Keatah
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Posts posted by Keatah
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I thought I'd repost this for your entertainment: A story..
..
Yeh, I had like every game system from 1975 to 1990, and I mean every one! I had a whole room packed and stacked with boxes and it was quite a large room too. Now, all that stuff got trashed and I was completely devastated. Really, I had like every home system and handheld out there. And about 6,000 carts/disks/tapes and every possible controller addon. My collection ranged from the non-programmable b/w tv consoles like pong and hockey, all the way up to the recent stuff. I had prototype 2600's shit. I had intellivision, astrocade, atari 400/800, odyssey2 atari video pinball, trs-80 model 1 and 3 (never did get a model-2), colecovision, vectrex, microvision, aquarius, adam, c64, vic-20, regular 2600 (4 different versions), kim-1, timex sinclair, apple-//e, ][, ][+, Amiga 500/1000, ti-99/4a.. about a hundred handheld L.E.D. games too numerous to list. Everything ever made up to the SMS. I had every conceivable controller, add-in card, external peripheral. You name it, I had it.It was indeed the ultimate collection of videogames. must have easily been $150,000 if not more. again no joke. various attempts throughout the years have been made to re-acquire the stuff, but each one ended in huge amounts of time and money for one little gain. No folks, the original assemblage of stuff is indeed gone.
What I did save (and still have today!) is the ultimate APPLE II collection. I have more than 4000 LBS of stuff from hardware to books and software. it is carefully organized in a 25x20 room, packed solid and sealed. Every game, every application. Its a rich collection with little fluff, I've got original modems and drives, manuals and over 300 interface cards. I've got about 10+ different versions and just as many mainboards and supplies and accessories and another 15G of data gleaned from the internet. I have my original BBS disks with the user names and postings still intact. Incredible! There are very few duplications in the collection. Eventually I'll virtualize that collection and post the whole deal on ebay, but it's going to be a massive undertaking. well I've been saying that for years and I still have the dammned stuff.
Today I have recovered all of my original collection in the form of emulation, I've got close to 80GB, yes read that as 80gigs of roms, executables, pix, dox, cheats, box scans, everything! Close to 200 different emulators and versions. As you know, not every version of every emulator runs every game correctly. Everything painstakingly categorized and configured to run on dos and windows as needed. now throw in the complete 3000+ MAME rom collection. I don't have room for all my favorite arcade games, so mame is a lifesaver. Now round it all up and throw in MESS+TOSEC and all roms and systems (20+gigs) Its a wonderful way to have everything! If I want the true arcade experience I'll go out and buy the original game, but in general, correct emulation with correct hardware does a very very good job of recreating the classics.
Emulation is the correct way to Preserve the nostalgia triggering mental state of old games. The oil in the plastics and paint and glue on the labels never break down :-) The storage medium (cd roms and hard drives (periodically refreshed) will last many many years. the hardware will be around and easily replaced. As time goes on, the physical essence of the games evoke more and more nostalgia, but emulation is what will keep this stuff alive, make no mistake about that folks.
I havent gotten into ps and xbox emu yet, the state of emulation isn't good enough, but it will be with the advent of quad core 64bit cpus coming in 2007 from intel. I can't wait! Its simple.. As more complex emu's are developed, you will need faster and faster cpu's. We're *NOT* playing with Atari-2600 games anymore. Like who cares about speed. When I had my $3000 486 DX2/50, I never bitched it couldn't run gyruss at full speed. That was in the days of mike cuddy's separate gyruss and timepilot emus. And before THAT he had some kind of gyruss sound emulator rigged up.. Anyways.. Gyruss is a simple game compared to what we're seeing now. I was almost afraid to get my hopes up of seeing other games. I really hadn't the slightest clue emulation would become this big this fast. So I just sat back and sucked the stuff down. I was amazed and thankful that I was able to even have a glimmer of hope of even thinking about playing it again. So I filed it away and longfully looked at it from time to time -- knowing full well I'd need a faster machine sooner or later. hmmm...
In many ways, the emuation stuff is so cool because its convenient and I have instant access to anything within a moment. I have the data stored off-site in 2 locations to prevent major lossage! And I don't have to worry about hardware degradation, i.e. capacitors drying out and monitor burn in, etc etc.
With good home theater 45"Aquos fast LCD and Bose audio the Star Raiders experience takes on a whole new dimension. Colors can be tweaked to exactness and I love the scintillating fuzzy pixels and machine-state correct flickering rendered by the Atari++ emulator. Same deal with 2600 combat. Ever play Gyruss (arcade) with a 1000watt sound setup? try it someday!
My first programmable cartridge system? A heavy sixer
My first computer TRS-80 pocket computer (still have) 1980
My second computer Apple II (still have)
My first emulator from 1994? Microsoft Arcade (rather a simulation)
My first TV JVC-3050 3" portable b/w (still have) 1978
My first CD player Sony D-5 (still have) 1982? 1984?
At any rate the following games made me cry a tear (just one!) the first time I cranked each one up on my pc; I would just swell up and close my eyes for a moment.. Kinda like Dr. Chandra in 2010 when he got HAL reactivated.
