I think people over-emphasize the piracy aspect. Yes DC games were relatively-easy to copy, but still not as easy the CD-ROM based playstation 1. To copy DC discs required some hacking to remove extra videos and make the 1-gigabyte game fit onto a stand 0.7 gig CD. The PS1 did not require that, making it easier to pirate, and yet the PS1 seemed to do moderately okay (120 million sold).
Dreamcast was killed by mistrust. After buying The Genesis, then the 32X, then the Saturn, and getting screwed on the last two deals, I made-up my mind that I would never again touch a Sega console. So I ignored the DC.
Sega, like Atari and Commodore before it, made stupid decisions that made them lose consumer confidence.
Since most of the Dreamcast games have been ported to other consoles, is there any remaining reason to go buy one? What "must play" games still exist on the original console but are not available elsewhere?
>>>no-one really took seriously. It was a wonderful console with some wonderful games.
Yes and I love playing those DC ports on my PS2 (Space Channel 5) or my Gamecube (Skies of Arcadia), but I don't think the console was really powerful enough to beat the other 3 from Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft. The Dreamcast is the weakest of the four and since it uses a CD has even less room for videos/graphics than the Gamecube had (1 megabyte versus 1.5 megabyte) both of which were woefully-inadequate compared to the 8 megabytes available to PS2 or Xbox.
I was a little surprised Sega pulled the DC when they did, since DC was not number one but still ahead of the Cube and Box (10 million versus 5 million units). Maybe they just ran out of money, and it was either end the console or else go bankrupt. .
>>>No-one really took the Dreamcast seriously after the flagging failure of the Saturn, expecting the same thing this time around.
There's more to it than that. If you were a Sega fan you bought: -The Genesis/Megadrive. (1) Then a Sega 32X addon to make it a "next gen" console. (2) But then that was killed and the 32-bit Saturn was released. (3) And then THAT was killed and the 32-bit Dreamcast released
After getting screwed in steps 1 and 2, and in less than five years total time, the consumers were not about to get screwed again in step number 3. They walked-away from Sega.
>>>Yea, why does progress have to keep happening. Can't they see we already have enough stuff. Why do they keep making more?
I keep asking the same question. Although the VHS to DVD upgrade was worthwhile to remove the blur, I often wonder if the DVD to Bluray upgrade is worth it. I don't enjoy buying the same movie or television show three times.
I'm also annoyed that all my old Super VHS-C camcorder home videos are going to be difficult to play due to lack of hardware. Yeah I know - "copy them over to DVD" - but when you do that you lose some of the details. It's called multi-generation degradation, such that the original tape looks better than the DVD copy.
>>>Laserdisk was a technology whose primary appeal was the inability of the consumer to record to it.
First off it's LaserDisc with a "c" and second laserdisc probably would have succeeded despite its inability to record, just as DVD succeeded even though it was not recordable. (Yes that's correct - recordable DVDs never caught-on except with the 90s-era geeks. The average Jo Consumer used VCRs or DVRs.) The problem was that laserdisc didn't offer an appreciable improvement over VHS movies - not enough to justify the $1000 added expense. That's also the same reason why Super VHS flopped, even though it could equal laserdiscs in quality AND record video.
Well of course. You can't send HD video over an old S-video or composite cable. That's only common sense and I think the person you were talking to already knew that.
>>>HD Sound Devices (That support Dolby 5.1 preferably)
This isn't HD. It isn't even something new. I've had Dolby 5.1 since 1997 when I got a Sony received equipped with it. Heck even my old VHS deck supports 4.1 sound, and that's a feature that goes back to the 1980s. Please don't miscategorize 5.1 as something only HD discs can provide.
>>>I have yet to find that my movie watching experience was in any way noticably improved by watching a film on Blu-Ray instead of DVD. >>>
I have. Movies on DVD are frequently plagued with compression artifacts (especially in dark scenes) whereas those same movies on Bluray make the artifacts disappear. This is because a Bluray can hold about 6 times more data, and therefore doesn't need as much compression, so fewer errors appearing on the screen.
