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pacman000

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Posts posted by pacman000

  3. Posted

    The Android user groups don't seem at all impressed by this. Wonder what the demographics are of their backers.

     

    Gameband will bring us an Android gaming smartwatch this fall

    A company called FMTwo Game Inc. is seeking funds via Kickstarter for the Gameband, an Android-based smartwatch specifically for gaming.

    ANDROIDAUTHORITY.COM

    Oscar Cooke-Abbott That's the stupidest thing I've heard in the tech world today - and I just watched your review of the nVidia Shield TV 2017, with all your uninformed statements in it.

    (((savage)))

    Tino Suteu No thanks. I just want a Pebble replacement that is waterproof for construction related purposes.. Kind of pointless to game on a watch.

    Justin Cremeans A terrible idea that is of course a Kickstarter

    Krystian Painter Stupid. Why not just make the battery last longer? That's all we want. And a better design.

    Dawid Poleszczuk havent seen anything so bad in a loong time

    Adil Husain A gimmick ... Which will soon be forgotten

    Mihnea Cristian Ionescu Smartwatches are the biggest flop after tablets

    Justin Berry We had these back in the early 90s

    Basil Robinson Who the hell wants to game on a smartwatch? #techfail

    Könye Gábor istead ot this sh*t bring back pebble

    Xavier Lyard realistically who the hell is going to game on a watch

    Ahmed Yanaal Y

    Shan Escasio Why would i want to game on a watch?

    Alex Ohannes Three letters sum this up perfectly : L O L.

     

    It's basically this strapped to your wrist constantly with none of the convenience of controls, but all the style of a fanny pack or speaker hat...

     

    119402-apps-news-beware-tamagotchi-on-br

    84869851_XS.jpg

    hqdefault.jpg

    I'd actually like that Casio "Atomic Robot" watch.

  4. Posted · Edited by pacman000

    I should probably copy DigitPress's links page, but I've not had a chance to do so yet.

    There is a mention on their forum that a few other parts of the site are backed up, and that they may bring that stuff over to the new site.

    Awhile back I discovered that VGF was still online. Does anyone remember that site? Their main page redirects to their forum, but I found a link to the rest of their content on smbhq: http://www.vgf.com/404.htm Yeah, that's a 404 error page, but it still has links to other, abandoned-but-working parts of the site.

    Digital Press had been up for a long time; if the copyright notice on their forum is correct (1991-2017) they were probably one of the 1st gaming sites on the web. So it's sad to see it go, even if they hadn't had any major updates in a long time they were still interesting from a historical perspective, and they still had good content archived. Same thing with GameZeroMagazine, StompTokyo, VGF, AtariHQ, SMBHQ, SoST, TheMushroomKingdom.net, Videogames.org, BadMovies.org and many, many other sites.

  5. Posted · Edited by pacman000

    This is making me very sad. Too many good websites have gone offline of late.

     

    DMOZ closed at the beginning of the year. ScrubTheWeb shut down their search engine and became a directory. Atari HQ isn't working. Even the Internet Archive isn't perfect; I used to enjoy using archived versions of InfoSeek's directory to look up old websites, but earlier this year Disney changed a robots.txt file and somehow forced the archived version offline. :_(

     

    It's odd that the domain's not parked; usually web hosts create a generic page noting that they haven't been paid in awhile when webmasters forget to pay their bills. :?

  6. Posted

    On the 2600, I played Ms. Pac-Man before I played Pac-Man, so I was quite a bit disappointed that the maze was all wrong.

     

    I never minded the colors, or Pac-Man's eye, and as others have mentioned, those sound effects and music are so iconic today. If just the maze could be fixed, IMO, that would put it on par with a lot of other 2600 ports.

     

    I'm tempted to try hacking one of the Ms. Pac-Man -> Pac-Man hacks.

     

    attachicon.gifpacmock.png

     

    Maybe a little something like this @[email protected]

    I might even consider the eye an improvement; all the art for Pac-Man showed him with an eye. Why shouldn't the game's sprite have an eye?

  9. Posted

    What I don't understand are the people who say things like, "this is too technical and I don't have time for that" but apparently have all the time in the world to play twenty- and thirty-year-old video games. I just don't grasp the concept of someone limiting themselves in that way, being unwilling or unable to expand their horizons.

     

    It's not that hard, and it doesn't take long to tweak something and make it reallly good and fun. Keatah, you said something a while back that sticks with me (and sticks in my craw), something about taking all day for a week to shine up an emulator to make it extra kickass. While I agree that one can spend unlimited time and money on these things, the quick-n-dirty approach gets it done, too.

     

    As someone who is both quick and dirty, I heartily endorse that plan of action.

     

    I'm starting to think of the retro game Kickstarters as being no bettter than the bottom feeders who buy up Nintendo Mini consoles to scalp on eBay. They add nothing to anyone's experience and jam up the works.

    Alternate view:

    I might like watching movies, but I don't want to spend a lot of time messing with settings on my VCR. I could, but I just want to watch movies.

     

    It's the same with video games. Playing games is fun. Configuring a system is work. Even if I have the skills to set up a system, I just want to play games. If someone offered a system that was already ready to go I might be willing to get it if the price was right. It's not laziness or lack-of-skill; it's just an investment, and a preconfigured system may offer a better return for my time and money. Not saying I'd never set up my own system, but the incentive would have to be different. (e.g. If I found the prospect of setting something up akin to building a model, or if I thought I could do a better job than what was available commercially, etc.)