Assault
Gyruss
Tempest
Missile Command
Defender
Tac/Scan
Zaxxon
Road Blasters
I,Robot
Liberator
Timepilot
Discs of Tron
..and these I have waited nearly 20 years to play again! THANK YOU MAME TEAM! Every emulation release is feast. Every sound a symphony, every pixel a mona lisa.
oh and one last comment this is girlfriend's take on emulation:
"Our emu programmers are the priests and popes. We must follow their scripture. With only the original designers achieving Godhood; we follow.. Today's Reading is From the Book of AtariXL.rom Version 2.5, option -oldmode. Section Games_1.ATR ...
I will use a home console in my essay, but the same can be applied to mame and full-size arcade cabinets.
Isn't emulation kind of like messing with the spirits from your long-dead computer??
You have a old and dead console, An Atari-2600 for example. Its shell is rotted and decayed and the switches all gummed up. Water corrosion has attacked the pcb pretty bad. I'd call it dead..Dead because you poured soap in the cartridge slot to wash out the proliferating ant farm? Dead because you used it as a pulltoy for your kid sister?? Dead because we put more power volts into it hoping to get faster graphics?
Dead in spirit? No, because you sit infront of the C:\> prompt and type in the summoning codes. And we KNOW its ghostly because its here and yet a flip of your power switch and its gone. Nowhere to be found. Not even its corporeal shell exists.
Isn't it against your religion to summon demons like this? Might there be a hidden price. I mean isn't this re-incarnation in its truest form?
With emulation you have somehow taken the very essence and lifeblood of that machine and transported it into a new shell. One that's superior in every respect. You've given LIFE to something from yanked from the grave. Isn't that a little voodoo-istic? might it be best if we left the deceased alone? What happens when it goes sour? Trifiling with something we don't understand might be dangerous. You know, kinda like 'once you're dead you're dead'. I believe that any life granted beyond the graveyard is frought with evil and is not to be. And emulation seems to be just that. Don't ask how, but it seems that way."
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Is it possible to assign a separate palette definition file for each rom? When I play videopinball on Stella 2.4.2 the playing field seems to be a bit heavy on the violet/purple side of the spectrum. All other emulators seem to reproduce the correct dark sky-blue hue for the bumpers and whatnot.
Best regards!
K
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What a great picture! Now just armor-all that thing!
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What are the psychological implications for those who are failures? Surely playing old games can't help much, can it?
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Its only logical that emulation will outlast the original hardware. Bit rot will get the games stored on eeproms. Proms will live considerably longer though. Plastics will breakdown, parts will fail. Things will get lost and broken, etc yaddah yaddah.. and so forth.
That does not happen with pc hardware!! Well yes it does, but those effects are easily compensated for, you can transfer the data every 5 years from one hard disk to another, effectively staving off bit rot. You can build a new pc, Or easily build hardware that will run pc stuff.. yeh, emulation is the way to go!
You can easily dupe your collection so you can play it anywhere, anytime! Hell I was playing Canyon Bomber not too long ago while taking a dump. I've played my colecovision on commercial flights. I've played astrocade on a cruise ship. I played intellivision on a real submarine that actually goes underwater! hahah Yeh I played intellivision while bike-riding too. Just to say I could do it. Play all this stuff on your phone. yeh Emulation will never die, you will come to the darkside and even love to embrace it when your consoles are rotted out..
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Emulation all the way babycakes! Emulation will be here long long wayway past when the last 2600 dies..
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That is a rather modest and straightforward collection. It is nice and we're glad you're proud of it.
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Yeh make a modern-day atari 3600 from microsoft, include 360 original atari games, better yet, include them all. That would only add a dollar or two for the flashrom..!
Well all that aside, I'm going to play playstation, er maybe intellivision, or 2600 air-sea battle.. Damn! I think I'll play them at the same time! on the same system.. Thank YOU *E*M*U*L*A*T*I*O*N*.
Yeh, EMULATION STATION..! WOW!
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Our local WalMart has a section of the parking lot, about the size of two or three motorhomes that is the designated nanodump. The "goodwill" box is the anchor point of it all and the around it the mountain grows and grows and changes shape and size, the least popular items migrate to the center and get bogged down under the weight of all the other stuff. I asked the cop what's the deal, he said something about class maintenance!??! What is the world does that mean? At any rate, I was scrounging through it to get some decent jackets and stuff. Yeh, sure enough there were 2 2600 units at the bottom. I couldn't get them out because the RF cable was entertwined with a stroller and probably other electronic stuff.
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The essence of Atari is bound to the times as well as the great games. Atari is synonynous with the 70's and mid-80's. Anything beyond that and Atari is out of place. It simply does not belong in today's time.
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Aren't all the units that are in existance already trashed or thrifted? How much of the junk is left to go around?? Emulation is the way to go!
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Please put the pause feature back it, I can't imagine it slowing things down all that much, at least not on any hardware sold in the past 5 years.
You could perhaps have it flash "pause" in big red letters for a few seconds then nothing, or flash it once every 15 seconds. Something like that.
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For me it was 01 Combat, then most of the other early ones that started with numbers like 02 06 23 05, whatever, miniature golf, slot racers, space war, surround(my sister loved that one), hangman, basic math, sky diver, slot machine, casino, indy 500 .. Those, I got those pretty much as they came out. But the first one was combat and surround. I wore out joystics with those two games.
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wow!! thanks for the link!! I remember reading these in the bathroom stalls when I was a kid.
