2600 Homebrew World, Gets some press

[Cupcakus]

A few of us were interviewed for this article... it has finally been posted to ExtremeTech.com

 

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973...3,857607,00.asp

[Lemmi]

games are either distributed on the "Cuttle Cart", a tape-based system that uses audio cassettes to store ROM data. Games can be downloaded either through a portable CD player or directly through the computer.

 

 

this seems like an error? am i wrong?

[Lemmi]

oh and a very interesting article, i normally dont have the patience to read some of the articles posted here but this one kept me interested

[Cupcakus]

The error is he omitted the games can be purchased in Cartridge Form still... the cuttle reference is correct.

[NE146]

games are either distributed on the "Cuttle Cart", a tape-based system that uses audio cassettes to store ROM data. Games can be downloaded either through a portable CD player or directly through the computer.

 

this seems like an error? am i wrong?

 

It's correct.. I guess. Although the Cuttle uses less tapes and more bin images (either converted to an audio file and stored on cd, or "played" from a pc via software to a pc's audio-out/headphone jack).

 

But in the end, the Cuttle Cart is essentially a Supercharger that can play pretty much any 2600 game (hence it's original name as the "SuperDuper Charger"). So it can play the Supercharger tape games as well or any 2600 bin file converted and put onto tape for that matter

[Rob Mitchell]

>>Obviously, today's Atari game designers will never achieve the sort of celebrity status that programmers like John Carmack or Will Wright have achieved. But that doesn't faze them.<<

 

Who are these people? I've never heard of them ..

 

Of course I do recognize most of the other names in the article!

 

I guess I'm just a retro game player ..

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[DEBRO]

Since the system's "lazy" programmers had problems coding multiple objects on a single horizontal scan line, Larkin said, some games had a tendency to "flicker";

I wouldn't call them lazy. They were working with the current system constraints and the knowledge they had at the time. For instance, everyone loves to point out Pacman (even though it wasn't mentiond in the article). Todd did what he could given the contraits put on him by management. Sure, a lot of the flicker could've been done better (i.e. variable flicker) but that didn't come until later.

 

Take the Stellalist for example too. Thomas has created some wonderful routines that helps us do better games. Does that mean others that attempted to program the 2600 before him were lazy or just didn't have the knowledge base to pull it off?

 

I don't want you to think I'm starting a flame war or anything. That line just bothered me a little Other than that, I thought it was a great article. Any good publicity for the homebrew scene is good

[san-d-2000]

Btw, Marble Craze by Paul Slocum got a review in the februari issue of Edge Magazine (UK).

If I find the time I will post some scans.

 

 

- Sandy

[rasty]

Btw, Marble Craze by Paul Slocum got a review in the februari issue of Edge Magazine (UK).

If I find the time I will post some scans.

 

wow!

Do they review homebrews on a regular basis or was it a one-time only?

 

Rasty.-

[+Cafeman]

Yikes, I gotta watch what I post here. It all was quoted (concerning Adventure II) in that article. I hope Warren doesn't see where I said I "hate the bat".

[Thomas Jentzsch]

The part about bankswitching is IMO not very correct. But still fun to read.

[Paul Slocum]

Hey they've edited that article since I first read it. Looks like they just added a bunch of screenshots.

 

Btw, Marble Craze by Paul Slocum got a review in the februari issue of Edge Magazine (UK).

If I find the time I will post some scans.

 

Dave Exton sent me some scans. I didn't even know about it until he mentioned it in a post. I'll post them when I get home.

 

The part about bankswitching is IMO not very correct.

 

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense and 32k was certainly not the average size!

 

-Paul

[Cupcakus]

I don't want you to think I'm starting a flame war or anything. That line just bothered me a little Other than that, I thought it was a great article. Any good publicity for the homebrew scene is good

 

That isn't what I told him :-), I said, you will notice that a lot of Atari games incorporate flicker, by interlacing objects on speratate frames on the TV.

 

"Why would they do that?"

 

Well, the 2600 hardware is very limiting, and not very much can be drawn on the screen at one time. There are several tricks that can be employed to overcome this problem, but sometimes you just have to use flicker for what you want to do, or sometimes it's just faster to not have to figure out a good tricky way to remove the flicker, and even sometimes the programmer is just to lazy to work it out.

 

He decided Lazy summed it all up I guess? :-)

 

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense and 32k was certainly not the average size!  

 

When I explained bankswitching, I went a little over the top in my explanation I think... it's hard to talk about it without getting "techy" and I think I confused him. I told him that the largest bankswitched cartridge was 64kb, but there was only one 64kb game, the rest of the bankswitched games were no bigger than 32k.

 

I can see how that might confuse him... I was also talking about slices and segments, and addresses... I got a little carried away

[Albert]

Dave sent me the Edge scans also--I've attached them to this message. Enjoy!

