"I remember an arcade 2 person version of Space Wars, not sure if it had the same name."
You nailed it. Cinematronics' Space Wars, designed by Larry Rosenthal, was the name of the game. Here is a history of the company, with information about Larry and Space Wars. VERY interesting reading.
...visit my site at arcadehistory.com. Read in particular the interview with Al Alcorn, Atari employee #1.
As was posted earlier by Demigod2k (or was it 99?), Computer Space (from Nutting & Associates)is generally known as the first coin-operated video arcade game. CS was a stand-alone version of Spacewar! It is also known as the first coin-operated video game flop; it sold less than 2,000 units. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney took the royalties from CS and formed Syzygy, which later became Atari (the original name was taken). Al Alcorn was hired and given the task of designing a tennis game. Nolan lied to Al and told him they had a contract with GE to create the game, when in actuality it was an exercise to see how Al could handle the job (the idea was to create a racing game afterwords). They put the game on location, and it did so well that the coin mechanism got jammed with quarters.
And so launched the gaming industry as we know it...
I dunno.... 25 minutes into Charlie's Angels, I figured out that getting in my car and driving to see the movie was on par with just taking the $8 I spent and wiping my ass with it.
"That is, if something of this sort was tried. When you think about it, this would make ISP more like Cable/DSS providers. You pay a flat fee, they handle all the content. I hope all you pro-privatization freaks enjoy the Commercial Internet."
That would be fine with me. All of the totally, utterly WORTHLESS mainstream garbage would be tied up in the "commercial internet" and the internet would revert back to what it USED to be: free information for those who need it. I'm sure there are some ISPs who won't buy into this garbage.
Nope. I frequent certain channels to talk and do business. I stay out of IRC politics, simply because to take it too seriously is to have no life outside of your computer.
"It's easy to tell. People who resort to person insults over the issue are people whose social standing rests completely on the '@'."
How witty. Truth hurt a bit?
"Tell you what. Get a tattoo of an @ sign on your face. That'll let people know you're to be respected."
See above.
The rest of your snappy comeback is just more groveling from someone who takes IRC too seriously and has been denied ops for far too long. Get away from your computer once in a while and those feelings will go away.
What are you? 12 years old? Sounds like a bunch of whining from someone who's been kickbanned too much for being an idiot in someone's channel. There is more to having channel ops than a power trip.
Besides, it's only IRC. Get kicked out of a channel? Just start your own or join another. Quit yer damn whining.
"I doubt that Ms. Pac-Man would get that much demand. It's not a rare machine at all, since so many were made after the success of Pac Man."
You are absolutely correct about the numbers of Ms. Pac-Man machines out there. But the demand for them is high, and this has driven the price for them up. As an operator, I refuse to pay more than $200-$300 for a working one, and even THAT is stretching it. But people who want one (especially the cocktails) will pay top dollar. Example? We took five Ms. Pacs to an auction. Of those five, only two worked, and two of the others were empty cabinets. We got $450 for one empty and $475 for the other! The working machines went for $800 and $950, respectively. The other machine (non-working but complete) went for $600.
Take a look on eBay and compare the prices sometime. It's crazy.
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
"I would not be surprised by the first Tempest machine fetching a high price, Tempest was a first generation machine with some pretty exotic hardware."
Yep. First color vector game. Not only that, but Tempest REALLY taxed the (shoddily-designed) monitor. The drawing of the vectors offscreen pushed REAL hard on the deflection circuitry. I've rebuilt dozens of those old WG 6101's. Nothing like deflection transistors frying, and the beam shooting the back of the cabinet... BZZZZT!
Or even better, the high voltage section of the monitor failing, and sending 120v surging through the low voltage section, frying the zener diodes... ZZZZZZZZAPPP!
But, I've digressed too far offtopic....
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
Ed Rotberg (creator of Atari's Battlezone, Blasteroids, and many other games) recently auctioned off a couple of his prototypes, and HE had an AOL mail account. Kinda makes this statement look ridiculous to me.
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
It's not serial numbers so much as rarity of a machine. Games like Major Havoc, I,Robot, Quantum (all Atari games, incidently), Blaster, anything in a duramold cabinet, and Computer Space are examples of these types of games. All of them had extremely low production numbers; hence their high asking prices. Then there are other games that are simply high in demand (Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man cocktail cabinets, Atari Football, Asteroids, Tempest, Battlezone, etc) and fetch high prices. OF course, with the economy slowing down, only the high demand machines are selling for anything NEAR their worth. Everything else is being stripped out and sold for their parts, as whole machines low in demand don't sell for much these days.
Quantum is an especially high demand machine. People have paid $500 for just the cabinet, AFTER it's been converted to some crappy JAMMA game and painted over!
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
"Then the next version of Windows will automatically delete any file with the.mp3 extention. Microsoft will probably buy out the MPAA companies, too."
Nah.... MS will have problems of their own convincing people to buy their rentware. The death of MS is at hand, but that's another thread.
You had a great point going up until your pointless drool about owning a gas-guzzling, environment-polluting SUV and bulldozing other people in the name of safety.