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I just like telling my videogame history to others from time to time..
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I basically need attention, little more.. The story I told you all is true. Back then, to a rich kid's parents, a load of videogames was like pocketchange. As for the "museum theft" I think the guard knew and found the whole deal amusing!
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I have saved over 99% of *ALL* my extremely extensive apple II collection. The entire lot would garner 20k or more based on current ebay prices, probably more.. Very nicely kept and preserved and sealed up. Somehow I managed to keep this part of the collection intact. There are only a few instruction manuals that I can’t find. I even have all my BBS records intact. Yep!
Sadly, my collection of heavy sixers and the original boxes and nearly everything atari/intellivision/coleco/O2/astrocade/trs80/ti994a/vectrex and many others were abused and let go years back. I lost interest right after the video-game-crash of 84 and got interested in women. Ohh my Linda Hamilton was HOTTTTTT!! Man-O-man!!
Well I even bolted rollerskate wheel trucks to one of the sixers and make a pull-toy for my sister. The rf cable didn't last long. I drilled right through the 'speaker' supports; speakers were never included because atari found it cheaper to put the sound out to the tv! When the sixer was done being utilized as a sis-o-ride I took it apart again, and still worked more on the insides. I started shorting things out and hooking up capacitors and batteries and stuff to try and speed up the games. I killed it soon enough. then made a gas rc boat out of it. Yeh, ain't that a pisser! For some reason I cooked the circuit boards in the oven and stuff. I don't know why though, felt it was the right thing to do.. And throw in many full-size console arcade games and stuff, we got mad (at the games) and ran them over with the pickup. Yeh, got pics of those too!
I have since tried to re-build the collection but found it impractical. Too costly, so, I now have a super collection of emulated games, multiple emulators for many MANY machines running on a dedicated computer complete with a 37" monitor and all the appropriate controls. Its a great setup, hundreds and hundreds of roms (yes I owned them all) for over 20 systems.. Does a good job of saving the essence of the games, But you still look at them through a glass, i.e. emulation. But, you don’t have to worry about degradation or losing them. And throw in many full-size console arcade games and stuff, we got mad (at the games) and ran them over with the pickup. Yeh, got pics of those too!
I was digging through my stash of junk the the other day and came across a box of parts, they were capacitors and resistors and various other things. I believe I *STILL* have one or two of the chips from my original sixer!! WOW!! The numbers match up! These I will have put in a lucite block along with my hand-picked skylab fragment. Yeh, when I was a kid my gramma took me to the museum and she distracted the guard while I snuck under the tense-a-barrier (like in the theaters) and ripped off a piece. I found that near the chips. Wow!! That’s like 30 years old! Too!
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what's happening is that you have to deal with a high-level language and compiler when you write the emulator. also, the pentium I/II/III/IV have extra instructions that the 486 doesn't have. The extra instructions, simply put, move tons more data in a single clock than the 486. so the 486 needs many many more clock cycles than say a p3. and that extends to direct draw and the way the screen is put to the graphics board. don't forget the bloat in the os, there are other reasons, but those are the main ones.
GOD I LOVE EMULATION, DON'T YOU ??
"So, if I may ask, what is the cause of the higher system requirements
for z26? (DOS) Is it the way it is compiled? If I were to have it compiled in
a different manner, on a different compiler would I have improved speed?
Or is it simply, that I am incorrect and the VCS is just as hard to emulate
as it is to program.
Does Z26 take advantage of higher level commands that take up more
CPU power although make programming it simpler?
Or a third (although perhaps the most insulting) possibility, is z26 simply
bloated in comparison to Nesticle?
The answer is greatly appreciated!"
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Yeh, I had like every game system from 1975 to 1990, and I mean every one! I had a whole room packed and stacked with boxes and it was quite a large room too. Now, all that stuff got trashed and I was completely devastated. Really, I had like every home system and handheld out there. And about 6,000 carts/disks/tapes and every possible controller addon. My collection ranged from the non-programmable b/w tv consoles like pong and hockey, all the way up to the recent stuff. I had prototype 2600's shit. I had intellivision, astrocade, atari 400/800, odyssey2 atari video pinball, trs-80 model 1 and 3 (never did get a model-2), colecovision, vectrex, microvision, aquarius, adam, c64, vic-20, regular 2600 (4 different versions), kim-1, timex sinclair, apple-//e, ][, ][+, Amiga 500/1000, ti-99/4a.. about a hundred handheld games too numerous to list. Everything ever made up to the SMS. I had every conceivable controller, add-in card, external peripheral. You name it, I had it.It was indeed the ultimate collection of videogames. must have easily been $150,000 if not more. again no joke. various attempts throughout the years have been made to re-acquire the stuff, but each one ended in huge amounts of time and money for one little gain. No folks, the original assemblage of stuff is indeed gone.
What I did save (and still have today!) is the ultimate APPLE II collection. I have more than 4000 LBS of stuff from hardware to books and software. it is carefully organized in a 25x20 room, packed solid and sealed. Every game, every application. Its a rich collection with little fluff, I've got original modems and drives, manuals and over 300 interface cards. I've got about 10+ different versions and just as many mainboards and supplies and accessories and another 15G of data gleaned from the internet. I have my original BBS disks with the user names and postings still intact. Incredible! There are very few duplications in the collection. Eventually I'll virtualize that collection and post the whole deal on ebay, but it's going to be a massive undertaking. well I've been saying that for years and I still have the dammned stuff.
