Slashdot Mirror

there was something they had which was like a four screen version of asteroids which looked cool has heck, years ago, but I forget the name of.

I'm not sure if it's the same one you're thinking of, but this reminded me of an asteroids-like game with full-color shaded ships, lots of different enemies and weapons, and the main bad dude was a green planetoid with a mean mouth and eight stubby tubes it used to shoot torpedoes.

I found it: Blasteroids!

Do you mean Cyber Sled? You can still buy them used for $250 at Namco Arcade

You can also buy Steel Talons from them, which was a neat-o Helicopter sim, for $250 as well (was $14000 new in '91 :)

I own both of them and they still get a lot of use from my friends. Now if they would only sell Ferrari F355 at that price....

Do you mean Cyber Sled? You can still buy them used for $250 at Namco Arcade

You can also buy Steel Talons from them, which was a neat-o Helicopter sim, for $250 as well (was $14000 new in '91 :)

I own both of them and they still get a lot of use from my friends. Now if they would only sell Ferrari F355 at that price....

Totally immersive, especially for 1985 or so.

Yup, the environmental DoT as that unit was called was very impressive. There was also a "regular" machine style of the game, which is far more rare. Both are pictured here. I know someone that managed to score a beautifal enviro version of DoT about 6 years ago, for around $1500. Then some asses robbed his house one night...it wasn't enough to just rob him, they had to trash the place too. They couldn't very well leave with the behemouth of a machine, so they knocked it over, smashed it to shreds, etc.

For classic game collectors, such as myself, it's hurts knowing these things are so limited, and when they are found, idiots just trash them

But DoT is a very cool game, as is the regular Tron game (which I own). It will be interesting to see Tron 2.0. It will also be interesting to see the movie when it finally gets released. For now, we have to subsist on the 20th anniversary dvd that just came out of the original :)

I did enjoy the Tron movie very much, but I must admit that I'm skeptical of whether or not it can be turned to a game.

So you've never seen/played the Tron or Discs of Tron arcade games?

It's not about the quality of graphics in the original game (they were much better in the Discs game -- some pretty nifty (for the time) 3D effects). The fact that you could play the games from the movie was cool enough for me.

I did enjoy the Tron movie very much, but I must admit that I'm skeptical of whether or not it can be turned to a game.

So you've never seen/played the Tron or Discs of Tron arcade games?

It's not about the quality of graphics in the original game (they were much better in the Discs game -- some pretty nifty (for the time) 3D effects). The fact that you could play the games from the movie was cool enough for me.

From the above link...

This game was the first graphic, animated computer game. In 1961 DEC shipped their first computer, the PDP-1, to MIT. There, a small group of friends at MIT decided to write some demoware for the machine that would use the supplied vector monitor. The game was released as Spacewar in 1962, becoming an instant hit. It was later distributed by DEC with all PDP-1's and found itself installed at universities around the world. The result was a huge number of modified versions, many of these modifications can be found as user options in the Cinematronics version. Nutting's Computer Space and Atari's Orbit were based on the same concept, but these games were raster implementations instead of vector.

The Vectorbeam version of this game is called Space War, not Space Wars.

Technical

Cinematronics used a custom vector monitor. The monitor had a parallel interface and had digital to analog converters in the monitor cage.

Trivia

This game has the honor of being the first Black and White Vector arcade game. The designer of the game saw Space Wars in a research lab running on a minicomputer and felt that he had to have one of his own. So over the period of a few years he built the prototype of the game out of easily available parts. He did not use a microprocessor because he could not afford it, so he built his own. He eventually teamed up with others to form Cinematronics, and the basic design of Space Wars was used in about a dozen other games including Solar Quest, Tail Gunner and Star Castle.

No way, man. It's a dance based on this

December 2634: A year has passed since Bill and Lance defeated the Alien Menace know as Red Falcon. However, Red Falcon is back and this time he has taken over a local military base and its army. Now it's up to Bill and Lance to take out Red Falcon once again.

Sounds like Bill and Lance have alot of fun together. It's that kind of dance.

