Lynxpro Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 Hey fellow Atari ST [sT/STe/TT/Falcon] fans, On Saturday, June 14, 2014, the free-to-the-public Sunnyvale Atari Party will take place at the Sunnyvale Public Library from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. Please come and join Bill Kendrick and the rest of us there. There will be Atari 2600s/Flashbacks, 5200s, 7800s, XE Game System, Lynxes, Jaguars, arcade machines, Atari 8-bit computers, Atari STs, and modern PCs emulating the classic consoles. In addition, we are fortunate enough to have two legendary ex-Atari employees who will be speaking. The first is Al Alcorn, Atari employee #3, builder of Pong, who worked on the Atari 2600, Atari's holographics, and countless other items. He later became an Apple Fellow*. And then there's Dan "The TrakBall Man" Kramer who is personally responsible for the 2600 and 5200 TrakBall Controllers, amongst many other projects during his time at Atari Inc. He is also promising to show off some prototype hardware as well. http://www.newbreeds...tariparty/2014/ Sunnyvale CA is, of course, Atari's old hometown. Please visit the website link above for more details. Volunteers are also welcome. This is a kid-friendly event so bring the whole family... *If you've watched the recent Steve Jobs film [Jobs], Mr. Alcorn is represented in the film. He's referred to as "Al" during the Atari scenes and "he" is the one who tells Jobs that he's "an a$$hole". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz73 Posted May 30, 2014 Share Posted May 30, 2014 I am definitely going to try to be there! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted May 31, 2014 Author Share Posted May 31, 2014 (edited) I don't know how much ST stuff will be there because generally more 8-bit owners in the past events in Davis have volunteered to bring their equipment. So definitely feel free to volunteer. It was cool seeing STs with UltraSatans connected to them in past years, and seeing an ST connected to an MT-32 was also awesome...personally, I hadn't seen such a configuration since the 1989 World of Atari Show in Anaheim when Sierra was marketing them in their booth. Edit: it might've been just a SatanDisk in past years. Still incredibly cool. Edited May 31, 2014 by Lynxpro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian1 Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 I don't know how much ST stuff will be there because generally more 8-bit owners in the past events in Davis have volunteered to bring their equipment. So definitely feel free to volunteer. It was cool seeing STs with UltraSatans connected to them in past years, and seeing an ST connected to an MT-32 was also awesome...personally, I hadn't seen such a configuration since the 1989 World of Atari Show in Anaheim when Sierra was marketing them in their booth. Edit: it might've been just a SatanDisk in past years. Still incredibly cool. They were UltraSatans. I know because they were my setup. One interesting comment someone made to me was that I should forget the UltraSatans or hard drive, and go back to floppies. Why? To keep it consistent with the other consoles/computers there when someone wants to change a game. For example, to change a game on the other machines, you just have to: Turn off the console -> take out the cartridge -> insert new cartridge -> turn on power -> done. Easy and simple. On the ST with a hard drive, you had to: Turn it on -> wait for desktop to appear -> double click on hard drive (if they even know how to!) -> scroll up/down window -> double click on game (hard to know what the game is since the files use the 8.3 file format) -> wait to load (It's worse when hacker intro screens pop up first. People didn't know what to do at these screens. Not everyone knows what "Gamex" or "Trainer Mode" is) -> play. Putting all the games on floppy disks would replicate the easy procedure of cartridge-based machines. It's an interesting idea that sounds quite reasonable. However, it will likely take a long time to do this. I keep wanting to do something "bigger" every year, but then something always gets in the way. This year, remodeling my house has been eating up my time, so I haven't been thinking about what to do this year. I'm actually thinking about just bringing the same setup as last year unless someone can suggest something... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galax Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 Even better- auto boot into a launcher for all of your hard disk games, with nice descriptions in the menu. Now using the ST would be just like a multicart- reset and choose game. The purists would probably still complain about the multicart. Has anyone written a launcher like this? It would be easy to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted May 31, 2014 Share Posted May 31, 2014 I think that's an interesting comment about using floppy based games on an ST over hard drive and TOS adapted games on a mass storage device.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Android8675 Posted June 1, 2014 Share Posted June 1, 2014 wrote to bill to see if he needed another demoer, I live close enough this looks like fun. Worse case scenario, hopefully I'll just be there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz73 Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Confirmed. I'm totally going to be there! My son (12 years old) will be accompanying me. He loves Atari and wants to learn as much as he can about them. I told him the best way to get started is to sit down and play. He's an XBOX junkie, so he's used to that! This is going to be cool! I hope some of you guys can make it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 I think that's an interesting comment about using floppy based games on an ST over hard drive and TOS adapted games on a mass storage device.... And seeing all that stuff stored on tiny SD cards. Sure wish I can go there, sigh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted June 13, 2014 Author Share Posted June 13, 2014 One day to go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delvis Posted July 13, 2014 Share Posted July 13, 2014 How did the show go? That would have been something to attend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted July 13, 2014 Author Share Posted July 13, 2014 How did the show go? That would have been something to attend. It was fantastic. I didn't get a chance to play with the ST stuff. There were STs there with homemade parallel port-to-joystick adapters so 4 players could play Gauntlet II as God - or Ed Logg - intended. I was too busy making sure my 5200 stuff didn't get damaged, not to mention answering peoples' questions, seeing Al Alcorn's presentation, and hanging out with Dan Kramer. I don't think any ex-Atari Corp employees identified themselves but there were plenty of former Atari Inc and Atari Games/Tengen employees in attendance. The Atari Games/Tengen folks were happy to see the Tengen NES titles on display, especially Tetris, and they were more than happy to recount their legal struggles with monopolist Nintendo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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