jaybird3rd

Wow. It's been a while since I've looked at a CUPodcast video, but in this one, Ian almost made me flinch. (And yes, I went back to the original video in case it was selectively edited, and his "rant" doesn't look any better when viewed in full and in context.) Back when I regularly followed the CUPodcast, Ian could get pretty animated when railing about the likes of Mike Kennedy and the Coleco Chameleon, but he usually made sense and still managed to be entertaining while doing it. This was something very different: it had a sullen, raw, angry quality that wasn't there before, and it was truly uncomfortable to look at. What has happened to these guys?

You might consider posting this request in the "Marketplace → Wanted" subforum, as it will get more attention there.

I've noticed this too, and frankly, it wouldn't surprise me a bit. I certainly hope it doesn't continue.

Thank you! I've got a few other projects in the queue first—specifically my new Aquarius website, which I'm working on now and hope to have finished soon—but I'll keep everyone posted!

Welcome to AtariAge, and thank you very much for your purchase! I hope you enjoy using your new modules. The "1541 OS ROM" was a bonus addition to the Aquaricart collection. It is a version of BASIC with added extensions for a Commodore 1541 disk drive interface; the interface was a cartridge with the disk controller and BASIC built in. As I recall, the interface was a prototype, and of course the disk-related commands will not function in the absence of the controller. I included it with the Aquaricart because it added other useful features—a debugger, commands to fill the screen with color, etc.—which BASIC programmers might find useful. As EdgeOfPortal points out, the "micro expander" is a hobbyist peripheral which includes a USB interface for using flash media; there is an integrated controller chip in the expander which handles the filesystem and the USB protocol. Bruce Abbott developed it a few years ago, and others have been making and selling boards based on his design as a DIY kit on eBay—however, I believe these include only the board, without any other parts or assembly. I have a few ideas of my own for a new storage solution, or at least a way to easily transfer files to/from a modern PC, but like many of my personal projects, this idea has had to wait on the back burner for a long time. I hope to finally change that this summer ...

Thank you! I've moved this to the Flashback subforum. I've also changed the title to be more descriptive of the topic.

I must reluctantly agree. When this thread was relaunched with additional rules of conduct from me, it was done as a good-faith effort to provide what certain people here claimed at the time to want: a place for open and unbiased Amico discussions and information. I even pinned this thread as a way to reinforce the point that such discussions were welcome here. Unfortunately, this thread has instead continued to be a source of passive-aggressive negativity, with ties to the people on YouTube and Twitter and elsewhere who have directed so much hostility recently toward AtariAge, toward Tommy Tallarico and Intellivision Entertainment, and even toward me directly. Some of the regular participants here have abused our goodwill by continuing to use this thread as a way to rain on the Amico parade with their subtle digs and indirect insults; a few of the posts in the last few pages are a case in point, for those who have been following this behavior long enough to recognize the pattern. My efforts to make comment on this behavior and to ask for it to stop have been ignored, and even ridiculed in other venues. This is very disappointing, and it is certainly not the kind of activity that should be sanctioned here on AtariAge. Because this thread can no longer accomplish anything positive, the time has come to close it. As I've said before (see here and here), if anyone is unhappy about this, you should blame the people whose bad behavior has created this situation. We are currently working on an alternative which will provide a better source of higher-quality information about the Amico and its library of games; more details will be posted soon.

I wish I could bet money that it was one of the same losers who have been creating so many headaches for us over here. Every time I think I've seen the lowest they can go, they always find a way to prove me wrong. I guess they truly have nothing better to do with their miserable lives.

... or, even funnier (at least for those of us who remember Dot-Com 1.0), Atari Beenz. Or maybe Atari Flooz. (Hey, they seem to be all about bringing back defunct brands, so why not?)

Thank you for posting the link to the earlier thread, schuwalker! I'm salivating all over again at the sight of that Lock 'n' Chase prototype box. (However, I'm quite embarrassed that the "upcoming" projects I mentioned there eight years ago, such as my Aquarius website and homebrew games, are only now coming to fruition. Making a career change in one's late thirties has a way of putting hobby projects on the back burner for a few years! At least I'm finally getting back to them.) The Intellivision version does not closely resemble that screenshot. If I had to guess, I'd say that it is a modified Atari 2600 screenshot, with different colors. The maze layout matches the 2600 version, as do the policemen and Lupin sprites. The Aquarius cannot actually produce the particular shade of brown shown in the screenshot (the closest color it has to "brown" looks more like a burnt orange), so it cannot have been a screenshot taken from a real Aquarius prototype. Several of the games shown in the ad must not have been far enough along yet for pictures; the Melody Chase screenshot looks very different from the final version.