However one drawback to Bluray is watching old shows that were never meant to be HD. Like Star Trek. When a hairy caveman throws a spear at Spock, it looks like a spear on the old analog sets, but on the new HD sets the spear looks like a piece of foam. It ruins the suspension-of-disbelief required to enjoy these types of shows.
Overall I'd say HD-Bluray is great for watching movies (eliminates visible artifacts) and also good for shows post-2000, but shows made prior to 2000 are often best-viewed on SD.
+1 insightful. I don't even watch TV most of the time, preferring to just listen. The only time I actually watch a show is for a favorite program like Doctor Who or Babylon 5.
I guess that's why I'm satisfied with my current set even though it's "only" an analog 720x486 NTSC set.
Everyone's already upgraded to shiny-new HDTVs and premium HD services. The manufacturers need to invent a new "toy" that people will demand and spend copious amounts of cash. They need 3D to succeed.
Oh and forget Bluray. You say you already upgraded your movie collection from VHS to DVD to Bluray? That's a shame because the new technology will be 3D Crystal technology. They want us to keep repurchasing the same thing over-and-over.
Progress happens, and if Apple had stayed with the 16 bit IIgs-series, then customers would have eventually jumped ship to the newer 32-bit Atari STs, Commodore Amigas, or 80386/486 IBM PCs. The old 8/16-bit computers like the Apple II, Atari 800, and Commodore 64 had to be abandoned to move forward towards the future.
>>>not everyone could dedicate a square corner trinitron for hobby computing back then.
Yeah and I still have my old 1970s set with the rounded corners, but that's why Commodores, Ataris, Amigas, and other computers of that time included the border. The border would cover the overscan zone of the television while the text remained in the "safe zone" in the middle. Therefore none of the text should be cutoff in the emulator.
BTW modern HDTVs also have overscan, per the ATSC specification. The 10% area at the edge of the image is considered "throwaway" and should not contain any important information (like titles or captions).
I didn't say it was. All I said was that Atari contracted Microsoft for the job, but Microsoft couldn't make it fit, so Atari could not include the language with the machine. Instead they developed their own language (hence ATARI basic rather than MS basic).
I stopped doing serious stuff with my C=64 once I got an Amiga, but still have it for playing those classic games. If you're into retro-gaming I highly recommend adding it to your Atari, Nintendo, Sega collection of consoles.
>>> I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people..... [stop] acting as if this stuff is some amazing manifestation of idiocy rather than a likely consequence of using a mainstream OS developed with time and budgetary constraints. It's going to have stupid bugs. >>>
Yes. But then there's Mac OS 10.6 which is pretty-much flawless, so really there's no excuse for Microsoft not to be just as capable as Apple when it comes to producing a bug-free OS.
>>>If you didn't get your rebate, you're doing it wrong. I have NEVER not gotten a rebate.
Me too.
Until now.
I don't think the issue is that I didn't do it right, but that rebate companies get paid to find excuses to reject rebates (like you didn't include your phone number, or you use a alternative card like Discove not a Visa or Mastercard). I don't have any idea what I could have done wrong since I filled-in every line on the fucking form, but I do know this - JCPenney still owes me a 50 dollar rebate, and I will get it back even if I have to file a credit card dispute to reverse that $50 charge.
- The BASIC inside the C64 is copyrighted by Microsoft, and Apple doesn't want to incur the wrath of the sleeping dragon, so they've decided that functionality must be disabled.
>>>Your credit card numbers are not personal, they are assigned to you by a large, multinational corporation
So when someone steals from my credit number or my checking account number, and steals $10,000 from my account, I'm not supposed to take that personally??? (rolls eyes). Point - Yes these numbers are personal and need to be kept secret. The whole idea behind the 4th amendment is to keep the government in the dark about what you are doing, because you are supposed to be a liberated person not a slave.
