Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the well-kinda-sorta dept.
LinuxBand sent in linkage to a nice story talking about the NES as it now is celebrating its 15th year. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't had a nintendo, I woulda had a full half point better on my high school GPA.
It has features like the 20 worst NES games of all time and the 10 worst things to base a game on. Lots of other funny stuff on there for any child of the 80s.
Re:FLASHING ON AND OFF--
by
dark_panda
·
· Score: 4
I, like every single NES owner in the world, also had this problem. Even this past summer, I could barely get one of those 42-in-one Asian carts. You know, the ones with 4 versions of Super Mario Bros., 2 versions of Tennis and at least 3 Galaxians on them. The screen would always flash green and black until I applied The Method.
Insert cart.
Press down on poorly conceived "VCR like" cartridge bay.
Turn on NES.
Watch green and black screens alternate.
Wiggle cartridge around a bit while NES is still on.
Watch as green and black screens become blue and white screens.
Remove cartridge.
Throw caution to the wind and disregard warning on back of cartridge by blowing on the connectors.
Re-insert cartridge and turn on power again.
Watch as scrambled sprites and backgrounds flash on the screen.
Wiggle cartridge some more.
Remove cartridge and blow on the connectors even harder. Wave cartridge around a bit just to be sure.
Insert, power on, pray, play.
Repeat procedure as necessary.
Many a times have I applied The Method to great results.
As a side note, does it seem strange to any of you just how indestructable those NES controllers were? I mean, they were built like brick shit houses. I've beaten those things silly and they just don't give in. Many a times have I taken one of the controllers by the cord and reamed it against the wall after constantly losing at the Adventures of Lolo, Ninja Gaiden and the nefarious last levels of Megaman. In my entire NES career, which includes up to this day, I've only replaced one controller. Meanwhile, I've gone through 2 MS Sidewinders in 2 years.
They don't make 'em like they used to I guess.
J
Anyone remember the Power Glove?
by
micahjd
·
· Score: 3
The Power Glove was basically just a cheapo VR
device for the NES. It has little resistive sensors for detecting finger position, and a sort
of 3D sonar to detect the position of the hand
relative to the TV. AFAIK they only released one
game for it on the NES (Glove ball?) and it was
pretty much a flop. But interestingly enough they started sort of a cult following among the 1337 DOS programmers of the day.
I remember ordering my Power Glove used for something like $8. (like I said, a flop) I built the quite simple paralell port
adaptor, and stuck the little sonar doodads on my monitor. 386s were new back then, so the graphics weren't great, but it was still pretty darn cool.
I remember this demo with a "western" town (saloons and things) and being able to pick up tables and even open the safe with my pixelated and jittery virtual hand.
It was neat, especially for that time period. I wonder if there's any linux software for that thing...
It's amazing what some sites will do to increase banner hits.
What would a mint-condition NES with ROB and games be worth these days?
Re:Nintendo Marketing Practices
by
micahjd
·
· Score: 3
Video game manufacturers have always had quite
evil marketing and legal practices. All of the
console systems I've programmed for or investigated have proprietary APIs, but that's not the real problem- at least on the simpler 2D systems these are quickly reverse engineered. The game companies made it illegal to write games without their special licence. I don't know the technical details of most systems, but I'll use the Gameboy as an example:
The Gameboy itself has a tiny (512 bytes IIRC) boot ROM. It doesn't perform any initialization, its only purpose is to scroll the little "Nintendo" logo down the screen. The logo itself is stored in the game cartridge, but if it doesn't compare exactly to another copy in the ROM, the game never loads. This forces developers to put a copy of the Nintendo logo in their games, and buy the special license so it isn't "illegal".
I forget whether this was ever challenged in court. (Never stopped the hobbiests, of course:)
I think there was a legal case involving something similar with the Sega, but I don't remember the details.
