Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Retro Gaming Technologies Released Before Their Time

Posted by Soulskill on from the who-remembers-when-game-companies-took-risks dept.

Barence writes "Motion-sensing golf game controllers that appeared 20 years before the Nintendo Wii and the 1980s handheld console that operated on solar power are just two of the gems unearthed in this article about retro gaming secrets. Davey Winder has delved into his extensive personal collection of retro hardware to unveil the first handheld console to play '3D games' from 1983, 'the most realistic "gun" game controller ever produced' from way back in 1972, and the device that offered multiplayer computerized Scrabble almost 30 years before the iPad."

95 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Analog joysticks by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

    On the Atari 5200/SuperSystem (really A400 computers without keyboards). In an era when everything was digital (like Pac-man and Dig Dug) having analog sucked.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Analog joysticks by WED+Fan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I hate to do it...wait, no I don't...we used to build our own joysticks and wheel controllers, a few pots and pulleys. I think it was Byte magazine that ran an article that showed how to build a light pen for the Sinclair ZX81. Analog was nice.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    2. Re:Analog joysticks by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      So how did you play Pac-Man, which is basically impossible to play with analog sticks (you miss turns)?

      Commodore did later develop an analog mouse for use with GEOS 64 and 128 and Amiga. And you're right it was nice for flight sims and such but the D-stick or D-pad was best for arcade games

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:Analog joysticks by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 1

      What difference would analog make? As long as the stick is in the position before the corner is reach, you can't miss the turn.

      ((x > 0.75) 0.75) 1) | ((y 0.25) 1)

      That would be the analog equivalent of an Atari or Commodore digital joystick bitfield (invert for Atari). Tweak the thresholds to adjust the response speed.

      Of course, the Apple ][ had an analog joystick/paddles before any of those machines.

      --
      +0 Meh
    4. Re:Analog joysticks by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 1

      Cripes. Blasted HTML did me in. That's what I get for not previewing.

      ((x > 0.75) << 1) | ((x < 0.25) << 1) | ((y > 0.75) << 1) | ((y < 0.25) << 1)

      --
      +0 Meh
    5. Re:Analog joysticks by veganboyjosh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We got our first 2600 in about 1987. My parents got it used. I was young enough to still think it pretty cool at the time. Whoever we bought it from had hacked two buttons onto one of the joysticks, for use in video pinball. One button was the same as "left joystick", while the other was the same as "right joystick." The joystick functioned as normal.
      I remember seeing an episode of Mr. Wizard where he took apart an Atari Joystick and had the girl play the game by manually touching the contacts on the circuit board, instead of using the joystick. I was able to figure out what the previous owner had done from memory of that episode.
      Even at that age, it didn't take long for me to realize that I could do something with the hacked buttons that I couldn't do with the joystick alone. Namely, "move" to the right and the left at the same time. I don't remember the result in any other game but pacman. I'd play agains my sister, and midway throuy turn, i'd hit bottht once. Pacman would turn all of a sudden into one of the walls, and go through it, all the way across the screen, until he froze, all the power pellets dissappeared, and I moved on to the next round.
      My sister would cry "cheater!" but I'd just shrug my shoulders and say "i dunno. the game just messed up."

    6. Re:Analog joysticks by Inner_Child · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The 5200 joystick wouldn't have been so bad if it would have just auto-centered! No, wait, it still would have been terrible...

      --
      Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
    7. Re:Analog joysticks by jesset77 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm sad they didn't mention the TI-99/4a speech synthesizer. I mean every computer in early 80's movies and television could talk (Kit, WOPR, Hawking) but try getting that tech into your personal video game system, right? Even today Microsoft Sam on a quad core 3.3Ghz machine with 4gb of RAM hasn't really gained a lot of ground past Parsec's onboard computer 29 years ago on a single core 300khz machine with 16kb of (usable) RAM. Yeah speech synth was a hardware add-on, might have had it's own processor and ram but they sure as hell weren't any denser than what the chassis had.

      --
      People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
    8. Re:Analog joysticks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The 5200 sticks suffered from a plastic contact sheet that self-destructed just sitting in the box (oxidation). Repairing 5200 sticks remains a mini-industry in itself.

    9. Re:Analog joysticks by complete+loony · · Score: 1

      Microsoft's internal voices are pretty crap, but there are some really nice commercial synthesised voices out there.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    10. Re:Analog joysticks by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Speaking from experience of 286 years, sometimes the analog would not calibrate right. And even when you calibrated, if you didn't push the stick the full degree to its range of motion, it would not know you moved there. Red Baron was a great game to play though with analog. Speaking of Red Baron, why haven't they came out with a modern version of it for Internet play? That could be a great game.

      Oh later, another good game was Stunt Island. Remember how you could make your own movies? How cool would it be if Disney made Stunt Island 2? Then you make your own maps, share them with others to play. Then they can rate and play them? Also, sometimes the movies are funny. If there was an automatic feature to post them to youtube, that could be cool to share your movies. And in game, there could be a rating system to see which ones are the funniest by user vote.

      --
      God spoke to me.
    11. Re:Analog joysticks by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>What difference would analog make?

      Try playing PacMan on your PS2 or Gamecube using the analog stick, and after missing a few turns or running directly into ghosts, then you'll understand. It's fucked up. You need a digital stick.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    12. Re:Analog joysticks by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>video game system, right?

