Did anyone else note in the video the apparent movement of that dangling cable/belt, right around the time the sound hit its apex?
Actually, yes I did. If the movement was due to it being affected by the magnetic field, then I doubt the object's placement there was an accident- I assume they would have had to account for *anything* remotely magnetic in the vicinity(!)
There was a big to-do that day about him not wanting to do anything for himself, and one of the results of that was the need for him to make this call rather than relying on his mom. Anyway, after some typical teenage bitching he went off to his room to call the place with his cell phone.
How selfish can you get? Forcing him to make a phone call like that (that's *so* unfair) then requiring him to visit the barbers?
You don't need to do any of that- simply ask him to sit down, tell him that you won't be wasting any more than three or four minutes of his valuable time... then show him the pudding bowl and the kitchen scissors you'll be using to cut his hair yourself. Take care to reassure him that even though you've never done this before, you're pretty sure it can't be that difficult. It's well known that teenagers always respect their father's sense of style, so he'll be doubly confident!
Though before you get started, it might be fair to give him the chance to change his mind and make that phone call after all.;-)
Loading programs from tape on e.g. the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Five minutes of aural assault (followed by swearing as the load failed at 4:55).
<four_yorkshiremen>
You think you had it bad? I had an Atari 800XL (a later version of the Atari 800) that loaded at 600 baud rather than the Spectrum's 1500. (*) I had games that took around 15 minutes to load and some that were approaching 20. Five minutes was a short load for me! (**)
And we used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt, etc. </four_yorkshiremen>
(*) This is probably because the original Atari 400 and 800 came out in 1979 and had 8K memory- a pretty respectable amount at that point- and the tape speed was probably not an issue for those size of programs. Unfortunately, the later 64K and 128K models didn't have faster tape loading:'-(
(**) I had a disk drive, but annoyingly most low-cost games in the UK were only sold on cassette. I later got a tape-to-disk thing which I wished I'd bought years before.
Total and utter cobblers. "Banda" was a brand name, and the manufacturer, Block & Anderson, were based in London WC1, which as you may or may not know is nowhere near Hastings.
Yeah, apparently they were called "Banda machines" in Britain (Wikipedia backs this up). While I don't remember the technology in itself, I do remember getting circulars in either purple or gray (IIRC) which in retrospect must have been Banda copies when I started primary school in the early 80s.
IIRC by the time I was at secondary school at the end of the decade they were doing it all by photocopier.
Where did you get that pseudo-fact? You should ask for your money back.
As they said, it was their history teacher. Don't know if he/she should ask the teacher personally, or ask the local education authority to get their money back, probably complicated by the fact it would have been their parents' taxes- and not theirs- that paid for their education, assuming it was a state school.;-)
Nothing like actually being able to HEAR the software as it loads in to your TI-99/4A.
I can still remember the distinctive sound of my Atari 800XL loading cassettes at an irritatingly sluggish 600 baud. More interestingly (and annoyingly) I can still remember the difference in the quality of the sound output when the computer ran into a problem and you knew that the load had failed before the computer reported this fact to you.
I assume this was because the computer made its own noise "mirroring" data coming into the computer on top of the actual tape noise, but that it didn't do this when it failed, leaving the "flatter" tape sound only. Shortly followed by a low pitched drone that signified certain failure. Yuk... I don't miss loading from cassette at all.
Even *recently*, the "pretend" cassette emulation I was using to try to get some downloaded old games into a real ZX Spectrum via my old computer's soundcard (with a plugin that converted the files to loading tone noises) was a tempramental PITA. Though I do find the ZX81 loading sounds vaguely nostalgic- doubt I would if I had to put up with cassettes on a daily basis though.:-6
Remember when some CRT TVs had integrated VHS decks? I hated those things. So cheap. So ugly.
While they weren't a great idea for general use, I can see that they had some potentially useful niches. I remember one job I had in the late 90s where I was sent into a room to watch some stupid corporate video on one of those.
It occurred to me that this was one use where they might be beneficial over separates. It was a simple manner for them to haul out the portable TV/video, plug it in and start the video, then put it away again when I was finished. Nice simple box that fits in a cupboard.
