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> I seem to recall shredding my hand on some sports game which needed a fast back-and-forth operation.

That would be Activision's Decathlon. The 1500-meter dash is probably a contributing factor in many of today's carpal tunnel sufferers.

I took someone's advice from Slashdot a while back and tried to teach my daughter programming using Squeak. I made the mistake of stumbling around, thinking we would both learn about it as we go. It was a disaster, and after a half hour of fumbling with it, I gave up.

I started thinking about how to approach programming with her again, and I found myself wishing she could work with computers the way I did when I was a kid. Then I realized that all the computers I loved are still around as emulators. So I'm going to give it a shot again with a vintage BASIC book for kids and a C64 emulator. When she's comfortable with BASIC, I'll move her to KPL. I don't think kids will be put off by the primitive graphics if you start them early enough. My brother has been writing Atari games for fun, and my daughters enjoy those.

When I started programming, the thing I found that was hardest was working with the keyboard. BASIC on the Palm or Windows CE might work well as an option, with handwriting recognition.

I thought he was talking about collecting real games! I've got well over 2000 cartridge/disc games for various console game systems, some that most slashdotters haven't even heard of. (Arcadia 2001, anyone?)

Yeah, sure, I got some of those stupid cardboard things, but I get stacks of 'em at a nearby thrift salvage store. If I find a card I don't have, cool. When I'm tired of it, I'll sell 'em.

What's the difference? Those cardboard things were made to be collected, with intentional artifical rarities. The video games weren't. A rare card is often highly desirable when playing a CCG; a rare video game is usually rare because it's a total stinker.

how revolutionary

Atari usually included background stories in the manuals for the 2600 versions of their games...

"You are Dig-Dug, the underground miner. With your jet-powered shovel, you create intricate, sub-terranean mazes. Ever on the watch for vegetable prizes, you must also look out for the fierce Fygar(tm) and mean Pooka(tm) that lurk underground. Their touch kills! Worse, these two meanies can transform into spooky ghosts that will appear out of nowhere and haunt you to death."

Did you know that Super Breakout was about a one-man space shuttle encountering a mysterious force field?

This manual and more at AtariAge

It should probably be pointed out that PSP is only one of the many systems that can be homebrewed for. There are many other systems, such as the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, ColecoVision, with a pretty strong homebrew community, and within the next year or three, the NES and Sega Genesis will probably see a rise in homebrew programming.

He's effectively invincible but he needs to stop the bank robbers/terrorists/etc. in a minimum amount of time, with no human collateral damage and a minimum of property damage. The longer he dallies or the more of Metropolis he tears up while saving the world, the lower his publicity rating becomes. This will require strategic thinking and searching for non-obvious solutions (perhaps with the aid of X-ray vision). I played that sort of game around 20 years ago on my Atari. http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?Softwar eID=1380 You started off as Clark Kent, changed into Superman and tried to capture all the crooks in Metropolis while trying to avoid Lex Luthor carrying Kryptonite. It was like a 2-D King's Quest with lots of screens, which you eventually memorized. The crooks were randomly scattered, and you had a time limit. The graphics were low-res but I had lots of fun. I'm surprised nobody has remade this game. Or at least I haven't seen one of this sort.

Technically, there was one made. It was bad but I loved it.

I was genuinely excited for sequel of H.E.R.O. for a second...

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?Softwar eLabelID=228

(I guess that makes me an old fart.)

The basic difference is that, on DreamCast, you only need to burn the homebrewed software you need, put it into the DC, and it just-works(tm). Any stock machine is designed in a such way that you can boot anything you want on them. (Maybe it was initially designed so, to enable e-zines to ship CD with their issues.

Bootable multimedia functions for music CD's.

Personally, I thought the Atari Jaguar's went out in style (unlike the rest of it's lifecycle). At the pushing of several developers who had games in development but no remaining company to license through, Hasbro Interactive, who had acquired the rights, simply let them go. Now anyone who is so inclined can make games for the Jaguar and release them commercially. It's really too bad that such a thing didn't happen with the Saturn or PS1, as you'd see some amazing homebrew games out there. Hasbro Interactive gets lots of points for giving the system back to a tiny community of diehard fans.

