There is an implied contract, I'd say. Sony has contracted to sell you a CD containing music.
The key here is that you were sold music, not software. Software is not a feature of the music and was bundled without disclosure. This in itself may be illegal in some states. Now add to that fact that the software installs itself even after you decline to a contract offer for the software, and you have a recipe for legal disaster.
The rest of your comment is irrelevant. The software is not a feature of the music. Period.
ASP/IIS used a multithreaded model with runtime-compiled code
No it didn't. ASP was interpreted up until ASP.NET.
Servlets were a world changing technology compared to CGI. JSP's just-in-time compiling kicked ASP up between its ears in performance. Add runtime safety to the mix (you can't crash your entire server application by GPFing or dividing by zero) and you have the makings of a revolutionary product for its time.
They want to do everything in Java - even a basic web site.
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "basic web site". A good architect always tries to plan for any likely scenario. Quite often, that "basic web site" may be bound for a long life as a "not so basic website". If you tie yourself to PHP or ColdFusion, you may find yourself with serious performance and scalability problems inside two years. That's not a good situation to be in, and could have been prevented. (I've seen this happen in WAY too many companies.)
OTOH, if you're just implementing a simple shopping cart to integrate with Paypal for the few products your work-at-home company sells, go ahead and use PHP and best practices. Your best realistic estimates are unlikely to show your website expanding beyond the capabilities of PHP within a few years. And if you do have extreme expansion like that, you've got more important problems to deal with.;-)
To be fair, Java's hype was well deserved. It was the first platform with a highly complete API set included in the core, it was the first dynamic web server technology that used a multithreaded model in addition to runtime-compiled code (bye-bye CGI), it was the first language with reflection designed into its core, and it was the first language to bring OOP, Virtual Machine, and cross-platform capabilities together into a workable package.
No other language has ever managed to pull off what Java has. In fact, it was the driving force behind the modern push for cross-platform languages, complete (and free) API libraries, and Object Oriented Programming. I look back at days before Java, and they seem like the dark ages of computers.
If Java has lost its hype, it's only because it's already accomplished all its goals.:-)
It's not a contract because clicking a button is not intent to contract. It's not a signature, it's not a handshake
It's a contract in the same way that ordering food in a restaurant is a verbal contract to exchange money for food.
Reasons why EULAs may be unenforcable contracts, however, include:
- They tend to be unilateral in nature. - They attempt to impose restrictions AFTER the point of sale contract. (This is a legal no-no.) - They are forced upon the customer, as the he has already paid for the software. - There's no way to prove that the user actually accepted the license. (That's why the GPL has a fall-through clause that uses regular copyright law for protection.) - It cannot be shown that customers actually understand the license before accepting it, meaning that the terms may be unenforcable.
Basically, there are a lot of problems with EULAs. The idea that they're not contracts, however, is not one of them.
An important point to take note of in this case is that the user doesn't intend to install software. The software automatically begins installing when the user places a music CD in his drive. Since the user did not purchase the CD for software, did not agree to have the software installed, and STILL doesn't get to listen the music he PAID FOR, the state is more than correct in prosecuting the pants off of Sony for fraud.
UT, if you don't agree, the software doesn't install and you can't return the software to the store.
That's news to me. Most EULAs I've read on shrink wrapped software state that you can return the software for a full refund if you don't agree with the terms and conditions. If the store won't accept the return due to some stupid policy, then contact the software maker directly for your refund.
A contract is, by definition, a bilateral agreement. The EULA is a contract offer, and if it is declined, there is NO contract between Sony and the user. What that means is that Sony is forcing a unilateral agreement onto a user who does not have a contract with Sony. That's a criminal case, not a civil case.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so take my comment with a grain of salt. But that's my interpretation of it in a nutshell.
I have to suspend a lot of disbelief to expect a starship like the Enterprise to be effectively run by 4 officers or crewpeople from the bridge.
4? How do you come up with that count? The minimum usually on the bridge is:
Captain First Officer Navigator Pilot Tactical Officer Science Officer
Add in a healthy rotation of extra science, engineering, and councilling personnel and it's not that hard to believe that they're acting as the nerve center for the entire ship. The show often hints that there are far more people behind the scenes who are actually executing the various orders given.
In fact, if you watch the first season of NextGen, you'll note how they have more than one Chief Engineer, presumably because they have multiple engineering groups on such a large ship. This was later simplified to a single Chief Engineer in favor of using more descriptive titles like "Transporter Chief" or "Shuttlebay Chief".