Though I've never programmed for the NES, I have modified mine to play unlicenced cartridges. (Shhh... experimental purposes only;-) The NES and the cartridge both have an identical proprietary chip. They exchange data of some sort, and if the chip in the NES doesn't like the other chip, you get the flashing screen. This is easily remedied on the customer's part by clipping a wire in the NES, but I think Tengen built their own chip to release Pac Man (and maybe some other games) without a Nintendo license, and they got sued.
Ah the Nintendo... I still play mine every once in a while. It's important to remember, however, that the NES was not "revolutionary for its time." The Sega Master System, for instance, was a much better system with better sound and graphics hardware (64 colors!). The reason all us American kids can talk about the NES with such nostalgia is because it was all we had, and it was all we had because of marketing practices that rivaled the worst of Microsoft's.
Remember that little gold "Nintendo Seal of Quality"? Well, that seal cost a pretty penny, and a game developer had to sell his soul to get it. Developing for the NES meant that you were not permitted to make games for other systems (i.e. Sega), and since Nintendo cornered the market in the U.S., no one could afford not to make games for the Nintendo (the situation was different in Europe, by the way).
Nintendo also had policies that extended to retailers, and they even threatened to pull their systems from the shelves of Toys 'R Us when the company wouldn't play by their rules. Over the years, Nintendo was involved in countless lawsuits, most of which they lost. The industry was just so profitable, however, that it never really mattered.
I admit that the games were great, but Nintendo was (and probably still is) an evil, evil company.
Gender bias was rampant on the NES
by
Anne+Marie
·
· Score: 3
I too spent many hours playing on my NES in my formative years. But it was true then and it is even more apparent in hindsight: the NES perpetuated negative stereotypes of women (and minorities too --dear lord, look at Superdodgeball and Double Dragon and we'll chat -- but that's a different rant).
And I'm not just talking about mere passive bias of exclusion. The videogame market was directed at boys, and naturally, it was the boys who purchased the lion's share of games produced. Naturally, we'd expect to find a disproportionate number of shoot'em-up games and sidescrollers where the sole objective is to kill everything in one's path and save the planet. I understand the economic pressures driving such a situation, and I can cope (though I'll be critical of whatever games I'll be buying my own kids, when I have them some day).
What I'm complaining about is the actual stereotypes perpetuated by games by girls' and women's inclusion in games, not their mere exclusion. Often, they are comoditized and positioned as a prize to be won, the princess to save from the dragon, and other things consistent with anglo-american literary heritage going back to Camelot. But it got no better once they stepped off their pedestals and entered the actual gameplay itself. Remember Super Mario 2? Remember who the weakest character was? It wasn't the mushroom -- it was the girl. Remember Gunsmoke? The hostages were disproportionately 'helpless women'. Oh save me! Please. And don't even get me started on the whole Barbie videogame franchise.
For a time, there was an attempt to cater to the grrrl's market theretofore ignored by gaming companies. And do you know what the results were? Do you remember the pinnacle of girl-targeted gaming was? Athena, that's what. Finally, a game where girls could play a true female lead-role and save the world, but alas, the game was complete crap. Did they give her a menacing weapon? No, girls can't be trusted with real weapons, so we'll give her a stupid blue mallet thing. Does she engage in fast-paced adrenalin-rushing heart-pounding combat with fierce and fearsome enemies? No, she just wanders around the screen until you get bored and turn the stupid thing off.
I wouldn't be so bitter if I saw any real change in the industry in the years since. But no, the industry is still caught up in some sexist notion that women are different, that girls think differently from boys, and while it may all be true, it's irrelevent here. Girls were robbed of their freedom and denied their equal share and place in the childhood of boys. And now that we're grown up, we're pissed.
yeah... I really miss mine--now all it does is flash black and white on the screen... sometimes if i clean the hell out of it, it will actually play a game, but i think its processor has seen better days, because the screen gets all corrupted--its kind of amusing sometimes.
mov ax, 13h int 10h
--
mov ax, 13h int 10h
And next year will be Sonic's 10th birthday...
by
ChaosEmerald
·
· Score: 5
(1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog was released in the US)
When you think of all the video games that just go right by its amazing. Sure, the NES was great, but there were some pieces of crap too. I honestly can't say that I've played more than 500 games in the past ten years. And how many were released, 10000?
