Chris+++

Thanks for watching, if you do. I recall this one being a lot of fun to make.

...a few new articles have been added to my and Adam's Orphaned Computers & Game Systems website since the last time we posted about it. We try to write about games that aren't mentioned very often. The most recent articles cover Obelix (Atari 2600), Grabit (Atari Eight-Bits), Airborne Ranger (Commodore 64) and Countermeasure (Atari 5200). There are also old arcade games, ColecoVision games, etc. It's all free, by the way. We try to be both funny and informative. Let me know if we pull off that combination. We started the website in 2000, and it's actually based on a paper newsletter, same title, that was sent out from 1994 until it turned into the website. As cliche' as it might be to point this out, it's damn astonishing how fast time can go by! https://www.orphanedgames.com

I hope you're feeling better, PM! And that your various extremity injuries have healed, PFP castmasters! Now all of you sit perfectly still and just play video games all the time so nothing else happens!

Thanks for audibly answering my translation question, PlaidMouse! I appreciate that you took the time. I've always loved the sounds of Oriental languages, especially Japanese, although I haven't much hope of learning any of them to a conversant degree, given all of the nuances, colloquial contexts and so forth. It was all I could do to get Spanish through my noggin in high school, and that was mainly because I'd grown up around it in New Mexico, coupled with the fact that my older family members spoke a lot of Italian (the Romantic languages are quite similar). Anyway, thanks again! That was cool. Oh, and great episode as always, fellas. Obviously. I mean, come on. Duh.

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to search for all three so I can read about them in depth. I appreciate it.

Hiya. I have two XP computers that I won't be downgrading to 7 or especially 10, for reasons with which I won't bother everyone. I don't get online with these two "towers," so all of my emulators, applications, etc. will keep working, as long as I save plenty of back-ups, and at least one of my PCs outlives me. Since XP boxes are surely getting harder and harder to find, however -- and hard drives obviously don't live forever -- I've been seriously considering finding an alternative to the hard disk, in terms of booting XP and, essentially, having my whole C drive on something external, or at least different from a mechanical, magnetic storage medium. Then I can, presumably, tell the BIOS to boot from that other thing, instead of the drive. Has anyone ever done something like that? I'm really out of touch when it comes to modern PC technology, and I have no experience in doing the above. There must be a way to save all 500 GB, complete with XP itself, on an external device, and then boot from that. I just don't know what it is. Is it still just a matter of buying an external hard drive and copying everything over? Would I have to re-install XP from scratch on that external drive, complete with service packs (I still have those burnt onto CD-ROMs), and THEN copy over all of my applications and data? I'm still such a lamer! I would be eternally grateful for any pointers.

I love that game! It doesn't get its due. It's so damn addictive.

Hey, it happens, PM! No apology necessary, at least in this listener's eyes. Looking forward to hearing your submission when #143 rolls around.

The new website looks great! Well, and more importantly, it works great. It's more navigable and intuitive. Especially cool is the "Games Discussed" list. I scrolled through it and re-downloaded a few episodes that I know I've already heard, since I've never missed one, but which I forgot, in terms of the games you covered. I wanted to hear again about your particular experiences with them. In fact, just now, I took a full ten seconds to re-listen to the episode featuring New Rally-X and Super Xevious. I remember how hard I laughed when I first heard that. And yet it's completely fair and accurate! Happy Birthday to both of you, by the way. I'm at least a month late with at least one of those Happies. Shame on me twice.

Very cool! Thanks for undertaking that bit o' research, PM. It's interesting how the closest possible translation of a word combination that has humorous nuances in English will mean something quite different in another language, but which will render its own, unrelated kind of humor. Imagine overhearing a conversation in public in which one of the people says, "The dismembered frog is great, right?" You would either be sure to keep your distance, or......have questions. Looking forward to hearing it in the applicable episode! (And no apology necessary for not getting the Sid Bernstein reference -- it's beyond obscure, into the realm of unaccountably goofy.)

Since you're so graciously willing, PM, I would love to hear the whole statement completely translated to Japanese. Hopefully, that's not asking for any extra research on your part! If so, I don't want to ask too much. It's ultimately up to you, of course. I just find the language phonetically beautiful. (That Sid Bernstein bit was merely an inside joke about the Beatles that at least one person will get. )

I love almost all the games mentioned here as "bad," and actually, none of them are bad in the sense that glitches or programming oversights exist that make them unplayable. In those cases, then, it's all down to personal taste. Swordquest: FireWorld is close enough to unplayable in a couple of the mini-games to be shite, so I agree with that one, but my vote for #1 would actually be Sssnake by Data Age. Phewwwwww.

I've encountered the news a bit late. All I can say is: Congratulations, Al, and THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. (I'll bet you didn't even imagine, back when there was only a handful of us on the Nexus, that you would become an Atari employee a quarter-century later!)

Hells yes, I'm a big fan of the Frog, too. That riff they cut to introduce feedback segments rocks like a lost Hendrix recording or something. I'd love to ask their guitarist what he used to get that tone, but they're so elusive when it comes to being interviewed. Given the amount of money Sid Bernstein offered them just to sit for a ten-minute Q&A, they must be quite dogged about their privacy. If you're seriously soliciting requests, PM, I'd love to hear the statement "Scattered Frog rocks" in Japanese. Thanks! (It's sure nice to hear someone pronounce "Fahrenheit" correctly, I'll tell ya that. )

A classy reply, but I like Pie Factory (and Ten Pence, or that matter) WAY more than No Quarter. That show never did it for me.