EricBall

Even the most simple program can require updates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEFBR14

Got it. Turns out the trick is not only to use all the new blocks etc but to be actually using the edit mode for ~5 minutes.

I'm sure you've figured this out already, but for a limited number of rotation positions, lookup tables are the way to go for direction to X,Y anything. Note: while using reflections can reduce the size of the tables, it is often outweighed by the extra code (which costs cycles & space). For SpaceWar! 7800 I used a lot of table lookups. Thrust was approximated as an acceleration in the direction of rotation, which was then added to the current velocity (which I think had a limiter on it). The gravity of the sun was another acceleration added to the velocity from a lookup based on the ship position. The velocity then gets added to the ship position every frame to produce movement. Everything is stored as signed fixed point values. Oh, a quick approximation for the length of the hypotenuse is max(abs(x),abs(y)) + min(abs(x),abs(y))/2. Remember you're making a game, not a physics simulation :-)

See http://atariage.com/forums/topic/48585-inverting-bytes/?view=findpost&p=588600for my thoughts on generating random numbers (including 6502 code).

Yes, the patch is supposed to mean the unlocks happen faster (assuming you use all of the pieces you have). But I agree it's frustrating - especially since the various videos etc show how to use stuff even though it's not unlocked. I'm still waiting for the sublevels to be activated.

Okay, I've now actually watched the announcement, which shows using an iDevice as a controller in Blocky Crossing. And I know there have been other announcements regarding controller compatibility. But my statement still stands - without a de-facto standard controller (beyond the limited remote), developers cannot make assumptions on what inputs and layout the user might have. Maybe the iDevice controller apps will fill the requirements and become the norm.

Why do I say fail? Simple: no standardized controller except for the small touchpad on the remote. Why not announce a standard controller app (similar to the Remote app) or declare the PS3 or PS4 controller a de-facto standard Bluetooth controller? (Although then they'd need to provide a USB input for pairing.) This would then allow developers to port games much more easily. Heck, with a controller app Apple could provide a way for the Apple TV game to push the controller layout down to the iDevice! You could even have multiple controllers by using multiple iDevices.

SoundGammon You must have mounted that LCD vertically as there's no way you could have fit it horizontally in the original cabinet. I just managed to squeeze in a 21" XGA CRT vertically (which is equivalent to a 19" LCD). For some reason I couldn't get Windows Update to work on the PC until I reinstalled & re-activated. Then I disabled the auto-updates and selectively installed the updates by year. That seems to have worked so I think it's now 99% current. Probably should next go out an pick up a 4GB stick of DDR3 to cut down on the swapping. Then dig out the old drive and copy over the WIP before I grab the most recent MAME and FE.

A while ago my son asked when I was going to fix the Tempest cabinet. The fire cleanup crew removed the PC I was using to the Tempest cabinet and insurance wrote it off (although I did get the hard drive back). So the first step is to obtain a PC. MAME is still primarily a single threaded app, so I used https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.htmlto judge different processors. I figured a Core 2 Duo was probably what I wanted. I started looking at the lists of refurbished computers at local stores online and quickly realized I wanted an E7xxx or E8xxx processor rather than the E5xxx and E6xxx versions. I found a couple E8400s (3GHz) with DDR3 RAM for less than C$200. Not a bad price, but high enough for me to control my impulsiveness. But then I decided to check Kijiji. And someone had posted a E8400 w/ DDR3 for C$100 just an hour before. A few emails and an extended lunch hour later I now have a PC. The first thing I did was make an image backup (using a Linux USB boot) in case I screw things up or want to use the Office 2010 install (corporate license) he put on. And unfortunately it seems there's an issue with Windows Update. Sigh. Windows Update Repair isn't able to fix it. Maybe do a repair from the Win7 install CD, and if that doesn't work try a restore or a full reinstall. I did have one idea for the cabinet. Rather than use a doorbell as a power button for the PC, wire it into one of the coin slots. So you have to insert a coin to power on the PC.

Any particular reason you're using the JAMMA harness versus going with a VGA monitor and custom controls? JAMMA is great if you have a bunch of PCBs and are just swapping them into a generic cab - but there's no real reason to constrain yourself for a project like this.

IMHO there's not much benefit to 4K/UHD for two main reasons. First, at normal viewing distances you aren't going to see much (if any) difference from a normal HDTV, although http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/eyesight-4k-resolution-viewingseems to say the difference will be visible. Second is the availability of content. http://www.cnet.com/news/4k-content-guide-what-to-watch-in-4k-today/is a good, reasonbly recent, summary. (Can you say unlimited Internet required?)

Serguei - I would expect any software which currently works with the current 64 bit versions of Windows will continue to work with Windows 10. It's just the device drivers which seem to be the issue. Stardust - AFAIK the "free" upgrade isn't restricted to certain versions (Home would be an upgrade from my Starter Edition). Maybe you need to manually do a Windows Update to pick up the Win10 upgrade assistant. Note: it appears, for the most part, the system requirements for Win10 are the same as Win8.1. So you could also also try downloading the Windows 8.1 Upgrade Assistant from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-8/upgrade-assistant-download-online-faq I have to say I had no desire to upgrade to Win 8 with the UI change, but my logic is if I upgrade to Win10 then I will continue to get security updates.

