Nathan Strum
-
Posts
14,105 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
30
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Events
Store
Blog Comments posted by Nathan Strum
-
-
3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
Will Artie come back in his old shape? I liked it much better.
If you mean not in a box? Yes. Artie will return as a proper 2600.
I have one or two left in this series, then we'll start unboxing Artie and some of the rest of the cast. I'm a bit preoccupied with some other projects right now, so there may be a bit of a delay before that happens.
-
3
-
-
Nope. I decided to revert back to black and white (as Artie originally was) for several reasons:
- Traditionally, daily newspaper comics are black and white. Since moving back to Seattle, I get a newspaper here (a real printed one). There are some comics in the paper that clearly started out as full-color web comics, and they don't translate to black and white at all. They didn't take into account the limitations of newspaper printing when creating them, and they end up a blurry, illegible mess. I like the clean, simple look of a well-designed black and white comic strip, and wanted to go back to Artie's original inspiration and appearance: a newspaper comic.
- The color strips (even as copy/paste as they are) are a bit of a pain to produce. I wanted to simplify things so I'd be more inclined to produce new strips.
- I wanted to change the look of the strip, and try some different approaches to creating the artwork. This is in part because I've moved, therefore Artie's moved, and this represents an opportunity for a clean break between then and now. But also, I'm always looking for new ways to create art, and hopefully come up with techniques and approaches I can use in other projects.
-
I'll get one or two strips out of Artie's meta commentary about how everything is black and white.
-
3
-
One of my favorite-ever Bloom County comic strips:
-
1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:
He was about to tell Atari to go (F themselves?), but is cut off by an Atari ad. I laughed pretty well at that actually!
That's a reference (of sorts) to a Bloom County strip, that I've paid homage to before.
1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:I look forward to Artie being finished with the move so we can see him as a (color) 2600 again...
Well, he will be finished with the move at some point. But as for being in color...
1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:The idea of talking consoles is always fun, and (whichever came first) it kind of reminds me of the way Aqua Teen Hunger Force was drawn...Remember the one where Meatwad is playing some video game Ouija board on an Atari (or similar) I think, and Master Shake kills himself so he can enter the game as a ghost and scare Meatwad?
I don't recall that episode, but I seem to recall them referencing Atari (or similar games) a number of times. I didn't watch a lot of ATHF though. For me, a little of that went a long way.
-
1
-
-
When I lose interest in making them. I went nearly a year last time between episodes because of the move (yes - Artie moving was inspired by me moving in real life). But as long as I have something that interests me related to classic gaming (and is hopefully funny
), then I'll keep sporadically cranking them out.
As for the future of AA, the blogs, etc. – Artie would find a home elsewhere, should it become necessary.
-
1
-
-
That's true - I forgot about the T-shirt thing. I don't recall the details - I think the T-shirt website itself flagged it as an off-limits IP. But however that was done, Atari is still behind it. And I don't think that instance had anything to do with the Atari logo.
The ZPH awards is a little more understandable though, since they weren't actually "Atari" awards, and the logo was the dominant feature of it. It implied they were from Atari, rather than for games for Atari systems. I think they should just be renamed the ZPH awards, and make the award look like the ZPH logo. Then James would be free to do what he wished with them. (They're sort-of that way now, but it's really a ZPH production, and I think it should be identified as such.)
It would be nice though if Atari wasn't so immediately dismissive of fan projects. But they're a corporation, and they're protective of their IPs. Not their fans.
-
2
-
-
I figured someone would.
And "SOS" seemed too easy.
-
Bring a little flashlight. That should work.
-
23 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
My first move was to ask Al for paying me all the royalties I had collected over 20 years, ASAP. The money was sure helping Albert, but I am not going to lend to risk any money for Atari.
Yep - get the money out while you still can.
I've never asked for royalties, or other monetary payment for my work for AA (apart from copies of games from the AA store - which would amount to a tiny fraction of the work I actually put into projects). For me, this has always been a hobby, and taking money for it would cross the line into "work". Also, I've always felt the games belonged to the developers, and they should be the ones being paid for their games. Not me.
And while I'll still be willing to work that way for developers on an independent basis, I will not be doing any unpaid work for Atari. What form any future work with them takes will have to be determined.
-
1
-
-
15 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
The 2600+ was done by Plaion, not Atari. Last year we (the Stella team) got contacted by an employee from Plaion, asking for our help. At that moment, some decisions were already made (emulator based, with a dumper port). We were offered payment for support, but we skipped. Nevertheless we gave Plaion quite some tips how to improve over the R77 (everything should be updatable, high compatibility, strong enough CPU etc.). From what I have taken from the talks, Plaion was listening, but their target price (then $99 IIRC) , given by Atari, was probably too low follow all our suggestions.
Did Plaion initiate the project, or did Atari hire them to create it for them? Even if Plaion came up with the proposal for it, Atari was still dictating the terms that impacted its design.
