quickly ended going out the door. I'd be willing to bet if it came down to it you Jag fans would keep that over a PS2 any day as well.

     

    As a matter of interest does the Jaguar use a standard CD drive in the JagCD unit? How easy is it to keep these things running?

  21. Posted

    Yep ... the Dreamcast was/is in my opinion the greatest 'purely gaming oriented' console ever made (great hardware and awesome exclusive game content) and it still couldn't keep Sega in the hardware game. The GayStation 2 had inferior graphics but coming off the back of it's earlier successful brother it simply had too much momentum due to the deep pockets of Sony who were able to throw huge amounts of cash into advertising etc.

     

    There are definite parallels with the Atari and Jaguar situation a few years earlier where they were competing with the SNES/Genesis.

  22. Posted

    I'll have to have a look in my basement to see if I have any more CD32 Gamer's other than 11 & 12 which are on my site already but I am not confident I have any more of those unfortunately.

     

    I do have a few more Amiga Power mags yet to be scanned but from memory a few have fairly rough covers and I have no idea what the issue numbers are.

     

    What issues are you missing of One ST? I have one or two of those. Fingers crossed

  23. Posted

    The Atari Jaguar was/is as rare as hens teeth in New Zealand. I don't recall a store ever selling them, certainly not mainstream stores that are today selling PC's, tablets etc. I think by the time the Jaguar was released the Atari computer market was in serious decline compared to the Amiga scene and the dedicated computer stores had divided their stock into Amiga and IBM-PC. The Amiga CD32 was readily available and I think the Jaguar was mainly sold via import shops.

     

    In eight years of using Trademe, the local equivalent of EBAY I can only recall ever seeing a Jaguar on auction a couple of times and they went for fairly high prices. Until recently I collected Atari so I was pretty keen to acquire one as AvP was touted as a must-have title.

     

    After playing Jag games via emulation I have to say that on the whole nothing for the system actually interests me that much but I do admire Atari for having the balls to try and compete with Sega/Nintendo in the console market of the day. At least they got a decent console out there even if it, along with the Falcon, was ultimately the foot note for the company.

  24. Posted

    Hehe.

     

    It was intended as somewhat sarcastic and taking the piss given the whole comparing N64 vs Jaguar was fairly moronic in the first place. And the comments flying around have been er... colorful on a few occasions so I thought I'd just throw something from left field in there ;-)

    • Like 1
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