Slashdot Mirror

I used to work with a couple of NASA subcontractors who talked about when they would code by flipping 8 switches and then pressing a button to push that single byte of code into the computer.

That wasn't uncommon for early personal computers either. Try this in-browser simulations:

Kenbak-1 Emulator

MITS Altair Simulator

I don't know what all other consoles got E.T. games, but the infamous one was for Atari 2600.

Source: the author of the mod to make it not suck

There is a hacked version of ET that fixes most of the annoying design issues, check here -- or even play online.

Another major issue is, you really need to RTFM. It's not a very intuitive game.

It's not a bad game at all. With a few tweeks, it's even better.

It only gets better with time

Depends on whether it's the original version of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial or the service pack.

The hackaday article is just fluff standing in the way of the actual content. Here's a link to the actual article discussing the fixes.

To clarify things even more, the game was not any good. Some people list it as one of the worst games ever, but that's probably extreme. After paying $50 for this, do not expect you will enjoy playing it. It's like paying $50 to buy the Star Wars Christmas Special.

Actually I think ET gets a bad rap. The game itself is decidedly average, but it's fun in short spurts and has some amazing graphics (for the 2600 anyway). The problem is that it's also buggy as hell due to its rushed development cycle (6 weeks from start to finish when most games took 3-5 months) to meet the Christmas buying season. The biggest issue is that the collision detection with the pits is wonky and it's too difficult to tell what parts of ET can touch the pit without falling in and what parts can't. Add to this a nasty bug that makes falling back into pits after you levitate out a very common occurrence (you need to move down after levitating not left or right which would make sense) and you've got a very frustrating game.

If you've got a 2600 handy or an emulator, I suggest giving ET a chance. If you look here ( http://www.neocomputer.org/pro...) you can find an explanation of all the bugs in the game and download a bug free version of the game which makes it much more enjoyable (although it's still an average game).

The more tightly you cling to Atari nostalgia, the more landfilled copies of ET will slip through your fingers...

Let the copies of ET slip through my fingers. I liked it better when it was called "All The Things She Said" and sung by tATu.

The game you're probably thinking of has been fixed.

It's even better with the new DLC.

I liked the game too as a kid. It had its shortcomings which by the way are all addressed here. ET is no longer an awful game:

http://www.neocomputer.org/pro...

This story reminds me of this guy who has fixed the game by ROM hacking: http://www.neocomputer.org/pro...
Quite an interesting read if you're familiar with (or wondered about) Atari or assembly programming.

If you're just being sarcastic, you should know that there's a patch available.

That would be cool, especially if they used the fixed version.

Well, cool except for the platform exclusivity... That's never cool.

Here you go:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc,const char* argv[]){
int h, w, i, j;
h = w = atoi(argv[1]);
srand(time(NULL));

for(i=0 ;i<w; i++)
      printf(" __");
printf("\n");

for(i=0; i<h-1; i++){
    printf("| "); // two spaces
    for(j=0; j<w-1; j++)
        rand()%2==1?printf(" __"):printf("| "); // two spaces
    printf("|\n");
    }

printf("|");
for(i=0; i<w-1; i++)
    printf("__ ");

printf("__|\n");
return 0;
}

A space got filtered out on line 80 and 100 -- it should be in both cases "[pipe][space][space]"

Well the thing is with the spaces on the sides of " | " you really CAN'T get an isolation since you can't close off a box. With the gaps you can go around basically any corner and get where you want.

It's the best you can do with underscores, pipes, and spaces :) Try out the working program and you'll get a good sense of how it's supposed to be.

If you want, I can make a javascript version so that it looks nicer. Just ask and I'll post some code for you.

I was thinking about that and wondering how a randomly generated maze could have such attributes such as no loops or isolations, I gave it a try...

A Binary Tree Maze is just the easiest kind to make. It doesn't make the best kind of maze, as you'll see, but it meets all the criteria for a perfect maze. There are lots of other interesting algorithms that will let you randomly generate a maze with those properties -- and MUCH better results. My favorite is Eller's Algorithm -- you should give it a look.

Teaching kids to program has been discussed countless times on Slashdot. The consensus is always the same: Get an old microcomputer!

According to Robert Nielsen, computer programming was taught using the famous Kenbak-1 computer at the Nielsen Electronics Institute well into the 1990's (1997, it think, not bad for a computer from 1972!)

With the computers 5 addressing modes and comprehensive instruction set, it still makes for an excellent teaching tool for advanced students.

An online emulator is available at http://www.neocomputer.org/kenbak
All the original documentation is available from John Blankenbaker's website at http://www.kenbak-1.net/

Crazy foreign revisionist history. Everyone seems to forget the humble Kenbak-1. Play with it here.

Yes, it predates the Micral 8008. It's also American made.