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Tinman

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Posts posted by Tinman

  2. Posted

    One more memory from me... I grew up in a small city in central California so I had somewhat limited access to (and knowledge of) the various Atari games that existed. We had the Atari ones, plus Activision and Imagic, and that was about it. I remember one day going to San Francisco and wandering into a small electronics store and seeing a TON of games I never even knew existed! The ones that really caught my eye were the Apollo Games, especially Space Jockey. My parents refused to buy me anything, so it wasn't for several years that I got to try it (and realized it totally was NOT worth the wait!) :) I was also blown away completely when I saw a SuperCharger and Phaser Patrol for the first time. I was already in love with Star Raiders on the 800 and Starmaster on the 2600 so Phaser Patrol looked like the end-all be-all Atari 2600 game to me. Sadly, this was another one that I had to wait years to get to try myself, and I was glad to see that this one was totally worth the wait.

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    I got to choose a game for my birthday present in the Summer of 82. Unwittingly, I chose Starmaster because it was a new release and looked really fun. This was easily my best game choice ever. Not because it was fun, although it was, but because of a few words in the little box under the "Tips from Alan Miller" in the instructions. Those words said...

     

    NOTE: StarMaster by ACTIVISION is designed to be played on color television sets only.

     

    StarMaster is still one of my two absolute favorite games for the Atari (the other one being Adventure). I still probably play Star Master and Adventure more than any other. I can't count the number of hours I've spent staring out the cockpit window shooting at aliens... Even better that it got you the use of a color TV! My parents never let us connect the Atari the "good" TV in the living room. But when they replaced the 19" color TV in their bedroom, I got the old one to put in the game room and use with the Atari, and later my Atari 800, too. So I was very fortunate that I had a decent TV to use pretty much from the beginning.
    • Like 1

  4. Posted

     

    I was fascinated with Raiders in particular because it seemed like such an incredibly deep game at the time. But for all the games, the package artwork and the manuals (which were more like comic books to me) added greatly to the sense of depth: they gave me images and a story that my imagination could project onto the relatively primitive games as I was playing them. It was an experience that I've never received from more modern games, which usually leave nothing to the imagination, and I remembered it so fondly that I picked up sealed copies of most of these games from Venezuela last year, just to see those boxes and manuals again.

    I used to have the same fascination with Raiders for the very same reason. It was definitely the deepest game I had ever seen on the Atari. My sister and I worked together to complete the game (and get a pretty decent rating at the end), but it definitely took the both of us to do it.

  5. Posted

    I can remember playing Space Invaders when it first came out at my cousin's house pretty much all night long. It wasn't too long after that that my parents bought us our own Atari, to replace the Coleco Telstar (Pong clone) we had before that. Since they knew I obviously loved Space Invaders, they bought that to go along with Combat that came with it. And then my sister and I each got to pick out our own game for it. I chose Asteroids and she chose Missile Command. Both were good choices, I think. :)

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    There are a ton of great carts with arcade ports, like Galaxian, PacMan, Asteroids, Missile Command. But your best option is my all-time favorite video game, the original Star Raiders. I also loved several of the Avalon Hill games, including Galaxy, Nukewar, and Midway.

  12. Posted

    Not sure. I just pre-ordered one and some paddles from Amazon, but they won't ship for a couple of weeks. The description says it's an AV cable, so I assume that it's like the previous versions, which have a video (RCA) cable and an audio one.

  14. Posted

     

     

    That would probably be the setup I would opt for if and when I upgrade. Windows 7 is probably going to be on my main machine for the foreseeable future.

     

    It will be interesting to see if Microsoft releases a patch for people who would rather just go straight to the desktop. I believe the server version was supposed to have that feature but now I'm not sure. Looking forward to checking it out soon at work.

     

    I seriously doubt that Microsoft will ever release a patch that bypasses the Start Screen in favor of the desktop. It's called the "Start Screen" for a reason: It's where you start things. And Metro is clearly their idea of the future.

     

    But here's a simple trick to make going to the desktop easier: Make sure that the live tile for the desktop is in the top left position on your start screen. Then, to open the desktop from the start screen, all you have to do is press Enter. Also, once you're on the desktop, you can use the Windows key to toggle back and forth between the start screen and the desktop.