The sidewinder just blows that wonderful illusion all to hell and back. "Oh, we'll fly a 3 million metric tonne spaceship with a $40 joystick I got from Best Buy! Cool, huh?"
It's called "suspension of disbelief". If a movie can't do that (especially a Sci-Fi movie) then it has no business being made. The Joystick schtik was probably the worst bit as it suddenly dropped you out of the mode of "this is a real universe" to the shattering "Hey, I'm watching a movie! An especially stupid one at that!"
I say we chose Jonathan Frakes. Not only will he be able to do a special about how we actually *did* land on the moon, but he'll be able to play his pretend Thunderbird and Insurrection games the whole way:
"Flaps to 5" (5 what?) "Geostationary orbit has been resumed" (from reentry to the atmosphere a few moments ago?) "Give me manual control!" (A Microsoft Sidewinder to control a STARSHIP?)
I liked Clockstoppers, I really did. It was a cute movie. But he *never* should have been let near Thunderbirds, much less a Star Trek movie. He has something of a screwed up idea about what is "cool", not to mention what is realistic.
Too bad nobody's come up with the equivalent of Velcro hooks that would attach to the microfibers of paper.
Well, you could always print the board on the felt side of the Velcro sheet, then glue the pieces to the back of the hooks side. Alternatively, you could past pieces of felt to the hexagons. Probably more trouble than it's worth, though, and can have detremental effects on the artwork and (by extension) the gameplay.
You know, maybe I'm just weird (probably), but I tended to keep busy on long car trips by reading books and technical documents. Great reads included "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" (which was a HUGE book that I read 10 or 12 times), Protected Mode code by Tran of the Demo Scene fame (anyone remember Timeless?), TARGA file format documentation (POVRay kind of sucked that way), theories on approximate PHONG shading, KiwiDog's excellent tutorial on 3D graphics, the manual for the 486 processor, a book on SuperVGA modes, the DirectX documentation (blech), Dr. Dobbs journals, college book on Data Structures (it was a hand me down), and whatever else I could scavange, purchase, or print out.
Pff, kids these days. Too busy playing Pokemon to keep quiet with something interesting. Am I the only one here who spent my childhood doing something actually interesting?;-)
Obviously, it depends on the age of your passengers. If you've got your 5 and 7 year old in the back, a pin mounted board might not be such a good idea. Then again, they probably wouldn't be interested in a Wargame anyway.
OTOH, if you have your 12 year old and 15 year old in the back seat, they're probably old enough to handle a few pins.:-)
I know someone was working on a magnetic version, but I don't know how that turned out.
Re:Save the batteries...Pen AND Paper Games...
on
Games That Travel Well
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· Score: 2, Informative
Save the batteries...Pen AND Paper Games...
Amen. There are even some more advanced games that can be played on the go. Ghoulash, for example, only requires two printed sheets and two pencils. Scenarios take about 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, and you can pause at any time.
I've also heard of people taking printable board games like Battle for Moscow and mounting them on thick cardboard sheets. They're then able to put pins through the pieces to keep them in place at all times.
There's a "SpFn" key directly in the bottom-center of the keyboard. I assume that means a combination of the SpaceBar and Function buttons.
Of course, if they can get away with a keyboard design like this, my keyboard design should rule the world! Just images, all your keys arranged in a circular fashion on a lazy suzan. As you type, you spin the keyboard to move the buttons into position for striking. I'll be rich, rich I tell you!
Or maybe this Fisher Price keyboard isn't going anywhere. (Except out the door.)
Wrong voice. The original "Do no Evil" is in a passive voice. "[We] do not [do] Evil" is in an active voice, and changes the meaning to an instruction or argument rather than a motto.
Don't give up on it yet. Firefly fans need to buy the DVD when it comes out to show the companies how they can REALLY make money off the series. Of course, Fox would probably be too stubborn to part with TV rights no matter how much money was waved under their noses.:-(
So we have to make this movie a MOVIE success on DVD, or it's curtains for the series for good.
I didn't remember [Kid Icarus] being a Nintendo developed game. But I'll take your word for it.
I just looked it up, and it looks like you're partly right. It was developed by Intelligent Systems but published by Nintendo. Still not the best situation to extract a port from.
Paperboy was a 1984 Atari arcade game and as such, the rights to the game belonged to Atari Games Corp. (Tengen) and not Atari Corp. Atari Corp. owned the rights to all Atari arcade games pre-1984 before the breakup/spin-off/sell-off of the formerly unified company. That is why it did not appear on the 7800.
