fultonbot

Zolar Mercenary is one of my top-3 favorite Lynx games. I think the biggest problem with it though is that you need to press 2 fire buttons with hand that only has a one thumb available. I just re-discovered it on my RetroPie, and it's much easier to play with an X-Box 360 control pad. Still, I think it's stand-out game that shows off the power of the Lynx.

I sooooo wanted a 5200 in 1982. I tried so hard to win one in that summer 1982 McDonald's contest. I can still smell the McDonald's garbage my brother and I searched through, looking for tickets. However, the stories in EG about the controllers, the massive size of the console itself, and size of the carts seem weird. We lived in a tiny house, and the idea of something "bigger" was not going to work, especially at a time when most electronics were getting smaller and smaller. Then I read that the 5200 was "just an Atari 400 without a keyboard" (I know now that's not exactly true) and it just reinforced my want of an 8-bit computer instead of next-gen video game system.

It's the standard race to the bottom. It's why developers move from platform to platform to platform trying to make a living. I know for fact that current push for VR has less to do with developers actually liking to work in VR and more about the fact that there are barriers to entry and they hope to make living before the masses rush is. But should it be the same with home brew? Isn't it about celebrating those old platforms, sharing knowledge and building a community?

Wait? Better tools have lowered the barrier-to-entry and now game developers have to work harder to compete for an ever smaller slice of the pie? Welcome to every game platform ever.

To me it's interesting that He-Man is one of the very few (are there any others?) Intellivision games based on Mattel toy properties. It was like their other brands wanted nothing to do with the machine, or vice versa. Oh, and the game itself is disappointing.

A working 1450 XLD.

I totally regret throwing away my 5.25" floppy disks from my Atari 800 that had all the BASIC games and programs I had written. Technically I sold in 1986 them to help fund an Atari ST, but since they were just personal disks, I'm sure they guy who bought them erased them all so he could put his own pirated games on them, so I might as well have thrown them away. Three years worth of all my formative computer work from age 13-16. The first games I ever wrote, database utilities, animations, lots if pinball games made with Pinball Construction Set, and save files for Ultima IV and 7 Cities Of Gold, among many others. How I wish I could right that one mistake.

I would also buy it.

The latest crop of interviews are awesome. The only thing I would have liked was to hear what Bob Polin did after his Atari work, but he didn't seem very verbose or willing to talk about it. Poor Kevin was really trying hard to get him to talk. Nice work.

Guys, the podcast and interviews are getting better and better! Keep up the good work.

I agree. I have multiple Arduinos and Raspberry Pis sitting right next to me at my desk, and many of them are attached to protoboards with basic electronic circuits. The 50-in-1 300-in-1 kits are good ways to learn all the stuff that those mass market MCUs don't do for you.

Carts never went away. If you use a GB/GBC/GBA/DC/DSi/3DS/New 3DS then you have never known a video game era *without* cartridges.

Steve Woita was involved in making NES and Genesis games as well as Atari VCS, PS1 and PS2 games, so you really can't nail down his "retro era" to any one console life-cycle. Here is his bio. https://stevewoita.wordpress.com/games/