      The 1977 Atari could talk, although it took programmers a few years to learn how to do it. First there was Pitfall 2 with music and then speech came soon after.

      The 1982 C64 could talk out of the box (the SID chip could imitate a CD-style PCM recording).

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    13. Re:Analog joysticks by arth1 · · Score: 1

      What difference would analog make?

      No tactile feedback that you're really inside the sensor range for a direction, and longer travel.

      Not to forget that in Pac-Man, you travel in one direction until you travel in another. Standing still in corridors (usually next to a power pill or waiting a second for a fruit to appear) is accomplished by changing directions back and forth with precision. If the analogue stick kicks in for a direction when the stick has moved only partway to that position, you lose that precision.

    14. Re:Analog joysticks by j-beda · · Score: 1

      Heck, the TRS-80 didn't even have sound output designed into it so people wrote out to the cassette tape storage device to get sound for games, and IT managed to do passable voice synthesis.

    15. Re:Analog joysticks by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      On the Atari 5200/SuperSystem (really A400 computers without keyboards). In an era when everything was digital (like Pac-man and Dig Dug) having analog sucked.

      Ironically, the original Atari 400/800- as well as the original Atari VCS (2600)- already supported analogue paddles, two per joystick port. (*) Given that the 5200 was basically a badly modified 800, I suspect that its analogue joystick interface hardware implementation used the existing twin-paddle input internally.

      I never had them, as by the time I got my Atari 8-bit in the mid-80s, they seemed to be out of fashion, but AFAIK they were two-dimensional (i.e. left/right only) analogue controllers. I don't recall seeing any complaints about them, presumably because the games that used paddle control were *suited* to it (e.g. Breakout, etc.)

      But it's absolutely true that Pac Man must have sucked with analogue, non-centering joysticks, which would be why the 400/800 version (and even the otherwise maligned 2600 version) used the traditional Atari digital joysticks.

      (*) The computer could measure analogue resistance- the paddles were essentially adjustable resistors- by timing how long a capacitor took to fill up.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    16. Re:Analog joysticks by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      On the Atari 5200/SuperSystem (really A400 computers without keyboards). In an era when everything was digital (like Pac-man and Dig Dug) having analog sucked.

      The irony is, maybe a few years after that analog joysticks came back into vogue as PCs decided to be better and offer analog joysticks. Even these days the sticks are all analog, before they're quantized and sent over USB. And in this modern era, we have both digital and analog sticks in our gamepads, with one console preferring digital control first (and putting the analog somewhat out of the way), another preferring analog (while the digital goes mostly unused because it's not that great, so it becomes 4 more buttons).

      Even today Microsoft Sam on a quad core 3.3Ghz machine with 4gb of RAM hasn't really gained a lot of ground past Parsec's onboard computer 29 years ago on a single core 300khz machine with 16kb of (usable) RAM. Yeah speech synth was a hardware add-on, might have had it's own processor and ram but they sure as hell weren't any denser than what the chassis had.

      Microsoft's TTS implementation sucked. Apple has been doing TTS research for a LONG while now, and I believe even the 90's version of MacInTalk is far superior to what Microsoft has provided currently. It's the reason why iTunes ships with its own version of the OS X TTS engine - the VoiceOver functionality requires it (on pre-10.5 Macs as it can't render to a file, and on Windows because Sam really sucks). I believe some of the worst voices in MacOS have starred in TV shows and movies to give characters a robotic appeal. (That, and they're cheap and non-unionized and all that).

      About the worst TTS system used to this date is what Stephen Hawking uses - it's not a great system, but Hawking as stated it's one thing he'll not change ever (being it's so characteristic). His wheelchair computer has been updated with the latest in computing technology, and this word selecting software equally rewritten (but the UI has been kept identical for the most part, obviously), but the TTS hardware board is pretty much original (though flaky and power-hungry).

    17. Re:Analog joysticks by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Actually the Arcade Pac-Man will stop when you center the stick. It's the various ports to consoles/computers that removed that functionality.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    18. Re:Analog joysticks by ncc74656 · · Score: 1

      PWM on the Apple II's bit-bang speaker output could get you 4 or 5 bits' worth of resolution at 11.025 kHz. I'm not sure who did this first, but I started with 3 bits in the early '90s and others extended it beyond that with more clever coding than I had managed. Sampling audio on the cassette-in jack and playing it through the speaker (at 1 bit per sample) went back to at least the early '80s AFAIK.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
    19. Re:Analog joysticks by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 1

      Listen, I've played Pac-Man and countless other action games using those very joysticks as well as this one written about in this article. It's not impossible or even difficult. It's simply not ideal. Even with analog sticks, there is plenty of time to hit the corners properly, which is what I was questioning. I doubt there is more than 1/10 second difference between direction changes for analog vs. digital.

      --
      +0 Meh
    20. Re:Analog joysticks by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 1

      What are talking about? Even the original Puck-Man didn't work that way. Whatever bootleg you played at the corner pizzeria has grossly mislead you.

      --
      +0 Meh
  2. Like the saying goes ... by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 1

    Everything old is new again.

  3. Re:Car chase on interstate 797 by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    Looks like a Canuck just crashed into the Californian wall... Oopsie :-(

  4. Worst Console: by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

    The Coleco ADAM was probably the worst platform prior to 1985 with possible runner up being the Mattel system (which probably still holds the record for worst controller ever).

