The port to the Atari 5200 was sweet and, at least by the screenshots, was faithful to the original.
That's hardly surprising- the 5200's internal hardware was apparently near-identical to the 400/800, with only minor tweaks to the memory map and replacement of ths OS with a simpler monitor program.
Aside from changing references to a few memory locations and altering the joystick handler to allow for the 5200's different controllers, the 5200 version is probably the same code as the original!
Although I was never a massive fan of Star Raiders personally (it was already almost ten years old when I first saw it), in retrospect I can see that it was a brilliant game and technical feat by the standards of its time. It definitely deserves a lot of respect for that along with adding some depth to the shoot-'em-up genre.
They're probably more worried about someone using peek and poke in unintended ways.
Can't figure out if this is a joke or not. Yes, PEEK and POKE originally let you hit the hardware of the host computer, which would be a massive security hole if you could do that to the iPhone itself. However, unless they've made a stupid (or intentional) hole, there's no way they'd let you "hit the hardware" of anything more than the virtual emulated C64, which should effectively be sandboxed.
Oh, and FWIW, Atari *did* eventually release versions of MS BASIC, originally on disk, and later on cart, but I never heard about them being used much.
The only reason Atari computers don't have Microsoft's BASIC is because they contracted MS to do it, but MS produced code that was too big to fit inside the 4K ROM (typical Microsoft bloat).;-) Atari was forced to abandon the idea of including Basic inside the machine.
You're correct about MS's inability to make their BASIC small enough for Atari. But the rest is somewhat muddled.
Atari BASIC- or rather, the implementation that Atari chose as standard (albeit optional) for their computers- was *not* based on MS's version. It was developed by another company along different lines.
Apparently Atari had originally intended getting MS to fit their 8K implementation into an 8K (not 4K) ROM, but due to the 6502's less dense instruction set, it worked out closer to 9K, and that was without the required graphics commands.
So Atari BASIC's optional status wasn't due to MS, as it wasn't their implementation that was chosen anyway.
I don't know that Atari ever considered doing a BASIC in 4K; that's a very limited amount of space and would probably have limited the power of what was then a state-of-the-art machine.
Um. The C64 had a cartridge slot. As it bank-switched, cartridges could "take over" and hide the basic rom
No doubt (the Atari worked the same way with carts), but despite what you say, the total *proportion* of C64 cart games was relatively small versus those on tape and disk- particularly in later years.
As for the C64GS, yeah, I remember that. It was a major flop. They released it ridiculously late in the day, around the same time as Amstrad's even more derided CPC-based console.
If they'd released it earlier and/or the C64 had already had a large library of cart-based games (and that didn't require keyboard input!), they might have sold some, but the market was almost exclusively cassette and disk based at that stage.
Even if it had been a good idea, anyone with any sense could have seen that the 8-bit market was in its final stages by then. I mean, it came out almost simultaneously with the European release of the Mega Drive, and the Amiga was approaching its mainstream peak. Even as a cheap cash-in it didn't make sense.
BTW, Atari did the same thing with the 400/800/XL/XE; they released the XE Games System, but at least they did that three years earlier when the market was still healthy, even if it *was* a lame attempt to cash in on Nintendo's success with reissues of old games (and hence a lukewarm seller at best). The C64GS, with a potential library of easy ports, might have succeeded if it had been released then, particularly in Europe where Nintendo's disinterest led to the NES being in second place to the Sega Master System(!) and consoles in general weren't as big as the US until the 16-bit era.
Usually when you run games, word processors, internet browsers, or other programs on a C64 you type LOAD "PROGRAM",8,1 which directs the external drive to load that code directly into memory - overwriting everything that's present including the MS-BASIC.
Which essentially means that- like most 8-bit computers of that era- you need to enter the BASIC interpreter, however briefly, to load what are otherwise entirely machine code programs.
The Atari 8-bit computers (400, 800, XL and XE) were notable for *not* requiring that. In fact, on the original 400 and 800, BASIC came on a separate cart and was an optional and non-essential extra.
Disc software simply booted. Tape software required holding "Start" on power-up, then play (on tape) then return. Easy!
Although later versions (XL and XE) did include BASIC, it still wasn't required for loading non-BASIC games. In fact, you often had to disable it (by also holding down "Option" on power-up) for some games to run.
The Atari computers were released almost 3 years before the C64, but while this method of loading may have originally been a necessity due to BASIC not being included by default, it seems like (a) a simpler and (b) a "cleaner" way to do it, rather than having the OS built around one particular language as an ersatz command line.