>>>we'll get some cryptofascist who calls himself a "strict constructionist" to tell us that, if the founding fathers wouldn't have recognized it on sight, it couldn't possibly be covered by the constitution. >>>
I'm not sure what "crypto" means but "fascist" refers to a third type of system where corporations would remain private, but government would be running the board of directors. Also known as "corporatism". I don't know any strict constructionists who support such a system because it would violate the Constitution.
I'm a strict constructionist and I recognize that "papers and effects" would also cover data on a computer, thus the DHS would have to get a warrant to investigate it. They cannot just ask and receive automatically (as it works now). I would also invoke the 10th Amendment more frequently. For example, when was Congress ever granted the power to stop cars in the middle of a state like California or Texas or New Hampshire? Never. That power to police *within* a state belongs to the state legislature, not DHS or Congress.
>>> I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people..... [stop] acting as if this stuff is some amazing manifestation of idiocy rather than a likely consequence of using a mainstream OS developed with time and budgetary constraints. It's going to have stupid bugs. >>>
Yes and those bugs affect both Windoze and Linux. But then there's Mac OS 10.6 which is pretty-much flawless, so really there's no excuse for Microsoft not to be just as capable as Apple when it comes to producing a bug-free OS.
>>>The fact that CPUs are still named at all is for the benefit of enthusiasts.
False. If you bothered to learn your history, you'd know the reason why CPUs have names instead of numbers is because the courts ruled companies cannot trademark numbers. Thus the 80586 became the Pentium and that tradition has continued to today. They cannot just go back to calling them 80986 because of legal reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
I think people over-emphasize the piracy aspect. Yes DC games were relatively-easy to copy, but still not as easy the CD-ROM based playstation 1. To copy DC discs required some hacking to remove extra videos and make the 1-gigabyte game fit onto a stand 0.7 gig CD. The PS1 did not require that, making it easier to pirate, and yet the PS1 seemed to do moderately okay (120 million sold).
Dreamcast was killed by mistrust. After buying The Genesis, then the 32X, then the Saturn, and getting screwed on the last two deals, I made-up my mind that I would never again touch a Sega console. So I ignored the DC.
Sega, like Atari and Commodore before it, made stupid decisions that made them lose consumer confidence.
[edit]
"1 versus 1.5 [gigabyte] both of which were woefully-inadequate compared to the 8 [gigabytes] available to PS2 or Xbox."
P.S.
Since most of the Dreamcast games have been ported to other consoles, is there any remaining reason to go buy one? What "must play" games still exist on the original console but are not available elsewhere?
>>>no-one really took seriously. It was a wonderful console with some wonderful games.
Yes and I love playing those DC ports on my PS2 (Space Channel 5) or my Gamecube (Skies of Arcadia), but I don't think the console was really powerful enough to beat the other 3 from Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft. The Dreamcast is the weakest of the four and since it uses a CD has even less room for videos/graphics than the Gamecube had (1 megabyte versus 1.5 megabyte) both of which were woefully-inadequate compared to the 8 megabytes available to PS2 or Xbox.
I was a little surprised Sega pulled the DC when they did, since DC was not number one but still ahead of the Cube and Box (10 million versus 5 million units). Maybe they just ran out of money, and it was either end the console or else go bankrupt.
.
>>>No-one really took the Dreamcast seriously after the flagging failure of the Saturn, expecting the same thing this time around.
There's more to it than that. If you were a Sega fan you bought: -The Genesis/Megadrive. (1) Then a Sega 32X addon to make it a "next gen" console. (2) But then that was killed and the 32-bit Saturn was released. (3) And then THAT was killed and the 32-bit Dreamcast released
After getting screwed in steps 1 and 2, and in less than five years total time, the consumers were not about to get screwed again in step number 3. They walked-away from Sega.
>>>Yea, why does progress have to keep happening. Can't they see we already have enough stuff. Why do they keep making more?
I keep asking the same question. Although the VHS to DVD upgrade was worthwhile to remove the blur, I often wonder if the DVD to Bluray upgrade is worth it. I don't enjoy buying the same movie or television show three times.