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    1. Re:Worst Console: by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      I don't know about that as I actually had the Microvision in TFA. The screen was notorious for getting stuck pixels, good luck finding games for it, and the "controller" was a flat giant touchpad that if you used a particular "cartridge" in it for too long would get the equivalent of burn in and would be hell to control. And finally the 'graphics' were just squares. That's it, it couldn't even do round, just squares. At least the Coleco could play Colecovision games, and since I owned a Colecovision too (yes I'm that damned old, get off my lawn!) I can say it had awesome games with kick ass graphics for the time. I remember playing Zaxxon and Time Pilot for so long I'd see those images in my sleep. Good times. That is of course when I could get my mom off the thing, as she became hooked on DK JR for Coleco and Yar's Revenge thanks to the Atari add-on. Man it sucks you can't get add-ons like that anymore. It was cool as hell to be able to play ALL the Atari PLUS all the Coleco games.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:Worst Console: by WED+Fan · · Score: 2, Funny

      Are you my old neighbor that used to haul his Atari or Coleco over to my apartment to show me all the cool games? Did you ever get a color TV over 12"?

      I'm old enough, too. I have a big lawn, and I've owned a Gran Torino and watched the movie. Oh, and that little strip between the sidewalk and the street? I don't care what the city says, that's mine, too.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    3. Re:Worst Console: by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>Man it sucks you can't get add-ons like that anymore.

      PS3 does better than that. It plays all the PS1 and PS2 plus PS3 games. And no expensive addons - it's just builtin, or as a software download. Coleco's Atari addon wasn't really that great anyway, since it cost almost as much as the full Atari console.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:Worst Console: by RESPAWN · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, no. The PS3 fails because it was only the early model PS3's that had that ability. Furthermore, it wasn't really clear which models of PS3 had the compatibility or didn't have it. So, what ended up happening was that people like me who bought the PS3 later in it's life found out the hard way that it wouldn't play their old PS2 games. Thanks Sony for confusing your customers.

      --

      If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

    5. Re:Worst Console: by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      I thought you had to rebuy all the games through PSN. You're telling me I can take a brand new PS3 and slap in ANY PS2 or PS1 game and it'll work? According to wikipedia you're wrong, as you'll have to get an old out of warranty one to actually play PS2. Meh, consoles suck now IMHO. Sony keeps taking things away from you AFTER the sale, while my friends that have the x360 like it lack of XBMC pisses me off there, and frankly a $400 PC has better graphics than any of the above PLUS lets me play anything from the 2600 up to the PS2 as well as every game made for PC since the dawn of time.

      Oh and Good Old Games is having a 50% off sale on community favorites for those like me that just want to "click and run" with tons of great stuff like Duke Nukem (complete with link to all the best mods, which work great with the GoG version) and I76 and Arcanum! I picked up a half a dozen so if y'all will excuse me I got some cool gaming to enjoy. And for those into horror it isn't on sale but you might want to check out Blood (excellent Build engine game by Monolith) as I just waltzed through the mortuary from Phantasm complete with the pylons humming and the little evil midgets while chucking dynamite and spouting one liners. Cool and funny as well as fun. Peace.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    6. Re:Worst Console: by mister_playboy · · Score: 2, Informative

      PS3 does better than that. It plays all the PS1 and PS2 plus PS3 games.

      This may apply to your PS3 (and mine... 60GB), but plenty of folks can't play PS2 games on their PS3.

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    7. Re:Worst Console: by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      welllll

      the coleco vision was awesome, and that was the console, the ADAM was a badly rushed piss poor engineered PC based around the CV's hardware (why not TMS video z80 etc, arcade games in a set top box)

      if ADAM didnt require the fragile printer, and erase your storage media, catch fire and fall apart it would have been a decent contender in the early "everyone has one" pc days riding the coat tails of a already moderately successful console with a library of high quality 3rd party (sega nintendo etc) arcade games

    8. Re:Worst Console: by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      yea if you consider re buying ps1 games that you already own backwards compatible

    9. Re:Worst Console: by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      If you already own them, put the disc in. All PS3's can play PS1 discs, that's entirely software compatibility that all PS3's have.

    10. Re:Worst Console: by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      PS3 does better than that. It plays all the PS1 and PS2 plus PS3 games.

      But does it run Linux? Any other OS or software? Oh it *used* to, but they decided after initial adopters paid $700 for those features and more, to disable that very feature. No thanks. I will stick with platforms that are not built by and controlled by asshats. Of course, that also rules out 360.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    11. Re:Worst Console: by Darkness404 · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you, but a company which disables features is not a company I'm going to be buying from.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    12. Re:Worst Console: by RogueyWon · · Score: 1

      Amen to that. The PS3 back-compatibility story is a fiasco from start to finish.

      I'm one of the lucky ones. I imported a first-gen 60 gig machine from the US, so I get the full hardware-based back compatibility. If you got the 20 gig with the software back-compatibility then you're a bit stuffed, as while the 360's software back-compatibility base has been expanded a few times over the years, I don't think Sony ever implemented (m)any of the planned expansions for the software on the PS3. And if you missed the boat on both of the first-gen Japanese or US models (which means anybody who lives in Europe and didn't import), then you get nothing. And if you got one of those early 60 gigs, then you'd better hope to god that it never breaks (something I live in constant terror of), because if it does, even if it's still under warrenty, you're looking at having to get a PS2 (and all the controllers, memory cards etc) as well.

