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youxia

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Posts posted by youxia

  1. Posted

    Defining what a "best" emulator per given system is not always a clear-cut task. Some emus have options which others don't, and vice versa.

     

    Dismissing RetroArch out of hand is rather unwise, since it offers some very powerful functionalities, such as runahead, shaders, etc.

  2. Posted

    I don't really know what this OP is about, sorry, not too coherent. What I do know is that any company which puts any sort of advertising or monetising into the actual game should burn in the videogaming hell.

     

    The first one that I recall was Bioware with that obnoxius NPC who asked for your credit card DA: Origins. The latest I've seen is Far Cry Arcade. If people don't oppose this crap it will surely creep into more and more games. So, dear suits, do whatever you want outside of the game, which means you can even put the link to your stupid store into the menu, but please do GTFO of my gameplay.

     

  4. Posted

    I've just tried it in Altirra and it's like The Doctor says: you place the cursor over an item, press Fire, and the menu appears.

     

    Then, bizarrely, you need to press the highlighted letter on keyboard, instead of choosing it with joystick/cursor.  This flaw is symptomatic of this port of Rogue to 8-bit micros. This game is really not suited for cursor-based control (especially when using joysticks to move it), it really should be played with keyboard.

     

    Perhaps your version is somehow bugged? Try the one from Atarimania, it works.

  6. Posted

    I play a lot of games on Windows but can't recall an instance where I'd be forced to use KBM if the game has native gamepad support (and most - if not all - of the modern AAA ones do).

     

    I don't use it personally but have heard that Launchbox has now Steam integration. You can also get one of these little handheld wireless keyboard/touchscreen jobs and keep it close by for when system requires KBM input.

     

    Fun fact: on  Dualshock 4 (not sure about other DSs) you can use its touchscreen as the mouse.

    • Like 1

  9. Posted · Edited by youxia

    On 1/11/2021 at 10:20 PM, CatPix said:

    I was just trying to give a general idea of how things happened, but if we wanna go in detail, it would take several paragraphs for each countries of the former Eastern Block, and probably a few just for the biggest Soviet cities.

    And if you have more memories I would be glad to hear them :)

    I made these posts in answer to particular points about satellite countries, just a perspective from within. I'm sure Russia was a different beast, and there were per country variations.

     

    There are a lot of memories and anecdotes (eg how the CEO of CD Projekt RED started out as a pirate selling games in computer fair, or me going across half country just to get some new games) but this is a console section ;)

     

    This book is pretty good (but pricey): http://ironcurtain.svelch.com/

    • Like 2

  10. Posted

    On 1/11/2021 at 8:35 PM, CatPix said:

    After the Iron Wall fell, however, those Soviet/locally made systems would be utterly outdated or unattractive, as for example Atari would sell their aging 8 bits line in Eastern Europe (which explain the current situation you might have seen if you're into Atari 8 bits : that most software and hardware development is made in Poland and Czech Republic) so companies and administration would dump those computers out, and unsold stocks would be sold at literal scrap value, which explain why most games you can see in those videos bear dates of 1992 to 1994 : it is when those computers became "common" for everybody, before they were quickly replaced by either consoles (usually Famiclones) or aging but "better" (and non-Soviet :D ) Western computers.

    Again, this isn't exactly how it was - nobody ever sold anything to us for "scrap value". How I wish :) It's just that there was a little bit more money after 1988 sloshing around and people could afford a bit more, plus computers were getting popular and it was easier to convince parents. And, sure, they were outdated so also a bit cheaper, but still quite a luxury.

     

    Cartridge based consoles never got too popular, clones or not ("Pegasus" in my area), for the simple reason that copying carts was zillion times harder/more expensive than disks or tapes. I've never actually seen one in my entire life there. First console which got popular, (and first one I've ever owned, circa 1998) was PSX - guess why...

    • Like 2

  11. Posted · Edited by youxia

    On 1/11/2021 at 8:35 PM, CatPix said:

    In several Eastern countries (at least Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland) around 1990, games would be shared all over the countries from the West and internally... on FM radios. Yes. gamers would set up FM emitters and broadcast the data tapes over FM for gamers to record it (and/or directly load in on theitr computers I assume).

    I grew up in Poland at that time but have never heard of such thing done by individuals. Not saying it did not happen at all, but it must've been some sporadic instances. It's just logistically too much hassle - it's so much easier just to go to somebody's place and borrow/copy tapes. There actually were broadcasts on the official, state-ran FM radio, but the quality was low (well, of my gear at least) and I've never managed to load one of these recordings without errors.

     

    On 1/11/2021 at 8:35 PM, CatPix said:

    Something I forgot to mention was that those arcade machines and computers were rare. Most gamers in Eastern countries that got to play on computers before 1992 would have played games in computer clubs, very rarely owning their own computers

    This is not 100% true. See my post about arcades here.  As for computers, for sure, there weren't as many of them as in the West, but still, there were a lot of people who had them. I had ZX Spectrum in 1987, C64 in 1990 and Amiga in 1991, even though I was rather poor. But, where there's a will there's a way.