Had that been separates, they would have had to get them out separately, connect them up, possibly faff around selecting and/or tuning in the correct channel, and then disconnect them and put them back in the cupboard. (Or I suppose they could have had them set up permanently on a bulky trolley, but why bother?)
Not that big a deal, but you can see that it might have been useful under those circumstances. For general household use though, they weren't that great- someone I knew had one that only had one tuner so (unlike a normal TV + Video setup where the TV and video recorder have separate tuners) you couldn't record one thing and watch another. Also, as the other reply says, there was the old "one part fails, whole thing has to get sent off" issue, compounded by the fact they were normally made with the most el cheapo constituent parts.
Probably also explains why "double decker" video recorders (similar to double audio cassette decks but with VHS) never took off. Amstrad- a low-end UK brand- had one in the late 80s or so, and I saw another low-end model six or seven years back, but that was it. Probably because they would have cost almost as much as two separate recorders, and the convenience for dubbing- not something people would have done *that* much- would have been outweighed by the fact that (I assume) you couldn't use each individual deck on a different TV or in a different room.
Some of these are specific to the particular technology involved, but the principles may apply more generally.
The rights-holders sold him the rights and he is free to do with them as he pleases.
Yet we are for some reason not free to express our displeasure?
Amen. I wasn't- and amn't- a major TMHT (*) fan (**), so I'm not massively upset personally. However, variants of the following stupid argument pop up on Slashdot all the time, namely that "it's a free market / free world therefore they're within their rights to do what they want with their thing / run their company how they like and you're free to not buy it and therefore you're not entitled to complain about it."
All but the last bit in bold may be arguably legitimate- and standard- but for some reason people around here seem to think that because there's a free market and people have the right to make a free choice then they have no right to complain.
Wrong. If "Fanboy Electronic Fashions" makes something I dislike or conducts their business in a manner I disagree with, yes, I don't have to buy it or do business with them (just as they're not obligated to pander to me). This fact *does not* disqualify me from criticising them anyway- whether I choose to buy their stuff or not- nor does it entitle them to protection from criticism. If I don't like the "uPhone" then "you don't have to buy it" doesn't stop me from criticising it, or encouraging others not to buy it- in fact, to believe otherwise pretty much implies you dislike free criticism of products (plus people who *had* bought it could similarly be dismissed with "well, you bought it anyway").
(*) Teenage Mutant *Hero* Turtles, yes, I live in Britain and we got the BBC-approved title;-)
(**) Probably due to being just a bit too old for the cartoon when it first came out (early to mid teens), though I knew people in my class at school who liked it.
Er, yeah, I *had* spotted that! You don't really think I was being serious when I suggested the Yanks could revoke his name and we'd have to refer to him by IP number instead?;-)
If he named himself Kim Dotnz the Americans wouldn't have any jurisdiction over him.
Technically, being called Kim Dotcom doesn't in itself give the Americans any jurisdiction over him, just his canonical name. In fact, you can still refer to him as "Mr 88.191.78.39".
Anyway, as.nz domains all appear to be split into second level categories, he'd have to be "Kim Dotcodotnz" or "Kim Dotgeekdotnz" (that second one showing that the Americans aren't the only one coming up with stupid domain categories).
Arkanoid wasn't a direct reinvention of Pong, it was a reinvention of Breakout, which- while quite obviously descended from Pong- wasn't the exact same game.
But yeah, as I said in my comment near the start of this discussion, most "new" versions of classic games are just pointless-bells-and-whistles adding would-be-nostalgia-exploiting bull****.
What I don't get is why they gotta rehash the SAME ones over and over AND OVER
Here's why... you said it yourself. It's to exploit...
some sense of nostalgia
And even though
anybody that played any of the originals are probably just as damned sick as i am of these rehashes
you have to realise that it's in the nature of entertainment corporations that they're going to exploit the heck out of any IP that has made them a lot of money previously, so long as they think they can make a bit more money out of it. They won't stop until long after this has stopped paying off.
Then after some time someone else will think they can exploit the "franchise" again, and given how the media reports (and people perceive) things associated with a retro name, they know it'll get attention (e.g. stories about "Napster" closing got in the news recently, even though the real Napster died circa 2001 and the current business was just another "legal downloads" thing that had bought the name and had no other connection).
