neobium

With Zuckerberg's big push toward the Metaverse, there's a lot of money that's going to be behind moving life - not just gaming - into the VR space. If they can force a tipping point, things could change dramatically. It remains to be seen. To your remark about price: most of my games, I have paid maybe US $6 or $7 for. Is the cost of everything that much higher in the UK, or are games just that much higher? Is there a smaller supply of games there?

I agree, and compelling arguments have been made that Zuck, and social media overall have had a huge negative impact on society in general. So yes - seeing this as the case, why in the world would we want to follow him down the rabbit hole? Do we think it'll be better this time?

To be clear - I make the point that nostalgia is definitely in the mix, but it's not the only (or most important, I contend) driver. I completely agree. When I was in my early 20s (early 1990s), I became a bit obsessed with the 1940s. I owned a vintage Stetson, and listened to a ton of big band music. But maybe this nostalgia for something we weren't around for is actually a recognition of the praiseworthy qualities of that thing? So I'm not wanting to relive my personal memories, but I'm recognizing value in something and thinking it's worth reviving.

I'd like feedback - what's your take on this? The conclusion felt like a little bit of a reach 2 years ago when I wrote it, but now it no longer does in light of Zuck's VR push... I wrote it about why retro gaming is popular because I got tired of hearing that it was nothing but a bunch of middle aged guys on a nostalgia trip. I laid out several arguments, contrasted retro gaming with modern gaming, and the world of realistic simulation. The final section, where I talk about people crawling into virtual worlds is suddenly very relevant, now that Zuck has gone full Metaverse. https://retrogamestart.com/answers/why-retro-video-gaming-so-popular-its-much-more-than-nostalgia

Another question for anyone using this: I am unable to get screenshots that look correct. Images come out with incorrect colors, or with items missing. I tried in desktop Stella on OSX, and the screenshotting works as expected. I tried turning off TV Mode on the 77 Stella, since it's off in the desktop one, and I thought that might cause problems... but it didn't change anything. All of the above is when I use a cartridge. I did try using a ROM from the download on page one of this thread (Asteroids), and that at least got all of the items in the shot, but they are dark. See the last attached image for that. What am I missing?

Thank you!

I bought a special USB adapter to be able to plug my keyboard into the 77, and I was planning to go into Options mode to tweak some things, like the theme. The keyboard is working, and I can nav the UI with the arrow keys/Enter... but TAB does not get me into Options mode. Anyone have a tip on this?

Thanks, Thomas.

When I downloaded the original Community build from the OP, I found a number of homebrews in the main /games folder. Are there places I can link to to recommend these games to people? I've searched around, and it seems a bit random. Amoeba Jump can be grabbed from the following forum post, but is that really the proper, official download page for it? Robot City is downloadable here (https://hackaday.io/project/19219-robot-city-atari-2600-game) but is that the proper canonical link to use? Thomas's Star Castle Arcade seems to have its final version downloadable on the following forum post, but is that the official place to link? It seems to be a random hodge-podge of sources. Is there a master list of links somewhere? Has anyone created a single-go-to place where each of these games has its own page and download?

I'm using the Beta2, and ApplePi-Baker on OSX, and it works well. Many people have had success with Etcher (https://www.balena.io/etcher/). I also just tried Etcher since I was curious about it, and it couldn't have been easier. Download Beta2: https://github.com/DirtyHairy/r77-firmware-ng/releases/tag/release-6.1-beta2 (choose sdcard.img.zip). Then unzip to get sdcard.img. Download and run Etcher. 1) Pick your .img file 2) Pick your destination (micro SD card) 3) Flash it Also - writing an ISO to a microSD card overwrites everything... so you don't need to format beforehand, and if you do, it will have no bearing.