      And to make matters worse, while the PS3 today has a pretty decent games library (catching up fast on the 360 and well ahead of the Wii in most genres), for most of its lifespan to date, it was a bit of a desert for decent games. In fact, I suspect that if I could access a breakdown of the time my PS3 has spent in various games, PS2 games would still be significantly ahead of PS3 titles, largely thanks to the influence of late-cycle PS2 games like Final Fantasy 12 and Personas 3 and 4.

  5. Re:Car chase on interstate 797 by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    Can we hear from Denmark please?

  6. Re:Leo Laporte by WED+Fan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, and he puts his byline on his writing, too. Yeah, what a tool.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  7. Re:Car chase on interstate 797 by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    ... I guess the queen will not be amused when her subjects keep looking at this smut! Be ashamed!

  8. DON"T CLICK THAT LINK!!!! by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 2, Informative

    I should know better than clicking on a link in a /. comment.

    Thanks for saving me money on food for the next few days till that image fades from my mind.

    Where the hell is my bottle of eye/brain bleach. The one labeled "Everclear"

    1. Re:DON"T CLICK THAT LINK!!!! by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

      That was self inflicted, you know. It's not "any link on Slashdot". You really should have just paid attention to the urlshortenertrap. It's kind of like the guys who fall for the police bait car even after the old lady walks by and says it's a police trap.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    2. Re:DON"T CLICK THAT LINK!!!! by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 1

      That was self inflicted, you know.

      Yeah, I know. Most of the time the links are safe, I've Dl'd some really cool stuff and read some very informative or interesting articles over the years. Hence the automatic click on the link. Just one of the dangers of the web that I have to live with. Better than the alternatives that folks like Conroy would have us endure.

      At least now I know what the goatse image looks like.

      Still can't find the Everclear, I may have to improvise and use some JD instead.

    3. Re:DON"T CLICK THAT LINK!!!! by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

      I may have to improvise and use some JD instead.

      2 litres, stat.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  9. Re:Car chase on interstate 797 by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    Wow Estonian junk heaps plowing down on I797. Careful, this one lost his left hind wheel!

  10. Re:WTF? by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

    It's like everyone in Seattle has to own an iPad, otherwise they aren't hip. wtf.

    It's like everyone in Seattle has to own an iPod, otherwise they aren't hip. wtf.

    It's like everyone in Seattle has to own an iPhone, otherwise they aren't hip. wtf.

    It's like everyone on Slashdot has to dis iOwners, otherwise they lose cred. wtf.

    It's like ACs on Slashdot...oh wait, you're just here to flame.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  11. Re:Car chase on interstate 797 by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    And what's that kangooroo doing there on the innerstate?

  12. Re:Car chase on interstate 797 by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    You there. In that overpriced german Mercedes tank.Speed limit is 55mph. You're not on the Autobahn here!

  13. Re:WTF? by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

    XP emulator on an iPad? Well, Marjorie, it's time to cash in, I've seen enough stupidity for a lifetime, now.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  14. Re:Meh. by WED+Fan · · Score: 1

    Watch out. By using your argument, that the second or third comer to the party that actually "does it more successfully" is the innovator, you are coming very close to saying that Microsoft innovates. Just thought you'd like to know. You don't want to fall into any self set traps now, would you?

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  15. Re:Leo Laporte by macraig · · Score: 1

    Ummm, there's no Leo Laporte connection here, unless you think it's a "connection" that he's old enough to have potentially tried and reviewed most of these.

  16. Does it mention... by Ant+P. · · Score: 1

    The Sega Activator?

    It did everything Kinect does, worked about as reliably, was 20 years earlier and didn't cost $200.

    1. Re:Does it mention... by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 1

      it simulated 12 buttons(4 directions and 6 buttons) and was horrible for regular purpose gaming.

      the activator was shit.

      The Kinect actually is pretty innovative.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    2. Re:Does it mention... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The Sega Activator?

      It did everything Kinect does,

      So it could track four players simultaneously and determine the position of occluded limbs? You're a troll, and not a good one. Go back to digg, son.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. Re:Meh. by Belial6 · · Score: 1

    The word 'innovate' has pretty much lost all meaning. Saying that something is innovative because it was successful is simply not what the word meant just a dozen years ago.

    By the current definition, This is a gallery of 'innovators'.

  18. Title of story is fucked up by dangitman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The title given to this slashdot story is weird on a couple of levels. Firstly, these devices weren't released "before their time," they were released at precisely their time. Moreover, "retro" refers to exactly the opposite of something that is ahead of its time, it refers to something that is a throwback to an earlier time.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
    1. Re:Title of story is fucked up by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

      Your expectation that /. stories should have meaningful titles is retro. :)

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    2. Re:Title of story is fucked up by antifoidulus · · Score: 2, Informative

      Man were in fact released "before their time", namely they were released with technology that wasn't really mature enough to actually work correctly(such as the power glove which essentially uses the same motion tracking technology as the wii but said technology simply wasn't ready until recently)

      --
      Monstar L
    3. Re:Title of story is fucked up by dangitman · · Score: 1

      Man were in fact released "before their time", namely they were released with technology that wasn't really mature enough to actually work correctly(such as the power glove which essentially uses the same motion tracking technology as the wii but said technology simply wasn't ready until recently)

      But they weren't ahead of their time in any way. They were exactly of their time. Your example is untrue - the power glove does not use the "same motion technology as the Wii," it uses a much earlier incarnation.