Today I have recovered all of my original collection in the form of emulation, I've got close to 80GB, yes read that as 80gigs of roms, executables, pix, dox, cheats, box scans, everything! Close to 200 different emulators and versions. As you know, not every version of every emulator runs every game correctly. Everything painstakingly categorized and configured to run on dos and windows as needed. now throw in the complete 3000+ MAME rom collection. I don't have room for all my favorite arcade games, so mame is a lifesaver. Now round it all up and throw in MESS+TOSEC and all roms and systems (20+gigs) Its a wonderful way to have everything! If I want the true arcade experience I'll go out and buy the original game, but in general, correct emulation with correct hardware does a very very good job of recreating the classics.
Emulation is the correct way to Preserve the nostalgia triggering mental state of old games. The oil in the plastics and paint and glue on the labels never break down :-) The storage medium (cd roms and hard drives (periodically refreshed) will last many many years. the hardware will be around and easily replaced. As time goes on, the physical essence of the games evoke more and more nostalgia, but emulation is what will keep this stuff alive, make no mistake about that folks.
I havent gotten into ps and xbox emu yet, the state of emulation isn't good enough, but it will be with the advent of quad core 64bit cpus coming in 2007 from intel. I can't wait! Its simple.. As more complex emu's are developed, you will need faster and faster cpu's. We're *NOT* playing with Atari-2600 games anymore. Like who cares about speed. When I had my $3000 486 DX2/50, I never bitched it couldn't run gyruss at full speed. That was in the days of mike cuddy's separate gyruss and timepilot emus. And before THAT he had some kind of gyruss sound emulator rigged up.. Anyways.. Gyruss is a simple game compared to what we're seeing now. I was almost afraid to get my hopes up of seeing other games. I really hadn't the slightest clue emulation would become this big this fast. So I just sat back and sucked the stuff down. I was amazed and thankful that I was able to even have a glimmer of hope of even thinking about playing it again. So I filed it away and longfully looked at it from time to time -- knowing full well I'd need a faster machine sooner or later. hmmm...
In many ways, the emuation stuff is so cool because its convenient and I have instant access to anything within a moment. I have the data stored off-site in 2 locations to prevent major lossage! And I don't have to worry about hardware degradation, i.e. capacitors drying out and monitor burn in, etc etc.
With good home theater 45"Aquos fast LCD and Bose audio the Star Raiders experience takes on a whole new dimension. Colors can be treaked to exactness and I love the scintillating fuzzy pixels and machine-state correct flickering rendered by the Atari++ emulator. Same deal with 2600 combat. Ever play Gyruss (arcade) with a 1000watt sound setup? try it someday!
My first programmable cartridge system? A heavy sixer
My first computer TRS-80 pocket computer (still have) 1980
My second computer Apple II (still have)
My first emulator from 1994? Microsoft Arcade (rather a simulation)
My first TV JVC-3050 3" portable b/w (still have) 1978
My first CD player Sony D-5 (still have) 1982? 1984?
At any rate the following games made me cry a tear (just one!) the first time I cranked each one up on my pc; I would just swell up and close my eyes for a moment.. Kinda like Dr. Chandra in 2010 when he got HAL reactivated.
Assault
Gyruss
Tempest
Missile Command
Defender
Tac/Scan
Zaxxon
Road Blasters
I,Robot
Liberator
Timepilot
Discs of Tron
..and these I have waited nearly 20 years to play again! THANK YOU MAME TEAM! Every emulation release is feast. Every sound a symphony, every pixel a mona lisa.
oh and one last comment this is girlfriend's take on emulation:
"Our emu programmers are the priests and popes. We must follow their scripture. With only the original designers achieving Godhood; we follow.. Today's Reading is From the Book of AtariXL.rom Version 2.5, option -oldmode. Section Games_1.ATR ...
I will use a home console in my essay, but the same can be applied to mame and full-size arcade cabinets.
Isn't emulation kind of like messing with the spirits from your long-dead computer??
You have a old and dead console, An Atari-2600 for example. Its shell is rotted and decayed and the switches all gummed up. Water corrosion has attacked the pcb pretty bad. I'd call it dead..Dead because you poured soap in the cartridge slot to wash out the proliferating ant farm? Dead because you used it as a pulltoy for your kid sister?? Dead because we put more power volts into it hoping to get faster graphics?
Dead in spirit? No, because you sit infront of the C:> prompt and type in the summoning codes. And we KNOW its ghostly because its here and yet a flip of your power switch and its gone. Nowhere to be found. Not even its corporeal shell exists.
Isn't it against your religion to summon demons like this? Might there be a hidden price. I mean isn't this re-incarnation in its truest form?
With emulation you have somehow taken the very essence and lifeblood of that machine and transported it into a new shell. One that's superior in every respect. You've given LIFE to something from yanked from the grave. Isn't that a little voodoo-istic? might it be best if we left the deceased alone? What happens when it goes sour? Trifiling with something we don't understand might be dangerous. You know, kinda like 'once you're dead you're dead'. I believe that any life granted beyond the graveyard is frought with evil and is not to be. And emulation seems to be just that. Don't ask how, but it seems that way."