(raises eyebrow) It was ported to the Atari ST along with a dozen other systems. Which Atari made it was irrelevant.
Penetration of the Japanese market had nothing to do with the quality of Atari's products.
Didn't say it did. I said it has to do with reasons why the games weren't ported to the Atari. Nintendo had a stranglehold on both Japan and America. Thus it made sense to write for Nintendo and ignore the other systems. Your rant backs me up on that.;-)
If you want to talk quality, I'll bring up Nintendo's "Game & Watch" stuff which they seemed to have based the latest version of the GameBoy on. I will refrain from commenting on that decision.
The Game and Watch systems. Now those were fun. Chintsy, but fun. Some of the ideas from those systems obviously made their way into the Nintendo DS (e.g. the dual screen arrangement), but I'd hardly say that the DS is a clone of those old systems. It's more like a modern gaming system cramed into a PDA with two screens. Fairly bright idea, actually.
That wasn't Atari's (Atari Games/Tengen, not Atari Corp.) fault.
That's what I said. Atari (Tengen) thought they had the rights, but didn't. Nintendo sure as heck wasn't going to port the game to the 7800.
The Atari Games (arcade)/Tengen (home version) was actually superior to the Nintendo version.
A lot of people argue that. Well, there's good news. As I understand it, the Tetris Plug and Play system is the Tengen version. Sooo... you should have no more trouble trying to find this rare cart.:-)
So was Nintendo. So using your logic, why would *After Burner* show up on a non-Sega machine during the time period when Sega still made consoles?
After Burner was released on the Sega Master System in 1987. It was released on the Nintendo in 1989. I don't know the exact details, but I guess Sega decided that they'd squeezed their money out of the game and licensed it to Tengen who turned around and released an illegal cart that got them sued by Nintendo. At this point the 7800 had only a year of realistic life left in it.
Uhm, no. *Tempest 2000* was awesome. *Alien vs. Predator* was ground breaking. *Doom* was the best console port of that title.
Allow me to rephrase what I said so that it makes more sense: "Considering that the Jaguar didn't do so hot itself, I'd say the problem with the 3D0 was that the games sucked."
The Jaguar had some good games available for it, but nothing that really challenged the Nintendo outright. Doom and Wolf3D were both old news as computer games, and by the time the Playstation arrived the Jaguar was already outclassed anyway. Worrying about the RayMan port would have been like worrying that the Sega Genesis had a port of Lion King. It just didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
What the Jaguar lacked was:
1) A good pack-in. 2) A library of original games. (Almost all the good ones were ports from some other system.) 3) A mascot. (Sorry, but not a single system that succeeded in the 90's did so without a mascot. Mario, Crash Bandicut, and Sonic were good examples.) 4) A low price.
Songbird eventually showed what the Jaguar can really do, but it was a little late for an otherwise mediocre system.
The good games on the Jaguar were great, but the bad ones were really bad
have no idea why other than for cost Atari kept even the Pokey sound chip (used in the 8 bit line) from coming standard with the 7800.
Supposedly it was because there was no room left on the motherboard.
To which Kid Icarus, Megaman, 1942, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, Ninja Gaiden, Chip & Dale, Ducktales, Paperboy, Rad Racer, Final Fantasy, TMNT II/III, the other MegaMan titles, SmashTV, Tetris, After Burner, and Galaxy 5000 were prevented from being ported over to the 7800 because of Nintendo's exclusivity contracts on those very third-party licensees.
Lemme see here:
Kid Icarus - Created by Nintendo. Not a very likely candidate for porting. Paperboy - An Atari game ported to pretty much every system exception the 7800. Way to go Atari! (rolls eyes) Megaman - Megaman was a title created by a Japanese company for both the Japanese and American markets. Atari had pathetic Japanese penetration in comparison to the Nintendo/Famicom, which had penetration in both markets. Rad Racer - Made by a Japanese company, published by Nintendo. Good luck getting that port. 1942 - Capcom video game. Unlikely that they'd bother with the 7800 considering the need for tiled scrolling. Contra - Title for both Japanese and American markets. Gradius - Title for both Japanese and American markets. Ninja Gaiden - Title for both Japanese and American markets. Final Fantasy - Title brought to America after failure in Japan. Tetris - Exclusive title produced by Nintendo. Atari (Tengen) thought they had the rights, but didn't. TMNT II/III - The 7800 was dead. Smash TV - Ported to every system except the 7800. (7800 was pretty dead by then.) After Burner - Just about every system except the 7800. Sega was a direct competitor to Atari and probably just didn't care. Galaxy 5000 - 7800 was practically dead. ISO views, Digitized Speech, and other key features would have made a port to the 7800 difficult (if not impossible).
