EricBall

Additionally, creator Markus "Notch" Persson, partner Jakob Porser and CEO Carl Manneh will also be leaving Mojang. Even before the sale Markus has tried to move away from Minecraft, but felt that selling out was they only way to continue to be himself. I do wonder how MS plans on recovering it's 2.5 billion dollar investment. (Especially since MS believes it will happen before June 2015!)

Ben did everything himself using a Parallax Propeller microcontroller, but there are alternatives to DIY like the P-ROC http://www.pinballcontrollers.com/index.php/products/p-roc

A neighbour had one. The joysticks were strange - especially if you were accustomed to the other consoles of that generation. I don't remember playing the games, though. So not that memorable - except for the controllers.

Very cool. There's probably a market for such things, although I don't know if you could cover the "real" costs (i.e. materials, machinery & your time).

My cableco offers the Cisco 9865HD - which has 8 tuners & 1TB of storage. But the real advantage is you can network in additional STBs so record once & watch on another TV. OTOH, I has 3 of the older 2 tuner HD PVRs - one for each TV, so I have to plan where I want to watch stuff. Not as much storage space, but that does mean I can't let stuff sit unwatched forever. But the new STBs don't autoselect between 720p & 1080i, so I'll keep my old boxes.

Our local library system allows you to "reserve" items which are currently checked out, which puts you on the waiting list. The library also has movies & TV shows (including Game of Thrones seasons 1-3) in it's collection. Put the two together and it's like having Netflix for free (depending upon how long the queue is). My wife and I just finished off Game of Thrones season 3 - so now I need to ignore that greedy voice of impatience which wants to watch season 4 right now.

Or you could wait until the 8TB drives get certified....

First Party : developed by the console manufacturer - Mario Kart 8 Second Party : published by the console manufacturer, but developed by an outside entity. IP is typically owned by the console manufacturer - Pokemon X/Y Third Party : independently developed & published Slightly different interpretation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_developer

Where are you located? In the Toronto area there are quite a few AM stations - mostly talk stuff (my favorite is the comedy station in Hamilton), but some oldies & non-English. You might be able to pick up a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station , particularly at night. (I was down in Ohio earlier this month and the WLW antenna is impressive.)

Yeah, but how many cycles would it take to read the joystick? STX SWCHA # 4 set clock pin high LDA SWCHA # 4 read data pin ROL # 2 shift bit 7 to carry (ROR for player 2) STY SWCHA # 4 set clock pin low ROR JOY1 # 5 shift C into ZP register So that's 19 cycles for one bit, or 158 cycles (and 104 bytes) for all 8 bits. (Adding 4 cycles to set up X & Y and 6 cycles to send the LATCH, but making the first ROL into a STA.) Actually, that's not too bad.

Right, and in a 7800 (which has additional internal circuitry I'd forgotten about) it would be better for a 4-way + 2-button joystick to mimic the 7800 joystick rather than some 2x3 matrix. See http://atariage.com/forums/topic/212043-atari-7800-arcade-style-joysticks/#entry2774182 for a good summary of how the 7800 joystick works.

You would configure the 6 switches as a 2x3 matrix, with one side of the matrix connected to the RIOT pins so they can be used as outputs. See "A matrix in the real life" on the webpage. The other side is connected to the other pins. You then strobe each output pin and read the input pins. For the if/then you would use the AND or BIT operators to test whether the input pin is high or low and act appropriately.

With diodes, the ghosting problem can be reduced / eliminated : http://pcbheaven.com/wikipages/How_Key_Matrices_Works/

The Atari 2600/7800 joystick port has 9 pins 4 connected to the 6532 RIOT - used for joystick switches (note: these can be inputs or outputs) 2 "analog" inputs connected to the TIA - used for the paddle 1 "digital" input connected to the TIA - used for the joystick button (Note: The 2600 and 7800 are identical from a joystick port perspective - the ports are connected RIOT & TIA.) The analog inputs work on a charge / discharge system. During VBLANK the program sets the pins to charge mode, then the program counts the number of lines during the active screen it takes for the pins to discharge. So while these inputs could be used to detect multiple buttons using different resistance values, it requires some kernel time to do so. However, there could be calibration issues as I don't know if the resistance to number of lines is consistent for everyone. A better alternative might be to use a variation of the keypad matrix (see http://atariage.com/2600/archives/schematics/Schematic_2600_Accessories_Low.html ). This uses the 4 RIOT pins in a row & column matrix. The big advantage of going this route is keypad support is already built into emulators. You might want / need to add some diodes (along with an intelligent mapping) like they do for a keyboard matrix to limit ghosting. Or, if it's a one player game, use both joystick ports and just the RIOT pins.