Think of all the consoles, NES, SMS, TurboGraphix16 (awwwwwwwwwww yeah!), Genesis (+ SegaCD + 32X), SNES, NeoGeo (Metal Slug!), Saturn, PSX, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and soon to come out PS2.
There have been many series, from Mega Man to Mario to Sonic to Zelda to Phantasy Star to Street Fighter to Double Dragon to Battle Toads to... But when was the last time you saw a Double Dragon game or a Battle Toads game? I'm just amazed at the amount of games I've never played, and the amount that will keep on coming.
--
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
My roommate and I have got an NES a few months back... Didn't really play much til he got Super Mario Bros off of eBay... Well, that cartridge had some difect or something, so it took a whole lot of blowing on the contacts to get it working.
I have to say we didn't turn the machine off ever since for the fear that the cart would go dead. It's pretty much been on for the past two months. (How's that for an uptime?)
I wish they still made 2-D games like that. I mean there's nothing wrong with today's crop of 3-D stuff, but one does yearn for a bit of hand-drawn cartoonish animation from time to time...
I never throw away anything, and a couple of years ago I dug my old NES out of the storage bin, dusted it off, and plugged it in. Not only did it still work, but my Legend of Zelda game still had my original games saved. (ISTR that the Zelda booklet warned that the internal battery would only function for 3-5 years... mine has made it ~14 years and counting!)
I've moved twice since then, and the NES has come with me. I suppose I could pluck down the couple-hundred needed for one of the much newer and better console systems, but why? Most of the games I would be interested in playing on a new system are also available for my computer -- and I already have the hardware. No, I enjoy playing my old Nintendo half for nostalgia and half for the "mind-numbingly simple" plot lines that most follow. (Which is a good thing, 'cause with few exceptions -- like Zelda -- you can't save your session.)
And even after all these years, I can still navigate the first level of Contra without looking at the screen -- with the help of up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-select-s tart. 8^)
-- "I came here to kick ass and chew
bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum."
MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
That music sounds almost exactly like the original unless you have a wavetabele soundcard like me:D
Try the NSF version at this link here and get a player from zophar's domain. You can also find a lot more NES music there: this is one of the most comprehensive archives of NSF's i've found.
Distributed Computing Power and NES
by
1nt3lx
·
· Score: 4
Yes! It has a processor and a way to accept user input. Someone should port LINUX to it! Once someone found a way to network them the possibilities would be endless...
Imagine a pile of NES's running linux in some sort of a cluster. Wow, I can just hear the tech's now. "Quick! Number 342-32 is down! Get over there and exhale into the cartridge!"
Most of the time breathing on the contacts would work, too. I can't say anything ever beat a good swift punch, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Every NES fan should take a look at Seanbaby's NES Page.
http://seanbaby.com/nes.htm
It has features like the 20 worst NES games of all time and the 10 worst things to base a game on. Lots of other funny stuff on there for any child of the 80s.
- Insert cart.
- Press down on poorly conceived "VCR like" cartridge bay.
- Turn on NES.
- Watch green and black screens alternate.
- Wiggle cartridge around a bit while NES is still on.
- Watch as green and black screens become blue and white screens.
- Remove cartridge.
- Throw caution to the wind and disregard warning on back of cartridge by blowing on the connectors.
- Re-insert cartridge and turn on power again.
- Watch as scrambled sprites and backgrounds flash on the screen.
- Wiggle cartridge some more.
- Remove cartridge and blow on the connectors even harder. Wave cartridge around a bit just to be sure.
- Insert, power on, pray, play.
- Repeat procedure as necessary.
Many a times have I applied The Method to great results.As a side note, does it seem strange to any of you just how indestructable those NES controllers were? I mean, they were built like brick shit houses. I've beaten those things silly and they just don't give in. Many a times have I taken one of the controllers by the cord and reamed it against the wall after constantly losing at the Adventures of Lolo, Ninja Gaiden and the nefarious last levels of Megaman. In my entire NES career, which includes up to this day, I've only replaced one controller. Meanwhile, I've gone through 2 MS Sidewinders in 2 years.