The granddaddy of all consoles does actually have one of the largest active homebrewing scenes.
Just a random selection of links:

http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/print/a/4849
http://www.atariage.com/2600/programming/
http://www.alienbill.com/2600/

Can the average person just go online and buy rewritable cards for the Atari 2600, NES, 8-bit Game Boy, Sega Master System, and Sega Genesis?

You can purchase 2600 and 5200 homebrews here:

http://www.atariage.com/store/

A 7800/2600 "CuttleCart" (which allows you to play games from a MMC card) can be purchased here:

http://www.schells.com/cc2.shtml

You'll note that the CuttleCart3 will be for the Intellivision. There used to be a cart called the "IntelliCart" that used a serial cable, but it's been unavailable for several years. There doesn't seem to be anyone releasing Intellivision homebrew carts despite the thriving homebrew community. So you'll need to find a used IntelliCart, or purchase a CC3 when it comes out.

Homebrew Odyssey^2 games can be purchased on PackRatVG's site here:

http://www.packratvg.com/o2hbrews.html

Even more O2 homebrews, along with Colecovision and Vectrex homebrews can be found here:

http://www.classicgamecreations.com/

Note that O2 homebrews tend to be a lot better than many of the original games.

I don't know much about the NES homebrew scene, but I do know there are a lot of them. Look around and you'll probably be able to find carts for purchase.

Sounds less like you were using the paddle and more like the Indy 500 driving controller. That one sent the same signals as a joystick, so it could theoretically be used on any game that didn't require you to move up and down. Ok, it's sad I still know that.

Unfortunately I can't tell how much earlier, but it was probably bimonthly or quarterly, issue 19 being dated "Spring/Winter 1982". It might not count as a computer games magazine, as it was subscription only, but the VCS did have a Basic cartridge (of sorts) so I'd argue it's a games computer.

Some scans here. This publication has special memories for me because I was in it

Unfortunately I can't tell how much earlier, but it was probably bimonthly or quarterly, issue 19 being dated "Spring/Winter 1982". It might not count as a computer games magazine, as it was subscription only, but the VCS did have a Basic cartridge (of sorts) so I'd argue it's a games computer.

Some scans here. This publication has special memories for me because I was in it

Sounds quite like a real-life clone of Laser Blast!

2600 Pacman had to be the most disappointing game ever. My brother and I saved up our paper route money, bottle and can deposits, etc, preordered the game, waited about a month for it, popped it in and "WTF is this? You call *THIS* PACMAN?!?!"

Some enterprising homebrew coders have taken it upon themselves to rectify the Pac-Man situation on the 2600.

There's "Mr. Pac-Man" which is a hack OF a hack of Ms. Pacman.

http://www.atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=26 00&SoftwareHackID=146

Pac-Man Plus was one of the later variants of Pac-Man. I believe it was a "conversion" used to make the investment in an arcade cab last longer. Somebody hacked 2600 Ms. Pac-Man into a passable version of it.

http://www.atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=26 00&SoftwareHackID=151

Nukey Shay at AtariAge wondered how far the ORIGINAL codebase for 2600 Pac-Man could be pushed. 2600 Pac-Man was a 4k rom. Nukey's hack is a bank-switched 8k rom. It still has the goofy maze but the colors are correct. The "Bread And Butter" has been replaced by Cherries, Strawberries, and so-forth. I believe it has the siren and other aspects of the game have been corrected. Scroll down to the bottom of this. It is attached to a forum posting.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic =54937&st=150&p=955745&#entry955745

2600 Pacman had to be the most disappointing game ever. My brother and I saved up our paper route money, bottle and can deposits, etc, preordered the game, waited about a month for it, popped it in and "WTF is this? You call *THIS* PACMAN?!?!"

Some enterprising homebrew coders have taken it upon themselves to rectify the Pac-Man situation on the 2600.