  15. Posted

    I think you're right about some of this. Metro is clearly a mobile environment that Microsoft has grafted onto Windows. But I think it was there only good choice, really, to maintain or grow Windows. They clearly see tablets like iPads cutting into PC sales and that trend is going to continue. In a few years, I would imagine that tablets will have a market share close to traditional PCs and Microsoft obviously wants to be a part of that. With Windows 8, you expose millions of users to the new mobile environment while maintaining backwards compatibility with the old desktop applications (obviously, Windows RT provides much less of this backwards compatibility). As for looking like #$%!, I think metro actually looks pretty slick. I love the live tiles and think they're far better than the static grid of icons you get on iOS and many Android versions. I have a Windows Phone 7 and the live tiles let me see at a glance a lot of information without even opening the app. The metro UI itself, too, is pretty slick and makes for some really nice looking apps. On my desktop I don't use the metro apps as much, I still mostly use the desktop, but I do use the metro apps on occasion and it's not as bad as you think. I was worried about how well I'd like them on my big 23" monitors, but it does work well. My biggest complaint so far is that you cannot run two metro apps side-by-side on multiple monitors. But you can (and I do) run metro apps on one monitor while I have the desktop running on the other.

  16. Posted

    I still can't see people in Data Centers navigating Windows Server with the metro interface. At least not in ours. I guess if Microsoft officially gets rid of the desktop for PC's which would be a huge mistake in my opinion then I will just run the Server software at home.

    I disagree. In fact, I believe that Server 2012 does have a Metro interface, along with the desktop, the PowerShell, and even the old DOS prompt. (By the way, Windows RT has all of those, too.) Not only that, but many of the Server web-based interfaces now use a metro-style look and feel as well. I see no reason why the desktop utilities can't be made in Metro, and I expect to see just that.

    Exactly. Power users of a PC will never be able to use an interface as dumbed down as Metro. The posters I have seen comparing it to the old America Online, and Idiocracy screenshots are spot on.

    I think this is way off! There is absolutely nothing in metro that requires that an app be "dumbed down" compared to a desktop app. Just because we're mostly used to the simple apps of the type you'd see on an iPad or other tablet doesn't mean that Windows metro apps have to be that simple. Remember, metro and Windows 8 will be running on very powerful modern PCs. The apps running on those PCs can be every bit as powerful and feature-laden as existing desktop apps. I've been using Windows 8 on both of my PCs (tablet and desktop) for many months now. It is NOTHING like America Online and anyone who things so obviously hasn't used it yet.

  17. Posted

    I have nothing against Silverlight, but it's pretty clear that it's a technology for the Windows desktop only and with "Metro" (now "Modern-UI") and WinRT, Microsoft is moving away from that. No, the desktop won't go away any time soon, and may see some improvements in updates to Win8, but it's definitely not the strategic direction for Microsoft. Silverlight may not be dead, but it and the desktop are on life support. The good news for developers is that their experience with Silverlight should help quite a bit when transitioning to WinRT.

  19. Posted

    Actually, the initial Surface which was announced today runs Windows RT on AIM chips, so it is not fully compatible with "legacy" Windows 7 software. It will run the Office RT that comes with it and couple of desktop utilities like Notepad, but not any other desktop software. The only apps it will run are the Windows 8 apps that are available in the Windows App Store for Windows RT devices.

     

    Yes, Silverlight is a Microsoft technology, but it is no longer core. The Silverlight libraries have been deprecated in favor of the WinRT runtime engine. The APIs are somewhat similar, but definitely not the same.

  22. Posted

    Heck yeah, I still play it! Also the Atari 800 version (the best video game ever made) as well as Starmaster and Phaser Patrol, and occasionally Space Battle or Star Voyager. My favorite on the 2600 is Star Master, but Star Raiders and Phaser Patrol are right up there. I put up a long review/comparison of the various 2600 first-person space simulators up here in the forums a few months ago.

  23. Posted

    If it's the same Telstar I have (Pong-like clone), the power supply and cable would be easy enough to replace, but the RF cable was permanently attached, so if it's missing, you'll probably have to open it up and solder on a new one.

  25. Posted

    I've always wanted to build a dedicated Star Raiders arcade cockpit based on the Star Wars cockpit or Star Trek cockpit, but with a couple of arm rests with the 25 or so buttons and joystick needed. Maybe use a cosmetically broken but functional 400/800 as the brains. Wire up a keyboard interface with a bunch of Happ buttons.

     

    Yeah, that would be very cool. Even with it's simplistic graphics (compared to modern games), Star Raiders had a way of really pulling you into the simulation like no other game. With a cockpit, I can only imagine the effect would be even greater.

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