This doesn't always translate into a successful money-making business- after all, the "new" "Napster" didn't succeed against iTunes- but they'll keep trying anyway.
I remember hearing about Hasbro's 3D version of Centipede at the time and thinking "typical gimmicky attempt to 'update' a classic", but having looked it up, their 3D Frogger appears to have done something interesting with the idea, even if it's more of a sequel that expands on the idea (see my comment on Invaders/Galaxians above) than the remake of the original it presents itself as.
plasma pong...except atari had the creater take it down because of property rights
There are doubtless countless clones, derivatives and clever variants of Pong. The fact that the current "Atari" (i.e. owners of the name/IP) will bless one as official probably makes little difference. It's common for such companies to produce numerous "official" sequels to famous arcade games over the years. Those are generally forgotten when they want to sell the *next* pointless update of the original.
It's like Space Invaders. That's a very simple game- you can tart it up or add gimmicks, but they're either going to end up as (a) Space Invaders with shiny graphics, bells and whistles that just exaggerate how simplistic the core game is or (b) something so modernised and far from the original that it's an "in name only".
The "truest" sequel would be a game that started from the same basic concept as Space Invaders, retaining what made it work, but moving it on and enhancing it, making the original look slightly staid in the process. But Namco basically did that (unofficially) already... 30 years ago with "Galaxian" and then "Galaga".
Tetris is probably *the* uber-example of a simple game that works well *because* of its simplicity and absolutely doesn't need bells or whistles- the game was probably perfected with the Game Boy version. However, that hasn't stopped them making countless official sequels and spinoffs that add nothing but gimmickry to justify the sale of a game we've already bought many times. I appreciate that Alexey Pajitnov got shafted on the rights early on, and probably wants to make some money from his creation, but it doesn't change the fact that it's all pointless.
Apparently everything, as it turns out. Atari is nothing but a name, bought and sold like something found at Best Buy, and now brandished by a company with no resemblance or heritage to the company that defined the name.
Yep- the current "Atari" is really just the company formerly known as Infogrames, who bought the name from Hasbro Interactive around a decade back.
The original- and most famous- Atari Inc. was split in 1984. The computer and home division became Jack Tramiel's Atari Corp. (legally separate, but an obvious successor in interest) which fizzled out in the mid-90s and merged with a second-rate hard drive manufacturer that went bankrupt soon after. The arcade division (Atari Games) was sold to Midway who dropped the "Atari" name in the late 90s, and closed it altogether a few years later.
IMHO that's where anything resembling a true continuation of the original Atari ended.. Hasbro Interactive and Infogrames were/are connected in name and rights only, but obviously it serves Infogrames', er... *Atari's* retro-credibility better if they get to present themselves as the "classic" Atari and present Bushnell as- or at least imply that he was- their founder.
But this is precisely the problem. Precognition violates the second law of thermodynamics. End of story. Not only does it violate it, it violates it badly. If "ESP" were demonstrated, especially things like precognition, it is very, very difficult to see how it could ever be made consistent with our current knowledge of physics.
That depends on what one thinks "precognition" is and whether it's actual knowledge or just a form of prediction (subconscious or otherwise).
I mean, *I* can predict the future with a very high degree of accuracy for certain things- I know that if I throw a ball in the air that it's going to start falling and hit the ground in a few seconds time with near-certainty. I know that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
You said that Microsoft had to start from scratch implying (at least how I'd interpret that) that they were having to create all new material from nothing; they weren't.
I agree- while consoles are computers in the technical sense, they aren't what most people would refer to as one in everyday usage.
In fact, the difference is bigger than may be apparent. The lack of a keyboard may be the most obvious difference between an Atari 2600 and a "real" late-70s/early-80s home or personal computer. But in fact, the architecture and design philosophy renders it unsuitable for that general-purpose use.
Consider that while the VCS/2600 supports *ROM* cartridges up to 4KB in size, it only has 128 *bytes* of onboard RAM. Obviously the intention was that virtually all the program code would be held on ROM, with that miniscule RAM *just* being enough to keep track of volatile data, sprite positions, etc. for most games.