I think that if people wouldn't worry so much about DVD players, SUVs, big houses, and keeping up with the Jones' (and no, I don't own ANY of this crap), then two-income families wouldn't be necessary. But then again, comforts are SO MUCH MORE important than raising our children, aren't they?
"I really fail to see how anyone can argue that age limits on violent and explicit material are anything other than a sane policy."
I fail to see why the government should do the job that PARENTS are supposed to be doing. I don't know about you but I think once they regulate video games, the slope gets MIGHTY slippery. What would they target next? Next thing you know, you'll be hearing "Papers, please."
"It has been shown that children are more vulnerable to these things than adults, and so limiting their exposure to these kinds of materials is nothing more than caring for our future."
Then let's hold the PARENTS responsible for their kids' actions. Let them write legislation that punishes the parent when their kids commit crimes. I think that more parents would spend time PARENTING their kids, rather than keeping up with the Jones'.
"When violence becomes a part of society that is tolerated, then we must make sure that it does not become accepted. Currently American culture, such as it is, tolerates violence as being an inevitable consequcne of allowing firearms to be possessed by people, but it hasn't gotten to the stage yet where people accept violence as a tool for getting ahead in life. So, in order to make sure that people don't begin to perceive violence as a valid socio-economic tool of advancement, we need to make sure that children don't perceive violence as being "cool"."
Again, why should *I* be concerned with someone else's kid? Why should the rest of society? It always goes back to parents DOING THEIR JOB as parents.
"These kinds of laws, whilst perhaps not being strictly Constituional, are very necessary. We cannot let our children fall into the trap that violence is good, and nothing shouls be allowed to stand in the way of ensuring this. When the Constitution was drafted, if they'd have realised the threats that children face everyday, I'm sure they'd have realised that sometimes, freedom of speech is not an abolute concept."
So, for instance, what you are saying is that although it isn't strictly constitutional to pass a law allowing warrantless searches through someone's home, it should be done because they MIGHT have illegal materials or drugs in their possession? This is a very irresponsible statement to make. Politicians LOVE people like you; nothing like a human doormat that allows regulation into their lives to make it easier to expand their power base and strip away the rights of everyone. This is their #1 agenda, and ignorance like this is much welcome.
It all comes down to the parents. Like I said before, if you can't do the job, don't have kids.
Slashdot Mirror
"I remember an arcade 2 person version of Space Wars, not sure if it had the same name."
You nailed it. Cinematronics' Space Wars, designed by Larry Rosenthal, was the name of the game. Here is a history of the company, with information about Larry and Space Wars. VERY interesting reading.
Incidently, there are a couple of other clones of Spacewar! besides Space Wars and Computer Space.
Sorry.... damn typos.
The site is arcadehistory.com. The interview is here.
...visit my site at arcadehistory.com. Read in particular the interview with Al Alcorn, Atari employee #1.
As was posted earlier by Demigod2k (or was it 99?), Computer Space (from Nutting & Associates)is generally known as the first coin-operated video arcade game. CS was a stand-alone version of Spacewar! It is also known as the first coin-operated video game flop; it sold less than 2,000 units. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney took the royalties from CS and formed Syzygy, which later became Atari (the original name was taken). Al Alcorn was hired and given the task of designing a tennis game. Nolan lied to Al and told him they had a contract with GE to create the game, when in actuality it was an exercise to see how Al could handle the job (the idea was to create a racing game afterwords). They put the game on location, and it did so well that the coin mechanism got jammed with quarters.
And so launched the gaming industry as we know it...
I dunno.... 25 minutes into Charlie's Angels, I figured out that getting in my car and driving to see the movie was on par with just taking the $8 I spent and wiping my ass with it.
Bowie and Jagger did an insipid version of "Dancing In The Streets" Lionel Richie did "Dancing On The Ceiling"
"That is, if something of this sort was tried. When you think about it, this would make ISP more like Cable/DSS providers. You pay a flat fee, they handle all the content. I hope all you pro-privatization freaks enjoy the Commercial Internet."
That would be fine with me. All of the totally, utterly WORTHLESS mainstream garbage would be tied up in the "commercial internet" and the internet would revert back to what it USED to be: free information for those who need it. I'm sure there are some ISPs who won't buy into this garbage.
"Yup, you're an op on some channel."
Nope. I frequent certain channels to talk and do business. I stay out of IRC politics, simply because to take it too seriously is to have no life outside of your computer.
"It's easy to tell. People who resort to person insults over the issue are people whose social standing rests completely on the '@'."
How witty. Truth hurt a bit?
"Tell you what. Get a tattoo of an @ sign on your face. That'll let people know you're to be respected."
See above.
The rest of your snappy comeback is just more groveling from someone who takes IRC too seriously and has been denied ops for far too long. Get away from your computer once in a while and those feelings will go away.
Have a nice..... whatever.....
What are you? 12 years old? Sounds like a bunch of whining from someone who's been kickbanned too much for being an idiot in someone's channel. There is more to having channel ops than a power trip.
Besides, it's only IRC. Get kicked out of a channel? Just start your own or join another. Quit yer damn whining.