More to the point, is Atari taking the initiative on any of these products, or are they sitting around waiting for people to hand them ideas?
15 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:IMO the 2600+ is a marketing driven device, aiming at a certain group of people (not us!), trying to find the sweet spot for profit. This is how business works, and I don't expect any company to be any different. IMO it is not that they don't "get it", IMO they are not even interested.
I fully understand all of that. And I fully agree they aren't even interested. That is precisely what I mean by "not getting it": that it's still a fundamentally flawed and deceptively marketed product. It's not a 2600, because it's not fully compatible. This is a more expensive Flashback. Period. And it should be marketed as such. (But that's my reality. Not theirs.)
15 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:Only very lately some people from Atari have significantly happend at AA, mainly due to the 2600+ and the acquisition. If they were really interested into our community, they would have been here much, much longer.
I'm not sure of what their level of interest is or isn't, because I haven't been in direct communication with any of them.
Hope they're enjoying the comics though!
-
1
-
-
I posted some of my thoughts in another comments section here: https://forums.atariage.com/blogs/entry/18674-maybe-the-guys-who-bought-battlezone-would-want-it/?do=findComment&comment=31358
I agree with Thomas though - AtariAge was a fan-run, independent community. It is now owned by a corporation. It may still be managed by Albert, but he no longer determines its fate.
Anything Atari has done previously, good or bad, is irrelevant. They have no track record with this. But they are now the owners of AtariAge, and AtariAge is subject to them.If there had been (for example) an Atari Fan Club in the early 80's, run by gamers, with thousands of members, with their own newsletters, club meetings, etc., and that had been bought out and run by Atari, then there would be a precedent for this. And when Atari collapsed, the fan club would have collapsed with it. The financial backing, support, and resources would have evaporated.
But... as I mentioned in my other post, people are resilient, and those that chose to, would have simply moved on and found other ways to connect.
AtariAge is really a community of people. The forum named AtariAge is merely the current gathering place.
-
1
-
-
I'm avoiding the forum discussions about this, because I don't see any point in adding my voice to the noise there. I'd rather let Artie comment, since he has a longer history with Atari than I do, since he was built by them.
That said...
My concerns are: who is really running Atari, what are their actual goals, and what happens if they fail to meet them? Does Wade Rosen have free reign, or is he on a leash with Atari's board of Directors? What is he expected to accomplish, and in what time frame, and what happens if that fails? Are they expecting to attain a certain level of profitability in a given number of years? And even if they do, is the goal to maintain and build on that, or make Atari an attractive property for eventual buyout? Is Rosen in this for the long haul, or if he gets a better/more prestigious offer from another company, is he going to jump ship? Is there a succession plan in place for that possibility? These are questions that there are already answers to, because these discussions have already happened (or they're not doing their jobs). But we'll never know the actual answers, until the events play out. They can "say" anything in interviews or press releases. But that means nothing.
AtariAge is a small piece of the Atari puzzle, and one that could be easily discarded or abandoned in a heartbeat. "Sorry Al - but the numbers just aren't adding up this quarter for us to keep you around."
I'm not criticizing Al's decision to sell to Atari. I think it's (potentially) a great opportunity for him, and I know that AtariAge has pretty-much taken over his life. He certainly didn't intend for that to happen, and burnout is going to be inevitable. Some may think, "Yeah - but that's the dream! Getting to do your hobby for a living!" but the problem is, AtariAge isn't a reliable, predictable, or sustainable source of income. It's wholly reliant on programmers being willing to donate their time to create games, and a community being willing to pay money to purchase enough of those games to cover not only the production costs of the games themselves (which is considerable), but pay to keep AA itself up and running, and then put food on the table. It's a terrible way to try to earn a living. A steady paycheck has to be of tremendous relief to Albert, not to mention the possibility of getting some much-needed help.
Clearly, Al's had enough interaction with Atari to trust them to take over ownership of AA. But Atari now owns this forum, which includes the software driving this blog (I maintain that I own the content, however). And they can pull the plug tomorrow if they choose to do so. I think that's the big, overarching fear most people have. Or that Atari will irreparably damage the forum through censorship, ads, or other means. However, I'm not as doom-and-gloom about that as some others may be. This is the very nature of the internet. Communities come and go all the time. Usually, the people who want to keep together simply move on to another location and continue on. Been there, done that. Several times. I hope AtariAge will continue on though. But the world won't end if it doesn't. Everyone who wants to, will turn up somewhere. People are resilient like that.
Unlike Albert, I do not trust Atari. They have too checkered of a history to warrant it. As far as I'm concerned, Atari has yet to prove they're a different company. They may be. But the 2600+ is a yet-another example of a product from a company that just doesn't "get it". They're not paying attention to the details, which means at some level, they don't care enough. And if they don't care enough about that... what else won't they care about?
