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carmel_andrews

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Posts posted by carmel_andrews

  1. Posted

    Another thing is - to make a request you need to at least have some overview of what info you want.

     

    Imagine if FOI was available in 1950 - how would Joe Public know about Blechley Park? It was one of the best kept secrets of the war.

     

    Asking the requestor to justify the question - I got doubts. The thing is it creates admin overhead, half the idea of the fee is to discourage people from spamming random requests.

     

     

     

     

     

    I found out that most of these FOI requests come from researchers and Journalist types anyway, so the chances of a member of joe public wanting to put in for an FOI is very remote

     

    Or is it that these researchers and jounalists work for (or are producing work for) those organisations that can afford to pay the request fee

  2. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Sinclair was the UK version of ATARI, think about it, most of the UK games publishers started off the back of sinclairs products, from the single board systems designed by Chris Curry (actually based on a 6502 and not a Z80) to the likes of the ZX series and not forgetting that their engineers would go on to start up sinclairs competition (like Chris Curry, who co founded Acorn, Like the people behind the Jupiter Ace...forgot their names, like Miles Gordon who designed the sam coupe and of course the designers of the nintendo SFX chip, the KMS as well as the Atari panther and Jaguar...All got their start in the business via Sinclair Research/Science of Cambridge/Sinclair Radionics)

     

    Another interesting facto about Sinclair is that Sinclair Radionics and Science of Cambridge were partly Government owned or funded...So perhaps theoretically the government had a hand in starting most of the UK games publishers we remember (since, without Sinclairs success you probably would'nt have heard of most of those publishers or that they wouldn't have existed)

  5. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    To asking a question about the bios that comes with the emu.

     

    Which OS revision is it largely or loosely based on, pre XL, XL or XE

     

    And how close (from an emulation PoV) is the bios to the OS revision it is based on (percentage wise)

     

     

     

    Lastly is there a section within the manual that refers to making MaxFlash images with Altirra, as well as images that can be used with these other i/o devices that are emulated (i.e Myide etc) and what kind of data can be put on these images (i.e atr/xfd/xex/atx etc etc)

  6. Posted

    If all FOI requests were free, you'd have every numbnuts crusader in the country asking about stupid things like paperclip expenditure by government departments.

     

    Re early computer stuff, it's fair to say the US stole the thunder there for a good while in the late 40s through 50s - what they (UK scientists) did in Blechley Park was years ahead of it's time and layed the foundations for others to do better things and take the credit and profit.

     

     

     

     

    Not neccessarily, the particular law enforcement agency or government department could ask the person wanting this/that information (i.e the FoI request) to show any research or documentation to backing up their FoI request (i.e. any work or articles they have done/written themselves) or even better they would have to get their request sponsored by that law enfocement agency or government department (this in itself should ileviate the majority of bogus FoI requests)

     

    Perhaps i should have said so in the first place (whoopsie daisy)

  8. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Not quite.

     

    First up, there might be requirement that you're a citizen. Next, some documents are automatically protected and will be released after X years or in some cases never.

     

    Then you likely have a fee which might be $50 or more per document.

     

    UK government releases some interesting ones at times, some of the old WW2 and Cold War stuff is pretty juicy.

     

    Crumbs, you mean you have to pay for it....whats the point (perhaps some of that stuff/info might be released under that countries 30/50 year ruleThere again i guess that's how many universities in the UK got to find out about Tommy flowers work on the collosus (via the 30 year rule),since the UK only recently initiated an FoI act/law

  10. Posted

    or it might have been the fault of the distributors (according to some article i saw in databases 'atari user' magazine, in their atari world/red rat feature) that the A8 wasn't getting that mucho support (i.e the distributors weren't prepared to take on particular formats from the software houses, like the A8)

  11. Posted

    I think Atari's stronghold were in the north (i.e anything north of the watford gap), it's a shame however that that didn't lead to more software support (since the el biggo s/w houses were either midlands of based up north) i.e. USG, Gremlin, Ocean, Elite and co, with very few down south (like Mastertronic, virgin, hewson, activision, EA etc)

     

    Perhaps Atari themselves should have done more to get more 3rd party software support (but i'm guessing that by the time that JT and his cronies took over at Atari the game was up, even if the ST and compatibles did get better support then the A8)

  13. Posted

    Linkies only....

