slapdash

I think the RAM is to store the game state as video RAM essentially. Don't know for sure though.

GazP wrote: quote: I'm sure the XP in Windows xp stands for eXPerience, and not chi rho. Or anything to do with Christ. You're kidding, right? "eXPerience" is PR BS. The Cairo -> chi rho -> XP thing is almost certainly what the boys in the lab were thinking, before or after. The Christ thing is just a fun little conspiracy suggestion (not original to me mind), but this is MS we're talking about, so who knows. Oh, and as to the whole "Xype" thing, "x" can be pronounced a variety of ways -- Ze_ro, you're thinking English even though you say "in any language". Someone's already brought up the Chinese example where it is used to phoneticize a "sh" sound; in Greek it's "chi" -- though I'm not sure if it's properly pronounced like "k" or like the "ch" in Jewish (as in "l'chaim", the toast) or German (like in "Bach"). In some African languages (possibly Swahili, and I'm pretty sure Bantu) the "X" phonetically stands for a click of some type; more commonly though you'd see a "!" to represent a click if there's only one (or one major one). Trivia: the word "gnu" comes from Africa; the "g" is actually a click made with the tongue against the upper palate of the mouth.

Eckhard: I'm sure the XP -> chi rho = "Cairo" thing is intentional... But even more "fun" is that XP are the first letters of Christ's name in Greek. Is MS trying to tell us something? "Where do you want to go today? Heaven? Better buy MS!". Bah! :-)

I'll offer to do it if no one else has...

The "cat" names and "bird" names were just Atari trademark-squatting -- holding the terms in case future systems needed names. Optimistic, that. As to the birds, wasn't there some project called "sparrow"?

Wow, let's see if my Garfield trivia ranks up there... I think the pink female cat is Irlene -- can anyone confirm/deny?

Boy, did I miss a lot of discussion... I have to say that Simon made a fine and fair choice, regardless of copyrights. The label he selected was one of my favorites as well (though to be honest, I didn't recognize the face in the image for what it was; knowing it now doesn't change my opinion of the label). For those of you who don't think so, please look up the concepts "found art" and "fair use". Now, I know some of you are complaining that it took Jason less time, effort, talent, who knows what, to do that label compared to what it took to do yours, but if you weren't doing it for the fun of it, then why did you do it at all? Did you ASSUME you'd win? Please... Next time, do it for the fun of it, or don't do it at all. Perhaps future contests will specify one way or the other regarding use of other images, and then you can choose what you want to do.

liveinabin: damn that was funny... 'twould be an especial problem here in the Chi area, given the whole "Da Bears" syndrome...

The original joke/idea was to do it on the O2 by using the Computer Intro cart... Not like a real attempt at the game. Of course, I had also thought it would be fun to make a "Street Fighter" game for 2600 by hacking Karate.

You know, looking at some of these labels, I'm a little surprised that there aren't any "reference" labels (like Scanners, Einstein) to (in order of surprise): The Mindmaster the aliens from The Menagerie (Star Trek) the psycop mind war practicers from Babylon 5

I guess I'll apologize. I sort of assumed that the proto was dumped by the owner who then allowed AtariAge to post it. That sort of proto owner is not weaselly and would deserve praise. On the other hand, if they charged an arm and a leg because they waited for the hype of the movie to boost interest, well yeah, I could see where that might be a little weaselly. But on the third hand (er...) even then they allowed it to get to someone who would release it, and kudos are still in order, despite any hint of weasel-ness. And I never thought you were calling Al&Al weasels, so no harm there. Next time I'll wait for the full story if you will too. (^_^).

Jess: No, as far as I know NOONE is showing these... It seems that Bill Cosby is essentially disavowing the show for some reason. It would be a natural for Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon or Comedy Central, you'd think...

One thing -- Save the Whales wasn't an Atari title as far as I know, but rather a Becktech game that might have been released through Fox had it been released at all.

Yeah, I know that technique well... You get crazy kamikaze with that damned diamond to give yourself enough time to change all three before the farmer gets back; you learn to jump opposite of the direction he'll be coming from to shave off even more time for yourself. Oh yeah. Hmm, I don't think I ever wrote down the most bunnies I ever got. Of course, in the heat of a game, we'd often skip that scene anyway... Then when you died, it was too late to see how you'd done.

Actually, I wanted to do MK on the Odyssey2... :-)

Haha! Was that hard work or a hack Scott?

StanJr wrote: quote: As much as these prototype owners sit on their goods for years before coming clean, I am THOROUGHLY convinced that this is a deliberate release by a weasely proto-owner. And I will defend that theory until I am given sufficient evidence to the contrary. Weasely? Would a "weasely" type release it at all? Please, how about saying thank you to whoever released it instead of calling them names! To whoever released LotR after all these years: thank you!

I think these were mailed to homes, but I can't remember for sure.

Thanks Lemmi. Wow, the last post I read was just before Randy jumped in, so I really missed most of it. I think Eckhard pegged the guy Randy was thinking of instead of Junie.

quote: in particular I was talking about the slanderings back and forth a month back with Sean Kelly and BlackJax releasing the roms at his site for the CV games and such...and also to the more recent ramblings regarding Junie and Randy over Hozer. I think I missed the first bit entirely, and the end of the Hozer one maybe... Not to dredge it all up again, but I'm curious to read what went on. Does anyone know what threads these were?

I'm wondering if the pen is to indicate that it's been traded, or "decommissioned"? Note though that the ones without pen marks appear to be signed by a Tramiel... I'd want an earlier one if possible myself.

Subs are $9/6 US, $10.50/6 CN/MX or $12/6 rest of the world. I always warn people though; if you keep on AtariAge and other sites, a lot of stuff will look familiar -- the News & Notes rarely has anything AA didn't get too, and sometimes articles come off the web too. Just FYI.

Wait, Miner 2049er II NTSC ROMs aren't available? Hmm, maybe I should get mine dumped... I'm pretty sure it's NTSC (been a while since I played it).

Albert, send your address to my email. I was talking to Alex about that, but I didn't follow up I guess. BTW, the issue in question is #60.

Fretwobbler wrote: quote: Name an IT company that hasn't [done unethical things]. Besides the point. I'll take a company that does it occasionally over the one that does it all the time, or the one that does something slightly unethical over the one that does something greatly unethical. Am I choosing the lesser of two evils? Perhaps, but I AM choosing the better of them. quote: Including the perfect Apple, I could tell a few things about their business practices regarding distribution in the UK and there just as bad as Microsoft. Feel free to give some examples. quote: I wonder how much your judgement is affected by the media also. No more than yours? Besides, Apple can't afford to buy spin but MS can. Don't you think they bury stuff that Apple couldn't if they wanted to? That implies to me that we're either seeing the worst of both, and Microsoft is the worse of the two, or that MS can afford to hide more than Apple, they look worse despite how much is hidden, and therefore MS is by FAR the worse of the two. Either way, MS is a blight upon our society. Well, maybe not QUITE that bad... Maybe.