I wonder the same thing. You'd think that most people would be enthusiastic about the idea. Even if they believe it's hopeless, you'd think they'd simply refrain from buying it, let the marketplace do its job, and see it fail on its own. But for whatever reason, there are some who seem to be so troubled by the very idea of the Amico that they're rooting for it to fail, have already decided how and why it's going to fail, and have taken to trolling, here and elsewhere, to remind us every day. All these deranged reactions remind me a lot of the ugly reactions years ago to Brenda Laurel, a video game designer and researcher who founded a startup in the 90s called Purple Moon. Its mission was to produce software specifically for girls; like the Amico, it was as positive and as well-intentioned a venture as you could imagine, and exactly the kind of innovation that everyone in the industry claimed to want. But, when she actually did it, she came under all kinds of criticism: that it was sexist, that it was exclusionary, that it perpetuated gender stereotypes, that it was just a marketing scam, etc. Unsurprisingly, most of the people who ganged up on her had a vested interest in the status quo and felt threatened by what she was doing, though they would never admit it. I first learned about the incident from Chris Crawford, and his remarks about her critics can be applied to the critics of the Amico as well: (Simply replace "Brenda Laurel", "girls", and "Purple Moon" with "Tommy Tallarico", "families", and "Intellivision Entertainment", respectively. I think the observation fits perfectly.)

I'm glad it helped! And I haven't forgotten about "Volume II"; I've been thinking about it some more lately, but I need to get school out of the way first.

In case it's helpful, I write a short tutorial some years ago on loading data to the Aquarius through a PC sound card. See here.

That would be a question for @Albert. So far, I think the Amico discussions have benefited from being in the Intellivision subforum, simply because of the significant overlap between the two user communities. But as we get closer to the release date, and as the marketing begins to address a wider audience, I expect that the two will diverge. I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of a dedicated subforum, and I'll happily help to migrate the Amico-related threads. But again, it's Albert's decision.

Okay, that's fair enough. The pictures were posted after I suggested that everyone shouldn't; those are easy enough to hide. But I'm not going to work through every item on somebody's grudge list; the people you mention aren't innocent victims and weren't kicked out of these threads for no reason.

For whatever it's worth, I've said much the same thing—not always about the CUPodcast specifically, but about YouTube drama in general:

People make all kinds of pronouncements about what they claim to want, without ever thinking through what it would actually look like in the real world. Do you say you want a place where you're free to express your opinions (within the rules, of course), outside of the Q&A format of the other thread? Well, you already have it, because that's what you're doing now, isn't it? Nobody has deleted or censored anyone's posts unless they violate the community guidelines—which everyone has already agreed to abide by—and nobody is going to. Do you say that you want to express your opinions "without reprisal"? Well, how would that actually work? We'd have to set up the thread so that some people can read it and respond to it while Tommy cannot—which, as I said before, would be the kind of blatantly unfair exception that we've never made before for anyone else. Even that wouldn't solve the "problem," though, because other Amico enthusiasts could always respond and say the same thing that Tommy would have said, so you'd have to block them as well. In practice, you'd end up blocking anyone whose opinion differs from yours. You might respond by saying, "oh, no, we'd only want to block people who are too defensive or insistent about it", but I can say with certainty that some of you wouldn't be happy even with that. We often get moderator reports from certain people here whenever someone writes a post which offers rebuttals or counterarguments against something they've said, even though no rules were broken in the process. Those people are not reporting those posts because any violation of the rules took place (which is what the moderator reports are supposed to be for); they simply don't like that someone dared to cross them or prove them wrong. You might also respond by asking, "but why can't Tommy at least show us the courtesy of not being so dominating in his responses?" Unfortunately, the people on the "anti-Amico side" have done nothing to earn that kind of courtesy. Their collective behavior—both here and elsewhere—has been so childish and immature, so atrociously awful, that they've not only invited, but demanded the kinds of responses that they're now whining and complaining about. It would have been great if everyone could have remained entirely factual and dispassionate about everything, so that Tommy didn't have to do anything but occasionally offer pinpoint corrections, but certain "critics" have since made that impossible. As I said before, if anyone is unhappy about this contentious situation, those "critics" are the ones you need to blame, because they're the ones who are responsible for creating it. I can't help but wonder what those people really want: do they merely want the freedom to express their opinions, as they claim, or do they want the freedom to express their opinions AND the guarantee that those opinions will never be challenged or questioned? I'm sorry I have to be the one to say it, but that's not how free speech works, or has ever worked. Nobody ever promised any of us that we would be free to say whatever we want without reprisal, just as nobody ever promised us that we would be guaranteed an audience. That would be completely contrary to the spirit of a free, voluntary exchange of ideas, and of discussion forums like this one. Nevertheless, I honestly have the impression that this is what they actually want. They may insist that they're simply miffed by the way in which Tommy said something, or that he's being too "unprofessional" or "bullying" in his responses, yet they'll tolerate—and give "likes" to—equally "unprofessional" or "bullying" remarks from others that they happen to agree with. (Besides, if anything that Tommy has said here really triggers you that badly, then the Internet must be an unbearable hellstew of horrors for you, because you'll find much worse just about anywhere else.) If there is anyone who simply can't stand to see what someone else has to say, the forum offers controls for that: they have the ability to ignore a given member's posts, and they can even ignore entire threads if they choose. If that isn't enough for them, they're also free to start their own discussion forum where they can say all day long that "Tommy is a big old meaniehead" to their heart's content, and where they have the power to ban anyone who dares to disagree. I hope they have fun.

