Nebulon

Has anyone managed to successfully get an external 5.25" diskette drive working on an Amiga? (I'm hooking it up to a 4000 running WB/AmigaDOS 3). In particular, I'm wondering about DIP switch settings on the drive and any stuff that should go into the startup sequence or user startup scripts. Thanks in advance!

Isn't there a utility out there that pulls the contents of a site and retains the folder structure? I seem to recall someone mentioning something that did that at one time...

If you upgrade the Amiga 500 or 2000 blitter from 512K to 1MB, it automatically runs both regions' software (as long as you have a 1084 monitor). You'll need a free utility to tell it to switch between NTSC and PAL. As for the Amiga 1200 and 4000, you can access the same mode switching by holding down both mouse buttons while booting. The 1942 monitor handles both modes for these machines.

Thinking back to issues of Electronic Games and Electronic Fun I recall a number of proposed (and cancelled) ColecoVision expansion modules (including the Super Game Module and the laserdisc module). I think in both cases, it cost them a lot of money to prototype these projects and that it likely left an impression in the heads of the execs that ColecoVision R&D was expensive. In truth though, it could have been a lot easier for them if they just kept working with the CV as it was originally configured and concentrated on larger cartridge ROMS as prices fell for the components. They could have made a longer run of it. As for Adam, they really should have known that Z80-based home computers had already had their chance and started to be phased out even before the Adam was developed. It's strange that they'd pick that as a platform to offer the computer market for that year. I guess that's what happens when people react too impulsively to market trends without taking a careful look at emerging technologies and their closest competitors. I should also add that they seemed to feel that the Adam would take the place of the ColecoVision (e.g. including the cartridge slot and controllers). So perhaps they cancelled the ColecoVision soon after the Adam shipped (not realizing that the Adam would turn out to have poor sales). Then the axe fell again, leaving us without the CV or the Adam as available products.

Actually, one cute geek girl is worth at least three mainstream 'hot' girls, IMHO.

7800 is the best I've seen so far. The Lynx version is actually pretty good too. Thankfully, there's a working (and properly maintained) Joust arcade machine at a restaurant in the city I'm in.

Joust - NES Double Dragon II - Amiga Oids - Atari ST

Wow. Took the words right out of my mouth. You hard-core Intellivision people might be surprised at how many people come to this domain initially looking for Atari stuff and end up reading your Intellivision posts. Many of the people here find most of all of the retro platforms to be fascinating.

The 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 80486 (and I would argue the Pentium 1 series) are not RISC chips. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13071221/is-x86-risc-or-cisc I sold, spec'd, and thoroughly researched those machines during their heyday. To this day, I still have stacks of magazine articles, spec sheets, and other documentaiton on them. Everything changed with the Pentium Pro architecture (I have a suspicion of where that technology came from, but that's a different topic) and the introduction of the Pentium 4. So it's important to make a distinction between x86 as it relates to the original Pentium and earlier and x86 as it relates to Pentium Pro and after.

Well, 8-bit 4-channel sampling actually, but I get what you're saying. And you're not kidding when you say "self operating". I've had Amigas crash and the sound keeps on going.

This is manual for a slightly later version: http://www.applefool.com/se30/files/OBManual_1988.pdf And here's a snippet that I found on a forum some time ago: >>In my copy of the 1986 Rev. A Option Board manual, it states that you should set the jumper for DMA 1 for the Tandy 1000 and invoke TC with the /C1 option. Also, Central Point provided their own cable for the 1000--which is nothing more than a 34-pin edge connector-to-34-position female dual-row header. Connect your motherboard to the controller using J3 and hook the drives to J2. It's a little contorted. J4, J5 and J6 should be set identically--the two jumpers occupying the 4 pins toward the bottom of the board (AT/Compaq setting, DMA 1). J3 on the OB is an edge connector and J2 is a dual-row header, Mike. So you connect up the Tandy as if it were an AT-style setup--the drive cable goes to J2, the dual-oow header and the cable included with the OB goes from J3 (edge connector) to the Tandy dual-row header. Note that on a PC XT, it's just the reverse--the drive cable attaches to the edge connector and the included cable goes from the dual-row header to the edge connector on the XT floppy controller. My OB works in my Tandy 1000 SX with DMA set to 1 and using the /C1 option for Transcopy. There is nothing odd about the floppy cable for the Tandy 1000 SX except that the supplied cables are awfully short. I can tell you what is wrong, however. His card is the long TTL card, which does not have the jumpers to set it to DMA1. It won't work until he busts out his soldering iron and X-acto knife. >> Note: Mine is the short one, so it should work fine without any modifications. << If he has the cable supplied with the OB (card edge to pin), then his battle is half-won. He can use a "universal" floppy cable for the rest after he untwists the twist. Does your board have a jumper to set DMA1? If it doesn't, the board will not work. You will need to trace the ISA pin connector B6, cut the trace and solder a wire from it to B18. Ditto for B26 to B17. The cable that comes with an Option board has a 34-connector card edge on one end and a a 34-pin connector on the other end. The pin connector plugs into the floppy port on the motherboard, the edge connector to the card edge on the OB. <<