I was working at Capcom Coin-Op around the time SF Alpha came out. We had one in the showroom on free play, so I played it a bit. Never could understand the popularity of it. Or any others in the fighting genre, for that matter... The whole thing seemed to come down to memorizing arbitrary joystick/button sequences that had little or no connection to what was happening on the screen. Wanna do your super-mega-knockout move? LLLDU-sweepCCW-punch-kick. I never really saw the game aspect of it.

Now, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo , on the other hand... There was a great game! It was so cool to see half the company lined up to play it; everyone from the assembly-line workers through the highest levels of management. Time to fire up MAME, I think...

This scene was worked in because they developed the arcade game at the same time, which had a grid bug sequence in it...

It's very interesting to consider how quickly the popularity of video games grew,

Wasn't it Pong, developed around 1973 that really launched the popularity of video games? The first 20 years seemed to be an expansion of a glacial sort.

Now Atari's Race Drivin' (1990) and Hard Drivin' (1989) both have force feedback on the steering, definitely prior art.

Dates for games from the Known List of Videogames

I challenge anyone to find a video game with advertisements in it older than that

I guess you've never played Pole Position?

1. Pac-Man

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Star Wars

5. Ms. Pac-Man

6. Dig Dug

7. Asteroids

8. Defender

9. Tron

10. Tempest (tie)

10. Centipede (tie)

Of course those aren't the ones I have in MY game room at home (old photos, the collection has changed quite a bit since then!), I currently have Tempest, Star Wars, Joust, Centipede, Rampart, Asteroids Deluxe, Battle Zone, Donkey Kong and a couple of pinball machines.

The real challenge isn't acquiring the games, it is keeping them up and running, after 20-30 years they take a certain amount of maintenance to keep running.

There are documents listed in the archive that are apparently the first proposals for the Star Wars arcade game, at that stage a First Person Spacewar. The documents (from Nov 1979) predate Battlezone (1980, referred to as 'Future Tank' and 'First Person Tank' in the proposals), and the Star Wars game didn't appear until 1983, according to the KLOV. You get a nice insight into how much they were pushing what could be done with the hardware they had, and also into how early the name of the game is decided (i.e not at all).

Either that, or Lucasfilm agreed a license with Atari who then dusted off some 3 year-old junk to make a tie-in game...

... and "the little backwards speaking monster" is Qbert

More nostalgia:
Killer List of Videogames is definately worth a visit. Over 3.500 videogames has been indexed. Nice screenshots, trivia and even cheats for some videogames.

Go here for info on the Tron video game and here for Discs of Tron, a game I much prefer. The second link has a picture of the enviro-cabinet. Definately a cool touch, and the only way to play. I believe that these five games were originally supposed to be on one machine, but the fifth got spun off.

Go here for info on the Tron video game and here for Discs of Tron, a game I much prefer. The second link has a picture of the enviro-cabinet. Definately a cool touch, and the only way to play. I believe that these five games were originally supposed to be on one machine, but the fifth got spun off.

Probably a good source is the KLOV entry for Pit Fighter. Well, maybe not all that great.

It does indicate it to be JAMMA+. However, what it doesn't indicate is that the credit and start buttons, for example, are placed on a special connector. (I think alone with one of the fire buttons? It has been a bit since I played with the PCB.) And, of course, the 3rd player connection is on another propriety interface that is outside of the JAMMA connection.

You'll have problems putting a JAMMA PCB inside the cabinet, or using the Pit Fighter PCB in a JAMMA cabinet, for those reasons. I don't know why Atari decided to be so non-standard at that time.

But actually, I'll go ahead and agree with you, in general. You can pick up a Pit Fighter at auction very cheap (say, $50?). But, you'll have to put a little bit of work in rewriring it for it to become mostly JAMMA compliant. If you're looking for an entry-level arcade game, and don't mind the work to trade off for a very good price, this isn't a bad deal.

Fair enough. Let me begin by nominating Marble Madness, one of the most interesting, creative, and visually pretty games I've ever seen.

It was, admittedly, somewhat lacking in the strategy department... it was one of those games where you just keep playing to learn the secrets until you can complete the course... but it had so many different interesting quirks and situations that I for one was fascinated with the game. It wasn't the same basic situation repeated ad infinitum (e.g.somebody shoots at you, you shoot back) the situation actually changed from as the game progressed.

