eric_ruck

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=115180 Darned scrolly button

Didn't there use to be a forum for shows? Is anyone else going to Too Many Games? Last time I went to VGExpo it was a blast, I'm hoping for the same here.

I'm in Maryland and I don't really know anywhere good. If you have a car you're welcome to visit my basement dungeon gameroom of doom in Columbia, MD.

That's not how the legal unlock codes work. After you fill your contract you have to give the phone's IME number to the operator, and they'll send you a unique unlock code generated for that phone. Or you can go to a one-off phone place to do a hack unlock. Or just buy an unlocked one off eBay relatively cheap.

Only sort of. Nokia isn't doing another N-Gage specific phone this time around. Instead all of the S60v3 phones can run the N-Gage software platform, which is free. You can download trial games, or buy the full games fairly cheap. Being out all of maybe two weeks the selection is currently pretty uninspiring, but the "Coming Soon" list looks decent enough. And the one trial game that I downloaded so far is better than I expected. As far as the phone goes, firmware upgrade notwithstanding, the N95 is the best I've owned. It's a fantastic phone with top quality features and made well. Some of the nice features include double slider form, Carl Zeiss optics for the camera, and a normal size headphone jack. Unlocked version costs about $600, it can run on any phone network, includes WiFi, and will probably be working long after the zillion iPhones begin dying and littering landfills.

The waiting around, sniping thing is something of an eBay-ism that the 30 minute thing avoids. No more sniping. Bid the highest you're willing to pay, then don't hang around. Simple, and arguably better than eBay.

So unlocking a T-Mobile QD won't fix it? I have the unlock code and the QD sitting around, haven't gotten around to trying it yet. Oddly my kids really liked the version of Sonic and Bomberman and have been asking to play them. Eric

OK, my experience upgrading the firmware on my N95. Two customer techs who know nothing. One openly hostile. He tells me that my problems are the first he heard. I Google "N95 Nokia Software Updater" and find the same problem posting on their own boards, as well as others, probably 8 of the first 10 hits. None have any resolution. The guy hangs up on me. We are not amused. But, since I think the N95 is a great phone, and I write USB device drivers for a living, I decide to investigate. It takes no time at all to figure out that Nokia's procedure for installing their software says it installs device drivers, but doesn't really. The symptom is that when you run Nokia Software Updater it can't find your phone. The solution is actually pretty simple. If you already installed the Software Updater or the PC Suite desktop you can leave them, no need to uninstall. 1) Leave your phone plugged in via USB cable 2) Open the Windows device manager (the quick way is Start, Run, type "devmgmt.msc" and Enter) 3) At the bottom should be something like "Wireless devices", open this node 4) Inside this node there will be an item that says something like "Nokia N95 USB Parent". It may indicate working, warning or not working. Doesn't matter. Double click to open. 5) Select the "Update Driver" option and let Windows search the Internet 6) Wait. Windows will install a bunch of stuff. You might see some weird stuff going on in the device manager window, that's fine. Also some weird device attach and disconnect from Windows, also fine. 7) When it finishes you're all set to go. Go ahead and run the Nokia Software Updater. Extra note: The N-Gage page says you need version 20.something. The Updater finds 11.something as the latest. This seems to work fine with N-Gage.

It's been available for, what, about two weeks now? I tried to load it on my N95 the day it came out but it complained that I needed a firmware upgrade on the phone. That was an adventure for another post. I finally loaded the N-Gage launcher on my phone and played with it maybe 20 minutes. Here are some early observations: 1) The Launcher experience sucks. I get errors all over the place, no good way to enter the "@" sign for my e-mail address, the confirmation e-mail didn't have clickable links, just awful. You would think that a half year late and three months in Beta release it would be better. 2) OK, I can't let it go, the Nokia phone support for the firmware upgrade was openly hostile. 3) The good news, the one game I tried (Asphalt 3) was actually a lot better than the demo video. A) I wasn't doing very well using the controls but that's more because I'm ham handed and probably need to practice. B) The demo was too short to get the hang of it but if the game is cheap enough I might order it anyway in the interest of science. C) The graphics, framerate and sound were all great, much better than I expected. They made the graphics bright enough for the small phone screen -- most of the original N-Gage games were too dark. Given the fact that it runs on popular S60 phones and the games look pretty decent, I think there's hope for the format yet. Also the devkit is open and free this time around, so there's a better prospect for a decent catalog. I'll try out a few more games and keep posting if anyone is interested.