There's "Mr. Pac-Man" which is a hack OF a hack of Ms. Pacman.

http://www.atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=26 00&SoftwareHackID=146

Pac-Man Plus was one of the later variants of Pac-Man. I believe it was a "conversion" used to make the investment in an arcade cab last longer. Somebody hacked 2600 Ms. Pac-Man into a passable version of it.

http://www.atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=26 00&SoftwareHackID=151

Nukey Shay at AtariAge wondered how far the ORIGINAL codebase for 2600 Pac-Man could be pushed. 2600 Pac-Man was a 4k rom. Nukey's hack is a bank-switched 8k rom. It still has the goofy maze but the colors are correct. The "Bread And Butter" has been replaced by Cherries, Strawberries, and so-forth. I believe it has the siren and other aspects of the game have been corrected. Scroll down to the bottom of this. It is attached to a forum posting.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic =54937&st=150&p=955745&#entry955745

2600 Pacman had to be the most disappointing game ever. My brother and I saved up our paper route money, bottle and can deposits, etc, preordered the game, waited about a month for it, popped it in and "WTF is this? You call *THIS* PACMAN?!?!"

Some enterprising homebrew coders have taken it upon themselves to rectify the Pac-Man situation on the 2600.

There's "Mr. Pac-Man" which is a hack OF a hack of Ms. Pacman.

http://www.atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=26 00&SoftwareHackID=146

Pac-Man Plus was one of the later variants of Pac-Man. I believe it was a "conversion" used to make the investment in an arcade cab last longer. Somebody hacked 2600 Ms. Pac-Man into a passable version of it.

http://www.atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=26 00&SoftwareHackID=151

Nukey Shay at AtariAge wondered how far the ORIGINAL codebase for 2600 Pac-Man could be pushed. 2600 Pac-Man was a 4k rom. Nukey's hack is a bank-switched 8k rom. It still has the goofy maze but the colors are correct. The "Bread And Butter" has been replaced by Cherries, Strawberries, and so-forth. I believe it has the siren and other aspects of the game have been corrected. Scroll down to the bottom of this. It is attached to a forum posting.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic =54937&st=150&p=955745&#entry955745

Get yourself 3 projectors and a huge wrap-around screen (hell, white cardboard). VGA is fine on projectors, and you can blend the edges.

Talk about immersive... imagine a driving game on that.

Vroooooooom, Vrooooooom, screeeech! Hey! Watch out for that... pixel! Night Driver here I come!

--Rob

Art Form? Games? WTF??? Let's see: GTA vs. the Pieta Halo vs. Romeo and Juliet Myst (remember that?) vs. the Sistine Chapel ....

Ummmmmm, Atari made more than one system, you know. Oh, I guess you didn't know. Then STFU.

It's available to dowload from atariage. FWIW, it's really not that much fun.

FYI, on the Intellivision Lives! disk. Apparently, all the games on the Lives! CDROM are actual ROMs from the system. So you should be able to copy them to a MythTV system, -OR- track down an original Intellivision system (just got mine; man is Blackjack addictive!) and purchase a used Intellicart to play the games on the original system.

Part of the reason why they do this is that the company was founded by the Blue Sky Rangers, the original Intellivision development team. So they know the Intellivision inside and out. With all the psuedo-companies parading around as the original thing these days, one has to give the Blue Sky Rangers kudos for actually being the real thing.

Now if only we could get them to produce this cool idea instead of this stupid thing.

The first product from the the engineers who developed the Amiga was the Joyboard. It had to be more difficult to use than a lot of the things on their list. And it inspired the "Guru Meditation Error" of the early Amiga OS.

And let's not forget the "real" vanguard for you old schoolers out there:

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?Softwar eID=1424/

and

http://coinop.org/g.aspx/100208/Vanguard.html

My parents borrowed TRS-80s periodically from Motorola, but the first machine they bought for my exclusive use was a MEK6800D2, or D2 Kit, as we affectionately called it. My dad must have got it around 1977 when I was 7 and my brother was 6. My dad had to assemble it, and when he was done soldering, we were confronted with two raw breadboards, a homebrew powersupply, a hex keypad, and 6 segmented LEDs. It wasn't exactly the TRS-80 we'd hoped for. My mom taught my brother and I how to write assembler and translate it by hand into machine code. I still clearly remember her describing the accumulator. My dad joined some sort of club for the thing and got the code to play music on a speaker he hacked on. My brother and I spent hours typing it in on the hex keypad and writing our own songs in hex. We had a drawing of a piano with the corresponding notes translated into frequencies and their hex values. My brother ultimately got it to play the Star Wars theme. Our efforts on the D2 Kit convinced my parents to blow the big money on a Vic-20 when they came out, and we forgot the D2 Kit for another 15 years. I took a senior-level microcontroller class at Arizona State University, and I ended up spending a semester programming it again. My brother took the same class a year later. That was enough for me, but my brother still spends his spare time coding assembler.

scene interesting and fun these days.

http://www.atariage.com/ has an active home brew community that is working on some very interesting stuff. The tech is old, but that does not seem to matter very much where creativity is concerned. I've seen a steady progress of 2600 improvements over the years that's just great to watch and participate in.

