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Pictures from Seattle's Classic Gaming Weekend
Cyberroach has pictures from last week's Classic Gaming Weekend in Seattle. The pictures include an "Obsolete Media Festival" with a guy who makes music with an Atari 2600, Commodore C64, and a dot-matrix printer; old hardware from the NorthWest Classic Gaming Enthusiasts' Meeting; and the 6th Annual Atari Championship.
"HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected Internet Information Services"
Microsoft IIS: official server platform of Slashdotted sites.
I remember my first real experience with computers--my friend had a commodore 64, and we used to play on it all the time. He had tons of games, but it was frustrating sometimes trying to get them to run. The C64 had a weird prompt backed by a blue screen (!!) and you needed to follow a fairly complex set of instructions to get any games to actually load.
But it was this very machinery that led me to experiment with basic on my own PC, back in the day. Ah, the memories...
Here is the official webpage of the Classic Gaming Weekend.
This page seems to be working well, occasionally, even under the slashdotting.
Here is an attendee's web page with some details of the work he did.
And, of course, you should be aware of how many great people and groups there are out there keeping the memory alive with humor and aplomb, like these good friends.
Pictures? I think I'd rather have Mp3's of a guy who makes music with an Atari 2600, Commodore C64, and a dot-matrix printer. .....Well, perhaps not.
adventure-today.com
They should of used one of the C-64's instead of IIS. It might of stood up to the slashdotting (@ 15 comments???) better. I know my TI-99/4A could handle that many BBS users back in the 85. How Far we've come... *sigh*
here is my classic game - Space War on a MITS Altair (8080), two DAC channels, a 'scope, and two 4 switch boxes for CW, CCW, Fire and Thrust and a lot of assembly language. Get the quicktime movie to see it in action.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The site's acting flakey so I mirrored the 3 thumbnail pages on my box:
http://snotwad.dyndns.org:8000/cyberroach_mirror/
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Retro? These seem like the latest techniques in avant-garde electronic music. Maybe this guy should adorn himself in Marc Jacobs clothing and send off a demo to Warp Records.
An old Epson LQ-500.. all the Epson dot matrix printers were very good quality (for their time), and noisy as hell.. they also seemed to have a much higher pitch in noise than most printers, especially when you'd stick them in a graphics mode, or something funky..
but listening to one for more than 5 minutes would probably drive me insane once the nostalgia wore off.. I certainly don't miss the jammed paper, the noise, the low dot-pitch which screamed "Done on a computer"..
actually, I think it would have been more interesting if he sampled a lot of different printers.. like an old VAX line printer.. chunga-chunga-chunga..
ChuckyG
Wait...Dot Matrix printers are obsolete? When did that happen? Oh man...been too long since I upgraded.
My user number is the sum of 4 squares.
The fourth annual PhillyClassic kicks off on Friday, March 28 and lasts through Sunday evening, March 30.
~Philly
You'd think they'd realize not to put sites with pictures on slashdot.
Yeah, but how about those pictures of the Vectrex TV set?
That's a cool idea.
You can find Vectrex schematics in about 100 places on the 'Net, so I could even build my own Vectrex motherboard... (that way, I wouldn't have to take mine apart!)
I think that I have worries about the use of the color CRT, however.
Color tube means three beams of electrons to focus and accelerate instead of only one, which means a higher second anode voltage. Higher second anode voltage means more X-Ray production. Color TV sets and monitors are full of circuitry to keep this voltage very carefully regulated; lots of components in the power supply, horizontal deflection and cathode drives are very carefully specified for this reason - in fact, lots of TV schematics put a big border around those areas of the schematic, with "SAFETY CRITICAL - X-RAY" warnings all over them to make sure that technicians don't try to sub in a 47 ohm resistor when the schematic calls for a 42 ohm resistor, etc.
This Vectrex TV must have had some huge mods made to the deflection systems, and, as a direct consequence, the flyback supply which produces the high voltage for the second anode.
I hope he was careful...
Otherwise, it's a pretty simple hack. Build a Vectrex (rather than gutting an original). Find a large black and white monitor - Electrohome used to make 25" closed circuit and broadcast monitors - or an old large Sun monochrome display. Disconnect the deflection yoke, yank out the monitor's chassis, and put in the Vectrex. A larger tube will require more deflection current, so you'll need to beef up the output stage, and make any adjustments to the output stages to match the impedance of the monitor's yoke. CRT filaments can usually be lit from a 6VAC power supply - just a transformer from the power line. And, as for the high voltage, I'd throw a couple of 2N3055s onto a flyback (just a small solid state Tesla coil), rectify the output, and toss it at the CRT's high voltage ultor. Though the Vectrex flyback might even do it reasonably well... Adjust the voltage on the CRT's grids for best focus.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The pictures include an "Obsolete Media Festival" with a guy who makes music with an Atari 2600, Commodore C64, and a dot-matrix printer
A dot-matrix printer? Interesting. I remember a program for the C64 that played the Blue Danube - through the floppy disk drive. It downloaded the code into the drive and you could actually turn off the computer and it still kept playing.
It worked by rapidly moving the head back and forth. I guess it wasn't too healthy for the drive.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.