Nebulon

My goodness. I'm guessing you've see color vector coin-ops in-person since? If not, you owe it to yourself to get an up-close look at an operational Major Havoc, Star Wars, Space Duel, or Gravitar cabinet.

The first was probably the 80287 co-processor. It was really nervous installing that thing. It made a huge difference though. Well worth it. Other notables were: Adding RAM to a Color Computer 3 to bring it to 512K. Adding Genoa's top-of-the-line EGA card (this was the easiest of the three upgrades, by far). Oooh. All 16 colors. Not very impressive, but certainly better than CGA.

The first VGA cards were really slow. Plenty of colors, but slow. Even in the early to mid-90s, the PC just couldn't seem to scroll smoothly horizontally or vertically... especially vertically. As for the C64 vs A8 debate. I've seen great things on both machines. Regardless, I'm still astounded by how amazing Space Harrier looks and plays on a stock Atari 800XL hooked up to a 1084 monitor. Absolutely remarkable. Sound is great on both machines. However, I tend to favor the SID chip (it's got crazy bass) Something to keep in mind with the Atari 8-bit machines is that it's just the same technology (with very minor tweaks) re-packaged again and again. In reality, they're all pretty much the same as the 800 from 1979. And that's a mighty significant technological lead for a computing platform of that era (as opposed to today where it seems like little has changed in the last 10 years).

After selling and doing tech work on PCs for ages (and really hating them), I had to admit they were finally good when the Pentium Pro showed up. Between that and the DEC Alpha, that was the moment in history where I was really impressed by the ratio of processing speed to price. And there's documentation out there to suggest that the Pentium Pro and Pentium II/III are related to the DEC Alpha. But that's another story.... https://www.wired.com/1997/10/intel-dec-settle-alpha-chip-dispute/ https://www.hpcwire.com/1997/05/16/dec-sues-intel-alleges-architecture-patent-infringement/ https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1998/0323/6106042a.html#7b7a441ae07d https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/business/suit-by-digital-says-intel-stole-pentium-design.html https://money.cnn.com/1997/10/27/deals/settle/

Nice. Looks like the kind of interface that could give you the status report on the Nostromo's systems. However, any data concerning Xenomorphs would be strictly classified. A buddy of mine had an old terminal monitor. You could hook it up to pretty much anything and just start typing. Hollywood movies used to use them for simulating interactive texting between human and an A.I.s.

Actually, for twitch games, 100ms is really bad. This same issue comes up for digital audio workstations. Even a 20 ms delay on those will drive musicians batty. Again, latency mainly impacts the older style of games like Pac-Man, Demon Attack, etc... (as well as top-down shooters, and the like). And of course, those happen to be my favorite kinds of games.

Addressing a few tidbits here and there from various posts: 1) Both lead designers of the Atari 800 worked on the Amiga (Jay Miner and Joe Decuir). 2) Amiga 1000 software runs on the Amiga 500, so that's two years worth of software already built-up for the A500. 3) There are things the Amiga audio chip can do that a lot of people don't realize. We already know it can be split to 8-channels in software, but there's more stuff than just that (much of it in hardware). Links and info: Audio: Define waveform (digital oscillator as sine, triangle, square, or custom), append one waveform with another, sum the four digital oscillator waveforms together or play them separately, modulate one with another, use as four independent audio state machines with its own DMA. This is all happening in hardware and there are special commands provided for this. Plus, the recording quality is very good for an 8-bit sampler and approaches the quality of a 12 or 14-bit sampler when coupled with a 68030. https://archive.org/stream/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_a/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_a_djvu.txt Example of Amiga audio chip approximating an analog synth using defined wave shapes (essentially a DCO-generator): https://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/otherworld/MP3/JS_Bach%20-%20Brandenburg4%20(Amiga).mp3 I understand that the IIGS has a great DCO implementation. However, I'm not sure how it compares in both quality and handling of sampled audio.

Graphics - Amiga Speed - Atari ST and later the PC (towards the end of the 80s) Sound - Amiga Gaming Library - Amiga Business Library - PC Cosmetic Design - Atari ST Expandability - PC Price - Atari ST

https://archive.org/download/tosec-20161111-commodore-amiga

In may case, I'd have to vote for Amiga OS 2.06 and up. I can't really think of another OS that performs at its level prior to Windows 95 (other than perhaps IRIX). Heck, there's things that an A4000/040 running AmigaOS 3 or 3.1 can do that even Win95 has trouble doing. Having said that, MultiTOS looks pretty nice running on the Falcon. However, since I've never had the opportunity to put it through its paces, I can't really say which OS is better. If a buddy of mine hadn't sold his Falcon, I'd be able to try it out.

