Suggestion for A8 Advocates

[sack-c0s]

Just a quick suggestion really...

 

Scroll down the forum a bit and look at the TT99/4A forum for at least 5 minutes. please.

 

See how things are in there? People encouraging each other on to do stuff and try new things out, giving advice, nobody being judgemental and arguing about the first mention of any machine that *isn't* a TI... Things are really taking shape in there and there's games on the way.

 

Now contrast that with a whole load of griefing and flaming people who came in from other camps with the intention of learning about the A8 and coding something. There's many more threads which are either outright 'vs' threads, or threads which degenerate into a 'vs' thread.

 

Ever get the impression those TI guys have it all figured out?

[spookt]

Wish I could vote this up more than 1.

[flashjazzcat]

I agree, although it must be said that it's the "silly season" on the A8 forum at the moment, so we might perhaps expect more than the usual amount of inane name-calling and one-upmanship. It would appear that most of the hardware innovators have gone into hiding for a while. I've spoken about this cyclical forum thing before; it must have something to do with the moon.

Edited June 17, 2010 by flashjazzcat

[kskunk]

Ever get the impression those TI guys have it all figured out?

I think it comes down to size. I read a lot of different kinds of forums in a week. The small communities tend to be civil and well-behaved. The popular ones are always more "colorful".

 

The TI community is pretty well-behaved here, but if you go on some of the bigger TI forums (I'm thinking of one in particular...) they can be much more "passionate" than this A8 forum!

 

It must be human nature. You want that friendly, sleepy small-town feel? Maybe we can start an A8 forum on a TI site with just a few people.

 

You want that big city hustle and bustle and non-stop activity? Well, you end up with a few homeless maniacs screaming on the street corner, and once in a while some annoying protesters shut down the commute for everybody...

 

- KS

[+Stephen]

There's a few PITAs here, but this is a MUCH MUCH more civilized group than the Jaguar crowd. I gave up on that scene years ago. I kept all my stuff, but remain a silent collector. I really hope the A8 scene doesn't turn to that.

[flashjazzcat]

You take the rough with the smooth... the maniacal posts are bound to be foregrounded somewhat by the dearth of technical discussion. I've just taken a look around at Atarionline and things are quiet there too. No "vs" threads that I could see either, mind you...

[Cebus Capucinis]

Yeah! Just take a look at the Jaguar community and you'll see even the ST fans are a very civil bunch!

[+wood_jl]

That's nice - how they behave there. But what is an individual supposed to do about any of it? Furthermore, who cares?

 

I just really, really,love the Atari 8-bit computer. Evidently, so do a lot of other people. Obviously, I can neither control who else does [or does not], nor how they behave. Why worry about what you can't control? Just ignore the "offensive" material, and move on. Some people take this stuff way too seriously, while others aren't so easily bothered. I strive to be the latter.

[JamesD]

Well, there are a handful of people that are persistent in defending the Atari. They seem to think it's blasphemy to say anything against an Atari. I don't mind if they say their piece and let it go but when they attack people and try to beat them into submission, then insult them if that doesn't work... that's where things get out of hand. The only way to prevent it is to have a zero tolerance policy and that gets very time consuming for an admin not to mention it can kill some of the legitimate discussion.

 

If offenders aren't going to get banned, just block them and don't reply because you are wasting your time.

[Lord Thag]

Personally, the fact that many people freak out when other folks differ with their tastes in hobbies, religion, politics or whatever ... is just stupid.

 

Never understood why folks get so riled up over someone else having a different opinion. I mean, I love the 8-bits to death. I can't stand c64s. Irritating dos, crappy interface, they break all the time ... but that's just me. I totally understand someone loving them. Objectively, they're a great machine. I just don't like them. Who cares?

 

I haven't noticed a ton of flaming on this forum over the years, at least, nowhere near the silliness that is the Jag forums. That place is a retard sandwich most of the time, and it's a shame. I know several collectors who ditched the jaguar because they got so annoyed with the rudeness of the fanbase.

 

People are strange.

[Divya16]

Some of the stuff in this thread sounds just as bad as the "flame" topics-- expressing hatred and obsession of how things should be. I guess you really have to be a neutral person yourself before you judge others or how others should behave.