It was visually beautiful to look at and had a wonderful score for each level.

If only it came with a port of Prop Cycle...

This is a rare one. I've seen a couple, but never gotten to play one. I've heard gameplay sucks, but at least the cabinet is cool looking! :)

From the Article:
First of all I don't accept the premise that consumer games have hurt the arcades. The arcades have hurt themselves.

This guy may be a guru, and he's done a lot of cool things, but I think he's really overlooking a lot of factors by saying that arcades did themselves in. I used to visit a stereotypical 'shag-rug' arcade all the time, and the decline started just about Sega Genisis came about. I remember talking to the arcade owner, and his 'market research' said pretty much the same thing..

Obviously, its a combination of factors-- but what killed the mall style arcade with the top 100 games was that the games weren't that much better than home systems!

And to say that things got too complex.. well that depends on what kind of gamer you're going for! I used to love playing classic driving games (Remember Hard Drivin , anyone?), but now all the arcade driving games are totally, well 'arcade like'..

Open Source fans might not get to close to this one. MAME loses a great deal of its appeal without mostly illegal ROMs to use on it. (There might be some legal ones, but the majority aren't.) And although most of the ROMs might seem like 'abandonware', it is taking away modern-day money from some commercial releases. (No one thought circa-1995 machines could do arcade emulation til the Williams Arcade Pack came out.) Some of the coolest things I found for my "new" ps one and my Dreamcast are multiplayer classics like Gauntlet, Super Sprint, and arcade Warlords.
Something like MAME for Xbox is a double threat, bridging the PC/Console divide.

<karmawhore>On the other hand... mame.dk is a helluva resource.</karmawhore> It's almost as good as Killer List of Videogames for screenshots, and better for other reasons...

Space War on the Atari 2600 was a blast, great 2-player fun.

Another favorite of mine in the arcades was Space Duel, a somewhat Asteroids-like game which had a 2-player mode where the 2 ships were joined together with a rigid bar. The physics model was great fun, if one person fired their thrusters, the pair of ships could start spinning like crazy. You had to coordinate strategy with your partner. (It's been so long, I don't remember if there was a "versus" 2-player mode.)

"I remember an arcade 2 person version of Space Wars, not sure if it had the same name."

You nailed it. Cinematronics' Space Wars, designed by Larry Rosenthal, was the name of the game. Here is a history of the company, with information about Larry and Space Wars. VERY interesting reading.

Incidently, there are a couple of other clones of Spacewar! besides Space Wars and Computer Space.

"I remember an arcade 2 person version of Space Wars, not sure if it had the same name."

You nailed it. Cinematronics' Space Wars, designed by Larry Rosenthal, was the name of the game. Here is a history of the company, with information about Larry and Space Wars. VERY interesting reading.

Incidently, there are a couple of other clones of Spacewar! besides Space Wars and Computer Space.

"I remember an arcade 2 person version of Space Wars, not sure if it had the same name."

You nailed it. Cinematronics' Space Wars, designed by Larry Rosenthal, was the name of the game. Here is a history of the company, with information about Larry and Space Wars. VERY interesting reading.

Incidently, there are a couple of other clones of Spacewar! besides Space Wars and Computer Space.

"I remember an arcade 2 person version of Space Wars, not sure if it had the same name."

You nailed it. Cinematronics' Space Wars, designed by Larry Rosenthal, was the name of the game. Here is a history of the company, with information about Larry and Space Wars. VERY interesting reading.

Incidently, there are a couple of other clones of Spacewar! besides Space Wars and Computer Space.

Typically the came Computer Space is considered the first "arcade" game because it set precedent for all future games: coin accepting, dedicated unit instead of multipurpose computer, display, controls, etc. Check www.klov.com or www.arcadehistory.com for more info, or if you'd like to chat about the classics hit #rgvac on EFNet. Also usenet rec.games.video.arcade.collecting

• Clown gang light-cycles
• akira energy-ball MCP cone
• police tanks
• and grid bugs - why not, they were in Tron fopr what, 10 seconds?