They don't make 'em like they used to I guess.
J
I remember ordering my Power Glove used for something like $8. (like I said, a flop) I built the quite simple paralell port adaptor, and stuck the little sonar doodads on my monitor. 386s were new back then, so the graphics weren't great, but it was still pretty darn cool. I remember this demo with a "western" town (saloons and things) and being able to pick up tables and even open the safe with my pixelated and jittery virtual hand.
It was neat, especially for that time period. I wonder if there's any linux software for that thing...
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
It's amazing what some sites will do to increase banner hits.
What would a mint-condition NES with ROB and games be worth these days?
The Gameboy itself has a tiny (512 bytes IIRC) boot ROM. It doesn't perform any initialization, its only purpose is to scroll the little "Nintendo" logo down the screen. The logo itself is stored in the game cartridge, but if it doesn't compare exactly to another copy in the ROM, the game never loads. This forces developers to put a copy of the Nintendo logo in their games, and buy the special license so it isn't "illegal".
I forget whether this was ever challenged in court. (Never stopped the hobbiests, of course :)
I think there was a legal case involving something similar with the Sega, but I don't remember the details.
Though I've never programmed for the NES, I have modified mine to play unlicenced cartridges. (Shhh... experimental purposes only ;-) The NES and the cartridge both have an identical proprietary chip. They exchange data of some sort, and if the chip in the NES doesn't like the other chip, you get the flashing screen. This is easily remedied on the customer's part by clipping a wire in the NES, but I think Tengen built their own chip to release Pac Man (and maybe some other games) without a Nintendo license, and they got sued.
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
Ah the Nintendo... I still play mine every once in a while. It's important to remember, however, that the NES was not "revolutionary for its time." The Sega Master System, for instance, was a much better system with better sound and graphics hardware (64 colors!). The reason all us American kids can talk about the NES with such nostalgia is because it was all we had, and it was all we had because of marketing practices that rivaled the worst of Microsoft's.
Remember that little gold "Nintendo Seal of Quality"? Well, that seal cost a pretty penny, and a game developer had to sell his soul to get it. Developing for the NES meant that you were not permitted to make games for other systems (i.e. Sega), and since Nintendo cornered the market in the U.S., no one could afford not to make games for the Nintendo (the situation was different in Europe, by the way).
Nintendo also had policies that extended to retailers, and they even threatened to pull their systems from the shelves of Toys 'R Us when the company wouldn't play by their rules. Over the years, Nintendo was involved in countless lawsuits, most of which they lost. The industry was just so profitable, however, that it never really mattered.
I admit that the games were great, but Nintendo was (and probably still is) an evil, evil company.
I too spent many hours playing on my NES in my formative years. But it was true then and it is even more apparent in hindsight: the NES perpetuated negative stereotypes of women (and minorities too --dear lord, look at Superdodgeball and Double Dragon and we'll chat -- but that's a different rant).
And I'm not just talking about mere passive bias of exclusion. The videogame market was directed at boys, and naturally, it was the boys who purchased the lion's share of games produced. Naturally, we'd expect to find a disproportionate number of shoot'em-up games and sidescrollers where the sole objective is to kill everything in one's path and save the planet. I understand the economic pressures driving such a situation, and I can cope (though I'll be critical of whatever games I'll be buying my own kids, when I have them some day).
What I'm complaining about is the actual stereotypes perpetuated by games by girls' and women's inclusion in games, not their mere exclusion. Often, they are comoditized and positioned as a prize to be won, the princess to save from the dragon, and other things consistent with anglo-american literary heritage going back to Camelot. But it got no better once they stepped off their pedestals and entered the actual gameplay itself. Remember Super Mario 2? Remember who the weakest character was? It wasn't the mushroom -- it was the girl. Remember Gunsmoke? The hostages were disproportionately 'helpless women'. Oh save me! Please. And don't even get me started on the whole Barbie videogame franchise.