The Atari 800 and 800XL. I knew they were good, but I didn't previously realize just how many awesomely fun games there are for those machines.

Wanted the Atari 800 when it first hit the shelves (but had to settle for a CoCo 2 -- which turned out okay though). Still not my first choice, since I was heavily into graphics. Then the ST and Amiga arrived on the scene. Almost got the ST, but waited for the Amiga 500 since I needed as many colors as I could get my hands on. On a related note, here's a 45-minute edit of Joe Decuir and Ron Nicholson's presentation of the Atari 8-bit and Amiga tech history:

Hmmm.... Hearing mixed reviews about these. Apparently Gauntlet is 2-player, a bit laggy, and stalls out at level 31.

Wow. You're not kidding! https://www.walmart.com/search/?cat_id=2636_1101552_4530062&query=arcade%2B1up&typeahead=arcade%2B1&u1=05a7ZSUK3m4iCBsGPuM4ZVc&oid=623515.1&wmlspartner=50DJ9wK/dbY&sourceid=24200573670021129925&affillinktype=10&veh=aff#searchProductResult Figured I'd add that if I were to get one of these, it would be Centipede (includes Missile Command, Millipede, and Crystal Castles): https://www.walmart.com/ip/Arcade1Up-Centipede-Machine-4ft/617089098 And then I saw this... https://www.walmart.com/ip/Arcade1Up-Asteroids-Machine-4ft/828150107 Major Havoc and Tempest. Woot!

Wow. What a great comment! If I could beam what I saw from 1980 through 1984 into your brain, I would. Hollywood's tried to present some of it, but they keep falling short of the mark (which is weird, since they usually make things larger than life). I find that constraints can make things a lot more fun in certain cases. I know for music that quite a few people just pick out two or three instruments and just spend a day working with only those. They tend to get more stuff done that way. I've yet to take that approach to retro-gaming or old computers, but I can't see why that wouldn't work. So maybe that's an idea. I suppose a person could select one 8-bit machine and make it a goal to learn how it works at the hardware level and then try to learn to program that hardware. Hints: Pick a platform that has existing examples of games that you find interesting, don't expect instant results (this stuff is difficult for sure), and just pick away at it a bit at a time (kind of like the idea of practicing guitar 15 minutes a day).

Bioshock 2 fixed a few things here and there: A few strategic voice-actor changes, improvement on the audio FX and mix, some refinements to the graphics, and -- IMHO -- a better and more cinematic ending than the first installment. And yes, I'm glad someone mentioned text games like the Zork series. There were some great story-telling games back in the day. In fact, I recall a few text adventures that really worked on me (despite their extremely simple graphics). It may not be the NES, but it's related; I actually got into the game Brainlord on the SNES a few years ago. And I actually kind of enjoyed MS Saga on the PS2 (up until a boss fight that was so tough that I gave up after about 50 attempts). Then there's Starship Titanic. Missed out on that one the first time... might actually go back and give it a try.

Which leads to the idea of more options. It's generally better to have more audio options (for example) than less.

As a rule, cut scenes should always be skippable and then made available in an index for playback on demand. Only one modern game ever told a story effectively for me and that was Bioshock 2.

That puts me in mind of this: http://www.mtv.com/news/1505892/hardcore-grandma-proves-old-age-doesnt-mean-game-over/

Neither of my parents were at all into video games. However, when my dad was in his late 70s, he actually started to like a few of them (Missile Command [Atari 800XL] and Time Pilot [Vector Pilot] in particular). And my mom actually tried playing a game once -- about a year ago. It was strange seeing a classic 50s mom swear at the ghosts when they caught Ms. Pac-Man. She didn't play any more games after that because she said it, "made her too angry." It really says something when simple pixelated characters can create such an emotional reaction in people across generations.

Of course, that depends on whether or not 'immersive' (often repetitive and laborious) adventure games are your thing. Personally, I'd take Frenzy on the ColecoVision over anything I've played on the NES (and I've play a crap-ton of NES games). As for the idea of people generically referring to anything video game related as a "Nintendo".... Consider that the same thing happened for decades with people referring to anything video game related as an "Atari".

Q*Bert and Gyruss were both better on the ColecoVision than on the NES. However, I have to hand it to the NES for its version of Donkey Kong Jr. Pretty impressive!

Probably stuff with control interfaces that you can't get on home systems or emulators. Games like Paperboy, Star Wars (vector), Super Hang-On, Subroc 3D, Battlezone, 4-player Eliminator, Spy Hunter, Discs of TRON, etc....

Color vectors! With the explosion in Defender a close second.

It was unimpressive (the tape drive and the permanently-attached printer didn't help). Unfortunate role-reversal since the ColecoVision console was at the top when that console was launched.