I would be more interested in an appraisal service. There's way to many $$$ in the basement to not have insured, but the insurance company won't do it without an appraisal. And on one will appraise video games.

I did an offseason vacation in the Poconos last year and found lots of Sega Genesis and Master System stuff at the various indoor flea markets. I was staying in Whitehaven, PA. Don't remember any of the names of the flea markets. I remember picking up a complete Bonanza Brothers for $2 and Thunder Blade for $4, plus a bunch of others that escape me now. Eric

I recently rediscovered SMS as well. There are a lot of really good games that can be had cheaply. Also I've noticed that the buyers on eBay et al aren't as crazy as Atari buyers...basically if an auction ends at 3am there often isn't anyone there to snipe it. I got Kings Quest and a few other nicer finds cheap that way. Although I did lay out $$$ for a complete Sonic. Eric

So who remembers back in the day, when DVD players were new, if your DVD could get through The Matrix, you knew you had a good unit?

Yesterday the Best Buy here had tons of them. Could've made an HD DVD fort. Could've made two and had a battle with the unsold disks. Some thoughts: 1) Another power brick, yuck. 2) I can hear fan noise coming from the 360 while I watch the movie, also yuck. I might have forgiven this except the PS3 runs quieter somehow. 3) King Kong looks fantastic in 1080. 4) The selection of free movies is pretty good and probably makes the whole thing worth it, even if it'll probably be boxed up on a shelf in the basement by this time next year. 5) I'm thinking another good thing is that HD DVDs will start going out on massive clearance so that might sweeten the deal a bit, and also mean the thing will earn a place in the peripherals that are hooked up after all, who knows. Blade Runner on clearance may help that. Eric

For the 5 free movies alone it seems like a good deals. Some of the titles are decent. Better grab one now than for $250 as a rare accessory on eBay in 2013.

Yeah Ben is having trouble getting this to work on his machine. If I come up with any bright ideas I'll let you know. Basically if you have an OS that comes with .NET 2 you're set, otherwise you could be in for a huge headache. Also the docs are lacking but you can usually fill in the info with Google. I found a nice algo to detect collisions between rotated rectangles that I ported to C#, and found the solution to using repeating textures for a large area (apparently it doesn't work unless the texture size is an even power of 2). That said I currently have two tanks that control by either keyboard or gamepad. They can shoot at each other, and when you hit one it spins out. There are also walls around the edges and in the interior that the tanks can't drive or shoot through. All this took me a sum total of probably less than 6 hours. Eric

We're mucking around in Windows first. I'll keep you all posted. I just implemented analog stick control, it didn't take that long either. Honestly this is pretty fun. Since the laundry isn't finished yet I might take a stab at missiles. Eric

And easy too, if you're already a programmer anyway. I've been developing since 1987, and I'm doing production C# for work, but I installed XNA for the first time over Visual Studio 2005. Had a tank controlled with the keyboard in under an hour, with zero knowledge of the XNA framework beforehand. Oh yeah, if you're going to do this it would help knowing a little about linear algebra. Oh yeah, the tanks have a little physics...I made acceleration and deceleration. Basically you just manage a vector pointed in the direction where the tank should go, and add it to a vector representing the current tank position. You can do something like newVector = Vector2.Transform(oldVector, Matrix.CreateRotationZ(MathHelper.Pi / 50)) to rotate. So this morning I spent maybe 30 minutes moving my tank code to a class so I could make another tank that controls with the Z-X-C-S keys. Then I was out for errands and picked up a wireless XP adapter for my 360 controllers, and 10 minutes later I'm moving the tanks with the D-pad. Very fun. Hopefully I can get the analog sticks done before the laudry is finished and I have to knock off. Anyone else try it out? This all started because I found an article that M$ is opening XBLA to indies so Ben ("legeek") said we should do a game. I said OK. Eric