I'm also annoyed that all my old Super VHS-C camcorder home videos are going to be difficult to play due to lack of hardware. Yeah I know - "copy them over to DVD" - but when you do that you lose some of the details. It's called multi-generation degradation, such that the original tape looks better than the DVD copy.
>>>Laserdisk was a technology whose primary appeal was the inability of the consumer to record to it.
First off it's LaserDisc with a "c" and second laserdisc probably would have succeeded despite its inability to record, just as DVD succeeded even though it was not recordable. (Yes that's correct - recordable DVDs never caught-on except with the 90s-era geeks. The average Jo Consumer used VCRs or DVRs.) The problem was that laserdisc didn't offer an appreciable improvement over VHS movies - not enough to justify the $1000 added expense. That's also the same reason why Super VHS flopped, even though it could equal laserdiscs in quality AND record video.
>>>you need A Blu Ray, HD Cabling
Well of course. You can't send HD video over an old S-video or composite cable. That's only common sense and I think the person you were talking to already knew that.
>>>HD Sound Devices (That support Dolby 5.1 preferably)
This isn't HD. It isn't even something new. I've had Dolby 5.1 since 1997 when I got a Sony received equipped with it. Heck even my old VHS deck supports 4.1 sound, and that's a feature that goes back to the 1980s. Please don't miscategorize 5.1 as something only HD discs can provide.
>>>and an HDTV.
No shit Sherlock.
>>>I have yet to find that my movie watching experience was in any way noticably improved by watching a film on Blu-Ray instead of DVD.
>>>
I have. Movies on DVD are frequently plagued with compression artifacts (especially in dark scenes) whereas those same movies on Bluray make the artifacts disappear. This is because a Bluray can hold about 6 times more data, and therefore doesn't need as much compression, so fewer errors appearing on the screen.
However one drawback to Bluray is watching old shows that were never meant to be HD. Like Star Trek. When a hairy caveman throws a spear at Spock, it looks like a spear on the old analog sets, but on the new HD sets the spear looks like a piece of foam. It ruins the suspension-of-disbelief required to enjoy these types of shows.
Overall I'd say HD-Bluray is great for watching movies (eliminates visible artifacts) and also good for shows post-2000, but shows made prior to 2000 are often best-viewed on SD.
+1 insightful. I don't even watch TV most of the time, preferring to just listen. The only time I actually watch a show is for a favorite program like Doctor Who or Babylon 5.
I guess that's why I'm satisfied with my current set even though it's "only" an analog 720x486 NTSC set.
Everyone's already upgraded to shiny-new HDTVs and premium HD services. The manufacturers need to invent a new "toy" that people will demand and spend copious amounts of cash. They need 3D to succeed.
Oh and forget Bluray. You say you already upgraded your movie collection from VHS to DVD to Bluray? That's a shame because the new technology will be 3D Crystal technology. They want us to keep repurchasing the same thing over-and-over.
(Yes I've turned cynical in my old age.)
Who? (sigh). I guess it's gonna have a vastly different feel from the LOTR trilogy (at best). Or worse.
You shouldn't get mad.
Progress happens, and if Apple had stayed with the 16 bit IIgs-series, then customers would have eventually jumped ship to the newer 32-bit Atari STs, Commodore Amigas, or 80386/486 IBM PCs. The old 8/16-bit computers like the Apple II, Atari 800, and Commodore 64 had to be abandoned to move forward towards the future.
>>>not everyone could dedicate a square corner trinitron for hobby computing back then.
Yeah and I still have my old 1970s set with the rounded corners, but that's why Commodores, Ataris, Amigas, and other computers of that time included the border. The border would cover the overscan zone of the television while the text remained in the "safe zone" in the middle. Therefore none of the text should be cutoff in the emulator.
BTW modern HDTVs also have overscan, per the ATSC specification. The 10% area at the edge of the image is considered "throwaway" and should not contain any important information (like titles or captions).
>>>Atari BASIC was *not* based on MS's version.
I didn't say it was. All I said was that Atari contracted Microsoft for the job, but Microsoft couldn't make it fit, so Atari could not include the language with the machine. Instead they developed their own language (hence ATARI basic rather than MS basic).