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
  19. Re:Meh. by maestroX · · Score: 1

    Usually, whatever it was about "getting it right" is a true innovation.

    Getting it right may be an innovation, but is not a prerequisite for innovation.

  20. Wii Fit by lmnfrs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cool stuff, but he left out the Amiga Joyboard.

  21. Re:Meh. by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

    Good point, but I think my use of the word "usually" covers that.

    To clarify my point a bit, I'm not actually saying that "doing it more successfully" is what defines who the innovator is. I'm saying that figuring out how to do it well enough to be a success requires additional advances and refinements of a concept which are themselves innovations.

    Just because some company tried a mobile gaming platform with two screens over a decade before the DS doesn't meant much. "Hey let's put two screens in it!" isn't a brilliant innovation; it's a gimmick. It's how you use those elements to create a compelling, engaging, high quality gaming experience that is the non-obvious, innovative advance.

    Had 2-screen mobile games caught on after that long-ago, forgotten attempt, then it would be legitimate to say that the DS wasn't innovative. But since the 2-screen games didn't establish a market for 2-screen gaming, I'd say coming back to the concept and doing it well enough to succeed was innovative.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  22. LED panels lit from external light? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    LED panels lit from external light? LCD, maybe. LED panels are light-emitting, not light-transmitting (although most indeed will do both, they don't control light passing through them, only add to it.)

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  23. Re:Meh. by suomynonAyletamitlU · · Score: 1

    Do you know what it means to be, "before your time"?

    It means that the technology or social conditions needed for your idea to be successful didn't exist at the time.

    However, to the GP's point, it also means that either you didn't scale your idea to the existing technology, or you didn't invent the technology needed, or you didn't time its release correctly, or you didn't do the social engineering necessary to make it a hit. All of those are things you could do, and which various inventors at various times HAVE done to be successful.

    When people say "you were before your time" they usually mean, "you did everything right and still failed." That does happen too, but it's not necessarily the case, is all.

  24. Re:Meh. by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

    But I wasn't saying that success == innovation. I'm saying that doing something later than something similar doesn't mean that there's no innovation.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  25. Re:Meh. by Patch86 · · Score: 1

    I'd say that 2 screens ISN'T innovative, and probably wasn't even for the first company that did it. It's a good idea, yes. And the DS is an excellent console in an awful lot of ways. But is adding an extra screen actually an innovation, or just a logical extension of existing technology?

    Innovation usually implies doing something non-obvious, or doing something which may have been obvious but was very very tricky. Outputting to multiple displays has been possible for pretty much as long as there have been displays. And using two screens with a hinge in the middle (so it can fold) instead of one large unfoldable screen seems like a good enough idea that it isn't surprising that handheld manufacturers have been doing it since the '70s.

    Making CPUs with higher clock speed isn't innovative, it's just a (clever, high tech, applaudable) improvement on what already exists. Making single CPUs with multiple cores on one die- that was an innovation.

  26. But will it blend? by reeno49 · · Score: 1

    You'd think an article posted about retro gaming would spark conversation about gaming, as opposed to arguments about grammer and replies to trolls.

    Me likey /.

    --
    I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
    1. Re:But will it blend? by reeno49 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that's the one. Damn the lack of spell check on this thing. Stupid Outlook for making me lazy...

      --
      I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
  27. Arcade Vector Graphics by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    The 1980s arcade games with vector graphics (not raster/bitmap) displays were ahead of their time. Now that we have Flash and SVG that can specify graphics in vector format, we could use display HW that can render with vectors instead of pixels, for even smoother and better looking displays.

    The old tech really offered only black and white, but now 30-40 years later we might have figured out how to offer full color. Perhaps even fuller color than with pixels, since pixels are really not fully colored, but a mosaic of color components at varying intensity that blur together to simulate a colored pixel, as in LCD, or a DLP's rotating colored wheel synced to different color frames of the display's grid of mirrors filtering the light. Perhaps if the vector had also been alternated synced to a color wheel like DLP it might have worked. Or perhaps some electromagnetic adjustment of the screen's color emission when the vector moved across it. With the decades of relentless research that has given us today's high performance displays, we might have something vector based that looks better, and maybe requires lighter graphics processing of vector formats into vector display without the rasterization necessary for today's pixel displays.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Arcade Vector Graphics by fishbowl · · Score: 1

      >The 1980s arcade games with vector graphics (not raster/bitmap) displays were ahead of their time. Now that we have Flash and SVG that can specify graphics in vector format,
      >we could use display HW that can render with vectors instead of pixels, for even smoother and better looking displays.

      It's still extremely hard to get a convincing "Tempest", "Lander" or "Asteroids" on a PC display. There is some real subtlety to the vector system.

      I played Lunar Lander a lot, but I always kind of had a grudge because I knew they stole the idea -- I really enjoyed playing this: http://atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=106

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    2. Re:Arcade Vector Graphics by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 2, Informative

      Vector graphics displays are essentially unworkable and that is why they were abandoned.

      Amongst their many drawbacks is a true killer: they require a CRT tube, complete with an electron beam that can be deflected in arbitrary directions. They are utterly incompatible with any other modern display technology such as LCD displays for example (if you want to use vector graphics on an LCD you have to rasterize your vectors first - which neatly defeats the whole idea).