It's a lot like the 80's when we were all writing games for one another, playing them and having fun.

Here's one so far: Magical Tree

Indie games have been doing this for a LONG time. Most of their games have built-in highscore routines to sync up scores with the server. Sites like AtariAge run online competitions for high scores. Heck, even the game I linked to in my sig solicits high scores.

The biggest problem is that it's no longer an arcade rivalry. You're not fighting with that one other guy who comes into the arcade every day. You're fighting with everyone in the world. And no matter how good you are, there's almost always someone way better out there. Which means that you're already defeated before you even start. There's no way you can touch some of those high scores.

At least with the Indies, some of them develop small communities around the game, keeping the competition intense. As soon as the floodgates are open, though, there's no real point in competing.

Mind you, the Megadrive one would have been much more comfortable to use...

I've always loved handhelds. Due to the whole idea that a handheld system is designed both for quick sessions (on a bus, for instance) and long playing periods (such as on a plane or in a hotel room), I think handhelds force developers to adhere to what I consider the ideals of video gaming: both instant playability and depth that inspires replay.

Obviously, puzzle games are the perfect match for this. I don't quite agree with some of 1up's puzzle game highlights. Tetris and Klax are true classics, but I'm not convinced that Meteos and Lumines are of the same calibre. Meteos times every game mode except for one, tilting it far in favour of quick sessions. It just isn't that enjoyable for a long period. Lumines falls victim to the exact opposite - the time attack modes aren't much fun but the normal mode is very addictive. The only problem with normal mode is that a typical single session often lasts more than half an hour!

Puzzle games aside, some of their choices and omissions are quite odd.

Donkey Kong on Game Boy is an expanded version of the arcade original, with 100 puzzle-heavy levels. It turns a classic arcade game into an even better home game. I think it's one of the finest games ever made. Mario vs Donkey Kong is a pseudo-sequel to the Game Boy one, but it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. It's decent but far from being a true classic.

Final Fantasy Adventure, also on Game Boy, is Seiken Densetsu 1 renamed to cash in on the Final Fantasy name. Seiken Densetsu was also renamed for the western market, to Secret of Mana. Yes, Secret of Mana is a sequel to this Game Boy game. And this Game Boy game is the best action/rpg the system has to offer - edging out even The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (which is also a fantastic game and a must-own). Too bad the GBA remake, Sword of Mana, was awful.

Besides Klax, the Atari Lynx had quite a few other arcade ports. Roadblasters is a lot of fun. Robotron 2084 isn't perfect (due to the Lynx lacking a way to duplicate the original dual-joystick control system) but is still decent. S.T.U.N. Runner looks fantastic on the handheld and is the best home port of the game we ever received, even if it does use sprite scaling instead of polygons. Speaking of sprite scaling, Blue Lightning is an Afterburner clone with better graphics than any of the pre-32X home ports of Afterburner. The gameplay measures up, too. Chip's Challenge, another original design for the system (though it was ported to plenty of other systems eventually) is a very fun action/puzzle game like The Adventures of Lolo. It also has a geeky love story plot that I'm sure most Slashdotters will appreciate :)

The Game Gear was perhaps the most lacking of all mainstream handhelds (ignoring utter shit like the Gamate and Watara Supervision), but even it had some very good games. Crystal Warriors and Shining Force II: The Sword of Hajya are an excellent pair of strategy-RPGs with amazing depth for 8-bit handheld games. Bubble Bobble had a great port on GG (not

I guess it's a good thing that the Stargate: Atlantis video game is already released. I just want to know how they managed to not only have the game ready in time for the show, but managed to do it 20 years in advance! Man, those IMagic guys must have great management! ;-)

