Nebulon

Definitely lots of good points mentioned in this thread. Some food for thought... Yes, it's true that interest rates started to drop in 1983 and 1984. However, they were still relatively high and didn't get into somewhat reasonable territory until 1985. There's always a delayed effect due to people (and corporations) using their cash reserves to sustain themselves. Once that dries up, suddenly the real story becomes apparent. So you have people saying that there was a crash in 1982 (with consumers noticing the effects in 1984) and a mortgage rate crisis in 1980 and 1981 with consumer spending being strangled in 1984. I clearly remember this when it happened. Plenty of arcades closing down and retailers dumping cartridges in favor or diskette software. Inflation was mentioned in the discussion and that's certainly another important factor. North America was home of some of the biggest video game giants in the industry at the time. And that's where these economic shocks were felt the most. It was effectively a localized 'crash'. With a very difference economic situation in the 1980s, it's no surprise that Japan picked up the slack. The Japanese video game market was going strong throughout the 80s and the lull in North America was their strategic moment to move in on that market. It was only a matter of time before disposable income in North America came back on line and getting the timing right was a gamble that paid off (especially for Nintendo). As for low-quality games. I agree somewhat. But after collecting all these years (and recalling the early days of the first Playstation), I can see that there were tons of low-quality games on the market. That didn't seem to put a dent into the NES or the Playstation. People just kept on buying. And if there ever was a lull with the NES, I'm convinced it had more to do with what affected the Atari 2600. That is, the hardware was getting long-in-the-tooth. Other systems were hitting the market with more advanced graphics and sound. A platform only has so much longevity and eventually the bulk of the game-playing consumers will be lured away. Regarding media portrayal of games, I do recall the chatter amongst parents. There certainly were cases here in which parents started to shift toward setting their children up with a home computer instead of a console. Many considered computers to be the more 'respectable' option at the time. As mentioned already, the 2600 E.T. game is easy to blame. Media likes quick and sensational sound bites. But as Keatah stated, "There were many reasons."

Woohoo! This takes me back: https://youtu.be/CPBE6rNh8QA?t=281 If anyone else finds video of retro games that they think are cool, feel free to post links here.

Actually, Windows 98se supports more RAM than ME. You can run up to just a hair under 1GB or RAM in 98 (a mo-bo with shared video RAM will allow this to work neatly). ME was dumbed down (likely to make NT look more attractive). I recall all of this vividly since I was a Windows reseller from version 2.1 through XP and have a great memory of the 98, ME, and NT days (some of it I'd like to forget, but I can't).

I know this has been done to death, but I have to set the record straight. Numerous documentaries and books (even L. Herman's Phoenix) state that the video game crash of the early 80s was caused by too many games on the market. This is false. The second thing to address is the year of the crash. Some are quoting it as 1982. From the perspective of the consumer, this is also false. Perhaps some developers began to suspect the bubble was about to burst at the time. The truth is that the general consumer public didn't feel the effects of the crash until 1984. Reasons for the crash: Primary: Home consoles and arcades were slandered by the media. The focus shifted to computers. Video gaming never stopped. Instead of playing at the arcade or on a console, the majority of gamers played on their home or school computer systems. Secondary: The economic recession and rapidly rising interest rates. People were paying over and above 18% on their mortgages in the early to mid-80s. Consider how this and the energy crisis affected the amount of real disposable income (not to mention investor income). If you were going to spend money at that time, it was no longer enough to purchase an item purely for entertainment. Instead, it needed to serve more than one purpose. I.e. integrate home and office (generate income), educate (build a future), and finally -- entertain. Enter the rise of the home computer. Once the economy recovered and interest rates dropped, people could again begin to look at consoles. Hence the rise of the NES, Genesis, etc.... http://www.fedprimerate.com/wall_street_journal_prime_rate_history.htm

Cool machines (and great case designs too). I'm a big ColecoVision fan and MSX is definitely my idea of the evolution of that platform.