For a time, there was an attempt to cater to the grrrl's market theretofore ignored by gaming companies. And do you know what the results were? Do you remember the pinnacle of girl-targeted gaming was? Athena , that's what. Finally, a game where girls could play a true female lead-role and save the world, but alas, the game was complete crap. Did they give her a menacing weapon? No, girls can't be trusted with real weapons, so we'll give her a stupid blue mallet thing. Does she engage in fast-paced adrenalin-rushing heart-pounding combat with fierce and fearsome enemies? No, she just wanders around the screen until you get bored and turn the stupid thing off.
I wouldn't be so bitter if I saw any real change in the industry in the years since. But no, the industry is still caught up in some sexist notion that women are different, that girls think differently from boys, and while it may all be true, it's irrelevent here. Girls were robbed of their freedom and denied their equal share and place in the childhood of boys. And now that we're grown up, we're pissed.
-- Anne Marie
yeah... I really miss mine--now all it does is flash black and white on the screen... sometimes if i clean the hell out of it, it will actually play a game, but i think its processor has seen better days, because the screen gets all corrupted--its kind of amusing sometimes.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
When you think of all the video games that just go right by its amazing. Sure, the NES was great, but there were some pieces of crap too. I honestly can't say that I've played more than 500 games in the past ten years. And how many were released, 10000?
Think of all the consoles, NES, SMS, TurboGraphix16 (awwwwwwwwwww yeah!), Genesis (+ SegaCD + 32X), SNES, NeoGeo (Metal Slug!), Saturn, PSX, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and soon to come out PS2. There have been many series, from Mega Man to Mario to Sonic to Zelda to Phantasy Star to Street Fighter to Double Dragon to Battle Toads to ... But when was the last time you saw a Double Dragon game or a Battle Toads game? I'm just amazed at the amount of games I've never played, and the amount that will keep on coming.
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
I have to say we didn't turn the machine off ever since for the fear that the cart would go dead. It's pretty much been on for the past two months. (How's that for an uptime?)
I wish they still made 2-D games like that. I mean there's nothing wrong with today's crop of 3-D stuff, but one does yearn for a bit of hand-drawn cartoonish animation from time to time...
Ñ'
I never throw away anything, and a couple of years ago I dug my old NES out of the storage bin, dusted it off, and plugged it in. Not only did it still work, but my Legend of Zelda game still had my original games saved. (ISTR that the Zelda booklet warned that the internal battery would only function for 3-5 years... mine has made it ~14 years and counting!)
I've moved twice since then, and the NES has come with me. I suppose I could pluck down the couple-hundred needed for one of the much newer and better console systems, but why? Most of the games I would be interested in playing on a new system are also available for my computer -- and I already have the hardware. No, I enjoy playing my old Nintendo half for nostalgia and half for the "mind-numbingly simple" plot lines that most follow. (Which is a good thing, 'cause with few exceptions -- like Zelda -- you can't save your session.)
And even after all these years, I can still navigate the first level of Contra without looking at the screen -- with the help of up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-select-s tart. 8^)
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
I think they missed one game for the Best Music category:
:D
:D
Journey to Silius.
Hold on while I find some links...
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
That music sounds almost exactly like the original unless you have a wavetabele soundcard like me
Try the NSF version at this link here and get a player from zophar's domain. You can also find a lot more NES music there: this is one of the most comprehensive archives of NSF's i've found.
Listen, and remember!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can find a prototype ROM image of GNOME vs. KDE along with the rest of the NES development effort.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yes! It has a processor and a way to accept user input. Someone should port LINUX to it! Once someone found a way to network them the possibilities would be endless...
Imagine a pile of NES's running linux in some sort of a cluster. Wow, I can just hear the tech's now.
"Quick! Number 342-32 is down! Get over there and exhale into the cartridge!"
Most of the time breathing on the contacts would work, too. I can't say anything ever beat a good swift punch, though.
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.