The IGN article is nothing more than a sales pitch presented in the form of a review. Read here for more details

Do not judge a book by its cover. The NEX is nothing more than yet another Famicom/NES clone. There have been 100s before it, and they all pretty much suck. It uses the same NES-on-a-chip (NOAC) used in many other Famicom and NES clones. These NOACs have inaccurate audio, video, glitches, and are completely incompatible with roughly 40 NES games (Castlevania III, Gauntlet, etc) and even more Famicom games! Even free emulators for your PC or Xbox (Nestopia, Nintendulator, FCE Ultra) do better than the NEX in both accuracy of audio/video, as well as game compatibility! The NEX also does not have a Famicom extension port, so it can't use the Family Basic Keyboard and other Famicom peripherials that use the port. Here is real review.

The Messiah wireless controllers are great except for the D-pad, which is useless for many NES games, such as any game that requires you to double-tap a direction. Double Dragon is an example. The D-pad just doesn't respond fast enough. It is also tough to play even games like Super Mario Bros using the D-pad because you will accidentally hit the diagonals when running, instead of hitting forward. This causes Mario to stop running entirely. The wireless part of the controller is great. I just wish they used a standard cross shaped D-pad. I should add that the NEX does not come with a wireless controller, and you have to buy one separately. Furthermore, since the controllers come with a wireless receiver, they can be used with the original NES too. So yes the NEX can use these controllers, but so can a real NES.

In summary, anything that the NEX can do, a refurbished original NES can do and do it better. Read here for more details. In the end, it is up to you how you want to spend your money. But consider the fact that a refurbished original NES costs roughly $30, and the NEX is basically the same clone on the inside as the USA version Neo Fami, which can be had for even less than $30. The NEX, however, costs $60.

The IGN article is nothing more than a sales pitch presented in the form of a review. Read here for more details

Do not judge a book by its cover. The NEX is nothing more than yet another Famicom/NES clone. There have been 100s before it, and they all pretty much suck. It uses the same NES-on-a-chip (NOAC) used in many other Famicom and NES clones. These NOACs have inaccurate audio, video, glitches, and are completely incompatible with roughly 40 NES games (Castlevania III, Gauntlet, etc) and even more Famicom games! Even free emulators for your PC or Xbox (Nestopia, Nintendulator, FCE Ultra) do better than the NEX in both accuracy of audio/video, as well as game compatibility! The NEX also does not have a Famicom extension port, so it can't use the Family Basic Keyboard and other Famicom peripherials that use the port. Here is real review.

The Messiah wireless controllers are great except for the D-pad, which is useless for many NES games, such as any game that requires you to double-tap a direction. Double Dragon is an example. The D-pad just doesn't respond fast enough. It is also tough to play even games like Super Mario Bros using the D-pad because you will accidentally hit the diagonals when running, instead of hitting forward. This causes Mario to stop running entirely. The wireless part of the controller is great. I just wish they used a standard cross shaped D-pad. I should add that the NEX does not come with a wireless controller, and you have to buy one separately. Furthermore, since the controllers come with a wireless receiver, they can be used with the original NES too. So yes the NEX can use these controllers, but so can a real NES.

In summary, anything that the NEX can do, a refurbished original NES can do and do it better. Read here for more details. In the end, it is up to you how you want to spend your money. But consider the fact that a refurbished original NES costs roughly $30, and the NEX is basically the same clone on the inside as the USA version Neo Fami, which can be had for even less than $30. The NEX, however, costs $60.

Lots of interesting comments about the NEX over at AtariAge.

...and if I might add, the Ataari scene is alive and kicking as well.

You nostalgic geeks should have a look at the Amiga or Atari (true Atari, that is) stuff

http://www.atariage.com/ or http://www.atari-forum.com/ are a good place to start with

Old school would be Wizardry, or Ultima. Japanese games are not old school. Preschool, maybe. And no, I'm not forgetting the text games; they are in a different genre (adventure games, like Myst or King's Quest).

You want old school? You got it.

Where's the Holiday in those games?

By that title you should have been reviewing Reindeer Rescue, a brand new game released for the Atari 2600.

Sony cares because that is exactly what wiped out Atari.

What!!? You don't still play your 2600? The joysticks are a bit harder to find these days but cool games are still being produced for it!