Optimistically, maybe this is still part of their learning curve. Certainly, Atari has a lot of learning to do to pull itself out of the mire. Maybe Rosen will turn into the visionary Atari has been lacking for 40+ years. More than anything else, a company like Atari needs someone with a clear and correct vision and the ability to act on it. We'll see how it goes. I'd like to see the return of a competent Atari. It'd be fun to want to buy one of their products again.
But I'm going to start backing up my blog entries.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:
Thanks for the Arties! I think it helps us the cure the pain a bit.
Awesome! I think that's the highest compliment I could be paid.
Another half-dozen are in-progress now, and will be posted over the next few days. Plus there will be another (unrelated) storyline to follow afterwards. That may not happen until after PRGE though.
-
1
-
-
On 9/7/2023 at 10:53 PM, Thomas Jentzsch said:
I'm a big Monty Python fan, but today I'm having a hard time finding anything positive.
-
Fussy TV maybe?
-
Slightly wonky TIA maybe?
-
I've seen the same sort of herring-bone effect on my RF systems too. Sometimes the cable helps with that, but sometimes it seems the console itself is picking up the interference. Could also be impacted by the how clean the power is going into the console. It may help recapping the systems and replacing the voltage regulators, if you haven't already done so.
As for why the 7800 looks better - it could be the RF circuitry in the 7800 is simply improved over than that of the 2600. Typically 7800 video is noticeably dimmer and desaturated than that of a 2600, so there's certainly some differences in the circuitry. I've found my own 7800 can be noticeably cleaner with RF than my 4-switch 2600.
-
Nope. Not the Arcadia. Nice obscure reference though!
I suspect this isn't nearly as obscure, but since it's not exactly related to classic gaming (depending on your definition), it would be pretty unlikely for someone to figure it out.
-
1
-
-
Not Vectrex or Le Stick (mercifully
). Although size-wise it's pretty close to the Vectrex. I can't do a direct comparison though, since my Vectrex is off being overhauled.
I'd be quite surprised if anyone actually guessed what this is for. Hoping within the next couple of weeks for the completely anti-climactic reveal.
-
2 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:
I'm assuming this is a topper for a controller?
Indeed! (Or more accurately - a replacement.)
But then the question is... which controller?
-
Try Elmer's glue on the threads (just the standard white PVA stuff). It won't damage plastic, can easily be peeled off, but should fill the threads enough to keep the nuts from backing out on their own.
(I haven't tested this. But seems to me it should work.)
-
That size of heat shrink tubing sure didn't come in the Amazon discount box o' cut-offs I bought.
I used to use sticky-backed Velcro to secure things at work a lot, until I had to start removing it. The adhesive they use for that stuff is the absolute worst. It just turns into a gummy mess.
Of the three consoles I added a UAV to, the 7800 was by far the easiest because of the board you sent me (even though that console required the most repair to get working in the first place). I'd happily desolder and socket a TIA just to be able to plug in a CyberTech mod again, if those were still available.
I'd never used or seen a UAV before, and it kind-of became the go-to for these projects not because of any reported quality, but because it was readily available. As you mentioned, the darkest color values turned out too dark, with some being effectively indistinguishable from black. I'm hoping the CleanComp gets fully dialed in at some point, because I think that has the most promise of any 2600 mod I've seen in a long time.
Not sure I'd use this audio board again. I only discovered the complete lack of audio in the UAV after I had received them and began reading the instructions and wondered "Hey... where does the audio go?"
So I saw it as a companion piece and figured it would probably be a vetted to work well with it. It's just okay. Couldn't tell you if the audio was inverted or not. The consoles are all on their way back to Champ Games World Headquarters now.
-
1 hour ago, Albert said:
That is a perfect location for that connector! This is pretty hardcore what you're doing here.
..Al
I think you must've been looking at the draft before I added the captions. The Molex connector is actually internal - it doesn't stick out through the RF hole.
-
Updates:
- 3-18-23: Rough artwork approved for Boom!, Elevator Agent, Turbo Arcade and Zeviouz.
- 2-25-23: Elevator Agent won Best WIP (2600 Port), in the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards.
- 2-25-23: Gorf Arcade won Best Music + Sound (2600 Port), in the 5th Annual Atari Homebrew Awards. Congratulations to Bob Decrescenzo, who also won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Well-deserved!
- 2-15-23: "Historical Documentary" status changed to "Early development"
-
5
And "SOS" seemed too easy. 
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Does it come with armpit speakers?
in (Insert stupid Blog name here)
A blog by Nathan Strum in General
Posted
Least exciting episode of ZPH ever:
James (reads comic strip on livestream): "Well, that wasn't very funny."
Aerlan: "Dude, you totally missed the juxtapositioning of anthropomorphism with the human condition. It's a biting satire of how people find meaning in pointless emotional attachment to material things. F___ yeah, man!"