[Nukey Shay]

And such threads are not always without positive contribution. Arguments that begin with "X is better than Y because of Z" sometimes lead to creation and innovation...either to support the claim or to prove it wrong.

[dwhyte]

And such threads are not always without positive contribution. Arguments that begin with "X is better than Y because of Z" sometimes lead to creation and innovation...either to support the claim or to prove it wrong.

 

I wholeheartedly concur with your assessment, Nukey Shay. However, as of late, such threads have been less innovative and more blind devotion towards one's system of choice, with a bit of personal attacking those of different viewpoints..

 

Don't get me wrong, everyone. I've enjoyed all of those threads until they degraded into blind arguments, rather than intellectual debates. There truly was some interesting information in them that I found informative and fascinating. But when it turns into trolls trolling trolls, it can be amusing at first, but quickly turns into frustration. There were a few times I thought of abandoning this board altogether when that occurred. Do I love Atari? Of course, it always comes first in my heart, but that doesn't mean I don't like firing up the C64 I have sitting beside my 130XE every now and then. I can see the pros and cons of both systems, I fail to understand why some here can't as well.

 

In conclusion, I must applaud all the moderators and admins of the forum for playing a more active role as of late. And I also agree that we all have something to learn from what sack-c0s has presented us today. When we're united, rather than divided, impressive things will start to happen, I'm sure.

Edited June 18, 2010 by dwhyte

[sack-c0s]

And such threads are not always without positive contribution. Arguments that begin with "X is better than Y because of Z" sometimes lead to creation and innovation...either to support the claim or to prove it wrong.

 

I think that's one thing I like about the demoscene - the fact that in the past the usual answer to 'machine X can't do what machine Y can do' wasn't usualy a verbal argument - it was usually a bit of code that did exactly that. I've got some Atari ST effects rewritten for the gameboy colour and I only did those because someone told me I couldn't

[flashjazzcat]

Some of the stuff in this thread sounds just as bad as the "flame" topics-- expressing hatred and obsession of how things should be. I guess you really have to be a neutral person yourself before you judge others or how others should behave.

Nobody's perfect, and I don't think anyone here is claiming to be. However, the issue needs to be discussed and I think that's what we're doing in a calm and reasoned fashion. Nobody's being singled out by name, nobody's being flamed...

 

I also agree that the "vs" threads are not entirely without merit. When they become ridiculous is when they descend into personal insults regarding brain capacity/moral standing of one's mother/etc. We've seen this many times. Even so, I suppose it's possible to take it all too seriously.

 

I repeat that these heated threads aren't such an issue when the forum is busy. The fact is it's more or less dead at the moment. That's no reason to lose faith in AA: it will pick up again, and there will be many serious and constructive discussions.

 

Personally I have a couple of things on the horizon to release shortly and I think I'll hang back a while until activity picks up. I have many unanswered technical and hardware queries via PM or which have vanished off the bottom of the front page.

[mimo]

Calm down dear it's only a forum

 

Unfortunately there are people that try to get under your skin, just like in real life^tm. Most things written on forums should be taken with a pinch of salt. You can always "block user" if someone is really pissing you off.

[flashjazzcat]

Sadly irony is not easily conveyed via emails and forum posts. I think a great deal of trouble starts because of that.

[sack-c0s]

The thing that gets to me is when it stops technical discussions dead because the moment you bring another machine into the conversation it opens a can of worms.

 

For example, a c64 guy wants to know how an A8 feature works - wouldn't the easiest way to explain it most likely be 'well it's sort of like this feature on the C64, but it differs because of X,Y & Z.'? start with something familiar that they understand and build on it by explain the pros/cons/differences. But you just can't do that because the moment you do it's pretty much certain that someone will jump on the thread and derail it.

 

End result: no answer to question, person can't continue with the code they were putting together and another project is left rotting in the 'unfinished' folder in a dark corner of their hard disk. Regardless of how the C64 compares to the A8 there's a lot of coders who see the C64 as a 'solved problem' because they've been hammering away at it since their childhood and are looking for another challenge. If that's going to be the A8 then great! There's a new source of games and demos. No doubt there's some folks who grew up on the other side of the fence and want to go the other way.