Why? If you buy an oil change that includes a free cup of coffee, but never claim it, is it fair?
That's a transparently misleading analogy and a lousy argument.
You have an entirely free choice where to go for an oil change (in a market that is free by any reasonable measure). You're perfectly free to go elsewhere for an oil change if you don't care about the coffee and think you can get a better deal. Unlike:-
The government (and by extension, the People) has decided that charging a levy on blank media is a fair way to compensate artists.
That as may be, it's a charge that (a) applies everywhere you buy your media and (b) has been made compulsory by the government. Hence, regardless of the rights or wrongs of a levy, it's transparently not the same case as your "free coffee" example above (a charge resulting from the free market that doesn't apply to all outlets; i.e. you have a choice).
It is your choice to buy the media, so yes you are paying for something that you never use. However, it is your choice to not use what you pay for.
That's a somewhat weaselish way of putting it. It subtly shifts responsibility for the levy from the government onto the buyer by implying that because because they made the (genuinely free) choice to buy the discs in the first place then they made the free choice to pay the levy.
Again, this isn't a judgement on the rights or wrongs of such a levy, but you certainly can't imply that the levy itself is a free choice of the buyer using quasi-logic and blatantly flawed analogies.
That's an excellent point. The question is, would it be beneficial in normal use to retain the cached data between boots? If that benefit would be negligible, then the OS and/or BIOS could erase it upon shutdown and/or restart, provided it didn't take too long.
The option to erase the flash manually that the other guy suggested would also be an essential.
That may be true; I wouldn't care personally if the hard drive inside my computer was physically much bigger. (If I actually thought I'd use the capacity, that is).
Problem is that your solution essentially gives magnetic's less steep exponential curve a once-off (or twice at most) "bump" that- assuming the curves retain their current trends- still can't overcome the inevitable mathematical fact that the steeper curve will eventually overtake the shallower one, but merely postpone that point.
And I still don't really understand it. especially the last three episodes.
I think that's around the time script editor George Markstein left; the final episodes AFAIK more represent McGoohan's vision for the show.
Which- if it is the case- means that Markstein was a useful counterbalance to McGoohan's undeniable vision, because the final few episodes- particularly the last two- were definitely inferior, seeming to suffer from cod psychological/philosophical/surreal elements. The earlier episodes had some of that but got away with it, I assume because of Markstein's involvement.
Capacity is still an issue though. [..] it would cost me far, far too much to buy enough SSDs to transfer my 4TB of data from my HDDs.
Go back and read what he said. It's clear that he was talking about the near to middle future, not the current situation:-
Sooner or later, no moving parts beats moving parts. The magnetic disk makers have done an amazing job so far, but eventually they're going to lose out to solid-state.
Flash memory is at present growing in capacity much faster than magnetic drives. (Actually, it's growing at the rate that the latter grew at during the 1990s and early 2000s). Of course, it's still got a long way to go to catch up, and- like hard drives- it's not guaranteed that it'll keep that rate of growth forever. Still, the current shape of solid state's curve has it intersecting that of magnetic platters in the not so distant future.
I can't take the flash to the next PC as i can do with the SSD.
Not really a big deal; if it becomes commonplace, most PCs will eventually have it (or something like it) as standard anyway and you won't be bothered about it.
As a child, however, at the recommendation of her doctor, her parents encouraged her to play Tetris and other hand-eye-coordination / reaction time games a lot, [..] EEGs now show that other parts of her brain have taken up the slack. You'd never know she used to have trouble with motor control.
If you observe closely, there may be occasional giveaway signals to the way your wife's brain approaches hand/eye coordination...
Murdoch doesn't need to be (and isn't) infallible. He just needs to be able to rectify his mistakes and/or abandon them before they grow too costly.
It's like how Microsoft dismissed the importance of the Internet in the mid-1990s and promoted their own, closed MSN service. That was a major mistake on their part, yet here they are 15 years later, still the dominant force in the computer world. (*)
Why? Because they recognised their mistake, and used their market power and business sense to reposition themselves and crush a major competitor at the time (Netscape).
Murdoch has made missteps in the past, yet he's still here, and dominant.
Perhaps you *will* eventually turn out to be right. But the demise of the likes of Murdoch and Microsoft has been predicted many times over the years by countless random forum posters like yourself. When- or if- it does eventually happen, it'll say more about luck than the insight of most of the people who got it "right".
So- with respect- you'll excuse me for having a wait-and-see attitude and not taking your word for it.
(*) Some might argue that MS have slightly lost their dominance, and that Google are going to eat their lunch. Arguably so, but that's the result of more recent developments whose predicted results are still in the future.