So by this time you probably have a pile of SMS games...which do you still need? I've been collecting SMS lately, which means lots with extras. I don't think any of my extras are particularly rare but I do have a bunch to combine on shipping, depending on what you need. Also will you buy? There's nothing left on your trade list that I particularly need or want. Probably. How's the label on Miner 2049er? Eric

Will a US model work in the UK? I probably have a spare. Shamefully I've never actually tested either but they both look to be in good condition and don't see why they wouldn't work. But I'm in the US. I think I've asked before and never gotten an answer.

Better get them while they're still cheap: School of Atari Rock

My kids really like it. It took awhile for them to warm up to it because the motions are more complex than Wii sports. But if it says anything, it's been played pretty consistently over the last few weeks, and Wii sports hasn't been out of the case for awhile. One of my kids specifically mentioned that he was impressed that this game seemed to have a better sense of where the controller is than Wii Sports. Not a bad observation for a 7 year old. I actually haven't played it myself, just watched their feedback. One thing that I observe is that they probably would not have played it long enough to adjust to the controls if Sonic characters weren't in it. But at this point, about a month in, they're unlocking stuff at a decent clip and having a grand old time. Eric

The original ST's design was absolutely brilliant on account of its simplicity, off the shelf parts and move toward compatibility with mainstream standards, such as FAT 3.5" floppies that could be exchanged with PCs. For something like 12 or 18 months I think the ST was beating the pants off the Amiga and Mac and being competitive to the PC, where it could easily best the standard XT/AT box for a fraction of the price. Initially I was disappointed with my ST when I got it precisely because it wasn't flashy like an Amiga, or even like the 1200XL it replaced. To make things worse, I couldn't make a decent go at writing games in ST BASIC because, well, it stunk on ice. And the serious development software for it costs several times what I paid for my Atari Assembler Editor cartridge, which I was using right up until I got the ST. That was when I was as senior in high school. When I got to college I realized what I had, with a decent free word processor, that while you type spell checker, and that shareware, superior terminal emulator whose name escapes me. Superior in every way to the Macs and PCs everyone else had. Add a Spectre GCR so I could earn money in my spare time writing Mac programs and the ST was perfect, at the time. But then they did the cheap Atari thing and sat on their ass while they gave up the technical lead to PCs and Amiga, and the software lead to Mac. Eric PS: If I don't come back with pictures of the 1400XL in the next few weeks, I probably forgot. Somebody send me a PM. My basement is a bit of a wreck since we're trying to rearrange it to make a playroom for my kids. The good news is that it also means I get a formal room for my video game collection. The bad news is that I don't get the wine cellar I was sure I was going to put in when I moved here 11 years ago. Damn kids.

You can visit a 1400XL at my house. I have a fully working one with a case, the only thing I'm missing is the 1400XL badge. I also have the lab cartridge of Telelink for it that I let KVendel dump years ago. They keyboard is acting wonky, I'm hoping it just needs the connector reseated. Haven't looked yet. I bought this years ago, before my kids were born, and I haven't seen one for sale since. The person I bought it from says he fished it out of a dumpster. About the only way I'd part with it is if it were in trade for something cooler, and I don't think there are too many things that qualify. It's actually not my favorite "Atari thing" that I shouldn't have. At one point I bought an Atari APX Star trophy from eBay. I wanted to win one of those very, very badly when I was a kid. Apparently one of the recipients left it at the award dinner, and the brother of the person who eBayed it was working as a waiter there, and grabbed it. No idea whose it should be, it doesn't say. I suppose if it did say I'd have to track them down and offer it back. Eric

Are Superchargers dependent on region? I have a spare (although I haven't tested it), but I'm in the US. Also shipping costs might be prohibitive. Eric