But word processing? That'd be silly. You could hold about one sentence in those 128 bytes- less than Twitter's 140 characters! Except that the program would probably need some of that space for overheads, so it would have been even less after that. And the 2600 didn't have any hardware character-generation facility- that all had to be done in software, and the letters would be way too large and chunky anyway.
The ROM-centric design is also why you could never realistically use it to write your own programs on, in a way that was possible with even the most simple "real" computers (e.g. Sinclair ZX80 with integer BASIC). Atari *did* release a "BASIC Programming" cartridge that appears to have been so ludicrously limited that it proves the point- 64 bytes of space and 9 lines max would have barely been worth the keypad add-on they made for it. (Even if it's impressive that they managed to get even *that* to work at all, in the same way that one would be impressed at someone having got a pig to sing, but still wouldn't want to listen to it for very long!).
Then there was the issue of only one line of screen "memory" that had to be regenerated every time you wanted subsequent lines on the picture to be different.
Sure, you could play pre-written games on it (not developed on the console itself, but written by very advanced programmers who knew how to work within the limitations and design). And that was exactly what it was designed for, and did well- but it fundamentally wasn't a "computer" in the everyday sense.
I guess one could design an add-on that expanded the RAM *and* internal hardware capabilities- as well as adding a keyboard- (and AFAIK many add-ons did do that), but that would be a fundamental change to the basic hardware.
tl;dr version- the Atari VCS wasn't just a cut-down keyboardless home computer; its entire architecture was fundamentally unsuited to many uses that would be taken for granted on even the simplest "real" home computer of the early 80s
It's actually a useful portmanteau of professional and consumer, distinguishing an area of cost and feature above that of a typical consumer and below that of a professional. Usually used in reference to serious hobbyists.
I was always under the impression that prosumer was where high-end consumer and low-end professional markets overlapped such that a "prosumer" piece of equipment could conceivably be used by someone in either category. The Wikipedia article suggests that this may be the case according to some definitions?
For example, I might be wrong, but wouldn't the Nikon D7000 be a "prosumer" device by this definition?
Someone else said that in terms of features "prosumer > consumer > professional", i.e. prosumer is a high-end consumer device with more features than the mainstream model. I don't know if this is true, or if it was true but isn't now. I have the cheaper D5100 which is definitely in the "consumer" part of the spectrum, though not the bottom-end model, and includes some cheesy "Photoshop-in-camera" and gimmick features (which I'd rather not have personally). Maybe the definitions have changed recently as digital technology has made adding features to lower-end devices much easier?
AFAIK, The official plot for the Matrix continued in the now-defunct Matrix Online MMO. I played it for a while, but the plot was less apparent or interesting than the sequel films.
Ah, good point. I'd heard about that, but forgot because I'm not really into computer games (even though I remember the earlier "Enter the Matrix" because it was hyped at the same time as- and integrated plotwise with- Reloaded). There was also that "Path of Neo" thing.
But that said, these are still- if somewhat more mass market than comics and the like- still not the sort of exploitation of the franchise on the level of a new film that I might have expected them to have tried by now.
Honestly, 8 years after Revolutions, I'm still not sure that I care, and perhaps this feeling among the (ex-) potential viewership is why they didn't bother.
Past decade? Franchise has been around longer than that.
Didn't say it hadn't been. I was talking about how "common that word has become" with the general public (i.e. the "we" in "we're all").
Twenty-plus years ago, it's not an expression the man on the street would have used or even really been aware of in the filmic sense (probably only associating the word with retail franchising).
Using the same scale we're currently at 20 minutes to midnight before Obama personally castrates all men in West Virginia using a switch blade knife...
Aren't you being a little optimistic here? If anyone could do that, it's Mr. Yes-we-can!
Slashdot Mirror
Did anyone else note in the video the apparent movement of that dangling cable/belt, right around the time the sound hit its apex?
Actually, yes I did. If the movement was due to it being affected by the magnetic field, then I doubt the object's placement there was an accident- I assume they would have had to account for *anything* remotely magnetic in the vicinity(!)
There was a big to-do that day about him not wanting to do anything for himself, and one of the results of that was the need for him to make this call rather than relying on his mom. Anyway, after some typical teenage bitching he went off to his room to call the place with his cell phone.