Well, I decided to try one of the cheap-o knock-offs. And you guys n' gals are correct -- the signal quality is crap. So your best bet is to stick to the original M$ video cables.

Well, you know -- it is sort of the Dreamcast 2. Similar controller layout (with the addition of a second analog stick), dual ports on the back of the controller, four ports across the front, Ethernet built in, SEGA signed on as software developer from the start, original intention of being backward compatible with the Dreamcast, and even the head of SEGA USA going over to work for M$ just prior to the launch of the classic XBOX.

I suppose I should ask though.... Where can you find the MAME debugger?

A buddy of mine is a crack 6809 machine language programmer. That's not going to help much for Z80 though. Oh well, it's just a matter of time before someone bored enough (or nostalgic enough) jumps in and tackles this one.

Hmmm.... This is interesting (even includes comments): http://tech.quarterarcade.com/tech/MAME/src/mrdo.c.html.aspx?g=1827 Not a lot of info in there though. Mostly stuff we already know. Was kind of hoping for the actual listing.

I think you're suspicions are correct -- especially from the 'D' shape on the first level and the unusually distorted shapes of the numbers for some of the levels.

In my case, it's a combination of multiple skill levels (although some arcade machines have that too), muscle memory for the controls on the console, the steering wheel for Turbo, and that the ColecoVision games are a bit different than the arcade versions (kind of like playing a remix of a game).

That's really cool. Which phones did this run on? Is there a YouTube video of it out there?

That and the music in the ColecoVision version is based on the arcade prototype instead of the final arcade release with the clown.

Any Z80 programmers out there looking for a pet project? If so, you could make the world a better place by adding more levels to the arcade version of Mr. Do. You know how levels 2 through 9 each have a path/tunnel shaped like a number? What if there were additional levels that had paths shaped like letters (A through Z). Otherwise, exactly the same game. No additional features -- just more mazes. The existing game logic should do the rest on its own. Anyway, food for thought for anyone out there looking for something interesting to hack away at. I'd do it myself, but I'm completely ignorant of Z80 machine language programming.

Probably the Intellivision. The InTV Flashback is actually pretty good as Flashback units go, so that would make a decent substitute for me. I think I'm not to picky about that since I didn't have an Intellivision back in the day.

C64 for sure.

Dreamcast

Agreed. Decent arcade ports is why I got a ColecoVision in the first place. That was its major selling point.

That's a really good response. To those who haven't seen it, it's worth checking out Stardust on the STe. The in-game and title menu music is pretty much identical to the Amiga. And yeah, I second the issue of the Amiga's two channels to the left and two to the right. I recall doing a cross-wired four-speaker arrangement to try to alleviate that.

Some of you already know about this (since I spotted a reference to the "Plato cartridge" in the forum). However, I had no idea this stuff even existed until today. Things like the game Empire from 1973, the Plato system from 1972 (and its use of a touch screen as well as on-line multiplayer gaming). Empire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(PLATO) Which puts me in mind of this later game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles The Plato computer systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)

I'm pretty sure the first and third videos also make use of the STe's two digital sample channels. As for synthy Amiga music, here's something from an Amiga 500 (albeit with a bit of reverb added): http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/otherworld/MP3/JS_Bach%20-%20Brandenburg4%20(Amiga).mp3

I'm sorry guys. I'm just grumpy today. I can safely say that I've yet to harm a PLCC socket. And yes, I totally second eightbit on the PLCC extractor thing. If anyone wants to work on these sockets, those pullers will save you a ton of headaches (and they're not very expensive).

Just put tape over the metal contact on the PLCC socket that corresponds to the 50/60Hz switch pin on the blitter. Then it'll be permanently switched to PAL until you do a software switch back to NTSC. I'm tired of people hacking up their mo-bos when they don't have to.

No trace-cutting required for PAL mode when using an 8372A on a rev 6A motherboard (same for swapping an 8370 for an 8371 on that board).