 

I've got some stuff on the horizon too - I picked up the 'porting code from 6502 machine X to machine Y' bug from around here and decided to take a bash at it. It'll probably get done on the 64 first (the arcade hardware memory map just makes it easier this way), but with a good cleanup of the disassembly I don't see a reason why the A8 can't do it given a little effort on my part.

[flashjazzcat]

I've got some stuff on the horizon too - I picked up the 'porting code from 6502 machine X to machine Y' bug from around here and decided to take a bash at it. It'll probably get done on the 64 first (the arcade hardware memory map just makes it easier this way), but with a good cleanup of the disassembly I don't see a reason why the A8 can't do it given a little effort on my part.

Port GEOS to the A8!

[Havok69]

Sadly irony is not easily conveyed via emails and forum posts. I think a great deal of trouble starts because of that.

 

Agreed - I know I have said things in the past that were taken in an entirely different context than what I intended. I'd like to believe that in the end, we're all here to help each other and have a good time with Atari systems, and there's even a little bit of love to spread for other systems. (However, only a small amount there)

 

[Divya16]

Some of the stuff in this thread sounds just as bad as the "flame" topics-- expressing hatred and obsession of how things should be. I guess you really have to be a neutral person yourself before you judge others or how others should behave.

Nobody's perfect, and I don't think anyone here is claiming to be. However, the issue needs to be discussed and I think that's what we're doing in a calm and reasoned fashion. Nobody's being singled out by name, nobody's being flamed...

I think some of the remarks made within the first 10 posts also are expression of hatred/obsession of how things should be which shows up in heated "vs." thread as well when the discussion gets nontechnical. So similar to the "vs." threads, you also get these sort of posts in normal threads. So no sense in discussing it unless you have some idea thread where none of these inflammatory expressions are allowed.

[carmel_andrews]

to using an abridged old star trek adage...it's a computer jim....but not as we know it

 

First and formost we are computer users, i think we should remember that first and just regard things like atari and commodore as 'labels', in the same way as black and white or muslim and christian, chinese or british etc

 

Looks beyond the labels and help fellow computer users, it helps spread the knowledge base

[Heaven/TQA]

well said, Sack...

 

I prefer still the A8 but can not resist to touch other machines... since the glory days...

[saehn]

It's good to hear the voice of reason around here. I first started visiting to learn more about A8 graphics, but was driven away for a while after seeing some insane arguments about the "objective superiority" of machine XYZ versus machine ABC.

 

It all comes down to preference. Bashing other computers is just dumb, IMO. None of us are into retro computing so that we can access highly powerful computers, we're in it for the nostalgia.

 

I mostly hang out at Lemon64, but I couldn't stand it if they were fanboyish there, either. In fact, most of the time when other computers are mentioned, people are stating that they'd like to have that one as well. Hopefully the tide is turning here and "we'll all just get along". :-)

[Divya16]

Some of the stuff in this thread sounds just as bad as the "flame" topics-- expressing hatred and obsession of how things should be. I guess you really have to be a neutral person yourself before you judge others or how others should behave.

Nobody's perfect, and I don't think anyone here is claiming to be. However, the issue needs to be discussed and I think that's what we're doing in a calm and reasoned fashion. Nobody's being singled out by name, nobody's being flamed...

I think some of the remarks made within the first 10 posts also are expression of hatred/obsession of how things should be which shows up in heated "vs." thread as well when the discussion gets nontechnical. So similar to the "vs." threads, you also get these sort of posts in normal threads. So no sense in discussing it unless you have some idea thread where none of these inflammatory expressions are allowed.

 

I need to update that to first 25 posts, I already see hatred/obsession of highly opinionated folks. No names mentioned explicitly, but implies a few people who regularly argue in favor of A8. I don't see the point in trying hundreds of machines if we can learn objectively that some are not worth the trouble. Ignoring facts isn't going to make things all equal regardless of what one hallucinates. I never tried Apple IIs and I don't see the point of wasting my time with them so if some of the VS. threads changes my mind, that's good.