Yep. I'm thinking that $20.00 is about what it's worth. Sad in a way, because I can see it being quite an ordeal to get something like this from design, through assembly, and then distributed. I managed to test it out more and can confirm that the wand works (well sort of). It definitely picks up movement. However, it seems to be a bit unreliable when it comes to picking up the direction of movement. As it turns out, the tennis game allows for two methods of play. One is to press a button to hit the ball and the other is to move the wand/controller. However, if I try to plant the ball in the far right corner of the court, it does so most of the time (of sometimes just over half the time). So either I have to get my technique down or this thing is a bit oddball in how it detects motion. One thing's for sure, the wii's motion-detection is much more well-refined. Still though, I could see this thing being a good toy for toddlers or children under 7. I think once they hit 8 years old they're going to want something more sophisticated (like a real retro or modern console).

That same logic could be applied to the A8 and the ST. When I get up from noodling around on my 800XL and then power up the Atari STe, I find those two machines to be two totally different experiences too and I certainly don't get the feeling of "Hey, I'm using the successor to the A8 right now!". The ST feels more like a SEGA Genesis with a keyboard to me than it does a next-gen A8 machine. I enjoy messing around on all three machines (A8, ST, and Amiga). Each definitely has its own 'feel'.

Above this text I've isolated a few points and I'll attempt to give you my take on them. The idea of using the term "DNA" to discuss a series of products and the designers that worked on them is simply an analogy. If you believe this to be an inappropriate term, then perhaps visit a faculty of industrial design in your city and sit down and talk with the instructors and students. Point 2: The Amiga was actually an acquisition by Commodore. There's a difference between designing something in-house and acquiring something from an external source and putting your label on it. For this reason, I don't necessarily acknowledge brand alone as the mark of a successor. As for the "warm and fuzzy" comment.... I'm not even sure what to say about this since it's totally irrelevant in my case. I didn't own an Atari or a Commodore computer before owning an Amiga. I owned a PC. So without any bias in either direction, I have no trouble at all seeing the very obvious and fundamental similarities between the A8 and Amiga machines. These aren't superficial similarities -- they're specific and almost to the point of carrying the 'fingerprints' of the designers. Just take a look at the graphics implementation for the two systems. And then there's the "guilt" thing. Again, not sure what exactly this is all about or why it's even relevant. Unless of course you perhaps secretly hate Atari products and the mere thought of a connection between the A8 and Amiga is causing you to lose sleep. Next is this ''if the A500 would have been the launch model (and at the A500 price) then it would have been NO CONTEST. But it wasn't. It took 2 years, a long time in tech." I'm not sure why technology is mentioned here, since the Amiga 1000 and Amiga 500 are the exact same chipset with different packaging. Unless you're suggesting that the Amiga technology was stagnating while sitting in a price range that didn't allow it to move enough units to capture sufficient market share. In which case, I'd have to agree with you. However, it was more than the price-performance ratio that was hurting their sales. "What's a "true" successor?" There is no definition. There never will be." Really? So if I record an album with label A and then a second album with label B, the second album is not the successor to the first one? Would I expect people to say, "Hey, that newer album sure has a similar feel, vocals, instrumentation, and arrangement to this other one, but one can't possibly be the successor to the other because the first is EMI and the second is on the Sony label." And lastly: "Enjoy what you have purchased, whatever it is." From what I've read from on this site and others, I think we can safely say that people did and (in the case of Atariage) are enjoying their purchases.