As for the 3D0, its whole downfall was due to the fact that the Atari Jaguar beat its graphics capabilities at a much lower cost level which deflated the whole 3D0 platform.
Considering that the Jaguar didn't do so hot itself, I'd say the problem was that the games sucked. Pretty much everyone who ever bought a 3D0 says the same thing. The games sucked. Many even go as far as to say, "Games? Those were games?" (In reference to the majority of the "games" relying on FMV.) Really, the 3D0 and even the Jaguar suffered heavily from technologitis. Which is to say that they tried to sell based on cool tech features rather than games that people actually wanted to play. In the case of the Jaguar, it had a second chance in the 3D era, but missed the boat by being underpowered for Polygonal games. *shrug* Such is the life of 90's gaming systems.:-)
The real question is: What makes this new? Google has had image ads for its adsense program for at least 6 months. Probably longer.
The good news is that the ads generally quite good, and try not to annoy you. As an adsense partner, you can also chose whether you have the ads on or off.
What? The 7800 was closer to the arcade than the NES version. The NES version was so pathetic that it couldn't have the two brothers on the screen at the same time because the NES graphics chip wasn't powerful enough
Baloney! Sure, the graphics were smaller on the Nintendo and there was some slowdown and flicker when a lot of characters were on the screen. But it was nowhere as bad as the pastel rejects from the color factory that were in the 7800 version. Not to mention the poor sound and the fact that punches were useless. One of my favorite things in DD was to grab a guy in a headlock and beat him to a pulp. No can do in the 7800 version, because punching is useless! I think the Video Game Critic said it best:
Compared to the Nintendo version of this classic fighter, this edition is pathetic. It's not surprising that this was made by Activision, who also inflicted so much pain with the Atari 2600 version. The background graphics are dull. The simple, looping music will drive you mad. The fighters look blocky, but at least they don't flicker. There are about six moves, but the controls are not responsive at all, and only the flying kicks are particularly effective. The backgrounds, which were somewhat interactive in the NES version, are plain and static. There aren't even any barrels to pick up and throw. Sure you'll find a few weapons, but the knife looks more like a big cucumber. In the late 80's, when side-scrolling fighters were the rage, the Atari 7800 faithful missed out in a big way.
Pick up a 7800 and pop in *BallBlazer* and tell me the NES could do it.
Pick up *Galaxy 5000* and tell me that the 7800 could do it. Both consoles had strengths and weaknesses, but the 7800 was severely suffering in the graphics and sound departments. Sure, it could pump a hundred sprites or so, but that didn't help when it was compared to the quality of the graphics on the Nintendo.
Debatable. The ROB sure didn't sell.
The ROB sold just fine given that it was part of the base Nintendo System. Nintendo made the decision to remove it from the packaging and sell the console at a cheaper price, thus the death of ROB. (It was always a gimmick anyway.) The Zapper stayed with the console for quite a long time, doing far better than the Atari lightguns ever did. As for the actual games, the Nintendo had such popular new games as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Excite Bike, Megaman, Punch Out, 1942, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, and Hogan's Alley. And that was just the early batch! As the NES gained popularity, we also got Super Mario Bros. 3, Ninja Gaiden, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, Duck Tales, Paperboy, Rad Racer, Final Fantasy, TMNT II & III, five more Mega Mans, Smash TV, Tetris, After Burner, Galaxy 5000, and many more! Suffice it to say, we were kept well in good games for more than long enough for the (even better!) SuperNES to be released.
In comparison, the 7800 didn't have anywhere near as extensive of a library of great games and relied heavily on its 2600 compatibility.
The NES's success in large part had to do with the fact that Nintendo monopolized the industry by restricting its third party licensees from porting and/or licensing their titles to non-NES systems
That certainly didn't help Atari any, but it was far from the primary reason. Had the 7800 been a console that people wanted, the game companies would have told Nintendo to shove it. Of course, the fact that most of the good games were produced by Japanese companies (who were more likely to target the Sega Master System than they were the Atari) didn't help Atari either.
Such behavior prevented the NEC TurboGrafx-16 from going anywhere here in the States whereas in Japan (under the name of "PC Engine") it was the dominant console because every company ported their games to it.