-
Yeh, I had like every game system from 1975 to 1990, and I mean every one! I had a whole room packed and stacked with boxes and it was quite a large room too. Now, all that stuff got trashed and I was completely devastated. Really, I had like every home system and handheld out there. And about 6,000 carts/disks/tapes and every possible controller addon. My collection ranged from the non-programmable b/w tv consoles like pong and hockey, all the way up to the recent stuff. I had prototype 2600's shit. I had intellivision, astrocade, atari 400/800, odyssey2 atari video pinball, trs-80 model 1 and 3 (never did get a model-2), colecovision, vectrex, microvision, aquarius, adam, c64, vic-20, regular 2600 (4 different versions), kim-1, timex sinclair, apple-//e, ][, ][+, Amiga 500/1000, ti-99/4a.. about a hundred handheld games too numerous to list. Everything ever made up to the SMS. I had every conceivable controller, add-in card, external peripheral. You name it, I had it.It was indeed the ultimate collection of videogames. must have easily been $150,000 if not more. again no joke. various attempts throughout the years have been made to re-acquire the stuff, but each one ended in huge amounts of time and money for one little gain. No folks, the original assemblage of stuff is indeed gone.
What I did save (and still have today!) is the ultimate APPLE II collection. I have more than 4000 LBS of stuff from hardware to books and software. it is carefully organized in a 25x20 room, packed solid and sealed. Every game, every application. Its a rich collection with little fluff, I've got original modems and drives, manuals and over 300 interface cards. I've got about 10+ different versions and just as many mainboards and supplies and accessories and another 15G of data gleaned from the internet. I have my original BBS disks with the user names and postings still intact. Incredible! There are very few duplications in the collection. Eventually I'll virtualize that collection and post the whole deal on ebay, but it's going to be a massive undertaking. well I've been saying that for years and I still have the dammned stuff.
Today I have recovered all of my original collection in the form of emulation, I've got close to 80GB, yes read that as 80gigs of roms, executables, pix, dox, cheats, box scans, everything! Close to 200 different emulators and versions. As you know, not every version of every emulator runs every game correctly. Everything painstakingly categorized and configured to run on dos and windows as needed. now throw in the complete 3000+ MAME rom collection. I don't have room for all my favorite arcade games, so mame is a lifesaver. Now round it all up and throw in MESS+TOSEC and all roms and systems (20+gigs) Its a wonderful way to have everything! If I want the true arcade experience I'll go out and buy the original game, but in general, correct emulation with correct hardware does a very very good job of recreating the classics.
Emulation is the correct way to Preserve the nostalgia triggering mental state of old games. The oil in the plastics and paint and glue on the labels never break down :-) The storage medium (cd roms and hard drives (periodically refreshed) will last many many years. the hardware will be around and easily replaced. As time goes on, the physical essence of the games evoke more and more nostalgia, but emulation is what will keep this stuff alive, make no mistake about that folks.
I havent gotten into ps and xbox emu yet, the state of emulation isn't good enough, but it will be with the advent of quad core 64bit cpus coming in 2007 from intel. I can't wait! Its simple.. As more complex emu's are developed, you will need faster and faster cpu's. We're *NOT* playing with Atari-2600 games anymore. Like who cares about speed. When I had my $3000 486 DX2/50, I never bitched it couldn't run gyruss at full speed. That was in the days of mike cuddy's separate gyruss and timepilot emus. And before THAT he had some kind of gyruss sound emulator rigged up.. Anyways.. Gyruss is a simple game compared to what we're seeing now. I was almost afraid to get my hopes up of seeing other games. I really hadn't the slightest clue emulation would become this big this fast. So I just sat back and sucked the stuff down. I was amazed and thankful that I was able to even have a glimmer of hope of even thinking about playing it again. So I filed it away and longfully looked at it from time to time -- knowing full well I'd need a faster machine sooner or later. hmmm...
In many ways, the emuation stuff is so cool because its convenient and I have instant access to anything within a moment. I have the data stored off-site in 2 locations to prevent major lossage! And I don't have to worry about hardware degradation, i.e. capacitors drying out and monitor burn in, etc etc.
With good home theater 45"Aquos fast LCD and Bose audio the Star Raiders experience takes on a whole new dimension. Colors can be treaked to exactness and I love the scintillating fuzzy pixels and machine-state correct flickering rendered by the Atari++ emulator. Same deal with 2600 combat. Ever play Gyruss (arcade) with a 1000watt sound setup? try it someday!
My first programmable cartridge system? A heavy sixer
My first computer TRS-80 pocket computer (still have) 1980
My second computer Apple II (still have)
My first emulator from 1994? Microsoft Arcade (rather a simulation)
My first TV JVC-3050 3" portable b/w (still have) 1978
My first CD player Sony D-5 (still have) 1982? 1984?
At any rate the following games made me cry a tear (just one!) the first time I cranked each one up on my pc; I would just swell up and close my eyes for a moment.. Kinda like Dr. Chandra in 2010 when he got HAL reactivated.