How selfish can you get? Forcing him to make a phone call like that (that's *so* unfair) then requiring him to visit the barbers?
;-)
You don't need to do any of that- simply ask him to sit down, tell him that you won't be wasting any more than three or four minutes of his valuable time... then show him the pudding bowl and the kitchen scissors you'll be using to cut his hair yourself. Take care to reassure him that even though you've never done this before, you're pretty sure it can't be that difficult. It's well known that teenagers always respect their father's sense of style, so he'll be doubly confident!
Though before you get started, it might be fair to give him the chance to change his mind and make that phone call after all.
Loading programs from tape on e.g. the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Five minutes of aural assault (followed by swearing as the load failed at 4:55).
<four_yorkshiremen>
:'-(
You think you had it bad? I had an Atari 800XL (a later version of the Atari 800) that loaded at 600 baud rather than the Spectrum's 1500. (*) I had games that took around 15 minutes to load and some that were approaching 20. Five minutes was a short load for me! (**)
And we used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt, etc.
</four_yorkshiremen>
(*) This is probably because the original Atari 400 and 800 came out in 1979 and had 8K memory- a pretty respectable amount at that point- and the tape speed was probably not an issue for those size of programs. Unfortunately, the later 64K and 128K models didn't have faster tape loading
(**) I had a disk drive, but annoyingly most low-cost games in the UK were only sold on cassette. I later got a tape-to-disk thing which I wished I'd bought years before.
Total and utter cobblers. "Banda" was a brand name, and the manufacturer, Block & Anderson, were based in London WC1, which as you may or may not know is nowhere near Hastings.
Yeah, apparently they were called "Banda machines" in Britain (Wikipedia backs this up). While I don't remember the technology in itself, I do remember getting circulars in either purple or gray (IIRC) which in retrospect must have been Banda copies when I started primary school in the early 80s.
IIRC by the time I was at secondary school at the end of the decade they were doing it all by photocopier.
Where did you get that pseudo-fact? You should ask for your money back.
As they said, it was their history teacher. Don't know if he/she should ask the teacher personally, or ask the local education authority to get their money back, probably complicated by the fact it would have been their parents' taxes- and not theirs- that paid for their education, assuming it was a state school. ;-)
Nothing like actually being able to HEAR the software as it loads in to your TI-99/4A.
I can still remember the distinctive sound of my Atari 800XL loading cassettes at an irritatingly sluggish 600 baud. More interestingly (and annoyingly) I can still remember the difference in the quality of the sound output when the computer ran into a problem and you knew that the load had failed before the computer reported this fact to you.
:-6
I assume this was because the computer made its own noise "mirroring" data coming into the computer on top of the actual tape noise, but that it didn't do this when it failed, leaving the "flatter" tape sound only. Shortly followed by a low pitched drone that signified certain failure. Yuk... I don't miss loading from cassette at all.
Even *recently*, the "pretend" cassette emulation I was using to try to get some downloaded old games into a real ZX Spectrum via my old computer's soundcard (with a plugin that converted the files to loading tone noises) was a tempramental PITA. Though I do find the ZX81 loading sounds vaguely nostalgic- doubt I would if I had to put up with cassettes on a daily basis though.
Remember when some CRT TVs had integrated VHS decks? I hated those things. So cheap. So ugly.
While they weren't a great idea for general use, I can see that they had some potentially useful niches. I remember one job I had in the late 90s where I was sent into a room to watch some stupid corporate video on one of those.
It occurred to me that this was one use where they might be beneficial over separates. It was a simple manner for them to haul out the portable TV/video, plug it in and start the video, then put it away again when I was finished. Nice simple box that fits in a cupboard.
Had that been separates, they would have had to get them out separately, connect them up, possibly faff around selecting and/or tuning in the correct channel, and then disconnect them and put them back in the cupboard. (Or I suppose they could have had them set up permanently on a bulky trolley, but why bother?)
Not that big a deal, but you can see that it might have been useful under those circumstances. For general household use though, they weren't that great- someone I knew had one that only had one tuner so (unlike a normal TV + Video setup where the TV and video recorder have separate tuners) you couldn't record one thing and watch another. Also, as the other reply says, there was the old "one part fails, whole thing has to get sent off" issue, compounded by the fact they were normally made with the most el cheapo constituent parts.