"I doubt that Ms. Pac-Man would get that much demand. It's not a rare machine at all, since so many were made after the success of Pac Man."
You are absolutely correct about the numbers of Ms. Pac-Man machines out there. But the demand for them is high, and this has driven the price for them up. As an operator, I refuse to pay more than $200-$300 for a working one, and even THAT is stretching it. But people who want one (especially the cocktails) will pay top dollar. Example? We took five Ms. Pacs to an auction. Of those five, only two worked, and two of the others were empty cabinets. We got $450 for one empty and $475 for the other! The working machines went for $800 and $950, respectively. The other machine (non-working but complete) went for $600.
Take a look on eBay and compare the prices sometime. It's crazy.
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
"I would not be surprised by the first Tempest machine fetching a high price, Tempest was a first generation machine with some pretty exotic hardware." Yep. First color vector game. Not only that, but Tempest REALLY taxed the (shoddily-designed) monitor. The drawing of the vectors offscreen pushed REAL hard on the deflection circuitry. I've rebuilt dozens of those old WG 6101's. Nothing like deflection transistors frying, and the beam shooting the back of the cabinet... BZZZZT! Or even better, the high voltage section of the monitor failing, and sending 120v surging through the low voltage section, frying the zener diodes... ZZZZZZZZAPPP! But, I've digressed too far offtopic.... Brian Deuel Pinballs Plus http://www.pinballsplus.com
Ed Rotberg (creator of Atari's Battlezone, Blasteroids, and many other games) recently auctioned off a couple of his prototypes, and HE had an AOL mail account. Kinda makes this statement look ridiculous to me.
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
It's not serial numbers so much as rarity of a machine. Games like Major Havoc, I,Robot, Quantum (all Atari games, incidently), Blaster, anything in a duramold cabinet, and Computer Space are examples of these types of games. All of them had extremely low production numbers; hence their high asking prices. Then there are other games that are simply high in demand (Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man cocktail cabinets, Atari Football, Asteroids, Tempest, Battlezone, etc) and fetch high prices. OF course, with the economy slowing down, only the high demand machines are selling for anything NEAR their worth. Everything else is being stripped out and sold for their parts, as whole machines low in demand don't sell for much these days.
Quantum is an especially high demand machine. People have paid $500 for just the cabinet, AFTER it's been converted to some crappy JAMMA game and painted over!
Brian Deuel
Pinballs Plus
http://www.pinballsplus.com
"Then the next version of Windows will automatically delete any file with the .mp3 extention. Microsoft will probably buy out the MPAA companies, too."
Nah.... MS will have problems of their own convincing people to buy their rentware. The death of MS is at hand, but that's another thread.
You had a great point going up until your pointless drool about owning a gas-guzzling, environment-polluting SUV and bulldozing other people in the name of safety. I think that if people wouldn't worry so much about DVD players, SUVs, big houses, and keeping up with the Jones' (and no, I don't own ANY of this crap), then two-income families wouldn't be necessary. But then again, comforts are SO MUCH MORE important than raising our children, aren't they?
"I really fail to see how anyone can argue that age limits on violent and explicit material are anything other than a sane policy."
I fail to see why the government should do the job that PARENTS are supposed to be doing. I don't know about you but I think once they regulate video games, the slope gets MIGHTY slippery. What would they target next? Next thing you know, you'll be hearing "Papers, please."
"It has been shown that children are more vulnerable to these things than adults, and so limiting their exposure to these kinds of materials is nothing more than caring for our future."
Then let's hold the PARENTS responsible for their kids' actions. Let them write legislation that punishes the parent when their kids commit crimes. I think that more parents would spend time PARENTING their kids, rather than keeping up with the Jones'.
"When violence becomes a part of society that is tolerated, then we must make sure that it does not become accepted. Currently American culture, such as it is, tolerates violence as being an inevitable consequcne of allowing firearms to be possessed by people, but it hasn't gotten to the stage yet where people accept violence as a tool for getting ahead in life. So, in order to make sure that people don't begin to perceive violence as a valid socio-economic tool of advancement, we need to make sure that children don't perceive violence as being "cool"."
Again, why should *I* be concerned with someone else's kid? Why should the rest of society? It always goes back to parents DOING THEIR JOB as parents.
"These kinds of laws, whilst perhaps not being strictly Constituional, are very necessary. We cannot let our children fall into the trap that violence is good, and nothing shouls be allowed to stand in the way of ensuring this. When the Constitution was drafted, if they'd have realised the threats that children face everyday, I'm sure they'd have realised that sometimes, freedom of speech is not an abolute concept."
So, for instance, what you are saying is that although it isn't strictly constitutional to pass a law allowing warrantless searches through someone's home, it should be done because they MIGHT have illegal materials or drugs in their possession? This is a very irresponsible statement to make. Politicians LOVE people like you; nothing like a human doormat that allows regulation into their lives to make it easier to expand their power base and strip away the rights of everyone. This is their #1 agenda, and ignorance like this is much welcome.
It all comes down to the parents. Like I said before, if you can't do the job, don't have kids.