Slashdot Mirror
History of Video Games
seer writes "There's a nice history of videogames over at GameSpot. It starts with pre-videogame activity in 1889 with the Marufuku Company (later Nintendo) and stretches to the recently released GameCube-DVD system."
Hey, it's sunday. No reason to knock yourself out reading the works of ancient
philosophers (unless you're taking Ancient Philosophers 230 and have
an exam this week).
Because they saved a LOT of the videogames story. Project like
mame,
uae,
mess is simply amazing,
and thanks to any others that contributes.
"Marufuku Company (later Nintendo)"
;)
No wonder they changed their name, but then again if they kept it maybe they wouldn't be accused of being a kiddie company
What I'd like to see is a technical history of videogames. (There are some, but I want to find a more comprehensive and in-depth one.) I want all the details. I do some work with microcontrollers (AVRs are my new favorite). I'm not the best coder, but I enjoy mucking around in the bits and bytes of assembly language. The old videogames fascinate me, not for the games (I have yet to find a game I enjoy), but for the hardware. In today's world of bigger-faster-better, I think most people don't realize the incredible power of the systems they have. It seems people scoff at anything short of a GHz today, but the power of even a few KHz is simply incredible. When used right, it can do incredible things. (When slowed and bloated, it seems awful, but that's entirely due to the programmers.)
In my assembly class, people like to complain that the 68k chip we're programming is "outdated". They don't understand that "outdated" is a word that has almost no meaning in the embedded world. Remember the Sega Genesis? Neo Geo? Both 68k. Comparable to the processor in my Visor. The processor in the original PONG machines were comparable to what is used in the Nintendo Gameboy, 20 years later. Same processor as is in my TI-85 calculator, for which there is a raycasting Wolfenstein 3D look-alike. Not too shabby.
Anyway. I don't claim to be the most knowledgeable on this stuff, but I think it's very interesting. The workstations of yesterday become the pocket toys of tomorrow. Nothing ever dies, everything has its place. You can't always program in Java, you can't always throw more hardware at it and make the problems go away. Sometimes you have to use skill and ingenuity, and this is something that I admire greatly. I say, Cheers to the old game coders! Remarkable work.
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
Okay, before I'm moderated as a troll, and this is in reference to the article... read:
* Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation is delayed to remove a scene that had the superhero on top of a building that looked like the World Trade Center.
* Changes are made to Flight Simulator 2002 to remove the World Trade Center towers from the flying environment and a patch is released to remove them from Flight Simulator 2000.
Why the hell is the world trade center being removed from old movies, video games, advertisements and just about anything else. Isn't this rewriting history? Are we supposed to pretend that they never existed? I have a picture of myself as a child with the World Trade Center right behind me.... should I doctor that photo to reflect the newer, more post 9/11 NYC skyline? I'm sorry, but there used to be two giant buildings where the empty space is... and pretending that they never existed will not help this country whatsoever.