Assault
Gyruss
Tempest
Missile Command
Defender
Tac/Scan
Zaxxon
Road Blasters
I,Robot
Liberator
Timepilot
Discs of Tron
..and these I have waited nearly 20 years to play again! THANK YOU MAME TEAM! Every emulation release is feast. Every sound a symphony, every pixel a mona lisa.
oh and one last comment this is girlfriend's take on emulation:
"Our emu programmers are the priests and popes. We must follow their scripture. With only the original designers achieving Godhood; we follow.. Today's Reading is From the Book of AtariXL.rom Version 2.5, option -oldmode. Section Games_1.ATR ...
I will use a home console in my essay, but the same can be applied to mame and full-size arcade cabinets.
Isn't emulation kind of like messing with the spirits from your long-dead computer??
You have a old and dead console, An Atari-2600 for example. Its shell is rotted and decayed and the switches all gummed up. Water corrosion has attacked the pcb pretty bad. I'd call it dead..Dead because you poured soap in the cartridge slot to wash out the proliferating ant farm? Dead because you used it as a pulltoy for your kid sister?? Dead because we put more power volts into it hoping to get faster graphics?
Dead in spirit? No, because you sit infront of the C:> prompt and type in the summoning codes. And we KNOW its ghostly because its here and yet a flip of your power switch and its gone. Nowhere to be found. Not even its corporeal shell exists.
Isn't it against your religion to summon demons like this? Might there be a hidden price. I mean isn't this re-incarnation in its truest form?
With emulation you have somehow taken the very essence and lifeblood of that machine and transported it into a new shell. One that's superior in every respect. You've given LIFE to something from yanked from the grave. Isn't that a little voodoo-istic? might it be best if we left the deceased alone? What happens when it goes sour? Trifiling with something we don't understand might be dangerous. You know, kinda like 'once you're dead you're dead'. I believe that any life granted beyond the graveyard is frought with evil and is not to be. And emulation seems to be just that. Don't ask how, but it seems that way."
-
Yeh, I had like every game system from 1975 to 1990, and I mean every one! I had a whole room packed and stacked with boxes and it was quite a large room too. Now, all that stuff got trashed and I was completely devastated. Really, I had like every home system and handheld out there. And about 6,000 carts/disks/tapes and every possible controller addon. My collection ranged from the non-programmable b/w tv consoles like pong and hockey, all the way up to the recent stuff. I had prototype 2600's shit. I had intellivision, astrocade, atari 400/800, odyssey2 atari video pinball, trs-80 model 1 and 3 (never did get a model-2), colecovision, vectrex, microvision, aquarius, adam, c64, vic-20, regular 2600 (4 different versions), kim-1, timex sinclair, apple-//e, ][, ][+, Amiga 500/1000, ti-99/4a.. about a hundred handheld games too numerous to list. Everything ever made up to the SMS. I had every conceivable controller, add-in card, external peripheral. You name it, I had it.It was indeed the ultimate collection of videogames. must have easily been $150,000 if not more. again no joke. various attempts throughout the years have been made to re-acquire the stuff, but each one ended in huge amounts of time and money for one little gain. No folks, the original assemblage of stuff is indeed gone.
What I did save (and still have today!) is the ultimate APPLE II collection. I have more than 4000 LBS of stuff from hardware to books and software. it is carefully organized in a 25x20 room, packed solid and sealed. Every game, every application. Its a rich collection with little fluff, I've got original modems and drives, manuals and over 300 interface cards. I've got about 10+ different versions and just as many mainboards and supplies and accessories and another 15G of data gleaned from the internet. I have my original BBS disks with the user names and postings still intact. Incredible! There are very few duplications in the collection. Eventually I'll virtualize that collection and post the whole deal on ebay, but it's going to be a massive undertaking. well I've been saying that for years and I still have the dammned stuff.
Today I have recovered all of my original collection in the form of emulation, I've got close to 80GB, yes read that as 80gigs of roms, executables, pix, dox, cheats, box scans, everything! Close to 200 different emulators and versions. As you know, not every version of every emulator runs every game correctly. Everything painstakingly categorized and configured to run on dos and windows as needed. now throw in the complete 3000+ MAME rom collection. I don't have room for all my favorite arcade games, so mame is a lifesaver. Now round it all up and throw in MESS+TOSEC and all roms and systems (20+gigs) Its a wonderful way to have everything! If I want the true arcade experience I'll go out and buy the original game, but in general, correct emulation with correct hardware does a very very good job of recreating the classics.
Emulation is the correct way to Preserve the nostalgia triggering mental state of old games. The oil in the plastics and paint and glue on the labels never break down :-) The storage medium (cd roms and hard drives (periodically refreshed) will last many many years. the hardware will be around and easily replaced. As time goes on, the physical essence of the games evoke more and more nostalgia, but emulation is what will keep this stuff alive, make no mistake about that folks.
I havent gotten into ps and xbox emu yet, the state of emulation isn't good enough, but it will be with the advent of quad core 64bit cpus coming in 2007 from intel. I can't wait! Its simple.. As more complex emu's are developed, you will need faster and faster cpu's. We're *NOT* playing with Atari-2600 games anymore. Like who cares about speed. When I had my $3000 486 DX2/50, I never bitched it couldn't run gyruss at full speed. That was in the days of mike cuddy's separate gyruss and timepilot emus. And before THAT he had some kind of gyruss sound emulator rigged up.. Anyways.. Gyruss is a simple game compared to what we're seeing now. I was almost afraid to get my hopes up of seeing other games. I really hadn't the slightest clue emulation would become this big this fast. So I just sat back and sucked the stuff down. I was amazed and thankful that I was able to even have a glimmer of hope of even thinking about playing it again. So I filed it away and longfully looked at it from time to time -- knowing full well I'd need a faster machine sooner or later. hmmm...
