Keatah

Make'em do compilers and write in x86. Not this shit high-level stuff that's a flash-in-the-pan here today gone tonight thing. And don't call them computer experts because they can drag'n'drop a cutesy cat mascot!

I noticed that the reference indicator for the shield color disappears when in monochrome mode. Is that a bug? or by design? Or maybe just a result of circumstance?

Absolutely love the blue/white phosphor option. And the amber & green ones too. Very vintage and moody just like I played it decades ago in the backseat of the old chevy with the 9" B/W TV set! One thing however is that the Star Raiders' shields don't "change color" or shades of whatever monochrome "color" it's set at. When I was a kid I'm fairly certain I remembered the screen becoming a bit foggy or hazy & lighter with the shields on and darker with them off. Do you think you can fix that up? But, of course, when using the regular default color settings and palette or like the Atari 800 color palette, everything is fine. So definitely don't make any changes there.

Till PP is posted, there's TechnoCarRacing, GrandPrix, FormulaOneRacer, PitStopII, Formula.Nibble and one more I can't recall offhand that are very PolePosition-like. Any of those games would be a worthy PP with minor changes and touch ups. The II series has enough resources to pull it off.

I assure you the Apple II version of PolePosition has nothing to do with Joust for the TI-99/4A!

I learned ApplesoftBasic and DOS 3.3 so I could be friends with my computer. Later on I found use for my skill and was happy to have learned it. And I don't give a fucking rat's ass if those elitists say BASIC is a hindrance and the wrong way to learn. If it wasn't for BASIC I would not have gone on to learn Assembly. When I was a kid I learned to launch my games very quickly from the command line. Took me microseconds to type: CD DOOM DOOM I earned status and leet points among those know-nothing dummies. The computer illiterates. Despite me insisting I was a gamer only! Well, yes. No form of programming will ever ever ever compete with games and pokermom stuff. To think otherwise is naivety in the grandest of forms.

I wouldn’t purchase either.

..and stupider!

Interoperability and cross-platform compatibility is way more important than seeing an entirely new OS that won't work with anything I already have.

There've been a couple of first person racing games for the // series that were pretty good. I don't recall their names offhand. As for pole position? Love that mystery 😉

This is so funny and ironic all at the same time. Even embarrassing for the protagonists. Today we have hundreds of microprocessors to choose from, and thousands of mainboard + cpu combinations. And they are ready-made. So the "Intel situation" is a lame excuse. But in the 1970's - 1980's we didn't have anything like that. There were 3 or 4 practical processors to choose from, and they were expensive. Engineers understood what they were doing and worked with discrete components. Development kits weren't even nearly as comprehensive as they are today. And there was NO INTERNET either. And yet many successful consoles came out of that era just fine. Some were even legendary with a proud heritage eminently recognizable today. AND SOMEHOW THEY WERE DESIGNED AND BUILT IN 1-2 YEAR'S TIME. So why do retrogamers get all hot and bothered with the likes of ataribox and polymega and other unmentioned go-nowhere projects? And are the leaders of these projects like ultra-dumb or something where they keep running in circles never getting anything released?

Imma get a rustbucket beater, put it in the driveway, and put an R-Pi in there 😛 !!

Probably the best thing is to pay less attention to the hardware and more to the software environment and how all of it works and interacts together. While at the same time leaving some aspects a mystery. Or on the flipside, build up your own rig. Whether it be an R-Pi in a Canakit case or a complete custom PC full of RGB. I'm looking forward to rebuilding my vintage late 1990's PIII with great anticipation. Shit! I might even do an upgrade on it. I got this TRIOS switchbox that lets me pick between 3 boot hard disks. I could do a multi-combo DOS 6.22/Win3.1, Win98, and WinXP machine very nicely and completely separate. The possibilities are brewing in my head! But that's just me.

I'll be the first to agree that computing isn't the same as it was in the 70's and 80's. Yet at the same time I remain interested in contemporary hardware and the bland & bloated OS choices of today. The exciting aspect about today's experience is learning something new and trying new applications or using old tools in new ways, things like that. Right now I'm having fun playing with VirtualBox. I also believe that cutting down exposure to commercialization and commerce that seems so prevalent throughout modern computing is a good thing. And finally do we really need any more platforms? Isn't what's out there enough?

The R-Pi is nothing like the vintage machines of the 70's and 80's, not even in basic philosophy or reason for existing. Any atari home computer that might come out (it isn't) will be like nothing that ever came before. Because, nothing!

Don't pay any attention to him he likes to make insults. Sometimes crudely. At least that's been my personal experience.

Maybe so. It is important to consider the demographics the 64 was marketed to, and the state of home computing at the time. Everything was still experimental. Come up with an idea, throw it at the wall, see if it sticks. Most early home systems were best at stoking the imaginations of young people. And to do that all you had to have was a simple physical embodiment of an idea. And the C64 was one of those products. I had an Apple II when they first came out. And I wasn't really concerned with the build quality because I was a kid. I enjoyed all kinds of the imaginative adventures with that machine. Flying the Lunar Lander ship, "hacking" into NORAD. Controlling the "cable satellite" dish with the MicroModem II and listening in for messages from space aliens. Marveling over a good game of chess. Conversation with Eliza. Calling BBSes and wardialing. Graphing radio waves and background noise looking for AI in them. Sending subspace messages with a diode array. Writing stories. And more! Had I gotten a C64 first I probably would have done the same thing. Point is I didn't need a tank-like $3000 PC to do that. And so these low-cost systems inspired a whole generation. Most everyone could afford one with a little savings.

Reminds me of that R-Pi in a full size Apple //e case. It is neither good nor bad.

Slimming down collections seems to solve so many problems. Of which there are many threads discussing the topic.

When I got my DX2-50 I had the option of getting the DX-50 with EISA motherboard. When I talked to the Gateway guy he didn't recommend it for what I was doing with it at the time. Word Processing and some minor science stuff and schoolwork. Said that EISA was for things that needed high throughput on network cards and SCSI cards. He also said that some graphics drivers were less stable than what was available on the pure ISA DX2-50 setup. And even the 50MHz bus, could, again, be less stable. It would have cost me about $400-$500 more for that system anyways. And today I'm quite happy I went the DX2-50 outfit I got back than. It's been a good system.

With SOME sheet-metal cutting/modification I could guess you could fit an ITX or mini-ITX board in there. Something of that size. But putting an ATX in there? You'd have a LOT of modding to do. There's always the idea of doing an R-PI + MiSTer - but of course then it's not really a PC as we know it.