Thomas - almost all of the Google hits are people asking for 64 bit drivers. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/search?keyword=Intel%C2%AE+Graphics+Media+Accelerator+3600+Series only shows the 32 bit driver. There's a YouTube video of a guy that hacked the 32 bit driver to be loaded as a 64 bit driver. Serguei - yep, that appears to be the case - at least from an OS & driver perspective.

The Acer Aspire One netbook we bought after the fire has turned out to be a decent computer (especially with a RAM & SSD upgrade). It came loaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition and (bonus) MS Office Starter Edition. The free upgrade to Windows 10 sounded like a good idea. Not only would I get all of the ongoing security updates etc., but it wouldn't have the 2GB limit of Win7SE. Unfortunately, I just ran the Win10 upgrade check and learned the Intel GMA 3600 graphics adapter isn't supported. (Apparently Intel never made a 64 bit driver and is not likely to either.)

Watched the second episode last night, which covered off the remaining 8 battles in the first round. Unfortunately, that made it a little rushed compared to the first episode which only covered 4 battles. It also meant that a bunch of the teams didn't get their 15 minutes of fame before getting knocked out. I'm now regretting deleting the first episode off my PVR, I want to go back and make notes about each of the battles. Maybe I can find it online somewhere. Highlight of this round was watching Tombstone KO Counter Revolution with the BattleBots equivalent of a Mortal Kombat fatality. Sorry boilerbots, you need better armor if you're in the heavyweight class. Although it sounds like it they also made a tactical mistake: http://boilerbots.com/robots/counter-revolution/ The addition of flame weapons makes for great TV, although so far it hasn't actually disabled an opponent.

I bought a USB Buffalo SNES controller - which works great for emulation. I've also paired a PS3 controller with my iMac27 - which works great for games which require the analog controls except I have to disconnect it via the Bluetooth settings or it won't let the Mac go to sleep.

H.264 quality will be similar to what you can achieve with 1 pass transcoding of the the MPEG2 recordings (which are effectively the OTA bitstream written to disk).

I haven't gotten through the list yet, but I have to say John Kim's Battle Deadline is very impressive. Wesley Fuh's Sherm is good for a quick chuckle and Hikari Toriumi's KOISHI is a wonderful non-verbal emotional experience.

Quicksilver did have a few slo-mo scenes (like when he punched Cap in the freighter). One thing I find interesting with the Marvel films is how they re-imagine various characters versus the (admittedly very messy) comic canon. (The following is based on my son's Marvel-Avengers-Ultimate-Character-Guide For example, in the comics, Magneto is the father of Quicksilver & the Scarlet Witch. But that obviously can't happen in the Marvel films because 20th Century Fox has the rights to X-Men & the other "natural mutants".

Saw it with my wife & son (14+) Saturday. While the movie was enjoyable, I didn't find it exceptional. Three complaints: 1. Ultron's mouth was far too fluid. I wanted to see something very mechanical. 2. The battles seemed to be more "burly brawl" - the Avengers taking on a huge number of opponents simultaneously. Even during the Chitauri invasion the Avengers only took on small groups. 3. In the opening assault the Avengers looked very CGI. And while the plan was to see it in 2D, that showing was sold out by the time we got to the theater (dinner took longer than expected). So we saw the 3D version and got a price shock - almost $50 for just the tickets! Not only were we paying a premium for the 3D showing, but we were being charged extra for being in a newer (just opened) theater complex. Frankly, about the only reason to see the movie in the theater is now I don't have to avoid spoilers.

Unfortunately OSX (i.e. Mac) isn't a perfect answer either. I got my wife her first MacBook back in the "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC." days (yes, those ads were effective), which has now been supplemented by a 27" iMac. While many things are easier (or at least just as easy) as Windows, you can still hit the curses of "How the #%@# can I do what I want?" and "What the %$&*(#% is making it slow?" Plus you'll occasionally hit the Windows / IE only roadblocks. (The latter problem is partially alleviated by my Win7 netbook.) Ahh for the days of DOS when you knew exactly what your PC was doing 'cause it only ran one thing at a time (plus a few TSRs). Of course, then there was the endless tweaking of config.sys & autoexec.bat to give that program enough of the right kinds of memory.

Kinda sorta similar to http://www.benheck.com/xbox1monitor/

Unfortunately, the SketchUp Make license is for non-commercial use only. (Not that I have any plans to make money, but Blender doesn't have that restriction.)

Color me green with envy!

Hi Darrell, Here's the sample I used (which fails): # WaveFront .obj file - a single square based pyramid # Start a new group: g SquareBasedPyramid # List of vertices: v -0.5 0 0.5 # Front left. v 0.5 0 0.5 # Front right. v 0.5 0 -0.5 # Back right v -0.5 0 -0.5 # Back left. v 0 1 0 # Top point (top of pyramid). # List of faces: f 4 3 2 1 # Square base (note: normals are placed anti-clockwise). f 1 2 5 # Triangle on front. f 3 4 5 # Triangle on back. f 4 1 5 # Triangle on left side. f 2 3 5 # Triangle on right side. Unity doesn't handle the in-line comments like # Front left. Remove them and it works fine.