Probably also explains why "double decker" video recorders (similar to double audio cassette decks but with VHS) never took off. Amstrad- a low-end UK brand- had one in the late 80s or so, and I saw another low-end model six or seven years back, but that was it. Probably because they would have cost almost as much as two separate recorders, and the convenience for dubbing- not something people would have done *that* much- would have been outweighed by the fact that (I assume) you couldn't use each individual deck on a different TV or in a different room.
Some of these are specific to the particular technology involved, but the principles may apply more generally.
The rights-holders sold him the rights and he is free to do with them as he pleases.
Yet we are for some reason not free to express our displeasure?
Amen. I wasn't- and amn't- a major TMHT (*) fan (**), so I'm not massively upset personally. However, variants of the following stupid argument pop up on Slashdot all the time, namely that "it's a free market / free world therefore they're within their rights to do what they want with their thing / run their company how they like and you're free to not buy it and therefore you're not entitled to complain about it."
;-)
All but the last bit in bold may be arguably legitimate- and standard- but for some reason people around here seem to think that because there's a free market and people have the right to make a free choice then they have no right to complain.
Wrong. If "Fanboy Electronic Fashions" makes something I dislike or conducts their business in a manner I disagree with, yes, I don't have to buy it or do business with them (just as they're not obligated to pander to me). This fact *does not* disqualify me from criticising them anyway- whether I choose to buy their stuff or not- nor does it entitle them to protection from criticism. If I don't like the "uPhone" then "you don't have to buy it" doesn't stop me from criticising it, or encouraging others not to buy it- in fact, to believe otherwise pretty much implies you dislike free criticism of products (plus people who *had* bought it could similarly be dismissed with "well, you bought it anyway").
(*) Teenage Mutant *Hero* Turtles, yes, I live in Britain and we got the BBC-approved title
(**) Probably due to being just a bit too old for the cartoon when it first came out (early to mid teens), though I knew people in my class at school who liked it.
lol, it was a joke...
Er, yeah, I *had* spotted that! You don't really think I was being serious when I suggested the Yanks could revoke his name and we'd have to refer to him by IP number instead? ;-)
If he named himself Kim Dotnz the Americans wouldn't have any jurisdiction over him.
Technically, being called Kim Dotcom doesn't in itself give the Americans any jurisdiction over him, just his canonical name. In fact, you can still refer to him as "Mr 88.191.78.39".
.nz domains all appear to be split into second level categories, he'd have to be "Kim Dotcodotnz" or "Kim Dotgeekdotnz" (that second one showing that the Americans aren't the only one coming up with stupid domain categories).
Anyway, as
Arkanoid wasn't a direct reinvention of Pong, it was a reinvention of Breakout, which- while quite obviously descended from Pong- wasn't the exact same game.
But yeah, as I said in my comment near the start of this discussion, most "new" versions of classic games are just pointless-bells-and-whistles adding would-be-nostalgia-exploiting bull****.
Yeah, I only found that out recently and thought it was quite interesting too. This was also the case with the original Breakout too, apparently.
What I don't get is why they gotta rehash the SAME ones over and over AND OVER
Here's why... you said it yourself. It's to exploit...
some sense of nostalgia
And even though
anybody that played any of the originals are probably just as damned sick as i am of these rehashes
you have to realise that it's in the nature of entertainment corporations that they're going to exploit the heck out of any IP that has made them a lot of money previously, so long as they think they can make a bit more money out of it. They won't stop until long after this has stopped paying off.
Then after some time someone else will think they can exploit the "franchise" again, and given how the media reports (and people perceive) things associated with a retro name, they know it'll get attention (e.g. stories about "Napster" closing got in the news recently, even though the real Napster died circa 2001 and the current business was just another "legal downloads" thing that had bought the name and had no other connection).
This doesn't always translate into a successful money-making business- after all, the "new" "Napster" didn't succeed against iTunes- but they'll keep trying anyway.
I want frogger from a first person view.
It's not exactly first person, but they did do a somewhat 3D version of Frogger in the late 90s.