However, what appears to have happend is that the impact was side on, hitting where the probe wasn't designed to be hit, and doing fatial damage.
Not fatal damage, just tranceiver damage. They currently believe that the Beagle was operational, but that its radio instruments were damaged, thus preventing it from calling home.
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There is an implied contract, I'd say. Sony has contracted to sell you a CD containing music.
The key here is that you were sold music, not software. Software is not a feature of the music and was bundled without disclosure. This in itself may be illegal in some states. Now add to that fact that the software installs itself even after you decline to a contract offer for the software, and you have a recipe for legal disaster.
The rest of your comment is irrelevant. The software is not a feature of the music. Period.
ASP/IIS used a multithreaded model with runtime-compiled code
No it didn't. ASP was interpreted up until ASP.NET.
Servlets were a world changing technology compared to CGI. JSP's just-in-time compiling kicked ASP up between its ears in performance. Add runtime safety to the mix (you can't crash your entire server application by GPFing or dividing by zero) and you have the makings of a revolutionary product for its time.
They want to do everything in Java - even a basic web site.
;-)
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "basic web site". A good architect always tries to plan for any likely scenario. Quite often, that "basic web site" may be bound for a long life as a "not so basic website". If you tie yourself to PHP or ColdFusion, you may find yourself with serious performance and scalability problems inside two years. That's not a good situation to be in, and could have been prevented. (I've seen this happen in WAY too many companies.)
OTOH, if you're just implementing a simple shopping cart to integrate with Paypal for the few products your work-at-home company sells, go ahead and use PHP and best practices. Your best realistic estimates are unlikely to show your website expanding beyond the capabilities of PHP within a few years. And if you do have extreme expansion like that, you've got more important problems to deal with.
To be fair, Java's hype was well deserved. It was the first platform with a highly complete API set included in the core, it was the first dynamic web server technology that used a multithreaded model in addition to runtime-compiled code (bye-bye CGI), it was the first language with reflection designed into its core, and it was the first language to bring OOP, Virtual Machine, and cross-platform capabilities together into a workable package.
:-)
No other language has ever managed to pull off what Java has. In fact, it was the driving force behind the modern push for cross-platform languages, complete (and free) API libraries, and Object Oriented Programming. I look back at days before Java, and they seem like the dark ages of computers.
If Java has lost its hype, it's only because it's already accomplished all its goals.
It's not a contract because clicking a button is not intent to contract. It's not a signature, it's not a handshake
It's a contract in the same way that ordering food in a restaurant is a verbal contract to exchange money for food.
Reasons why EULAs may be unenforcable contracts, however, include:
- They tend to be unilateral in nature.
- They attempt to impose restrictions AFTER the point of sale contract. (This is a legal no-no.)
- They are forced upon the customer, as the he has already paid for the software.
- There's no way to prove that the user actually accepted the license. (That's why the GPL has a fall-through clause that uses regular copyright law for protection.)
- It cannot be shown that customers actually understand the license before accepting it, meaning that the terms may be unenforcable.
Basically, there are a lot of problems with EULAs. The idea that they're not contracts, however, is not one of them.
An important point to take note of in this case is that the user doesn't intend to install software. The software automatically begins installing when the user places a music CD in his drive. Since the user did not purchase the CD for software, did not agree to have the software installed, and STILL doesn't get to listen the music he PAID FOR, the state is more than correct in prosecuting the pants off of Sony for fraud.
Step 3: Contact a lawyers office and get a class action suit going against both of them.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit!
UT, if you don't agree, the software doesn't install and you can't return the software to the store.
That's news to me. Most EULAs I've read on shrink wrapped software state that you can return the software for a full refund if you don't agree with the terms and conditions. If the store won't accept the return due to some stupid policy, then contact the software maker directly for your refund.
The way I see it, Sony breached a contract.
A contract is, by definition, a bilateral agreement. The EULA is a contract offer, and if it is declined, there is NO contract between Sony and the user. What that means is that Sony is forcing a unilateral agreement onto a user who does not have a contract with Sony. That's a criminal case, not a civil case.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so take my comment with a grain of salt. But that's my interpretation of it in a nutshell.
I have to suspend a lot of disbelief to expect a starship like the Enterprise to be effectively run by 4 officers or crewpeople from the bridge.