 

..Al

[rasty]

By the way, the ExtremeTech article has been slashdotted...

 

Rasty.-

[angrybrit]

I wonder how many more people(web hits) the article is gonna bring to AtariAge. Is there a place you can see how many hits the main page gets?

[Big Player]

I've got to say I agree with the Edge Magazine review. Marble Craze is currently my favorite video game.

 

Back to topic, it does suck to read an article written by a lazy writer. I'm sure that why he glommed on to using lazy to describe 2600 programmers. There isn't anything lazy about them.

 

It's also sad that a tech writer can't grasp bankswitching, at least for the brief article. Thomas and CPUWIZ explained it very clearly to me in another thread.

 

Oh well, any publicity about homebrewing is good.

[Cupcakus]

I don't think he's a lazy writer... just pressured... the article feels "rushed" IMHO

[George Gray]

>>Obviously, today's Atari game designers will never achieve the sort of celebrity status that programmers like John Carmack or Will Wright have achieved. But that doesn't faze them.   I've never heard of them ..  

 

Of course I do recognize most of the other names in the article!    

 

I guess I'm just a retro game player ..

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

 

At first, I thought you might be joking...then it hit me...I don't know who John Carmack is either! Wil Wright, however, is the genius behind the Sim City and Sims line of games. Hmmm...Sim City on the 2600...how 'bout it?

:wink:

[Thomas Jentzsch]

At first, I thought you might be joking...then it hit me...I don't know who John Carmack is either!

From The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers:

[G] Group effort; the person mentioned had some sort of involvement.

[L] Leader of a group effort; implies more than management.

 

Carmack, John [co-founder of id Software]

  Shadowforge (1989, AP2, Night Owl Productions)

  Wraith (1990, AP2, Night Owl Productions)

  Tennis (1990, AP2, Softdisk)

  [G] Dark Designs (1990, AP2/PC, Softdisk)

  Catacomb (1990, AP2/PC, Softdisk)

  [G] Catacomb II (1990, PC, Softdisk)

  [G] Slordax (1990, PC, Softdisk)

  [G] Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars (1990, PC, id/Apogee)

  [G] Commander Keen: The Earth Explodes (1990, PC, id/Apogee)

  [G] Commander Keen: Keen Must Die! (1990, PC, id/Apogee)

  [G] Shadow Knights (1991, PC, Softdisk)

  [G] Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (1991, PC, id/Softdisk)

  [G] Hovertank One (1991, PC, id/Softdisk)

  [G] Rescue Rover! (1991, PC, id/Softdisk)

  [G] Keen Dreams (1991, PC, id/Softdisk)

  [G] Rescue Rover II: Return of the Robots (1991, PC, id/Softdisk)

  [G] Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle (1991, PC, id/Apogee)

  [G] Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine (1991, PC, id/Apogee)

  [G] Commander Keen: Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter (1991, PC, id/Apogee)

  [G] Catacomb 3-D (1991, PC, id/Softdisk)

  [G] Wolfenstein 3-D (1992, many, id/Apogee)

  [G] Spear of Destiny (1992, PC, id/Apogee)

  *[G] DOOM (1993, many, id)

  [G] DOOM II (1994, many, id)

  [G] Heretic (1994, PC, Raven/id)

  [G] Hexen (1995, many, Raven/id)

  *[G] Quake (1996, many, id)

  [L] Quake II (1997, PC, id)

  [L] Quake III: Arena (2000, PC, id)

Looks to me like he was/is more a coordinator than a programmer.

[Cybergoth]

Hi Thomas!

 

Looks to me like he was/is more a coordinator than a programmer.

 

No. He is the lead programmer of all DOOM/QUAKE stuff. Maybe the best programmer in the gaming industry at all.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Rhindle The Red]

Through Quake, Carmack basically shared leadership with Artist/Designer John Romero. After the split, Carmack took full control over Quake II and subsequent projects.

 

Romero, on the other hand, failed to make anyone his bitch.

 

Well, according to Operations, he was pretty excited.

[CPUWIZ]

Hi Thomas!

 

Looks to me like he was/is more a coordinator than a programmer.

 

No. He is the lead programmer of all DOOM/QUAKE stuff. Maybe the best programmer in the gaming industry at all.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

 

Just because he is a PC whore and has a couple of Ferrari's doesn't make him the best programmer in the industry, he got lucky and a lot of people envy him because of it, that doesn't mean a 16 year old European hacker couldn't compete with his coding skills.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Just because he is a PC whore and has a couple of Ferrari's doesn't make him the best programmer in the industry, he got lucky and a lot of people envy him because of it, that doesn't mean a 16 year old European hacker couldn't compete with his coding skills.    

 

Hehe. John Carmack is god. Period.

 

And Peter Molyneux is already a little older than 16...

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[CPUWIZ]

Sorry man but I'd vote for a lot of other programmers before choosing him.