"and here's a copy of the Running Man home game!"

It might be a temporary thing. I recall talking to a friend's dad as he was working on his car. He said that he liked tinkering with cars and had a lot of different interests. Then he had kids and his focus shifted to them. When the children grew up and moved out, he started getting back into the stuff he was interested in before. In my own case, I get a bit of what you're describing when I feel the urge to travel or study. After seeing some of the world or completing courses, I find that I start to get back into the hobbies that I enjoyed originally.

Okay, I see what you mean. That's what I recall as well. There was that retail gap until the lower-cost Amiga 500 arrived. I remember the Amiga 1000 being a bit too expensive to really establish a big enough user-base to get the number of software developers on-board whereas the ST had people like FTL writing for them from the start.

Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/InterAct-Complete-Wireless-System-Sports/dp/B002YZPFG8 Apparently a bunch of the games that come with it were also bundled with another cheap-o system much like it. Most of the games are half-baked. They're a bit like what you see people make using BASIC or one of those video game construction kit programs. Kind of reminds me of some of the lower-quality cell phone games out there. The tennis game is pretty good, but I have a suspicion that the wand thing isn't really picking up any motion at all. I say this because they have you press a button on the wand to hit the ball. However, whether I press the button with the wand motionless or in motion, I seem to get the same results (i.e. the ball flying away in a random direction). Seems fishy. I have yet to really confirm this though. If in fact the wand controller does work (and mine's just being weird), then the tennis game is actually pretty good. Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see companies trying to make toy-like knock-offs with what amounts to old technology by today's standards.

So I picked up a brand new InterAct Complete Video Game Entertainment System (made in 2010) from a store for $20.00 today. It's cheaply built, and the games look like what you'd see if you hooked a GBA up to a TV (even the sound is similar). By today's standards it's very primitive. It has their own version of wii Tennis as well as rip-offs of Tank, Bubble Bobble, and Galaga. Does anyone have any idea what CPU this thing uses? I've yet to be able to find technical info for it.

How much does the Super Game Module cost?

True. In 1990 the only real blitter available for the PC was the ATI Mach-8 (and maybe the IBM 8514). I spoke to one of the engineers that was working on it back then and he admitted that it was a half-baked solution at the time. They were trying to implement something similar to the Amiga blitter, but not getting very good results (the Mach-8 was slow and ran hot). Of course, look where ATI is today. Clearly, persistence pays off. So yes, even if PC games did try to make use of it in 1990, the efficiency and performance just wasn't there yet.

I see that the OP prefers specifics, so here's something a bit more detailed: "TurboGrafx-32" 32-bit CPU (internal, external, and address) e.g.) 68020 An appropriately beefed-up GPU. RAM: 2 or 4MB (whichever's the best price/performance trade-off) Blitter Pixel-scaler Maximum resolution: 720x486 Palette: 24-bit (or 16-bit color, if 24 is too expensive or has too much overhead) On-screen colors = 32,000 (if not more) Colors per sprite = 32 Max sprite size = 64x64 Max on-screen sprites = 256 Audio: Wavetable synthesis. 16-bit at 44,100 Hz Hardware D/A conversion Cartridge slot. Possible CD-ROM support (with a lot of buffering). I hesitate to include CD-ROM support after seeing the gawd-awful early CD-ROM game releases of the 1990s.

I'd release something called the TurboGrafx-32. You can pretty much guess the specs on that one.

Mr. Do - Arcade Bioshock 2 - 360 (I really like wandering around Rapture) Vector Pilot - Vectrex

I was using a Silicon Graphics monitor for quite a while (until the power switch started to flake out). Currently, my main CRT monitor is a big-ass Viewsonic. . Generally, the gradient from white to black on a CRT is better than on an LCD. LCDs tend to crush the black (or near-black) levels on shaded details. On the TV side, one's a plasma and the other is a Sony CRT. Both are good in their own way.