Rupert Murdoch may be many things. He's an entirely amoral, self-serving piece of shit who as far as I can tell has never believed in, stood for, or even demonstrated any interest in anything other than furthering his own business interests. Everything else is a means to that end. He's shown no compunction in repeatedly subverting journalistic integrity to promote his own business agenda.
The recent Silvio Berlusconi scandals were promoted by his former ally Murdoch, when Berlusconi made moves to tax Murdoch's Sky Italia satellite TV network less favourably. Yes, Berlusconi is just as bad, but that's beside the point- the fact that Murdoch can use the might of his own network to wage a partisan campaign against him is hardly A Good Thing.
It's been clear for a long time that Murdoch Sr hates the BBC because it's competition, and not because of any higher principle, regardless of what he likes to claim. Like the Berlusconi case, it's clear he's quite happy for his mouthpieces to sacrifice journalistic integrity in favour of going after his enemies.
Anyway, back to the point. Murdoch may be many things, but he's not an idiot. Quite the opposite. His one-dimensional focus and complete absence of any principles have made him an extremely shrewd businessman.
I wouldn't count him out too soon, any more than I'd finish the cancer drugs halfway through the course because the tumour hadn't been quite as aggressive this week.
Oh please. The BBC is hardly impartial. It's been accused (with evidence) of being pro-Palestinian and well as anti-Israel. It's not neutral. Is the BBC as a concept wonderful? Yeah. Is it objective? No.
Yeah, well plenty of other people have accused it of being pro-Israeli, so go figure.
It would be terrible to grow up in a world where there are real consequences for our actions, wouldn't it? It's just wonderful that we have a nanny state to mandate the use of seatbelts, airbags, ABS, etc ad nauseum, all designed to protect us from our own idiocy.
If, as the GP said, people driving cars where they (or their passengers) aren't wearing seatbelts are more hesitant to apply the brakes sharply for the reasons given, this has consequences for other drivers on the road.
If it was solely a case of the unbelted drivers flying through their own windscreen or dying in a crash because they didn't want to apply the brakes, fair enough; but the latter case has consequences for others on the road. Therefore it's not simply a "nanny state" (i.e. supposedly for one's one good) issue, but more complicated.
Of course, taken to its extreme, you could use such logic to justify all manner of draconian measures. So it's a question of balancing the others' safety with the driver's freedoms.
you dont put a touchscreen vertical or horizontal.
you put them at a 45 degree angle if it's at a workstation.
I'll take your word that they word well for that specific- and niche- use.
I was discussing their suitability for general purpose computer use. In which case isn't having the screen at a 45 degree angle an inconvenient angle for continuous viewing? And are those screens you describe being used for both controls/GUI and output displays (as most computer interfaces are) or primarily as reconfigurable soft-control panels?
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The port to the Atari 5200 was sweet and, at least by the screenshots, was faithful to the original.
That's hardly surprising- the 5200's internal hardware was apparently near-identical to the 400/800, with only minor tweaks to the memory map and replacement of ths OS with a simpler monitor program.
Aside from changing references to a few memory locations and altering the joystick handler to allow for the 5200's different controllers, the 5200 version is probably the same code as the original!
Although I was never a massive fan of Star Raiders personally (it was already almost ten years old when I first saw it), in retrospect I can see that it was a brilliant game and technical feat by the standards of its time. It definitely deserves a lot of respect for that along with adding some depth to the shoot-'em-up genre.
They're probably more worried about someone using peek and poke in unintended ways.
Can't figure out if this is a joke or not. Yes, PEEK and POKE originally let you hit the hardware of the host computer, which would be a massive security hole if you could do that to the iPhone itself. However, unless they've made a stupid (or intentional) hole, there's no way they'd let you "hit the hardware" of anything more than the virtual emulated C64, which should effectively be sandboxed.
Oh, and FWIW, Atari *did* eventually release versions of MS BASIC, originally on disk, and later on cart, but I never heard about them being used much.
The only reason Atari computers don't have Microsoft's BASIC is because they contracted MS to do it, but MS produced code that was too big to fit inside the 4K ROM (typical Microsoft bloat). ;-) Atari was forced to abandon the idea of including Basic inside the machine.
You're correct about MS's inability to make their BASIC small enough for Atari. But the rest is somewhat muddled.
Atari BASIC- or rather, the implementation that Atari chose as standard (albeit optional) for their computers- was *not* based on MS's version. It was developed by another company along different lines.