      Then there is a of course the problem with variable brightness, where vector graphics displays lose brightness when new vectors are added, to the point that when enough vectors are drawn the display becomes too dim for viewing. And then there is the deteriorating update frequency (which is behind the brightness problem) which causes increased flicker with an increase of the number of vectors displayed... and on and on and on.

      The only last holdout for vector graphics displays is in some large scale party/concert laser shows where a single beam is deflected via galvanometer and mirror setups and where only carefully pre-selected for a given brightness/flicker ratios sets of images are drawn.

    3. Re:Arcade Vector Graphics by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      The reason vector displays use a CRT is because the drawing point is controlled by deflecting it in X and Y axes with a continuous analog voltage on each axis against the charged beam, which strikes the CRT plate phosphor coat and glows at that moving point. That effect can be produced by moving rocking a mirror in X and Y axes, onto which a laser is directed. In the 1980s a laser and mirror apparatus with quick and precise positioning were low brightness, electrically inefficient, and physically large. Now we package it all on a single cheap chip for "picoprojectors" for mobile devices and other laser video projectors. They raster the beam with a single horizontal scanning mirror against a deformed crystal to step vertically into a stack of lines, but two mirrors could be used.

      All that new tech that's replaced the CRT provides elements from which a vector display could return. And again, since so much image data is now vector, a vector display could be even higher quality than a pixel display for that data. DLP TVs have a pretty big chamber, even when they're flat. It would be very interesting to see one rigged up with a vector projector also.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    4. Re:Arcade Vector Graphics by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 1

      ... DLP TVs have a pretty big chamber, even when they're flat.

      You Sir are confused. DLP technology is a raster display technology, where a grid of mirrors etched onto a semi-conductor chip and controlled electronically represents the entire pixel grid. Also, the advances in the size of the LCD displays rendered even it obsolete for TV use. Most stores no longer carry projection TVs of any kind.

      Now we package it all on a single cheap chip for "picoprojectors" for mobile devices and other laser video projectors. They raster the beam with a single horizontal scanning mirror against a deformed crystal to step vertically into a stack of lines, but two mirrors could be used.

      As to picoprojectors, they have the exact same problem as the old CRT tubes: the only way to guarantee consistent quality of the display is to represent the image as fixed scan frequency raster, which is what all of the ones produced so far do exactly. Any attempt to deflect the beam in a vector graphics display style immediately brings back all the unsolved (and likely unsolvable) problems of that approach.

      And again, since so much image data is now vector, a vector display could be even higher quality than a pixel display for that data.

      Again, no. A vast majority of all display data in computers is raster with vector graphics constituting specialized exceptions. As to "quality" I already explained that vector graphics displays have a fatal flaw which reduces their quality rapidly with the number of vectors displayed, a problem which holds true irrespective of the beam technology used. Just like the degradation occurred in CRT tubes, so it does in laser displays. Worse in fact since laser-based displays have no after-effect glow which the old CRT tubes had with their phosphorus "smoothing" the flicker of the display.

      Vector graphics technology has only a very small niche of applications and its drawbacks are fatal for any general-purpose displays. That is why it was abandoned for general purpose applications and it is not coming back, no matter how elaborate the pipe dreams that visit you.

    5. Re:Arcade Vector Graphics by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      No, BiggestIgnoramus, I'm not confused. A 2D DLP grid is not a raster - it's a grid. It's pixels, but not raster. You're confused.

      But that's totally irrelevant to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a DLP TV's projection chamber being suitable for a laser vector display. Which, as I said several times, is something I think could be further developed, which makes whether or not DLPs are increasingly or decreasingly popular now irrelevant. But indeed DLPs are still made and sold. You're confused.

      What killed vector displays was that they weren't the same tech as the vastly larger TV market, so they didn't achieve economy of scale. As has been noted many times, for their specific application they offered superior rendering compared to raster displays, but their economics weren't as good. They did have some quality problems in some applications, but decades of display R&D have improved all techs involved, and I also mentioned combo vector/raster displays for complementing their uses. There are no unsolvable problems, and there are plenty of very expensive specialized displays. We are entering the era of 3D displays, which have been pronounced "impossible" for decades. Since components of a laser vector display have continued to be developed, notably in picoprojectors, this is an evolutionary challenge, not entirely revolutionary. I never said they're coming back, but it's not because it's impossible or even undesirable. What I said was that vector tech was released before its time, the subject of the story we're discussing. The continuing advance of technologies that could make better vector displays, and the superiority of vector displays for some applications, with the arrival of vector graphics formats that vector displays would suit, shows that vector's time might be more in the future than it was in the past.

      You are the one who's confused. On the highest level, you've confused me with someone who's interested in listening to your obnoxious, baselessly condescending posts. Goodbye.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    6. Re:Arcade Vector Graphics by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 1

      A 2D DLP grid is not a raster - it's a grid. It's pixels, but not raster. You're confused.

      While technically true, the DLPs are used pretty much exclusively to display input signal meant for a traditional CRT tube, which hasn't changed for decades due to mostly technological inertia. Thus they are classified as "raster" display systems because they accept input formatted and optimized for a raster display. The same is applicable to LCD monitors and TVs which are also technically "grid" displays, yet their raster-optimized inputs put them into a "raster" category. Even more up-to date DVI input schemes follow the "raster" (i.e. scan-line) formatting.

