Jagasian

I would say that the game is definitely worth playing, if you like console style RPGs. I played and completed Earthbound for the SNES, for the first time last year. I used my Tototek.com flash cart. The mechanics are pretty typical for a console RPG of that time, but they are slightly simplified. The entire theme is different from any other RPG, and it is this theme that makes the game interesting. You do have to approach the theme with the right mindset. It is very cutie-pie looking, but if you look a little closer, you will see that the game is a parody or satire of the console RPG genre and of Western pop culture. The RPG mechanics were fun, though average for the time, but the theme and its satire make this a great game. When I was a teen, and Earthbound for the SNES was just released, I thought that I was too cool to play such a kiddie looking game. After finishing the game last year, I realized that I was an idiot for judging the game so fast. Just like the Final Fantasy series, only Japan has had an official release of the entire Earthbound series. Earthbound for the SNES is really "Mother 2" in Japan (as in "Mother Earth"), i.e. the sequal to the first Mother game for the NES. Nintendo actually translated Mother and called it "Earthbound" and was going to release it for the NES in the USA, but for some reason they decided not to. Nintendo did allot of market manipulation back then, in an attempt to avoid flooding the market with games. You can read about the unreleased, yet eventually leaked Earthbound for the NES: http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/200407-earthbound.shtml You can read about the official released Earthbound for the SNES here: http://starmen.net/mother2/ The GBA received a port of Mother 1 and Mother 2, but no port of the USA Earthbounds. Rumor has it that there might be a Mother 3. Hopefully the USA sees an official translation. Me personally... I am going to buy a reproduction of the unreleased, yet leaked Earthbound prototype for the NES. I liked the SNES Earthbound so much that I want to play the prequel. The game isn't too difficult so it shouldn't take too much of your time, and you can get it on the cheap. I suggest that you avoid emulation, as emulation is never as good as the real thing. Just get a copy of the cart off of Ebay for cheap, or play it on a copier or flash cart (www.tototek.com).

I have the Tototek SNES flash cart. It is great! One thing to note though is that while you can have multiple games on the same cart, if you have two games on the same cart and both games use battery backed saves, then saving in one game will overwrite another game's save data.

I am going to buy a FB2, and if the FB3 improves on the FB2 by including S-video and a cartridge slot... well then, that would just be the ultimate 2600.

Why not make the Flashback 3.0 a complete reproduction of the 2600, cart slot and all, but with RCA composite audio and video, as that is the most common these days and better quality than RF, then sell it packed with a multi-cart, joysticks, and paddles? Also have in big letters on the box that old carts are not officially supported in any way. With modern production technologies, a 2600-on-a-chip based system would be very cheap to produce, and the casual Atari fans will enjoy the ability to buy a complete package, peripherials, games and all... meanwhile the hardcore fan will enjoy the few new games on the multi-cart, the RCA composite A/V, and the new joysticks and paddles. To have a full 2600 and peripherials produced in 2005 or 2006 would be quite an interesting site, considering that the 2600 is the first general purpose console gaming system.

Somebody needs to contact Ben Heck, so that he can make an even smaller, more battery efficient version of the VCS portable using the 2600-on-a-chip found in the Flashback 2. http://www.benheck.com/ Check out his latest VCS portable: http://www.benheck.com/phoenix/index.htm He hand makes everything except for the LCD screen and the 2600 parts that he chops out of a real 2600. So it has perfect compatibility. I recommend using it with a flash cart, so that you can have a bunch of games on the go. Is the Flashback 2 RCA composite out or S-video out? I hope it has S-video.

While I have never played "Shark Shark", I have played another more recent game on the SNES, which is very similar sounding to your game. E.V.O. Search for Eden http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/snes/evo/ Basically you start as a fish and must eat other fish to get experience points so that you can choose wich parts of your fish body to evolve such as better fins (speed agility), stronger jaw (better attack), better scales (defense), etc. The game is a cross between a platformer, RPG, and adventure game. Really strange but fun game. You can eventually evolve lungs, legs and walk onto land. The game doesn't stop there as an amphibian though. You can basically go all the way to being a human. I have always wanted to see more games along the lines of EVO.

How do these things work? I realize that they have a black and white LCD screen, but are they emulation, do they use a 2600-on-a-chip? Or are they completely new re-makes of the game based on new code, etc, with just the graphics ripped and turned into black and white?

The Kevtris system is based on an FPGA, so it can change its circuitry on the fly to support other consoles such as the Atari 7800 and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The pics you probably saw are of NES games.

The Kevtris 2600 will support RGB, as the entire 2600's circuit is recreated in an FPGA, which allows for improvements to video output.