4? How do you come up with that count? The minimum usually on the bridge is:
Captain
First Officer
Navigator
Pilot
Tactical Officer
Science Officer
Add in a healthy rotation of extra science, engineering, and councilling personnel and it's not that hard to believe that they're acting as the nerve center for the entire ship. The show often hints that there are far more people behind the scenes who are actually executing the various orders given.
In fact, if you watch the first season of NextGen, you'll note how they have more than one Chief Engineer, presumably because they have multiple engineering groups on such a large ship. This was later simplified to a single Chief Engineer in favor of using more descriptive titles like "Transporter Chief" or "Shuttlebay Chief".
The sidewinder just blows that wonderful illusion all to hell and back. "Oh, we'll fly a 3 million metric tonne spaceship with a $40 joystick I got from Best Buy! Cool, huh?"
It's called "suspension of disbelief". If a movie can't do that (especially a Sci-Fi movie) then it has no business being made. The Joystick schtik was probably the worst bit as it suddenly dropped you out of the mode of "this is a real universe" to the shattering "Hey, I'm watching a movie! An especially stupid one at that!"
;-)
Not exactly a way to sell DVDs.
I say we chose Jonathan Frakes. Not only will he be able to do a special about how we actually *did* land on the moon, but he'll be able to play his pretend Thunderbird and Insurrection games the whole way:
"Flaps to 5" (5 what?)
"Geostationary orbit has been resumed" (from reentry to the atmosphere a few moments ago?)
"Give me manual control!" (A Microsoft Sidewinder to control a STARSHIP?)
I liked Clockstoppers, I really did. It was a cute movie. But he *never* should have been let near Thunderbirds, much less a Star Trek movie. He has something of a screwed up idea about what is "cool", not to mention what is realistic.
Too bad nobody's come up with the equivalent of Velcro hooks that would attach to the microfibers of paper.
Well, you could always print the board on the felt side of the Velcro sheet, then glue the pieces to the back of the hooks side. Alternatively, you could past pieces of felt to the hexagons. Probably more trouble than it's worth, though, and can have detremental effects on the artwork and (by extension) the gameplay.
You know, maybe I'm just weird (probably), but I tended to keep busy on long car trips by reading books and technical documents. Great reads included "Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus" (which was a HUGE book that I read 10 or 12 times), Protected Mode code by Tran of the Demo Scene fame (anyone remember Timeless?), TARGA file format documentation (POVRay kind of sucked that way), theories on approximate PHONG shading, KiwiDog's excellent tutorial on 3D graphics, the manual for the 486 processor, a book on SuperVGA modes, the DirectX documentation (blech), Dr. Dobbs journals, college book on Data Structures (it was a hand me down), and whatever else I could scavange, purchase, or print out.
;-)
Pff, kids these days. Too busy playing Pokemon to keep quiet with something interesting. Am I the only one here who spent my childhood doing something actually interesting?
Obviously, it depends on the age of your passengers. If you've got your 5 and 7 year old in the back, a pin mounted board might not be such a good idea. Then again, they probably wouldn't be interested in a Wargame anyway.
:-)
OTOH, if you have your 12 year old and 15 year old in the back seat, they're probably old enough to handle a few pins.
I know someone was working on a magnetic version, but I don't know how that turned out.
Save the batteries...Pen AND Paper Games...
Amen. There are even some more advanced games that can be played on the go. Ghoulash, for example, only requires two printed sheets and two pencils. Scenarios take about 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, and you can pause at any time.
I've also heard of people taking printable board games like Battle for Moscow and mounting them on thick cardboard sheets. They're then able to put pins through the pieces to keep them in place at all times.
There's a "SpFn" key directly in the bottom-center of the keyboard. I assume that means a combination of the SpaceBar and Function buttons.
Of course, if they can get away with a keyboard design like this, my keyboard design should rule the world! Just images, all your keys arranged in a circular fashion on a lazy suzan. As you type, you spin the keyboard to move the buttons into position for striking. I'll be rich, rich I tell you!
Or maybe this Fisher Price keyboard isn't going anywhere. (Except out the door.)
Wrong voice. The original "Do no Evil" is in a passive voice. "[We] do not [do] Evil" is in an active voice, and changes the meaning to an instruction or argument rather than a motto.
And its Yodda-ish motto : "Do!. No evil!"
Dude, that's the Captain Kirk. Version.
The. Correct way. Is.
"No Evil, Do!"
Don't give up on it yet. Firefly fans need to buy the DVD when it comes out to show the companies how they can REALLY make money off the series. Of course, Fox would probably be too stubborn to part with TV rights no matter how much money was waved under their noses. :-(
So we have to make this movie a MOVIE success on DVD, or it's curtains for the series for good.