      You would be correct only if the DLP chip was directly driven by the host system's CPU and its pixels were addressed directly, without going via raster scan encode/decode stages first.

      I'm talking about a DLP TV's projection chamber being suitable for a laser vector display. Which, as I said several times, is something I think could be further developed, which makes whether or not DLPs are increasingly or decreasingly popular now irrelevant. But indeed DLPs are still made and sold. You're confused.

      The rear-projection TV systems are universally considered inferior to direct display systems by pretty much all consumers, that is why they were just a stop-gap measure kludge which was quickly abandoned as soon as direct display systems became large enough. Trying to bring back a cumbersome assembly of mirrors and translucent screens under the pretense of improving "quality" is just plain ridiculous given the fact that they had a very long list of problems related to light refraction, viewing angles, ambient light etc and on and on and on, not to mention minimum size requirements due to the optical pathways needed (you can't cheat physics).

      What killed vector displays was that they weren't the same tech as the vastly larger TV market, so they didn't achieve economy of scale. As has been noted many times, for their specific application they offered superior rendering compared to raster displays, but their economics weren't as good

      You gotta be kidding.

      Ok, since you are starting to sound positively pig-headed, let me illustrate how utterly inadequate vector graphics displays are: just render this very Slashdot page using a "vector graphics" display! It can't work without abandoning all of its supposed "advantages"! In order to render a black text on a white background page, you would need to paint the background in form of vectors leaving the text area as unpainted, which would immediately require a raster-like scan to fill the solid areas. Which comprise 90+% of the screen surface. There is a reason why the only application of "vector graphics" displays were in games like "Asteroids" or "Tempest" or radar displays where there was no background. As soon as you have a solid color area, a picture or a texture of any kind, your "vector" system deteriorates into "vectors" as small as 1-pixel, thus becoming a bit-map display which is most efficiently rendered as a raster scan. And that is something like 95+% of all commonly used display contents on modern computer systems. Only the "cool kid" pitch-black background web pages would be suitable for your "quality" vector graphics display!

      All your musings about SVG are laughable as nearly all SVG contents is rendered on top of some kind of background, which a raster or a grid type display is far superior at rendering.

      If vector graphics displays "won" we would be living in some kind of bizarro-world Tron-redux where all our displays would exclusively show line art contents (and flickering contents at that).

      The continuing advance of technologies that could make better vector displays, and the superiority of vector displays for some applications, with the arrival of vector graphics formats that vector displays would suit, shows

  28. Re:Meh. by Belial6 · · Score: 1
    That may be so, but I didn't accuse you of that. I accused you of claiming that being successful WAS being innovative. This was based off your statement of

    These claims might have more merit if the earlier invention had actually caught on.

    Claiming that motion control is innovative because Nintendo was successful at it is a misuse of the word innovation. If there is some aspect of the motion control that is actually innovative, then that should be what is discussed. Claiming that the larger idea is innovative because of some small detail is just incorrect.

  29. 3D Monster Maze Myth by Ambient+Sheep · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From the article:

    > The first game to simulate 3D was 3D Monster Maze for the Sinclair ZX81...

    That's the second time recently I've seen that myth trotted out. It's not true. Although a good game, it was actually a copy of a similar game for the Commodore PET that I played at least a year before the ZX81 even came out.

    I know this for sure as I used to play the PET version at school (they got a 3016 in March 1980), and then when I got my own ZX81 (which came out Spring 1981), I was thrilled to be able to play a version of the same game at home when it was released a few months after that.

    1. Re:3D Monster Maze Myth by Ambient+Sheep · · Score: 1

      By the way, that's not to say that it might not have been on other platforms (e.g. Apple II, TRS-80) as well as, or even before, the Commodore PET, I just know that I played it on the PET first, before the ZX81 even came out.

    2. Re:3D Monster Maze Myth by Reaperducer · · Score: 1

      You may be thinking of Labryinth. Absolutely before the Sinclair.

      --
      -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
    3. Re:3D Monster Maze Myth by julesh · · Score: 2, Informative

      "The first game to simulate 3D was 3D Monster Maze for the Sinclair ZX81..."

      That's the second time recently I've seen that myth trotted out. It's not true. Although a good game, it was actually a copy of a similar game for the Commodore PET that I played at least a year before the ZX81 even came out.

      Uh-huh. And on more powerful workstation/minicomputer platforms, such games go back further. "Maze War", which also is sometimes claimed to be the first online multiplayer game, ran on the PDS-1 (a minicomputer with vector graphics) in 1974, according to the wikipedia article. Admittedly it didn't see a lot of distribution -- there weren't many PDS-1s outside of MIT, from all I gather -- but it existed. If you want widely-distributed, Battlezone was released about a year before the ZX81, although it may or may not have predated the game you remember.

      Some of the other stuff is dubious; for instance I'm pretty sure there was a steering wheel controller available for the Atari 2600, which predates the console described as the first to have one in the article.

  30. It's the brightness wars by Jay+L · · Score: 1

    If you think last year's LEDs are too dim, you should see LEDs from the 1980s. They were so dark - (how dark were they?) - they were so dark, you had to shine a laser on 'em to see if they were on!

    Don't ask me what they made the lasers out of.