In many ways, the emuation stuff is so cool because its convenient and I have instant access to anything within a moment. I have the data stored off-site in 2 locations to prevent major lossage! And I don't have to worry about hardware degradation, i.e. capacitors drying out and monitor burn in, etc etc.
With good home theater 45"Aquos fast LCD and Bose audio the Star Raiders experience takes on a whole new dimension. Colors can be treaked to exactness and I love the scintillating fuzzy pixels and machine-state correct flickering rendered by the Atari++ emulator. Same deal with 2600 combat. Ever play Gyruss (arcade) with a 1000watt sound setup? try it someday!
My first programmable cartridge system? A heavy sixer
My first computer TRS-80 pocket computer (still have) 1980
My second computer Apple II (still have)
My first emulator from 1994? Microsoft Arcade (rather a simulation)
My first TV JVC-3050 3" portable b/w (still have) 1978
My first CD player Sony D-5 (still have) 1982? 1984?
At any rate the following games made me cry a tear (just one!) the first time I cranked each one up on my pc; I would just swell up and close my eyes for a moment.. Kinda like Dr. Chandra in 2010 when he got HAL reactivated.
Assault
Gyruss
Tempest
Missile Command
Defender
Tac/Scan
Zaxxon
Road Blasters
I,Robot
Liberator
Timepilot
Discs of Tron
..and these I have waited nearly 20 years to play again! THANK YOU MAME TEAM! Every emulation release is feast. Every sound a symphony, every pixel a mona lisa.
oh and one last comment this is girlfriend's take on emulation:
"Our emu programmers are the priests and popes. We must follow their scripture. With only the original designers achieving Godhood; we follow.. Today's Reading is From the Book of AtariXL.rom Version 2.5, option -oldmode. Section Games_1.ATR ...
I will use a home console in my essay, but the same can be applied to mame and full-size arcade cabinets.
Isn't emulation kind of like messing with the spirits from your long-dead computer??
You have a old and dead console, An Atari-2600 for example. Its shell is rotted and decayed and the switches all gummed up. Water corrosion has attacked the pcb pretty bad. I'd call it dead..Dead because you poured soap in the cartridge slot to wash out the proliferating ant farm? Dead because you used it as a pulltoy for your kid sister?? Dead because we put more power volts into it hoping to get faster graphics?
Dead in spirit? No, because you sit infront of the C:> prompt and type in the summoning codes. And we KNOW its ghostly because its here and yet a flip of your power switch and its gone. Nowhere to be found. Not even its corporeal shell exists.
Isn't it against your religion to summon demons like this? Might there be a hidden price. I mean isn't this re-incarnation in its truest form?
With emulation you have somehow taken the very essence and lifeblood of that machine and transported it into a new shell. One that's superior in every respect. You've given LIFE to something from yanked from the grave. Isn't that a little voodoo-istic? might it be best if we left the deceased alone? What happens when it goes sour? Trifiling with something we don't understand might be dangerous. You know, kinda like 'once you're dead you're dead'. I believe that any life granted beyond the graveyard is frought with evil and is not to be. And emulation seems to be just that. Don't ask how, but it seems that way."
-
Yeh, I had like every game system from 1975 to 1990, and I mean every one! I had a whole room packed and stacked with boxes and it was quite a large room too. Now, all that stuff got trashed and I was completely devastated. Really, I had like every home system and handheld out there. And about 6,000 carts/disks/tapes and every possible controller addon. My collection ranged from the non-programmable b/w tv consoles like pong and hockey, all the way up to the recent stuff. I had prototype 2600's shit. I had intellivision, astrocade, atari 400/800, odyssey2 atari video pinball, trs-80 model 1 and 3 (never did get a model-2), colecovision, vectrex, microvision, aquarius, adam, c64, vic-20, regular 2600 (4 different versions), kim-1, timex sinclair, apple-//e, ][, ][+, Amiga 500/1000, ti-99/4a.. about a hundred handheld games too numerous to list. Everything ever made up to the SMS. I had every conceivable controller, add-in card, external peripheral. You name it, I had it.It was indeed the ultimate collection of videogames. must have easily been $150,000 if not more. again no joke. various attempts throughout the years have been made to re-acquire the stuff, but each one ended in huge amounts of time and money for one little gain. No folks, the original assemblage of stuff is indeed gone.
What I did save (and still have today!) is the ultimate APPLE II collection. I have more than 4000 LBS of stuff from hardware to books and software. it is carefully organized in a 25x20 room, packed solid and sealed. Every game, every application. Its a rich collection with little fluff, I've got original modems and drives, manuals and over 300 interface cards. I've got about 10+ different versions and just as many mainboards and supplies and accessories and another 15G of data gleaned from the internet. I have my original BBS disks with the user names and postings still intact. Incredible! There are very few duplications in the collection. Eventually I'll virtualize that collection and post the whole deal on ebay, but it's going to be a massive undertaking. well I've been saying that for years and I still have the dammned stuff.