There are multiple projects that are remaking the Atari 2600. You can find the Sunmark Mini 2600 and the Kevtris 2600 mentioned on this forum. Both the Sunmark and Kevtris 2600s are much much smaller than the original, which should make it easier to include on your home entertainment shelves Also both aforementioned 2600s allow for more modern and commonplace video standards: composite and S-video, so it will be easier to hook up to your modern home entertainment system (and you get much better video quality). Kevtris's 2600 will be different in that while it can use official Atari 2600 peripherials (joysticks, paddles, lightguns, etc), it plays games off of standard SD flash cards, and in addition to composite and S-video, it also supports RGB and VGA video standards, which are visually superior to anything else! The 2600 will never die, it will only get better.

Gosh .. I think I only got through about 10 of the original maps .. and there are something like 30 of them. A random generator of maps would upset me if there were no solution!! Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA It is not about no solution, but more about highest level you have gotten to.

Like many have said, EGM used to be good, now they are a shadow of what they used to be. Everyone has their personal favorite console gaming systems (mine is probably the SNES), but an unbiased listing of the most influential console gaming systems would have the Atari 2600 at the top of the list, simply because it was the first general purpose console gaming system. Everything before that had a few built-in games. Basing a console around a general purpose digital computer with CPU and RAM and software loaded from user changable ROMs, set the standard for the format of every major console system thereafter. Even the Playstation 2 uses this same format, except the CPU and RAM are more powerful and the ROMs are DVD-ROMs. Yes it may seem like an obvious thing now, but that is only after somebody showed how good of an idea it really is. The 2600's design also made it possible for the formation of 3rd party game developers. Heck, there are still 3rd party game developers for the 2600 DECADES after its initial release! Also at the top of the list, would have to be the Famicom/NES because of bringing the game industry back from the depression. However, it could be argued that the Famicom didn't do anything special. The game industry has been going into a depression or slump roughly every 5 or so years, and the thing that always brings it out of the depression is the release of the next generation of consoles. Seriously, roughly 5 years into a generation (we are near there now with the PS2, XBOX, Gamecube generation), people will start claiming the the sky is falling... pointing to various market stats. Then the next gen systems come and everything is booming again. Rinse, lather, repeat. The Gameboy should also be in there, no doubt. It popularized portable gaming by showing that two things must hold true for the system and their games: it must be relatively small and lightweight, have long battery life, and be inexpensive. Other portable systems have come and gone mainly because they violated one of these rules, even though they had better graphics/sound during their release.

A better idea would be to use a psuedo random number generator to automatically generate Sokoban levels. I think there are articles written on such algorithms for making "good" Sokoban levels. If done correctly, you could have an incredibly large number of different levels in a small amount of space, and as long as your psuedo random number generator is deterministic, the level password would be nothing more than the current index in the psuedo random number sequence (i.e. the seed)... obfuscated to prevent cheating, of course. Since you would most likely want to have the original classic Sokoban maps, you could have those as the beginning maps, and once those are completed the later maps would be the automatically generated ones. Though RLE alone might allow for plenty of levels. There is just something cool about having an infinite number of maps, so that people can indefinitely have bragging rights about how far they have gotten so far

Here is a solution: buy more than one Krokcart! That way you help fund modern Atari 2600 development, and you can keep one mint in box while you play with the other. I thought all collectors do this. Also, prioritize your dream list of 2600 games that you would like to play and play and master/complete the flashed set of games before you flash the next set. If you want more than one set of games to play at a time, that means you will have to buy more Krokcarts. Rememer, you should never shy away from paying for Atari 2600 hardware that is being developed these days. The more you buy, the more it encourages future Atari 2600 development.

Somebody needs to make new 2600s from scratch with a real wood carved case, such that it is shaped like the traditional 2600, but made out of wood instead of plastic. That would look even better than the real thing.

I think that the ultimate test for Kevin's console's controller ports will be the Atari 2600 paddles. A seasoned player can notice any differences within seconds of playing, as seen with the various 2600 to PC adapters such as the Stelladapter.

1. Is it made by tearing apart a 2600, or is it made from all new parts? 2. Is it a completely accurate recreation? 3. Does it have a case? 4. How much, and where and when can I buy one? 5. Has anyone used one of these to make a portable VCS like the VCSp?

as I understand it he will make adapters as required to plug in whatever controllers are necessary that don't fit in the regular slot. From the look of things he'll have regular 9-pin DINs and then make an adapter for the NES (and TG16 if he adds it). Yes, and it is important to note that the system was designed from the ground-up with game controllers in mind, so making a NES adapter will be pretty basic, and there will be no lag whatsoever due to the adapter, as it will mainly just change the physical shape of the controller port to fit the NES peripherials.