    There were no computer clubs, at least not in my area, you'd just have to befriend some guy who had a micro. Very few schools had computers. The only "clubs" were basically microcomputer arcades - they'd charge per hour.

     

     

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

  12. Posted · Edited by youxia

    I grew up in Poland in the 70s-90s. It wasn't a barrel of laughs but also not as bad as the really dark Stalin era, and more relaxed than Russia or East Germany (I think).

     

    I'm not sure if stuff like rock was actually banned (eg Rolling Stones played a gig in Warsaw in 1967), but it simply wasn't sold anywhere. So it was all about swapping things which those lucky ones, who either had family abroad or went there, brought in.

     

    There were "arcades", usually a few per city and an odd machine here and there (train stations, bars, etc).  An "arcade" near my house in a small town was  an old caravan with a few games crammed in. I recall playing Scramble in it circa 1981-3, so we clearly weren't that far behind :), even if it was a bootleg. It was my first videogame. Before that I did play on some pinball machines thou. But since we were mostly broke, pocket money was unheard of, and we had no steady income (eg like paper rounds) it'd be mostly about watching other big boys play (and hope they won't try to mug you or, if you were lucky, leave a credit in by mistake).

     

    I don't remember any machines originating in our region, never seen any of those Russian ones either. Everything was from the West/Japan. We had Pong clones and those Nu Pogodi Game & Watch Russian rip-offs.

     

    Found this vid, apparently a first  Polish arcade, circa 1972. Mostly one arm bandits, but some pinballs too (we called them "flippers").

     

     

    A few photos in this article: https://gry.wp.pl/automaty-w-naszym-baraku-historia-salonow-gier-6116963860698753a

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    On 1/6/2021 at 11:46 PM, oracle_jedi said:

    I got my first Amiga around 2017, and was really surprised how limited the basic A500 was. 

    This perception was somewhat different in 1987 and thereabouts...

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1

  15. Posted

    For the cost of Mini-Pet and assorted bits like keyboard (~300GBP) I'd rather spend a little bit more and buy an original one. Full-on Mini Pet will never happen because of the impossibility to manufacture a CRT nowadays. It could happen with a flat modern panel, and some sort of RPi inside, but even so it's too niche a machine for somebody to bother with putting it all together.

     

    I don't quite understand the issue with its lack of "appeal" though. It's a retro computing pioneer, what else is there to be said? Of course it's more primitive than C64, but C64 is more primitive than Amiga, which in turn is...and so on. Nobody is going to use it for modern productivity tasks, but for the fact it's totally amazing to keep alive such an iconic piece of history.

  16. Posted

    It's not as much about the messaging but their track record. Atari SA is known for being a bunch of hucksters milikng the license in any way possible. VCS is just one of these ways, launched on the me-too wave of nostalgia driven retro-boxes. For that reason it was always known it's just a quick cash grab, not a serious operation, and  that was reflected in its shambolic development and dearth of any software or serious support now. Even though I'm not a great fan of Amico myself, that machine and its campaign is in stark contrast to VCS when it comes to design, dedication and some sort of plan for the future.

     

    Of course, it did generate a lot of buzz because Atari is still a recognizable brand and nostalgia a powerful emotion. And that is another reason to condemn this lot, for squandering such an opportunity and preying on people's feelings. As I said from the beginning, the idea itself (a branded, custom mini-PC with reasonable capabilities and open system) is not bad at all. But it takes a lot of work and expertise to maintain an ecosystem around such device (building it is the easiest part) and it's not something Chesnais & Co are interested in. It's much easier to pull some crypto stunt or open a casino in Africa.

    • Like 4

  19. Posted

    On 12/24/2020 at 4:37 PM, OLD CS1 said:

    If you are just playing games from ADF on the Gotek or real floppy disks, then a hard drive is minimally useful.  Most of the games do not install to hard drive.

    Actually, there's quite a few that do...according to HoL ~1270: http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_hardware=11&N_hd=yes

    So if somebody has a HDD already it's probably worth loooking into getting it going, seeing as disk swapping can be a real pain, even on Gotek.

     

    Otherwise I'd also recommend ACA500+ which is an incredible add-on, a true Swiss Army knife for the humble A500.

     

  23. Posted

     

    On 12/28/2020 at 5:03 PM, Atarick said:

    Precisely. And this has been a major misstep in nearly all of the gaming pundit reviews so far. The "Atari's VCS is a big $400 joke of a PC!" line is both completely inaccurate and grossly misinformed.

    No, it isn't, because 389.99 USD is the price which you will see when you go to the official site and click on Preorder Now. If you got it for ~250USD then that's indeed not a bad price, but what matters for prospective buyers now is the price from now, and that's what it should be compared to and reviewed as.

     

     

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    On 12/30/2020 at 9:29 PM, Mockduck said:

    The individual thread per game thing is more Resetera or Reddit style than what we usually see on AA. Doesnt seem that odd to me for 2020 forum culture. 

    Reddit is not a forum, and Resetera is a forum which tries to be Reddit. And what we have here is AtariAge  👻

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  25. Posted

    Posting a "wanted" ad in a jobs/services section of your local Craigslist or some such might work too. There are still many people who do have the skills, but are retired or advertise for modern gear.

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