    • Like 5

  10. Posted

    I prefer older websites. My favorite website period is still http://www.atarimuseum.com . It's artistic, informative, easy to navigate, and quick loading.

     

    Wrote this on another forum, when someone pointed out that the official SpaceJam website was still up:

     

    The Space Jam Website. Fun. Take a look at the source; it appears to be hand coded. Tons of white space, and one of the first lines is a comment which no code generator would create: Badda-bing, Badda-boom.

     

    You can see the beginnings of commercial webdesign here. Eventually the basic elements would be codified in a book: Creating Killer Websites. Here's it's website, from 1996: http://www.killersites.com/killerSites/core.html

     

     

    Basic layouts wouldn't change too much til the iPhone came out. Even then, most sites are conceptually the same; they just hide the menu behind a hamburger button. And they need jscript to work corr

  13. Posted

    "This Seedi thing is someone's low-cost interpretation and variation on a homebrew emulation rig that is trying to appeal to all. You're paying for the time and assembly and configuration work really. It's nothing you can't do yourself if so motivated. You can build them on the cheap, less than $100. Or be elegant and sophisticated with high class hardware. Anodized metallic keyboard, automotive grade case finish, joystick/flightstick with all metal construction. Dual m.2 drives. SuperCapacitor 3 minute battery backup. The options are limitless.

    So with Seedi you're essentially paying for the cheap hardware and a bit extra for someone to bring it all together for you. Sounds reasonable to me."

    I can agree with this sentiment. Think of early home computers. Sure, you could buy a S-100 based kit, put it together yourself, customize it, get it to your specs, etc. But it was much easier to buy a fully assembled Apple II.

    • Like 3

  15. Posted · Edited by pacman000

    Some of their older, static pages are still online. Went to Archive.org. Copied AtariHQ's main menu into a word document. Using that to get the URLs to their hosted sites, which should still be online.

    http:/www.ataribook.com/ - An up-to-date book on Atari History
    http:/www.atarihq.com/pal-division/ - "The Ancient Atari PAL Division" European 2600?
    http:/www.atarihq.com/danb/ - Technical information on old computer, arcade, and game systems.
    http:/www.atarihq.com/jeo/ - Jaguar Info
    http:/www.atarihq.com/rgvc/ - "the official IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel of the rec.games.video.classic newsgroup"
    http:/www.atarihq.com/vectrex/ - Spike's Vectrex Page
    http:/www.atarihq.com/tsr/ - TSR's NES Archive

    I know I've missed a few; using Google's "site:" operator may bring up some of the pages I missed.

  21. Posted

    I still think there should be a reverse Bosconian where YOU are the boss ;)

    attachicon.gifConianBoss.png

    attachicon.gifConianBoss.bin

    I think that was the concept of BOMB!'s Wall Defender, tho I've never played it.

     

     

    EDIT: link to the current version (reply #439, 2017-10-08)

     

    I started on a new project with Nathan back in March. It's now far enough along to share with the Homebrew forum.

     

    attachicon.gifdraconian_25.png

     

     

    Your goal is to destroy the space stations on each level. Use the radar, located at the bottom of the screen between the score and lives remaining, to find the stations (green dots) in relation to yourself (white dot). Destroy the stations by taking out all 6 pods

    attachicon.gifDestroy 6 pods.png

     

    Or by hitting the occasionally exposed Energy Field.

    attachicon.gifEnergy Pods.png

     

    Be careful of asteroids and mines. Also beware of the enemy ships. They currently just fly around in formation and cannot yet be destroyed, but running into them is still deadly.

    attachicon.gifdraconian_20140503_podtest_2.png

     

    For this project I came up with a slick new kernel that gives me the ability to reposition an object (player[also known as sprite], missile or ball) on every single scanline. In Space Rocks I was limited to only repositioning the players, and only every-other scanline at that. Check out my Draconian Blog Entries if you're interested in learning more about this.

     

    Menu Options:

    • Level = select from 1 of 6 test levels.
    • TV Type = Select NTSC, PAL or SECAM for proper colors based on your model 2600.
    Controls:
    • Left Difficulty - A= Diagnostic Display (time remaining in Vertical Blank and OverScan)
    • Left Difficulty - B = Score Display
    • Right Difficulty - A = stationary ship (used for diagnostic purposes)
    • Right Difficulty - B = moving ship
    • SELECT = return to menu
    • START = start game
    • Joystick = move around in sector
    • Fire = shoot
    If you're checking this out with Stella, be sure to turn on phosphor mode!
    • open Draconian in Stella
    • hit TAB for the in-game-menu
    • select Game Properties
    • Select the Display tab
    • change Use Phosphor to Yes
    • click OK
    • select Exit Menu
    • Reload the ROM (Control-R)
    NOTE: this is an early version of Draconian. Use the link at top of this post to get to the reply with the latest version.

    ROM

    attachicon.gifdraconian_20140503.bin

     

    Thank you for making this. Bosconian is one of my favorite classic games, and it's sorely overlooked.

  23. Posted

    I don’t know about that as an axiom. Hiroshi Yamauchi ran Nintendo pretty successfully and never even held a controller until 1996. I guess it’s more about trusting your dev teams to put out a polished product than having a gamer run the company.

     

     

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Problem: How much oversight did Atari's programmers have on their games? If it's about trusting your delvs, shouldn't Atari 2600 Pac-Man have turned out well?

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