In this, you can see they use a dial and button to use it - nobody actually used a dial for a game since then I believe.

Paddles

People are still making (and marketing) games for the Atari 2600...

http://atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=793 95

Nothing wrong with either the Lynx or the Jaguar. Neither were/ are "inferior". Atari in the late 1980s to mid 1990s were ingenious and inventive, and the Jaguar typifies that. Don't be embarassed about supporting them, Atari may have been the underdog but that had nothing to do with the quality of their products.

If memory serves, the Atari Jaguar was a 64-bit console with custom chips and an unusually versatile controller, released at a time when other consoles were content to be 16-bit and PCs were getting over the initial problems of moving to 32-bit via 80386 and the new 80486. More at http://www.atariage.com/Jaguar/ .

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?Softwar eLabelID=542

Was Pitfall. Did they remake that recently or something?

Yes. Here's one:

Enhanced Pitfall +

I gotta second that. From this customer's experience the PSX/Saturn era was when renting games got unbearably shitty. You went from renting cartridges (no-moving-parts-needing PROMs on a PCB) that could take a lot of abuse, to paying $2 dollars to rent a game, only to find that the disc is scratched in just the right spot that the FMVs are slowed to 4 spf. Then comes the fun part of taking it back to the store two hours later. If you're lucky, they'll give you another copy and you can spin the roulette wheel again. If you're not, they'll call you a liar and give you the broken game back. If you're really lucky, you'll run into the 40-year-old lifer, who'll proceed to blame the scratches on you and charge exorbitant fees for your "irresponsibility".

Eh. The Omegathon was OK. I didn't really pay attention to it this year; after all, I didn't have a chance of winning, and I'd rather be spending my time playing games myself.

Last year the final round of Pong was very cool, suprising, and funny, because no one knew what to expect; this year it wasn't really a suprise that it'd be an old-school game, merely a question of what. To answer your question: Combat (Atari).

After watching the omeganauts suck at Karaoke Revolution (Tycho and Kara played a round first, and they were very good... almost all the omeganauts were very bad), I found it hard to care about any of the contenders.

Reminds me also a bit of Enduro for the 2600

http://www.atariage.com/screenshot_page.html?Softw areLabelID=163

Tempest is an absolute classic, and Jeff's rendition on the Jaguar (Tempest 2000 - http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?Softwar eLabelID=1111) is one of the best (video) games made thus far; Frenetic, addictive, almost kinda feels like Quake3 play in a restricted 3d environment + Lyserg-Säure-Diaethylamid (but that's always been the Minter style). Go Hovver Bovver!

Check out the emulator http://pt.emuunlim.com/ which does a good job of running Tempest 2000 (that is assuming you're one of those rare people who own the cart, and can't be bothered pulling the Jag out of the box in the cupboard and hooking it up) *ahem*.

Perhaps if more programmers utilised the hardware properly (like Jeff? don't know, but the game rocked and that's the point right?) rather than falling back to 68k ("yay, new console but sub-68k quality game" syndrome, where you then open the console and start poking custom chips - "hello! hellooooooooo! chip! are you there?!? work damn you!!!!!)... but then again if the dev kit was better+cheaper... or perhaps if a little thing called the Sony PlayStation wasn't just on the horizon... hmmmm. I know not... i'm with Ecclesiastes anyway :)

RIP Atari, you stupid wonderful bastard of a company.

What about what these guys are doing?

What else but art can you call a one-person project, designing and writing a game for an "obsolete" and very limited (128 bytes of RAM!) system like the 2600?

(I just know someone's going to reply to this and say "masochism".... don't knock it until you've tried it)

Most of the commercial 2600 games were done this way too: one programmer/designer did the whole thing, from concept to finished code. I'd consider David Crane an artist, to name one example. I have no idea whether he considered himself one or not back then (or now, for that matter), though.

A fine art is something that has no practical application whatsoever, and solely exists for aesthetic reasons. Like a painting, photograph, etc.

Video games generally have no practical application whatsoever (well, to make money, but paintings and photographs can do that, too). I'd say the homebrew 2600 scene is closer to "pure" art because nobody's expecting to make money doing it: it's done for its own sake, like art (so I hear from a painter I know. I may not know much about art, but I know what I like!)