I should also point out that the GP32 that you linked to cannot run most of that software listed in the review at full speed. The NES and SNES emulators, I know for a fact, do not run at full speed. Hence you have to use a high frame skip, which can cause problems and makes the graphics look like crap. The version of Quake they show running definitely does not run at a playable speed, where playable means at least 72 frames per second (long story, but that is the best minimum FPS for the original Quake).

Anybody who has been playing a real 2600 will be able to tell the difference between the real thing and the software emulators stella and z26. However, Kevin's new retro-console will be exactly like the real thing, down to the last CPU-cycle. Software emulators have slight differences in controls (even when using an adapter and original joysticks), sound, and video (even when hooked up to a TV). Furthermore, there are some games both 2600 and NES that do not run on the best software emulators because they exploit fine aspects of the systems hardware... and therefore only run on the real thing. Kevin's system will literally be just like the real thing. The differences will usually not be noticed by a casual gamer, but hardcore enthusiasts will appreciate Kevin's approach. Furthermore, even casual gamers will be able to appreciate the improved presentation and polish that comes with Kevin's ground-up approach.

You might need to manually copy-paste these links into a new browser, because the server doesn't like direct links to images on it. As mentioned, the case or chasis for the system will be one of the last parts of the project. So right now you can look at his hand soldered circuit board: http://tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/incomi...le_done_top.jpg http://tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/incomi...done_bottom.jpg If Kevin can get the system mass produced, then the circuit board could have its ICs mounted by a machine, which would make it even cleaner looking, and he would be able to get a really nice looking case made for the system, so you would never have to look at the circuit board to begin with. I guess it will all depend on how interested we all are in the system, which would then help him get initial investment to actually fabricate systems.

Calling it "emulation" does it a great disservice, in my opinion. It is basically recreating the CPU too. The limitation is that the FPGA does not have enough circuitry to be able to do really complicated stuff, like 16-bit generation systems. I bet it could do the Pitfall II sound chip, unless that chip requires analog circuitry. The other benefits over using an Xbox or PC with software based emulation is that Kevin's 2600 will be smaller, solid state (no noisy fans), and consume allot less electricity. Hey, maybe we will even see a portable version? My first gaming system was a 2600, and my second was a NES. Both defined video games for me. Hell, the 2600 was the first general purpose console gaming system! Everything before it had a few built in games, but were not general purpose like the 2600, right? Anyway, it will be nice to see a new 2600 being manufactured in the year 2005

Kevin Horton is currently developing a new console gaming system based around a fully programmable gate array (FPGA), which is like a polymorphic circuit that can be re-designed on the fly over and over again. Currently he is working on a CPU-cycle perfect, pixel perfect recreation of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and once he is done, he is going to add support for a CPU-cycle perfect, pixel perfect Atari 2600. Since the system is based on a FPGA, just as you can load games from small inexpensive SD flash cards, you can also load the circuit diagrams for a NES, 2600, or some other retro game system. It is something like emulation, but on a hardware level and 100% accurate (even the best software emulators aren't 100% accurate)... oh and you can use the original peripherials like joysticks, light guns, paddles, etc. The system is still under development, but hardcore 2600 fans will definitely want to keep track of it... if you are also a Famicom/NES fan, the more the merrier. The accuracy of the recreation of the original system's hardware and the ability to play games off of inexpensive SD flash cards, as well as the fact that a new Atari 2600 is being developed in the year 2005 makes this one strange beast. You can check out screenshots of tests of the NES games, as well as pictures of the actual hardware and circuit diagrams here (remember 2600 support will be added next): http://tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/incoming/ Here is a thread which has several posts by Kevin giving some details about his creation: http://forums.cherryroms.com/viewtopic.php?t=3618 Note that some of the links in that thread will have to be manually copy-pasted into your browser, as the server doesn't like direct links to its images.

Why not put the 2600-on-a-chip inside a Cuttle Cart? Call it Cuttle Cart 3. It would basically be a 2600 that lets you use SmartMedia cards to make your own multicarts, yet still let you use original 2600 peripherials. Seems like a killer to me. Don'y bother with emulation, have the real thing all inside a Cuttle Cart.

Bittorrent sucks? Name a better P2P technology for moving large files. Emule, Kazaa, and others have trouble moving large files (files greater than 100MB) to a large number of people (greater than 100 downloaders). I have seen Bittorrents for 8GB files with hundreds of downloaders, and I have seen a 700MB file with 7000+ downloaders. Any other P2P technology would grind to a halt under those circumstances. Bittorrent was perfectly ok with those conditions. I regularly get 60kbps (or higher) speeds on my cable modem with my bittorrent downloads. I guess you should be more specific as to what you don't like about Bittorrent. Maybe you aren't using the right client or you don't have stuff setup correctly.