carmel_andrews

Seeming as though most of the Flare group came from SINCLAIR RESEARCH (or whatever other names sinclairs various doings took the form of) Perhaps the Jaguar (as well as the KMS) was basically a souped up games system version of the speccy (i.e. slightly better then a SAM Coupe but without a k/b) There again wasn't some of the flare group also behind the hardware for Argonaut Software's "Starfox" for the snes

I guess that makes anyone over 35 'a dinosaur'....or failing that PREHISTORIC (might as well stick us in a museum)

Linky only http://uk.news.yahoo.com/nintendo-pioneer-yamauchi-dies-123241620.html#ktQuXV4 One of the true icons of videogames is no longer with us He obviously had the vision, in hiring Gumpei Yokoi to get nintendo into the electronic gaming market, which enabled them to invest in videogames and also gaming hardware He onbiously had a bit of luck go his way, since the proposed deal with Atari which fell apart (mostly due to Kassars departure) was actually a blessing in disguise, as it gave nintendo the chance to sell upscale games technology to the US Only thing is, I woldn't say that nintendo 'revived 'the market after the 80's games crash, perhaps in the US yes but not in europe since certain nintendo policies actually worked against them At least Yamauchi didn't make the same horendous mistakes as his sega or microsoft counterparts have Something i found out about concerning nintendo's first non Japanese investment (Rare), the Stampers were the first people to reverse engineer the NES (though they didn't fully reverse engineer it, but they got very close), I guess Nintendo only bought into rare, or got them onboard as 'prefered developers'', so as to stopping them selling their reverse engineered concepts to 3rd parties

Dirt Cheap....Tramiel, Isn't there a connection there somewhere

Well Atari did try a couple of WP/DTP bundled systems, one of them used the Atari SLM laser printer and DMC's Calamus program for the ST/TT etc They also tried doing a WP bundle for the A8 series around the time of the XE launch, can't remember the program or printer the XE was bundled with but I'm sure it was Atari branded

Or just convert those images to a HD image, just like they do for some ST and Miggy multi disk games

Phaoron...An idea about your debugger How about a sub program call a 'load simulator', that works for tape (cas), disk (atr/x/dcm etc), executables (com/xex/exe) and cartridge (rom/car/bin), the idea is that as the program is loading it prints out or saves the data for that IO operation (whether it be disk, tape or cartridge) to computer memory for the entire time you use that tape/disk or cart image It will also tell the user any possible run or init addresses it comes across the way that the load similator will work is that it uses a section of PC memory as a blank Atari memory region (i.e. it does'nt contain any screen ram or any data above the user memory area (BFFF) so that the load similator can view where in memory the data is loading or has loaded, which would be ideal for programs that 'hard load' data above the user memory area (BFFF) and also for cartridges that load data in different areas of memory (i.e. those that have more then 16k) You could work the program to work with Atari programs that use a maximum of 320k (since there's very little programs that use more then 320k) since the load simulator will allow you to inspect bank switched memory as well and also tell the user what area/bank of bank switched memory a particular loaded or loading data has gone to The idea here is that it will let the user convert data from cartridge to disk or disk to executable or tape to disk or executable etc (since the sub program will let you save data as a binary file (atari dos compatible) and using the variosu binary to tape or disk/cart programs convert the file to a tape or disk or disk/tape menu or even cartridge Only thing is ofcourse this will only work for programs that don't alter the code/data on the disk or tape/cartridge that is loaded into memory (so therefore, programs like say operation blood, international karate, bounty bob etc, the data on the disk/tape image you don't be able to use since it doesn't correlate to what is loaded in memory but using the memory dump feature and also the run/init feature you will still be able to convert that data back into a binary file)

Linky only http://uk.news.yahoo.com/amd-announces-embedded-chips-pc-business-shrinks-002247998--finance.html#ms8TXlW All i can say is....very interesting, there again, this isn't the first time MS have gone with AMD, i recall that windows XP was designed with AMD processors in mind And an interesting departure for AMD as well....PC sales must really be that bad

I guess that Mr Hector is not longer working at Bandai Partners (where he was technical head)

Nice collection there, Ace Pokey toonz as well (ever thought about doing a single or LP)

Are you doing all your games dev. work via emulation then or splitting it via emulation and real hardware

Any chance you could do a sequal to heavy metal or floyd the droid...And how much did you get for the latter game (since i recall it did appear on some budget label)