I didn't remember [Kid Icarus] being a Nintendo developed game. But I'll take your word for it.
;-)
:-)
I just looked it up, and it looks like you're partly right. It was developed by Intelligent Systems but published by Nintendo. Still not the best situation to extract a port from.
Paperboy was a 1984 Atari arcade game and as such, the rights to the game belonged to Atari Games Corp. (Tengen) and not Atari Corp. Atari Corp. owned the rights to all Atari arcade games pre-1984 before the breakup/spin-off/sell-off of the formerly unified company. That is why it did not appear on the 7800.
(raises eyebrow) It was ported to the Atari ST along with a dozen other systems. Which Atari made it was irrelevant.
Penetration of the Japanese market had nothing to do with the quality of Atari's products.
Didn't say it did. I said it has to do with reasons why the games weren't ported to the Atari. Nintendo had a stranglehold on both Japan and America. Thus it made sense to write for Nintendo and ignore the other systems. Your rant backs me up on that.
If you want to talk quality, I'll bring up Nintendo's "Game & Watch" stuff which they seemed to have based the latest version of the GameBoy on. I will refrain from commenting on that decision.
The Game and Watch systems. Now those were fun. Chintsy, but fun. Some of the ideas from those systems obviously made their way into the Nintendo DS (e.g. the dual screen arrangement), but I'd hardly say that the DS is a clone of those old systems. It's more like a modern gaming system cramed into a PDA with two screens. Fairly bright idea, actually.
That wasn't Atari's (Atari Games/Tengen, not Atari Corp.) fault.
That's what I said. Atari (Tengen) thought they had the rights, but didn't. Nintendo sure as heck wasn't going to port the game to the 7800.
The Atari Games (arcade)/Tengen (home version) was actually superior to the Nintendo version.
A lot of people argue that. Well, there's good news. As I understand it, the Tetris Plug and Play system is the Tengen version. Sooo... you should have no more trouble trying to find this rare cart.
So was Nintendo. So using your logic, why would *After Burner* show up on a non-Sega machine during the time period when Sega still made consoles?
After Burner was released on the Sega Master System in 1987. It was released on the Nintendo in 1989. I don't know the exact details, but I guess Sega decided that they'd squeezed their money out of the game and licensed it to Tengen who turned around and released an illegal cart that got them sued by Nintendo. At this point the 7800 had only a year of realistic life left in it.
Uhm, no. *Tempest 2000* was awesome. *Alien vs. Predator* was ground breaking. *Doom* was the best console port of that title.
Allow me to rephrase what I said so that it makes more sense: "Considering that the Jaguar didn't do so hot itself, I'd say the problem with the 3D0 was that the games sucked."
The Jaguar had some good games available for it, but nothing that really challenged the Nintendo outright. Doom and Wolf3D were both old news as computer games, and by the time the Playstation arrived the Jaguar was already outclassed anyway. Worrying about the RayMan port would have been like worrying that the Sega Genesis had a port of Lion King. It just didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
What the Jaguar lacked was:
1) A good pack-in.
2) A library of original games. (Almost all the good ones were ports from some other system.)
3) A mascot. (Sorry, but not a single system that succeeded in the 90's did so without a mascot. Mario, Crash Bandicut, and Sonic were good examples.)
4) A low price.
Songbird eventually showed what the Jaguar can really do, but it was a little late for an otherwise mediocre system.
The good games on the Jaguar were great, but the bad ones were really bad
have no idea why other than for cost Atari kept even the Pokey sound chip (used in the 8 bit line) from coming standard with the 7800.
:-)
Supposedly it was because there was no room left on the motherboard.
To which Kid Icarus, Megaman, 1942, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, Ninja Gaiden, Chip & Dale, Ducktales, Paperboy, Rad Racer, Final Fantasy, TMNT II/III, the other MegaMan titles, SmashTV, Tetris, After Burner, and Galaxy 5000 were prevented from being ported over to the 7800 because of Nintendo's exclusivity contracts on those very third-party licensees.
Lemme see here:
Kid Icarus - Created by Nintendo. Not a very likely candidate for porting.
Paperboy - An Atari game ported to pretty much every system exception the 7800. Way to go Atari! (rolls eyes)
Megaman - Megaman was a title created by a Japanese company for both the Japanese and American markets. Atari had pathetic Japanese penetration in comparison to the Nintendo/Famicom, which had penetration in both markets.