  31. Re:Meh. by ksemlerK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Watch out. By using your argument, that the second or third comer to the party that actually "does it more successfully" is the innovator, you are coming very close to saying that Apple innovates. Just thought you'd like to know. You don't want to fall into any self set traps now, would you?

    Fixed it for you.

    Apple is not an innovator. They are a marketing and design company, dedicated to the prettying up of existing technology. Did apple create the MP3 player? No. (Saehan's MPMan, 1998) The first smatphone? No. Simon; it was designed by IBM in 1992, released to the general market in 1993. It had no buttons, it was touchscreen only. First PC? No. It was the IBM 5100, (1975). Did they have the first GUI OS? No. Xerox PARC, 1973). Apple didn't ever invent anything, nor are they innovative. They just take existing technology and wrap it up in a fancy package so the public thinks they are a new-tech company.

    --
    Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
  32. Re:Meh. by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

    That's not quite what I was trying to say, although I can see how you interpreted it that way.

    What I meant was, if the first time that innovation was tested in the marketplace, and it had caught on, and there'd been a steady progression of development in the technology, then it'd be clearly non-innovative for Nintendo to come up with the DS. But if an idea gets floated 20+ years ago, and leads to nothing, and then a similar idea is tried again, the fact that the idea was used 20+ years ago doesn't automatically mean that the more recent invention isn't innovative.

    To put it another way, no one would say that the Wright brothers weren't innovative simply because Da Vinci had ideas for flying machines hundreds of years earlier.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  33. Re:Meh. by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 1

    Also, with respect to the motion control, I do think that Nintendo innovated. Sure, there was a golf game that used accelerometers. I'm certain that accelerometers predate the development of the golf game.

    If the golf game can be said to be innovative, because it used accelerometers for input in a game, can we not say that the Wii is innovative for creating a generalized input solution for motion?

    Isn't integrating the IR cameras on the Wii sensor bar, and using it to precisely control the aimpoint of the wiimote on the screen an innovation?

    I hope that clears up what I meant.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  34. Re:Digital distribution - The Sega Channel by LocalH · · Score: 1

    Why'd you put console in quotes? The Genesis absolutely was a console, and you had to have one to use Sega Channel, just like you have to have a 360 to use Live.

    --
    FC Closer
  35. Blip! by fishbowl · · Score: 1

    I had a Blip, a larger similar mechanical pong, and a Mattel Football, all around the same time. I loved these games - they were my favorite games until I got my first computer (TRS-80 the following year.)

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  36. Re:WTF? by daveime · · Score: 1

    Its as if a million gold-plated turds cried out, and were suddenly silent.

    Scrabble boards indeed, what kind of a metaphor is THAT ?

  37. CDTV was a great machine! by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    You just needed to add a keyboard and a floppy disk drive and you had an Amiga!

  38. Re:Not "retro" by julesh · · Score: 1

    "retro
        (rtr)
    adj.
    1. Retroactive: retro pay.
    2. Involving, relating to, or reminiscent of things past; retrospective: "As is often the case in retro fashion, historical accuracy is somewhat beside the point" (New York Times).
    n. pl. retros
    A fashion, decor, design, or style reminiscent of things past."

    Old gaming technologies != "Retro gaming technologies".

    Gaming with old technologies == gaming involving things past == retro(2) gaming.
    Therefore technologies used in gaming with old technologies are, using brackets to show how the words should be grouped when you parse them: ((retro gaming) technologies).

  39. Re:Digital distribution - The Sega Channel by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

    Gameline for the Atari 2600 predates it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameLine

  40. I've got one of those... by hack++slash · · Score: 1

    ..and one of those, and those.

    I have that exact golf club LCD game, the full set of 7 different Tomytronic 3D games (as well as the clone fom Tandy), a few Atary Lynx's, that game&watch Mario game plus a pile more, Blip and Barcode Battler.

    He who dies with the most games must've had the most fun in life - at least that's how I see it :)

    --
    To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
  41. Re:Leo Laporte by gearloos · · Score: 1

    No connection at all - but, interestingly enough I agree to a point. Leo Laporte is definitely a tool (E.G. Moron, idiot, Mr. "Me Too!" etc... , Just not in this particular stories case.

    --
    "Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
  42. Re:Leo Laporte by macraig · · Score: 1

    I don't know that I've ever seen or heard his productions (lucky me?), but I saw a photo of him and he even looks like a goofy tool.

  43. Re:Meh. by Belial6 · · Score: 1

    Using IR cameras on the Wii sensor bar MIGHT be innovative. (I vaguely remember others doing this in in other applications before the Wii) But, claiming that the Wii using motion controlled input is innovative is incorrect. Nintendo may have done some things related to motion control that was innovative, but the motion control itself is not.

  44. great example by ILuvRamen · · Score: 1

    You can't forget the Phantasy Star series for the Sega Genesis. The third in the series especially was ridiculously long and complex for games in general at that time let alone for RPGs. I just played it recently and have been sort of into a retro gaming "thing" and almost every other game that I played when I was like 10 and replayed now, I found totally sucks by my current standards. Phantasy Star 3 and 4 were still amazing though. Definitely the most ahead of its time RPG ever made.

    --
    Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
  45. Re:Blip by KatchooNJ · · Score: 1

    True... Blip may not have been the best game out there, but it was definitely a mechanical marvel... I give it that. Demon Driver was another neat mechanical one from Tomy back then.

    --
    "Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^