Apparently Atari had originally intended getting MS to fit their 8K implementation into an 8K (not 4K) ROM, but due to the 6502's less dense instruction set, it worked out closer to 9K, and that was without the required graphics commands.
So Atari BASIC's optional status wasn't due to MS, as it wasn't their implementation that was chosen anyway.
I don't know that Atari ever considered doing a BASIC in 4K; that's a very limited amount of space and would probably have limited the power of what was then a state-of-the-art machine.
Um. The C64 had a cartridge slot. As it bank-switched, cartridges could "take over" and hide the basic rom
No doubt (the Atari worked the same way with carts), but despite what you say, the total *proportion* of C64 cart games was relatively small versus those on tape and disk- particularly in later years.
As for the C64GS, yeah, I remember that. It was a major flop. They released it ridiculously late in the day, around the same time as Amstrad's even more derided CPC-based console.
If they'd released it earlier and/or the C64 had already had a large library of cart-based games (and that didn't require keyboard input!), they might have sold some, but the market was almost exclusively cassette and disk based at that stage.
Even if it had been a good idea, anyone with any sense could have seen that the 8-bit market was in its final stages by then. I mean, it came out almost simultaneously with the European release of the Mega Drive, and the Amiga was approaching its mainstream peak. Even as a cheap cash-in it didn't make sense.
BTW, Atari did the same thing with the 400/800/XL/XE; they released the XE Games System, but at least they did that three years earlier when the market was still healthy, even if it *was* a lame attempt to cash in on Nintendo's success with reissues of old games (and hence a lukewarm seller at best). The C64GS, with a potential library of easy ports, might have succeeded if it had been released then, particularly in Europe where Nintendo's disinterest led to the NES being in second place to the Sega Master System(!) and consoles in general weren't as big as the US until the 16-bit era.
Usually when you run games, word processors, internet browsers, or other programs on a C64 you type LOAD "PROGRAM",8,1 which directs the external drive to load that code directly into memory - overwriting everything that's present including the MS-BASIC.
Which essentially means that- like most 8-bit computers of that era- you need to enter the BASIC interpreter, however briefly, to load what are otherwise entirely machine code programs.
The Atari 8-bit computers (400, 800, XL and XE) were notable for *not* requiring that. In fact, on the original 400 and 800, BASIC came on a separate cart and was an optional and non-essential extra.
Disc software simply booted. Tape software required holding "Start" on power-up, then play (on tape) then return. Easy!
Although later versions (XL and XE) did include BASIC, it still wasn't required for loading non-BASIC games. In fact, you often had to disable it (by also holding down "Option" on power-up) for some games to run.
The Atari computers were released almost 3 years before the C64, but while this method of loading may have originally been a necessity due to BASIC not being included by default, it seems like (a) a simpler and (b) a "cleaner" way to do it, rather than having the OS built around one particular language as an ersatz command line.
Why? If you buy an oil change that includes a free cup of coffee, but never claim it, is it fair?
That's a transparently misleading analogy and a lousy argument.
You have an entirely free choice where to go for an oil change (in a market that is free by any reasonable measure). You're perfectly free to go elsewhere for an oil change if you don't care about the coffee and think you can get a better deal. Unlike:-
The government (and by extension, the People) has decided that charging a levy on blank media is a fair way to compensate artists.
That as may be, it's a charge that (a) applies everywhere you buy your media and (b) has been made compulsory by the government. Hence, regardless of the rights or wrongs of a levy, it's transparently not the same case as your "free coffee" example above (a charge resulting from the free market that doesn't apply to all outlets; i.e. you have a choice).
It is your choice to buy the media, so yes you are paying for something that you never use. However, it is your choice to not use what you pay for.
That's a somewhat weaselish way of putting it. It subtly shifts responsibility for the levy from the government onto the buyer by implying that because because they made the (genuinely free) choice to buy the discs in the first place then they made the free choice to pay the levy.
Again, this isn't a judgement on the rights or wrongs of such a levy, but you certainly can't imply that the levy itself is a free choice of the buyer using quasi-logic and blatantly flawed analogies.
That's an excellent point. The question is, would it be beneficial in normal use to retain the cached data between boots? If that benefit would be negligible, then the OS and/or BIOS could erase it upon shutdown and/or restart, provided it didn't take too long.
The option to erase the flash manually that the other guy suggested would also be an essential.
That may be true; I wouldn't care personally if the hard drive inside my computer was physically much bigger. (If I actually thought I'd use the capacity, that is).
Problem is that your solution essentially gives magnetic's less steep exponential curve a once-off (or twice at most) "bump" that- assuming the curves retain their current trends- still can't overcome the inevitable mathematical fact that the steeper curve will eventually overtake the shallower one, but merely postpone that point.