Rad Racer - Made by a Japanese company, published by Nintendo. Good luck getting that port.
1942 - Capcom video game. Unlikely that they'd bother with the 7800 considering the need for tiled scrolling.
Contra - Title for both Japanese and American markets.
Gradius - Title for both Japanese and American markets.
Ninja Gaiden - Title for both Japanese and American markets.
Final Fantasy - Title brought to America after failure in Japan.
Tetris - Exclusive title produced by Nintendo. Atari (Tengen) thought they had the rights, but didn't.
TMNT II/III - The 7800 was dead.
Smash TV - Ported to every system except the 7800. (7800 was pretty dead by then.)
After Burner - Just about every system except the 7800. Sega was a direct competitor to Atari and probably just didn't care.
Galaxy 5000 - 7800 was practically dead. ISO views, Digitized Speech, and other key features would have made a port to the 7800 difficult (if not impossible).
As for the 3D0, its whole downfall was due to the fact that the Atari Jaguar beat its graphics capabilities at a much lower cost level which deflated the whole 3D0 platform.
Considering that the Jaguar didn't do so hot itself, I'd say the problem was that the games sucked. Pretty much everyone who ever bought a 3D0 says the same thing. The games sucked. Many even go as far as to say, "Games? Those were games?" (In reference to the majority of the "games" relying on FMV.) Really, the 3D0 and even the Jaguar suffered heavily from technologitis. Which is to say that they tried to sell based on cool tech features rather than games that people actually wanted to play. In the case of the Jaguar, it had a second chance in the 3D era, but missed the boat by being underpowered for Polygonal games. *shrug* Such is the life of 90's gaming systems.
Oh, and *Batman Begins* ruled...
Amen bro.
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Baloney! Sure, the graphics were smaller on the Nintendo and there was some slowdown and flicker when a lot of characters were on the screen. But it was nowhere as bad as the pastel rejects from the color factory that were in the 7800 version. Not to mention the poor sound and the fact that punches were useless. One of my favorite things in DD was to grab a guy in a headlock and beat him to a pulp. No can do in the 7800 version, because punching is useless! I think the Video Game Critic said it best:
Pick up a 7800 and pop in *BallBlazer* and tell me the NES could do it.
Pick up *Galaxy 5000* and tell me that the 7800 could do it. Both consoles had strengths and weaknesses, but the 7800 was severely suffering in the graphics and sound departments. Sure, it could pump a hundred sprites or so, but that didn't help when it was compared to the quality of the graphics on the Nintendo.
Debatable. The ROB sure didn't sell.
The ROB sold just fine given that it was part of the base Nintendo System. Nintendo made the decision to remove it from the packaging and sell the console at a cheaper price, thus the death of ROB. (It was always a gimmick anyway.) The Zapper stayed with the console for quite a long time, doing far better than the Atari lightguns ever did. As for the actual games, the Nintendo had such popular new games as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Excite Bike, Megaman, Punch Out, 1942, Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, and Hogan's Alley. And that was just the early batch! As the NES gained popularity, we also got Super Mario Bros. 3, Ninja Gaiden, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, Duck Tales, Paperboy, Rad Racer, Final Fantasy, TMNT II & III, five more Mega Mans, Smash TV, Tetris, After Burner, Galaxy 5000, and many more! Suffice it to say, we were kept well in good games for more than long enough for the (even better!) SuperNES to be released.
In comparison, the 7800 didn't have anywhere near as extensive of a library of great games and relied heavily on its 2600 compatibility.
The NES's success in large part had to do with the fact that Nintendo monopolized the industry by restricting its third party licensees from porting and/or licensing their titles to non-NES systems
That certainly didn't help Atari any, but it was far from the primary reason. Had the 7800 been a console that people wanted, the game companies would have told Nintendo to shove it. Of course, the fact that most of the good games were produced by Japanese companies (who were more likely to target the Sega Master System than they were the Atari) didn't help Atari either.
Such behavior prevented the NEC TurboGrafx-16 from going anywhere here in the States whereas in Japan (under the name of "PC Engine") it was the dominant console because every company ported their games to it.
Honestly? I think the Tu
However, what appears to have happend is that the impact was side on, hitting where the probe wasn't designed to be hit, and doing fatial damage.
Not fatal damage, just tranceiver damage. They currently believe that the Beagle was operational, but that its radio instruments were damaged, thus preventing it from calling home.