The Commodore 64 makes a great game machine.
I stopped doing serious stuff with my C=64 once I got an Amiga, but still have it for playing those classic games. If you're into retro-gaming I highly recommend adding it to your Atari, Nintendo, Sega collection of consoles.
>>>if you're using a Pentium 4, Intel Atom is also an upgrade.
False.
P4 == 9,726 MIPS at 3.2 GHz - 3.039 MIPS/MHz
Atom == 3300 MIPS at 1.6 GHz - 2.06 MIPS/MHz
>>> I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people..... [stop] acting as if this stuff is some amazing manifestation of idiocy rather than a likely consequence of using a mainstream OS developed with time and budgetary constraints. It's going to have stupid bugs.
>>>
Yes. But then there's Mac OS 10.6 which is pretty-much flawless, so really there's no excuse for Microsoft not to be just as capable as Apple when it comes to producing a bug-free OS.
>>>If you didn't get your rebate, you're doing it wrong. I have NEVER not gotten a rebate.
Me too.
Until now.
I don't think the issue is that I didn't do it right, but that rebate companies get paid to find excuses to reject rebates (like you didn't include your phone number, or you use a alternative card like Discove not a Visa or Mastercard). I don't have any idea what I could have done wrong since I filled-in every line on the fucking form, but I do know this - JCPenney still owes me a 50 dollar rebate, and I will get it back even if I have to file a credit card dispute to reverse that $50 charge.
You can read more about mail-in rebate scams here: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/ftc_compusa.html http://www.consumeraffairs.com/consumerism/rebate_madness01.html http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/04/rebate_maze.html
He had the permission to distribute the emulator *without* Microsoft's BASIC.
Forget the title - What on earth happened to the dollar? It used to have a 1-to-1 parity with the Euro and now it's losing value.
All of ye seem to miss the point -
- The BASIC inside the C64 is copyrighted by Microsoft, and Apple doesn't want to incur the wrath of the sleeping dragon, so they've decided that functionality must be disabled.
>>>Your credit card numbers are not personal, they are assigned to you by a large, multinational corporation
So when someone steals from my credit number or my checking account number, and steals $10,000 from my account, I'm not supposed to take that personally??? (rolls eyes). Point - Yes these numbers are personal and need to be kept secret. The whole idea behind the 4th amendment is to keep the government in the dark about what you are doing, because you are supposed to be a liberated person not a slave.
>>>we'll get some cryptofascist who calls himself a "strict constructionist" to tell us that, if the founding fathers wouldn't have recognized it on sight, it couldn't possibly be covered by the constitution.
>>>
I'm not sure what "crypto" means but "fascist" refers to a third type of system where corporations would remain private, but government would be running the board of directors. Also known as "corporatism". I don't know any strict constructionists who support such a system because it would violate the Constitution.
I'm a strict constructionist and I recognize that "papers and effects" would also cover data on a computer, thus the DHS would have to get a warrant to investigate it. They cannot just ask and receive automatically (as it works now). I would also invoke the 10th Amendment more frequently. For example, when was Congress ever granted the power to stop cars in the middle of a state like California or Texas or New Hampshire? Never. That power to police *within* a state belongs to the state legislature, not DHS or Congress.
>>> I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people..... [stop] acting as if this stuff is some amazing manifestation of idiocy rather than a likely consequence of using a mainstream OS developed with time and budgetary constraints. It's going to have stupid bugs.
>>>
Yes and those bugs affect both Windoze and Linux. But then there's Mac OS 10.6 which is pretty-much flawless, so really there's no excuse for Microsoft not to be just as capable as Apple when it comes to producing a bug-free OS.
>>>The fact that CPUs are still named at all is for the benefit of enthusiasts.
False. If you bothered to learn your history, you'd know the reason why CPUs have names instead of numbers is because the courts ruled companies cannot trademark numbers. Thus the 80586 became the Pentium and that tradition has continued to today. They cannot just go back to calling them 80986 because of legal reasons.