I remember hearing about Hasbro's 3D version of Centipede at the time and thinking "typical gimmicky attempt to 'update' a classic", but having looked it up, their 3D Frogger appears to have done something interesting with the idea, even if it's more of a sequel that expands on the idea (see my comment on Invaders/Galaxians above) than the remake of the original it presents itself as.
plasma pong...except atari had the creater take it down because of property rights
There are doubtless countless clones, derivatives and clever variants of Pong. The fact that the current "Atari" (i.e. owners of the name/IP) will bless one as official probably makes little difference. It's common for such companies to produce numerous "official" sequels to famous arcade games over the years. Those are generally forgotten when they want to sell the *next* pointless update of the original.
It's like Space Invaders. That's a very simple game- you can tart it up or add gimmicks, but they're either going to end up as (a) Space Invaders with shiny graphics, bells and whistles that just exaggerate how simplistic the core game is or (b) something so modernised and far from the original that it's an "in name only".
The "truest" sequel would be a game that started from the same basic concept as Space Invaders, retaining what made it work, but moving it on and enhancing it, making the original look slightly staid in the process. But Namco basically did that (unofficially) already... 30 years ago with "Galaxian" and then "Galaga".
Tetris is probably *the* uber-example of a simple game that works well *because* of its simplicity and absolutely doesn't need bells or whistles- the game was probably perfected with the Game Boy version. However, that hasn't stopped them making countless official sequels and spinoffs that add nothing but gimmickry to justify the sale of a game we've already bought many times. I appreciate that Alexey Pajitnov got shafted on the rights early on, and probably wants to make some money from his creation, but it doesn't change the fact that it's all pointless.
Apparently everything, as it turns out. Atari is nothing but a name, bought and sold like something found at Best Buy, and now brandished by a company with no resemblance or heritage to the company that defined the name.
Yep- the current "Atari" is really just the company formerly known as Infogrames, who bought the name from Hasbro Interactive around a decade back.
The original- and most famous- Atari Inc. was split in 1984. The computer and home division became Jack Tramiel's Atari Corp. (legally separate, but an obvious successor in interest) which fizzled out in the mid-90s and merged with a second-rate hard drive manufacturer that went bankrupt soon after. The arcade division (Atari Games) was sold to Midway who dropped the "Atari" name in the late 90s, and closed it altogether a few years later.
IMHO that's where anything resembling a true continuation of the original Atari ended.. Hasbro Interactive and Infogrames were/are connected in name and rights only, but obviously it serves Infogrames', er... *Atari's* retro-credibility better if they get to present themselves as the "classic" Atari and present Bushnell as- or at least imply that he was- their founder.
But this is precisely the problem. Precognition violates the second law of thermodynamics. End of story. Not only does it violate it, it violates it badly. If "ESP" were demonstrated, especially things like precognition, it is very, very difficult to see how it could ever be made consistent with our current knowledge of physics.
That depends on what one thinks "precognition" is and whether it's actual knowledge or just a form of prediction (subconscious or otherwise).
I mean, *I* can predict the future with a very high degree of accuracy for certain things- I know that if I throw a ball in the air that it's going to start falling and hit the ground in a few seconds time with near-certainty. I know that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
For free?
No, I don't believe that's what I said.
You said that Microsoft had to start from scratch implying (at least how I'd interpret that) that they were having to create all new material from nothing; they weren't.
I gotta admit, I saw that *cough* fly girl in the middle with the wings of a moth and the back of a Bayonetta, and I was like "DAT ASS."
Indeed, there seems to be a thing going with scientists and flies' bootylicious backsides :-O
[Microsoft] had to start from scratch, while Britannica had all their articles written.
This comment suggested that Microsoft initially licensed content from Funk and Wagnall, and Wikipedia's history of Encarta backs this up.
I agree- while consoles are computers in the technical sense, they aren't what most people would refer to as one in everyday usage.
In fact, the difference is bigger than may be apparent. The lack of a keyboard may be the most obvious difference between an Atari 2600 and a "real" late-70s/early-80s home or personal computer. But in fact, the architecture and design philosophy renders it unsuitable for that general-purpose use.
