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Classic Atari Games for Cell Phones
Peterpan writes: "ZDNet reports that Infogrames is going to port their classic Atari games to J2ME-enabled mobile devices. The Japanese still are far beyond the rest of the world regarding such devices. BTW Infogrames also wants to become Atari! I have heard that the company has established ties with Amiga Inc, so we may see Atari games for Amiga powered devices!? I would love to see Turrican on a Zaurus PDA, Rainbow Arts where are you?! :)" There's also a BBC story.
"The Japanese still are far beyond the rest of the world regarding such devices."
The beautiful irony in this statement is that Atari was an American company. I know that isn't what he was getting at when the comment was made, I just find it interesting. I am amazed that people do not realize that Atari always was an American company, considering the fact that Japan is where all the amazing Video Game shit happens now.
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What a great idea- unfortunately it shows how far behind cellphone display tech really is. At least playing pitfall is better than the nibbles ripoff. ;)
æeee!
But Zork for cells might actually work, given decent text-to-speech software. But those screens are useless.
I can imagine that there's a 2600 game that's perfect for every type of phone call. Girlfriend just call to break up? Pitfall. Boss call you back to work? Cobra Command. Trying to figure out some complicated rendezvous? Raiders of the lost arc....
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
I wouldn't normally object to retrogaming (tasty Bard's Tale I IIGS), but having seen how many old games are being re-released (Gradius III & IV on a PS2? How about Silpheed? I still have the original Sierra disks I used to play on my IIGS! For irony, how about using a PS2 to play a PS1 game that emulates the Atari 2600 so you can pretend to have an arcade machine, but without the trackball!), it seems like a lot of it's being done because nobody thinks they can make games as good in such a limited space. In other words, they know they've become eye-candy manufacturers.
Have the genre-busters just been slipping by me?
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
Ahh, you should get a Nokia 9210. I've got a 9110 (and I'll be getting the 9210 as soon as it's out down here) and it's possibly second in terms of usefulness only to my notebook.
Sure, the keyboard on the 9110 sucks, but at least it is integerated into the unit, and is a full qwerty keyboard, a telnet and a VNC client. So when I'm sitting at the pub having a few Pale Ales and I get the call that a server is down, I can fix it from there. It's also extremely useful to email the office to let them know I'm going to be an hour late, _again_.. 8)
So I can't wait until the 9220 comes out, running EPOC and Java2ME, the thing will *rock*.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Gotta disagree with you on that. Java is perfect for this kind of environment. Besides, Java runs fine on small devices, look at Dallas Semi's embedded "Tini" processor. The OS has a J2ME runtime and the whole thing fits in a button.
All the usual Java benefits of course apply; GC, cross-platform, easy to work with, yada yada yada.
The problem with standarising on one hardware platform is that there wouldn't be a standard. Nokia would have their "standard", Ericson would have theirs, Motorola would have another "standard", and so on. So developers would have to go through the same shit they have to today to get an app running on many platforms. In the end one vendor would win out, gain the monopoly and hey presto, the phone software world will suck as much as the PC software world does today.
Save your sanity. buy a Java-enabled phone today.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Check out Frac, a distributed fractal explorer for J2ME-compatible phones and PDAs.
Maxence
I think it was bigger than the (original)gameboy.... if i recall correctly
i think the screen was a bit bigger, and there was about twice as much non screen area
Need a Catering Connection
perhaps Nintendo can take this trend and start creating cell phones out of Game Boys. Or Sony could muscle into the handheld gaming by creating ps compatible cell phones.
on another note, Zork for cell phones anyone???
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
I'll have to agree. My brother, who does not own a computer or PDA, decided on his current mobil phone over two others in his price range because it had SnakeII.
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Cell phones arn't the problem people.. the people that drive while doing stupid shit like playing with their cell phone will find some other distraction to get them into an accident.
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Free Mac Mini
Ive got a bunch of carts, where do I plug em in ... oh wait, I have to buy them again?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
PS: The information you seek is available by following a trail from the Symbian website and its partners - esp. hardware partners.
it's in my head
Symbian - the future of cellphones. Great operating system (Epoc) and are of course J2ME (and full Java) compatible. Symbian's owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Panasonic and Psion so the fears I see in some replies here about incompatible platforms is just dead wrong.
Take a look at that owner list for Symbian again and do the math as to how many of the cellphones sold in the world are from them.