The problem here is, the consumer buying from the mainstream market...That's why the ST/Amiga/A8 and C64 falll by the wayside and allowed the PC and windows to steamroller them out of existance Point being is, the other formats should have tried making, developing or creating new markets for their platforms, like we have now with the internet(web), emulation and homebrew development I accept that we didn't have the web/internet (in the way we know it now) back then and homebrew development, but that isn't any excuse for not trying to open up or make new markets for this or that platform at that particular point in time The point being that these companies we once idolised just simply forgot the very people that actually purchased their hardware, they thought they 'understood the market', no one does, the only people that understand the market is the end user....the end user is the market, what these companies were failing to do is integrate the end user with the strategy and vison that company had for it's particular platform or format The point being the if companies like say Atari, understood the market...they would'nt have crashed and burned so badly and caused the so called 'game crash' of 1983/4, since if they knew the market, they would'nt have been releasing crap games by the bucketload, they wouldn't be letting people that didn't understand technology and getting technology into the market (software or hardware) get involved in marketing or any element in product development and most importantly wouldn't initiate business methods/practices that drove the very people that designed the product that got the company where it was, out of the company...lest we remember of course that Atari as well as commodore never really recovered after the crash and tramiel leaving commodore If these companeis we speak of, i.e Atari,CBM, Amstrad (who owned sinclair) etc really understood the consumer and how the consumer thinks, they would'nt have been wasting time trying to undercut eachother and trying to compete cheaply in the market, they would have tried finding new ways of extending the shelf life of said platforms/formats so that it could be enjoyed by future generations...and the way you do this is by finding new markets (like the internet, software based emulation and homebrew development and suchlike) I think we can all aqgree that after the crash the likes of Atari and commodore were largely living off of fresh air, yes the ST and Amiga did offer something, the problem was the people (companies) making and marketing the product, just like the A800 and c64 did offer something...The problem these companies had is that they got too blinded by a little initial success and didn't see things long term Remember that Atari only got into computers when Miner/Decuir told Ataris' management that the VCS architecture was only good for 2 or 3 years before Atari needed to get a new concept into the market And Just to point out, commodore only got into the low end market because the chief hardware designer (Chuck Peddle) Kept dragging his feet on the development of the Colour Pet system (i.e. the Pet system that was supposed to use the vic chip) I was told the only reason why Amstrad bought out sinclair was so it could force UK developers and publishers to publish games for the Amstrad platforms as well as Sinclair (the point being that since amstrad owned sinclair, it could litterally drop the platform the next day and also still be the pre eminant Z80 based platform in UK since the MSX really wasn't much of a competitor) and publishers/developers obviously saw that amstrad basically had the UK games industry by the balls which is why Amstrad was reasonably well supported I accept that the likes of Amstrad and commodore did attempt to upscale the product with new technologies i.e. pet to vic 20 and vic 20 to c64 and c64 to the unreleased c65 as well as Amstrad going from the pcw to the pc and cpc to the cpc plus, Atari on the other hand largely failed in that extent (you can blame warners management for that for turning down miner's idea for a 68000 based platform)...The problem is though unless you are trying to find new markets/avenues for your upscale product it's pointless going for the same market again since it allows other companies to out tech you and your largely selling to the same people that already own your previous offering, by opening up new markets (like we have now with emulation, internet and homebrew development) you create new opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist for that or this platform Essentially by trying to compete with the PC or Mac the likes of Atari, Commodore and Amstrad etc simply didn't stand a chance, if they only found or developed these new markets and avenues and exploted them way back when, we'd still have the likes of Atari and Commodore in some element of what we once remembered them as

Mr Savetz, Interesting project you have there, an Idea though...since Atari Users are very International (i.e. they exist outside the US as well) and since very few retailers outside the US bothered stocking US computing or Atari related magagines, very few Atari owners/users outside the US would have heard of those magazines One idea could be that you also mention Atari and computing magazines that included Atari articles that were available outside the US, like PCW, Computer Shopper, C&VG etc as well as the Atari specific ones like Atari user and Page 6 (as well as Euro equivalents)

An idea for live gaming or high score competitions on AA (via live video/audio streaming) Seeming as though most people here are into gaming and have a mobile phone/smart phone or web cams or use an emulator (since most emulators are capable of recording emulator usage) One idea that came to me is for each hardware section (Atari games machines, computers and non-Atari) to have a section inviting people to do live gaming playing and also live gaming competitions or high score competitions (via live video/audio streaming) How that would work is that the first person posting, posts up a live stream of them playing some game and at the end of the post there is the option to invite other people to join in (if they have the same game) and do dual (or more) live gaming playing streaming, game competitions or high score contests I am sure that Atariage has the technology to make this possible for head to head live streaming of people playing their games (either on pucka hardware or via emulation) and have the streaming data live on that particular section or thread If it works for live gaming playing or competitions, it could be extended to other areas like hardware and software trouble shooting, programming issues, hardware repairs and upgrades and so on How the latter will work is that the person making the first post, post’s up a video/audio clip of the post and at the end of the post there is the option to invite others to partake in the dual (or more) streaming where the invited person(s) then does a live reply or response (via video/audio streaming) to the original persons video/audio post

well, considering that most school children from the 90's onwards have problems counting in DECIMAL, the chances of them knowing let alone counting in binary (or hexadecimal) are about as remote as you or I winning the lottery jackpot

Nintendo...the new ATARI, perhaps they'll take the same route as ATARI/SEGA did and go Software only since they ain't laying out as much on R&D and Manuf'g and production costs

Chris....Didn't Atari Inc. use mainly/mostly Apple II's for games dev, I find it interesting that you have an A800 there

Link only Looks like it's in some A8 format, unfortunately the link in the text after the video clip doesn't seem to work Anyone heard of this, is it some sort of new gfx mode or just some new way of displaying hi rez video content on the A8

And your problem is what, exactly