     

     

     

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/18/prince_of_persia_source_code/

     

     

    http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2012/04/textfiles/

     

    Old news i know, first i've come across it

     

     

    Unfortunately i have'nt actually come across the actual code

     

     

    Now, if only Mr Mechner code do the same with the A8 version of 'Karateka'

     

    Interesting thing is that Jordan used is brother David as the model for the main character in Prince of Persia

  14. Posted

    i'm not a Londoner, i was born and raised in Kent so trips to events like the PCW or Commodore shows were days (and later weekends when i started crashing at Skywave/Cosine's place) out for me and a small group of school friends.

     

     

     

    That was one of the things that basically forced me to move away from the Atari, where i lived in semi-rural Kent there two indie computer shops who carried about twenty A8 games between them and neither sold peripherals or utilities. Nobody carried Atari-specific magazines either so i didn't even know about the mail order side of things and, without access to a half decent assembler, disk drive or hardware documentation past the manual that shipped with my 800XL that didn't even mention players, i didn't get any further into learning 6502. That "gap" has always bugged me and is one of the reasons i started posting here and learning the A8 properly.

     

     

     

     

     

    I guess you lived near medway then, I was more on the coast (margate, but next door in cliftonvile) have'nt been back there since i left in 1981 (apart from a day trip 7 years later)

     

     

    Wasn't sillica around when you were based in kent (sidcup) that was the best branch to go to, since they had EVERYTHING atari related, it was more likened to an alladins cave

     

    I did go to some of the commodore shows (as my older brother was into the system) but only the ones held at novotel in hammersmith (funnily enough in the next road Atari's present london offices are at)

  17. Posted

    Shame we didn't see you in Sillica then TMR (when they started selling/stocking C64's, which was after they moved out of Lion House), there again Apart from hamleys, The games Centre, Virgin, Sillica, Pilot/Laskeys and Dillons (now waterstones blahhhhh) I don't think there were anywhere else in london you could have bought Atari hardware or software....It was all commodore and sinclair etc

  18. Posted

    So, somebody (guy#1) pirates other people's games, and runs fraudulent auctions in which they shill bid on from another (zero or near-zero feedback) account. Someone else (guy#2) doesn't like such activity, posts about it. Others chime in with corroborative, easily-observable nefarious evidence - such as positive feedback attesting to accuracy of item description - left only hours after auction ended and before they could possibly obtain the merchandise to make such a determination. Yet guy#1 is defended in his actions to the point that guy#2 is on the defensive? What is the world coming to?

     

     

     

     

     

    Actually i recall that someone was done (as in convicted) for 'shilling' on ebay's UK site a little while back (something to do with transgressing the sale of goods act or something), i guess that is commonplace on ebays other 'local market' sites (non UK ofcourse)

     

    here's a couple o' links to said case

     

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267410/Ebay-seller-faces-fine-bidding-items-raise-prices.html

     

    http://tamebay.com/2010/04/ebay-seller-convicted-of-shill-bidding.html

  20. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Interesting that Jon Dean also worked at Konix, is that the same Jon Dean that worked for Atari during the dark days of Warners ownership and then worked for one of those games publishers (i think it was either EA or activision as head of their UK business)

  21. Posted

    An alternative to Craigslist (since they don't seem to do much outside the US) is gumtree...not too sure if gumtree are mucho into retro gear though

     

    I prefer going to carbooters (car boot sales) you can get a good deal if your prepared to 'do a tramiel' and HAGGLE

     

    carbooters= somewhat similar to garage/yard sales and flea markets

  22. Posted · Edited by carmel_andrews

    Well, simply put....If we want to archive (as in to preserve or protect) our 'digital heritage' (i.e not just the hardware but also software as well) emulation and emulation formats are at present the only way we can do so (unless someone else has a better idea)

     

    And since the people that own the rights to said hardware or software that have been archived (or preserved/protected) in this fashion (i.e. emulation and emulation formats) aren't interested in archiving or preserving/protecting our 'digital heritage' then it is down LARGELY to us as CONSUMERS (or users)

     

    Emulation formats as in atr/xfd/st/msa/d64/tzx/tap etc etc

     

    There is a way that homebrewers can benefit from the emulation market as stated elsewhere in these forums, simply do some sort of itunes alike service and network it amongst the various sites that make up the classic/retro platform market (including emulation and roms sites), that way everyone benefits and as users/consumers we get legally downloadable software content for our classic or retro platforms/formats

  24. Posted

    Like it say's on the tin

     

    What nice prezzies will you be giving your Atari (or non Atari) this christmas and what will you be playing on your Atari (or non Atari) on the day itself

     

    No prezzies for my Atari but i will be playing defender and probably a few other games but mostly defender

     

    i might give the snes and gba emu's a whirl as well (perhaps some of the turrican games on the snes and castlevania on the gba)

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