jaybird3rd
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Status Updates posted by jaybird3rd
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I just got done hosting a retro game party for our university's new Computer Science Club! The systems (all from my collection) were: 2600 and 5200, Intellivision, Odyssey2, Jaguar, NES (a RetroUSB AVS, actually), SMS, and LOTS of original games and peripherals. I think everybody had fun, but it was exhausting hauling in all that stuff and packing it up afterward!
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Once again, the biggest hit of the night was four-player Castle Crisis on the 5200. Many thanks to @Bryan for such an excellent game!
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I finally had the chance today to try RGB output from my Atari Jaguar with the Framemeister HDMI upscaler. I'm very pleased at how good it looks! I'm planning to make it part of a "retro gaming party" that I'm hosting at my university on Friday. I'm curious to see what today's college kids think of the Jaguar (and the other classic systems I'm bringing)!
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However, I'm disappointed at how bad composite video looks through the native inputs of modern TVs. I've upgraded my older systems (like the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200) to composite output, and I'd like them to be seen in the best possible light, so I think I'll bring some CRTs for them. Even if I had enough HDMI upscalers, I'm not sure how much of an improvement it would be; composite output is about as good as it gets with these systems.
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34 years ago today, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff. I saw it on TV on the day it happened. I was 9 years old.
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@Kobra Kai the remains were at the bottom of the ocean, and the salvage operation took 12 weeks, 25 ships, 2000 servicemen, 10 million dollars. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/20/us/all-shuttle-crew-remains-recovered-nasa-says.html
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@Flojomojo Wow. I was always a NASA and astronomy buff, and somehow I never heard that story of the recovery of the remains. Obviously not going to be printed in the old science magazines I got as a kid. And of course, back then, no Internet, etc...
However I remember many months of coverage about fault, O-Rings and what not, and waiting until the next shuttle would launch again.
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The worst superhero ever is back in the news: it's "Florida Man"! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7909461
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"The developers will be instructed to give us video games that are bug free." — Mike Kennedy, September 20, 2015
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@CPUWIZ I just saw an ad for Rocko's Modern Life for the SNES on an old tape I had!
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Happy Birthday, Albert!
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I just got some 5200 games from Venezuela. Not only did someone (presumably an inspector) completely trash the boxes while slashing them open, but they even opened one of the cartridges! (The screw is missing, the back is cracked, and the bottom and side are marred with pry marks.)
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There's nothing more frustrating than students who blatantly CHEAT, especially after the instructor (me) goes out of his way to be available to answer questions, in and out of class, even answering e-mails late at night.
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^ That's pretty much the attitude. I hear it all the time, especially at the end of the semester: after getting an (already generous) grade of, say, 77% on an assignment, the student will write me back and say "You know, that's pretty close to a 'B.' If I get a 'C,' it might hurt my scholarship, so I'd really like to get a 'B' for this, please."
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This is pretty neat! A transcription of the original Boulder Dash theme, playable in a browser:
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Happy 40th Anniversary to "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," released in the US on December 7th, 1979.
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I kid, I kid, though I fell asleep to that in the theater about age 11...Lately, my friend showed me a few scenes and without having to watch the whole thing, it sure seemed a lot better than I remember it. I thought 2001 was Awesome after seeing some scenes with him too, and then seeing it again much later in life.
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Happy Thanksgiving! (And if you're not in the US, Happy Thanksgiving anyway, because you can be thankful any time.)
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Today is the 35th anniversary of "The Terminator," which debuted in the USA on Friday, October 26, 1984.
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I think it's the best of the series because it's the most efficient movie that James Cameron ever made. The story is simple and told in a very straightforward way, and I love the look of the visual effects, which use every low-budget, old-fashioned trick in the book: stop-motion, forced perspective, rear projection, etc. (I also think that Arnold was better as the antagonist, which is one of the issues I have with T2.)
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RIP Diahann Carroll. With her passing, all of the featured performers in "The Star Wars Holiday Special" (besides the core "Star Wars" cast) are dead.
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So apparently that whole overhyped Area 51 thing turned out to be a bust. Big surprise. https://time.com/5683230/area-51-basecamp-canceled/
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Here's a random question: do you think that Realm of Impossibility on the Atari 800 would have worked with a four-player (simultaneous) mode, or would that have been too hectic/crowded?
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I finally got around to testing an old TV that has been hanging around at school for years: a Sony Trinitron KV-1201. There's no date code, but this particular model seems to be from the early 1970s. It hasn't been used in ~15 years and was badly out of adjustment, but with a few tweaks to its many dials, it worked just fine with my 2600! The picture looks really good, too, even through the crappy switchbox I had to use.
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^ I'm very impressed at how well this TV still works, and I'd love to know what I need to do to keep it that way. I'm sure it could use fresh capacitors, but I hear that this can strain the other components, and the thought of working inside a CRT (especially one this old) with those high voltages is a bit intimidating.
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With all the comics that are being mined for movie material, I'm surprised that nobody has adapted the SwordQuest comic series yet. If SwordQuest were to be made into a movie or a miniseries, we might even get some new games out of it, which would be great; the original Atari games could actually use a remake.
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Happy anniversary to me! Sixteen(!) years on AtariAge.
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Too much farting in the status updates today!!! Cut it out or I'll light a match.
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What a relief! Summer classes are finally over for me. Time to catch up with some long-deferred projects ...
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Glad to be posting status updates again! Another piece of the puzzle, back in its proper place.
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I mentioned a few prominent movie anniversaries recently, so here's another: "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", which premiered 35 years ago this Saturday, on June 1, 1984. A good, solid, underappreciated Trek movie.
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It's ten minutes after noon where I am, and I'm about ready for some LNUCH!
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There's nothing more frustrating than students who blatantly CHEAT, especially after the instructor (me) goes out of his way to be available to answer questions, in and out of class, even answering e-mails late at night. 
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