Consider that while the VCS/2600 supports *ROM* cartridges up to 4KB in size, it only has 128 *bytes* of onboard RAM. Obviously the intention was that virtually all the program code would be held on ROM, with that miniscule RAM *just* being enough to keep track of volatile data, sprite positions, etc. for most games.
But word processing? That'd be silly. You could hold about one sentence in those 128 bytes- less than Twitter's 140 characters! Except that the program would probably need some of that space for overheads, so it would have been even less after that. And the 2600 didn't have any hardware character-generation facility- that all had to be done in software, and the letters would be way too large and chunky anyway.
The ROM-centric design is also why you could never realistically use it to write your own programs on, in a way that was possible with even the most simple "real" computers (e.g. Sinclair ZX80 with integer BASIC). Atari *did* release a "BASIC Programming" cartridge that appears to have been so ludicrously limited that it proves the point- 64 bytes of space and 9 lines max would have barely been worth the keypad add-on they made for it. (Even if it's impressive that they managed to get even *that* to work at all, in the same way that one would be impressed at someone having got a pig to sing, but still wouldn't want to listen to it for very long!).
Then there was the issue of only one line of screen "memory" that had to be regenerated every time you wanted subsequent lines on the picture to be different.
Sure, you could play pre-written games on it (not developed on the console itself, but written by very advanced programmers who knew how to work within the limitations and design). And that was exactly what it was designed for, and did well- but it fundamentally wasn't a "computer" in the everyday sense.
I guess one could design an add-on that expanded the RAM *and* internal hardware capabilities- as well as adding a keyboard- (and AFAIK many add-ons did do that), but that would be a fundamental change to the basic hardware.
tl;dr version- the Atari VCS wasn't just a cut-down keyboardless home computer; its entire architecture was fundamentally unsuited to many uses that would be taken for granted on even the simplest "real" home computer of the early 80s
Ha ha.... even *I* saw this story and thought..... "NERDS!!!!!!!!!!"
;-)
Er, maybe not in that voice though
It's actually a useful portmanteau of professional and consumer, distinguishing an area of cost and feature above that of a typical consumer and below that of a professional. Usually used in reference to serious hobbyists.
I was always under the impression that prosumer was where high-end consumer and low-end professional markets overlapped such that a "prosumer" piece of equipment could conceivably be used by someone in either category. The Wikipedia article suggests that this may be the case according to some definitions?
For example, I might be wrong, but wouldn't the Nikon D7000 be a "prosumer" device by this definition?
Someone else said that in terms of features "prosumer > consumer > professional", i.e. prosumer is a high-end consumer device with more features than the mainstream model. I don't know if this is true, or if it was true but isn't now. I have the cheaper D5100 which is definitely in the "consumer" part of the spectrum, though not the bottom-end model, and includes some cheesy "Photoshop-in-camera" and gimmick features (which I'd rather not have personally). Maybe the definitions have changed recently as digital technology has made adding features to lower-end devices much easier?
AFAIK, The official plot for the Matrix continued in the now-defunct Matrix Online MMO. I played it for a while, but the plot was less apparent or interesting than the sequel films.
Ah, good point. I'd heard about that, but forgot because I'm not really into computer games (even though I remember the earlier "Enter the Matrix" because it was hyped at the same time as- and integrated plotwise with- Reloaded). There was also that "Path of Neo" thing.
But that said, these are still- if somewhat more mass market than comics and the like- still not the sort of exploitation of the franchise on the level of a new film that I might have expected them to have tried by now.
Honestly, 8 years after Revolutions, I'm still not sure that I care, and perhaps this feeling among the (ex-) potential viewership is why they didn't bother.
Past decade? Franchise has been around longer than that.
Didn't say it hadn't been. I was talking about how "common that word has become" with the general public (i.e. the "we" in "we're all").
Twenty-plus years ago, it's not an expression the man on the street would have used or even really been aware of in the filmic sense (probably only associating the word with retail franchising).
Using the same scale we're currently at 20 minutes to midnight before Obama personally castrates all men in West Virginia using a switch blade knife...
Aren't you being a little optimistic here? If anyone could do that, it's Mr. Yes-we-can!
What does Bob the Builder have to do with it?!