That sounds like the same troll who's been leaving similar comments on other videos that have dared to be positive, or even neutral or open-minded, about the Amico. There have been others disparaging AtariAge specifically, and some have even mentioned me, which is flattering. By merely copying and pasting that comment into your post, you've already given it more time and attention than it deserves. Anyone who would put this much effort into trolling over a video game console—particularly one that they have no intention of buying anyway and have never even seen in person—is a barren, miserable, worthless piece of garbage. Their opinion should have no significance whatsoever, to you or to anyone else. Just kick them to the curb like they deserve, and remain focused on the positive.

There's an inherent tension in the idea of an "independent" discussion thread like this one. In principle, there's nothing wrong with having a place to discuss the Amico other than Tommy's official Q&A thread—which, as its name indicates, is intended specifically for addressing questions to him. But at the same time, we can't have a thread which says, in effect, "You're allowed to say anything you want here about Tommy and/or the Amico, but Tommy isn't allowed to come here and say anything in response, even in self-defense." Nobody else on the forums is treated that way, because it would be blatantly unfair and contrary to the spirit of a discussion forum. What I tried to do in the beginning was to bracket the discussion in a way which strikes a balance between Tommy's right to address his critics and the critics' right to speak their opinions; that is why the rules were written in the way that they were. One of the problems we've had since is that certain of those critics have, to put it politely, acted in bad faith: they continue to read these threads every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, cherry-picking comments and blowing them out of proportion and posting disparaging messages in other venues about Tommy, about AtariAge, and even about me specifically. All this over a video game console! It is one thing to have doubts about the Amico's viability as a business venture, to be uninterested in the games, or to disagree about some design decision or other; those opinions can be (and have been!) discussed here dispassionately and objectively. But the deranged behavior of these "critics" is something else entirely, and it doesn't even have very much to do with the Amico anymore; they're simply stewing in their own juices, nursing a grudge against Tommy, and they won't let it go. Unfortunately, even some of the regulars here have at times used this thread to play petty games of "gotcha," trying to nail Tommy over "contradictions" about persnickety or irrelevant details, or hounding him with the kinds of questions that he may not be in a position to be able to answer, and that he isn't even under any obligation to answer. All of this has effectively made it impossible to maintain that balance, so if anyone is unhappy or dissatisfied with the way the conversation has unfolded, these are the people you need to blame. The freedom to speak one's opinion is not the freedom from having that opinion challenged, or called out for being stupid; this is the nature of the free exchange of ideas. Too many of these "critics" wouldn't understand that and refused to act like grownups, and consequently had to be shown the door—their fault, not mine, no matter how loudly they might try to play the innocent victim—and they share part of the blame, too. One might wonder, "Why doesn't Tommy just ignore it?" or "Why does he have to be so mean?" I can't speak for him, but like any of you, I can try to put myself in his shoes. What would you do if you were launching a business venture and going out of your way to engage with the user community, only to have some obsessed lunatic—who's probably just butthurt over something or other that you said to them once on a discussion forum—go completely crazy, spreading lies and disinformation, threatening to frame the narrative about you and about your venture before you've even had the chance to spend your first marketing dollar? I know I'd want to respond, and not always in the most genteel ways, and it wouldn't be wrong or inappropriate for me to do so. At this point, I have to wonder why these "critics" can't just drop it and find something better to do.

Even though it's an early prototype, it's clear that those connectors are not loose parts taped to a slab of cardboard. Impressive!

Enough.

I granted edit permission to your post, so you should now go be able to go back and change it.

It occurs to me that I should move this to the Intellivision/Aquarius subforum, which (if I remember correctly) was devoted only to the Intellivison at the time this thread was created!

Congratulations on your acquisition! As I mentioned in my first post in this thread (almost ten years in the past now!), I've had some fun tinkering with the Aquarius myself. The project thread that I linked to has since culminated in the Aquaricart, which I'm still offering. I know exactly what you mean about aging belts. I had the same problem with one of my Data Recorder drives; it worked fine, but the counter belt had broken, and the pieces had dissolved into a sticky slurry of the nastiest rubber I'd ever seen (they must have used cheap belts for that part of the assembly). I have yet to find a suitable replacement, but it's good to know that they're available!