Free Symbian platform development kits can be downloaded from Symbian Devnet - and yes, there are sites that explain how to get them running on Linux with a little help from Wine ;)
it's in my head
Heck that goes back to before the Apple/MS war :)
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
World of Eamon here I come!
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
You must remember that the basic atari 2600 cartidge was 4k and the really super advanced paging schemes were limited I think at 32k or 64k. Most all games were made at 4k though with another fair sized group at 8k and 16k and like just a very few larger than that.
I think I was able to zip all the atari games plus an emulator for dos onto a single 1.44meg floppy disk with room left over. I think I also got pkunzip on there :)
At that point I think the cell phone memory wise is perfect medium. And come on, what other arcade game can you pay 70cents for to play as many times as you want until you need to make a phone call. Sure better than plunking quarters in the machine at a real arcade. The only thing that beats it in value is purchasing a REAL atari 2600 because you can own the system for about $20 and buy games for $1 to $3 each on auction sites and garage sales :)
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
1) it's cheaper than the voice call
On One-2-One (in the UK!) its 10p for an SMS (5p it its to someone on the same network).
It costs 2p for a one minute, national, off peak call.
So its `R U about dood` or a 5 min call, for the same price. Tricky choice... (Having said that, sms is cool when you are standing next to someone but cant hear them, like in a Club, Carnival etc).
I thought SMS was cheaper too, but its not.I have no idea why they are so expensive.
(I guess someone has to pay for the gillions of pounds wasted on next generation phones, which just isnt going to happen. Unless you can think of where to put up another 5 times as many relays (nowhere near schools, hospitals etc) Anyone have any ideas how they`re going to get their money back?Massive cost-of-call price rise, anyone?)
I was just reading this article, and thinking about how much I would not implement portable internet gaming that way. At all. Maybe I'm a Unix weenie, but I think the philosophy of "do one thing and do it well" applies here. This is how I'd do it:
Then again, I'd probably be one of the only people in the known world that would enjoy playing Chu Chu Rocket Embedded infinitely more because I knew the technology was cleanly implemented.
-RyanIn a similar story, modern dishwashers are now being equipped with GPS receivers so you never get lost in your kitchen! Isn't this great? Atari games on our cell phones. Is it just me, or is this whole cell phone thing gotten completely out of hand? Now, personally, I think cell phones are great. It's indispensible if I ever get stranded on the side of the road, or get lost somewhere, or if I just really need to get in touch with someone and can't be tied to a regular telephone.
But now they're coming with web browsers, email clients, instant messaging tools... That one really made me laugh. I once saw a guy using IM on his cell phone. I'm there thinking, "You're on a cell phone, dude... just call the guy." It might be different if the thing had a keyboard. Then you might be able to type out a message in a reasonable amount of time. I just think that we're trying to put applications which, in theory, are very useful to have in a portable device, into the perfectly wrong kind of medium
Okay, so this isn't really about Atari for me, it's just about the whole issue of the technology getting bloated and companies trying to give these devices applications which are clearly impractical for them. Speaking of which, I love how dialup ISPs are still making money, even though the Internet has really, for the most part, outgrown narrowband access.
I'm not really sure what exactly it was that I was getting at with this, but seeing good technology get bloated like this just makes me queasy. But that, of course, is just my own opinion.
/* Steve */
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
Oh the wonders of modern technology. The erry thing to wonder too is where will it all be next?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
First, I learn how to drive with Atari Indy 500. 20 years later people tell me not to drive while using a cell phone. Now the two are combined. Who do I listen to in this fast paced crazy world?
Dial Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-A-B-B-A for phree long distance.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
The Atari Lynx was way ahead of time of course, like everything from Atari except the marketing. it had a colour LCD screen, you could flip it and use it left-handedly (try that with any other game console), and was about the size of the original gameboy I think.
If Infogrames would sell Lynx devices, they wouldn't even need to port the games :).
Nothing like a game of Pitfall to screw up my driving (in a Firestone-equipped Explorer nonetheless) even more than it already is.
"Watch out for that gator Pitfall Harry!"
*CRASH*
Then again, I'll more likely be rear-ended by someone trying to figure out the object of Pac-Man or Pong...
I wired my Nokia to play Coleco Adam games and print on the Coleco daisywheel printer via IR. The cool thing is I can use the Coleco tape deck to store numbers from the phone. I just pop in the right tape and push play and it will dial for me. Couldn't be easier!
What's it going to be then eh?
I wounder when I can choose from "all the exciting tiles for the atari home videogame system" for my cell phone... Hmm, I think I've seen those old commercials too many times...