Digital TV rapidly degrades as the signal to noise ratio drops - similar to FM. You'll have a great picture, then very quickly you will lose sound & see video errors. I recommend you check out tvfool.com to ensure your antenna is pointed in the right direction (and to better understand what channels are available). Indoors (especially below ground level) is also a very bad for reception. The signal can bounce around or be blocked. If you can point the antenna out the window in the correct direction you will see improvements. Attics aren't much better than indoors. You may also want to consider getting a better antenna (even indoors). Some suggestions: Zenith / Philips Silver Sensor Winegard Sharp Shooter Antennas Direct DB2e Channel Master 4220 RCA ANT-751 Note: I'd recommend staying away from any "amplified" antennas (for indoor use). Amplifiers are useful for boosting the signal before splitting it for multiple TVs and/or for decreasing the impact of long cable runs. Otherwise the amplifier is just adding additional noise without actually improving the signal. If you PM me your address, I can provide some more suggestions.

A couple of years ago my wife and I played an MMO called Glitch. IMHO Glitch was doomed from the start because it only charged real money for vanity items and it wasn't social enough or fun enough to play indefinitely. However, the stylized artwork was was very well done and one of the more enjoyable parts of the game. When I first saw screenshots of "Road Not Taken" on gamasutra, I was struck by how much the characters reminded me of Glitch. Not surprising since the same artist, Brent Kobayashi, did both. The game sounded interesting so I put it on my Steam wishlist (the only game on my wishlist) and made a mental note to buy it when it came out - which it did yesterday (on sale too). So I played it for the first time last night. Unfortunately, in spite of the graphics and (depressing) storyline, it's a puzzle game at the core. Move your character around the grid to pick up, carry & throw items. But do it efficiently as you have a limited amount of energy (which carrying items drains) to complete your task. Maybe it will get more fun as I learn how to solve the puzzles without expensive trial and error, and discover the various "crafting" capabilities. But right now it's a bit of a dud.

Sigh. I wasn't going to see this until I read Howard Tayler's review (confirmed by yours). So now I've got to dodge spoilers until I get a chance to see it for myself.

IMHO that removes one of the main advantages of bB - not having to learn 6502. And if you're coding your kernel in ASM, you might as well go all the way and do everything in ASM.

Much of the challenge in programming the 2600 is figuring out how to create a particular game using the limited resources of the 2600. (Or vice-versa, coming up a game to build around interesting uses of the resources.) However, with bB some of that work has been done through it's preset kernels. (Unfortunately, that does mean that some games can't be done in bB because there's no matching kernel.)

The 2600 GPU (the TIA) has a group of registers which indicate whether two elements had overlapping active (colored) pixels since the previous time the registers were cleared. This is super accurate compared to a simple x/y comparison (termed bounding box detection), but it will have problems if the elements can overlap without having overlapping active pixels and in cases where elements are reused before the registers are tested & cleared.

The 5200 was released in November 1982, so depending upon the timing of when the interview happened and when the article was published, there's a chance Perry was referring to the 5200. But probably not. The 7800 was an oddball - created by GCC in 1983-1984 as part of their post-lawsuit relationship with Atari. It's design mantra seemed to be for better graphics, 2600 compatibility and low cost. So that isn't it either/ My guess is the product wasn't anything more than a line item on a future possibilities list - a possible market to be explored and filled. (Especially if they received lots of interest based on the article.) Given that I'm very close to that age, I can't imagine what kind of programs Perry might have been thinking about which are particularly distinct from what the younger than 45 group would be interested in.

Now having seen Frozen (borrowed from the library), I have to say I was more than pleasantly surprised. And if the Wikipedia article is correct, it had a very rough journey before it reached the screen. (Makes me wonder what they could have done if they hadn't locked in a release date.) And while the musical numbers sounded like Broadway musical pap, at least "Let It Go" triggered the changes to Elsa's characterization. Poor Elsa. Bad enough that the troll's "solution" for Anna was to edit her memories, but then Elsa's parents take his suggestions too literally and Elsa is isolated and tries to suppress her emotions. (Which works out about as well as it does for Unikitty.)

Woot!

Genesys Plus for the Wii emulates the Game Gear (along with other Sega consoles).

You may want to mention that 192 is a guideline and was based upon the display capability of TVs at the time. Games can (and do) draw more lines. PAL & SECAM games will draw more lines as those standards display more lines per screen (at a lower refresh rate).