Today I have recovered all of my original collection in the form of emulation, I've got close to 80GB, yes read that as 80gigs of roms, executables, pix, dox, cheats, box scans, everything! Close to 200 different emulators and versions. As you know, not every version of every emulator runs every game correctly. Everything painstakingly categorized and configured to run on dos and windows as needed. now throw in the complete 3000+ MAME rom collection. I don't have room for all my favorite arcade games, so mame is a lifesaver. Now round it all up and throw in MESS+TOSEC and all roms and systems (20+gigs) Its a wonderful way to have everything! If I want the true arcade experience I'll go out and buy the original game, but in general, correct emulation with correct hardware does a very very good job of recreating the classics.
Emulation is the correct way to Preserve the nostalgia triggering mental state of old games. The oil in the plastics and paint and glue on the labels never break down :-) The storage medium (cd roms and hard drives (periodically refreshed) will last many many years. the hardware will be around and easily replaced. As time goes on, the physical essence of the games evoke more and more nostalgia, but emulation is what will keep this stuff alive, make no mistake about that folks.
I havent gotten into ps and xbox emu yet, the state of emulation isn't good enough, but it will be with the advent of quad core 64bit cpus coming in 2007 from intel. I can't wait! Its simple.. As more complex emu's are developed, you will need faster and faster cpu's. We're *NOT* playing with Atari-2600 games anymore. Like who cares about speed. When I had my $3000 486 DX2/50, I never bitched it couldn't run gyruss at full speed. That was in the days of mike cuddy's separate gyruss and timepilot emus. And before THAT he had some kind of gyruss sound emulator rigged up.. Anyways.. Gyruss is a simple game compared to what we're seeing now. I was almost afraid to get my hopes up of seeing other games. I really hadn't the slightest clue emulation would become this big this fast. So I just sat back and sucked the stuff down. I was amazed and thankful that I was able to even have a glimmer of hope of even thinking about playing it again. So I filed it away and longfully looked at it from time to time -- knowing full well I'd need a faster machine sooner or later. hmmm...
In many ways, the emuation stuff is so cool because its convenient and I have instant access to anything within a moment. I have the data stored off-site in 2 locations to prevent major lossage! And I don't have to worry about hardware degradation, i.e. capacitors drying out and monitor burn in, etc etc.
With good home theater 45"Aquos fast LCD and Bose audio the Star Raiders experience takes on a whole new dimension. Colors can be treaked to exactness and I love the scintillating fuzzy pixels and machine-state correct flickering rendered by the Atari++ emulator. Same deal with 2600 combat. Ever play Gyruss (arcade) with a 1000watt sound setup? try it someday!
My first programmable cartridge system? A heavy sixer
My first computer TRS-80 pocket computer (still have) 1980
My second computer Apple II (still have)
My first emulator from 1994? Microsoft Arcade (rather a simulation)
My first TV JVC-3050 3" portable b/w (still have) 1978
My first CD player Sony D-5 (still have) 1982? 1984?
At any rate the following games made me cry a tear (just one!) the first time I cranked each one up on my pc; I would just swell up and close my eyes for a moment.. Kinda like Dr. Chandra in 2010 when he got HAL reactivated.
Assault
Gyruss
Tempest
Missile Command
Defender
Tac/Scan
Zaxxon
Road Blasters
I,Robot
Liberator
Timepilot
Discs of Tron
..and these I have waited nearly 20 years to play again! THANK YOU MAME TEAM! Every emulation release is feast. Every sound a symphony, every pixel a mona lisa.
oh and one last comment this is girlfriend's take on emulation:
"Our emu programmers are the priests and popes. We must follow their scripture. With only the original designers achieving Godhood; we follow.. Today's Reading is From the Book of AtariXL.rom Version 2.5, option -oldmode. Section Games_1.ATR ...
I will use a home console in my essay, but the same can be applied to mame and full-size arcade cabinets.
Isn't emulation kind of like messing with the spirits from your long-dead computer??
You have a old and dead console, An Atari-2600 for example. Its shell is rotted and decayed and the switches all gummed up. Water corrosion has attacked the pcb pretty bad. I'd call it dead..Dead because you poured soap in the cartridge slot to wash out the proliferating ant farm? Dead because you used it as a pulltoy for your kid sister?? Dead because we put more power volts into it hoping to get faster graphics?
Dead in spirit? No, because you sit infront of the C:> prompt and type in the summoning codes. And we KNOW its ghostly because its here and yet a flip of your power switch and its gone. Nowhere to be found. Not even its corporeal shell exists.
Isn't it against your religion to summon demons like this? Might there be a hidden price. I mean isn't this re-incarnation in its truest form?
With emulation you have somehow taken the very essence and lifeblood of that machine and transported it into a new shell. One that's superior in every respect. You've given LIFE to something from yanked from the grave. Isn't that a little voodoo-istic? might it be best if we left the deceased alone? What happens when it goes sour? Trifiling with something we don't understand might be dangerous. You know, kinda like 'once you're dead you're dead'. I believe that any life granted beyond the graveyard is frought with evil and is not to be. And emulation seems to be just that. Don't ask how, but it seems that way."
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What kined of chips is it (part 2)?
in Atari 2600
Posted
one of the chips is a rom chip, and the other 3 vcs original chips have been combined into one.. typical design solution.