• Clown gang light-cycles
• akira energy-ball MCP cone
• police tanks
• and grid bugs - why not, they were in Tron fopr what, 10 seconds?

P2P lives, not because of it being a cool technology, but because it brings to realization an important fact. There are a number of niches where the audience, or the users, are the best content.

I'll take the broad definition of "peer-to-peer" here and say that in the realm of things that are legal, P2P has the most impact in the following areas:

In the idea space, when the consumer voice is just as important, or more important than a singular voice. For example, product review sites like Epinions. A mass of users can provide far more information on a wider variety of topics than Consumer Reports can.

In hobbies, where there isn't profitability in commercialization. For example, KLOV, the Killer List of Arcade Games. You've got a large number of enthusiastic collectors who are documenting information about games that have long since lost any commercial value.

In dark legal areas, where a commercial entity cannoy provide what the audience wants. MP3s are the best example. There isn't a place (commercial or not) to go to get your MP3s. Peer to peer is the place to go.

In short, peer-to-peer fills in the gaps where commercial organizations do not exist, can not exist, or do their job poorly. And because that is always going to exist, so will peer-to-peer.

I found it. Zero Wing is an arcade game circa 1989 with poorly translated "Engrish" in its opening sequence. There's actually a web site devoted to the "all your base are belong to us" quote, with videos and everything. Amazing.

That same episode had one of my all-time favorite Futurama lines. For the robots on that planet, they used the "Get the humanoid, get the intruder" sound clip from Berzerk.

"Insert coin. Avoid missing ball for high score."

This and other goofy statements come from the Sega Genesis port of a Toaplan shooter known as Zero Wing. More information can be found here, here and here.

Gaming always has, and probably always will be somewhat about being the first person to get the "next cool thing."

• I'm having a blast right now playing Driver for the Playstation. 2 years off the cutting edge.
• My friend's 7- and 10-year old daughters were completely unimpressed with their new Nintendo 64 and latest "Star Wars" games. I managed to find a shop with a dusty old "Super Mario 64" cartridge in the back for sale, and the depth and quality of Shigeru Miyamoto's world gobsmacked them ("blew them away"). 4 years off the cutting edge.
• We have a BurgerTime arcade machine at work, it's extremely tense and challenging to complete more than three levels, the play design is brilliant. 18 years off the cutting edge.

You are playing the "best of". That 10% of games that are remembered. They're good because they were good game designs. There are still good, solid game designs in modern - they're just different (and anyone who bitchs about the glut of FPS's nowadays, go back to the SNES era and look at all the side-scrolling shooters (Gradius, R-Type, etc) there were).

Go to KLOV.com and pick out some random selections. See how many from that period you would have enjoyed then, let alone now.


--

Pose the question like this : are raster graphics somehow superior to vector graphics?

At one point, video games were done with vector graphics (Tempest was the most memorable =) beacuse raster graphics were too expensive computationally to do. Once they were possible, much more freedom was allowed.

Polygons are basically vector graphics in 3d - an approximation generated by drawing lines through space to simulate the construction of objects. Whereas voxels are much more like pixels - you choose a resolution, and then you fill in each 3d point with a colour. They are just orders of magnitude more expensive than polygons, that's all.

The advantages? More freedom and realisim in what can be designed.

--

I'm curious if anyone has built a dedicated emulator machine, and if so what CPU/Video Card combination is ideal.

I'm curious, as running some games, such as Gradius 3 (which I have a masochistic love of), are *really* slow in parts. Like 10 FPS or so. (Average FPS when running Gradius 3 is about 17, as opposed to the 60 FPS or so in 1943).

I'm in the process of testing my skillz by building an arcade joystick. (Thanks be to http://www.arcadecontrols.speedh ost.com/ and Happ Controls for information and parts respectively). If this is successful, I would like to find and strip down an old console. But I'm not going to do it if all the games I want to play run like shit =)

More to the points, are there any tips/advice for speeding up MAME and/or other emulators? Specific video settings, etc?

--

And that's just the R's.
-Vercingetorix

And that's just the R's.
-Vercingetorix

And that's just the R's.
-Vercingetorix

And that's just the R's.
-Vercingetorix