And I still don't really understand it. especially the last three episodes.
I think that's around the time script editor George Markstein left; the final episodes AFAIK more represent McGoohan's vision for the show.
Which- if it is the case- means that Markstein was a useful counterbalance to McGoohan's undeniable vision, because the final few episodes- particularly the last two- were definitely inferior, seeming to suffer from cod psychological/philosophical/surreal elements. The earlier episodes had some of that but got away with it, I assume because of Markstein's involvement.
I see some idiot's been given mod points and is marking everything down as a troll... :-/
Random I/O is essentially uncacheable.
I'm sure that would come as a great surprise to anyone who ever implemented a virtual memory system.
His flaw lies in assuming- or implying- that most I/O *is* random.
Capacity is still an issue though. [..] it would cost me far, far too much to buy enough SSDs to transfer my 4TB of data from my HDDs.
Go back and read what he said. It's clear that he was talking about the near to middle future, not the current situation:-
Sooner or later, no moving parts beats moving parts. The magnetic disk makers have done an amazing job so far, but eventually they're going to lose out to solid-state.
Flash memory is at present growing in capacity much faster than magnetic drives. (Actually, it's growing at the rate that the latter grew at during the 1990s and early 2000s). Of course, it's still got a long way to go to catch up, and- like hard drives- it's not guaranteed that it'll keep that rate of growth forever. Still, the current shape of solid state's curve has it intersecting that of magnetic platters in the not so distant future.
I can't take the flash to the next PC as i can do with the SSD.
Not really a big deal; if it becomes commonplace, most PCs will eventually have it (or something like it) as standard anyway and you won't be bothered about it.
A technofied version even did quite well on the UK charts... :O
As a child, however, at the recommendation of her doctor, her parents encouraged her to play Tetris and other hand-eye-coordination / reaction time games a lot, [..] EEGs now show that other parts of her brain have taken up the slack. You'd never know she used to have trouble with motor control.
If you observe closely, there may be occasional giveaway signals to the way your wife's brain approaches hand/eye coordination...
Murdoch doesn't need to be (and isn't) infallible. He just needs to be able to rectify his mistakes and/or abandon them before they grow too costly.
It's like how Microsoft dismissed the importance of the Internet in the mid-1990s and promoted their own, closed MSN service. That was a major mistake on their part, yet here they are 15 years later, still the dominant force in the computer world. (*)
Why? Because they recognised their mistake, and used their market power and business sense to reposition themselves and crush a major competitor at the time (Netscape).
Murdoch has made missteps in the past, yet he's still here, and dominant.
Perhaps you *will* eventually turn out to be right. But the demise of the likes of Murdoch and Microsoft has been predicted many times over the years by countless random forum posters like yourself. When- or if- it does eventually happen, it'll say more about luck than the insight of most of the people who got it "right".
So- with respect- you'll excuse me for having a wait-and-see attitude and not taking your word for it.
(*) Some might argue that MS have slightly lost their dominance, and that Google are going to eat their lunch. Arguably so, but that's the result of more recent developments whose predicted results are still in the future.
I like the BBC. Murdoch's an idiot.
Rupert Murdoch may be many things. He's an entirely amoral, self-serving piece of shit who as far as I can tell has never believed in, stood for, or even demonstrated any interest in anything other than furthering his own business interests. Everything else is a means to that end. He's shown no compunction in repeatedly subverting journalistic integrity to promote his own business agenda.
The recent Silvio Berlusconi scandals were promoted by his former ally Murdoch, when Berlusconi made moves to tax Murdoch's Sky Italia satellite TV network less favourably. Yes, Berlusconi is just as bad, but that's beside the point- the fact that Murdoch can use the might of his own network to wage a partisan campaign against him is hardly A Good Thing.
It's been clear for a long time that Murdoch Sr hates the BBC because it's competition, and not because of any higher principle, regardless of what he likes to claim. Like the Berlusconi case, it's clear he's quite happy for his mouthpieces to sacrifice journalistic integrity in favour of going after his enemies.
Anyway, back to the point. Murdoch may be many things, but he's not an idiot. Quite the opposite. His one-dimensional focus and complete absence of any principles have made him an extremely shrewd businessman.
I wouldn't count him out too soon, any more than I'd finish the cancer drugs halfway through the course because the tumour hadn't been quite as aggressive this week.
Oh please. The BBC is hardly impartial. It's been accused (with evidence) of being pro-Palestinian and well as anti-Israel. It's not neutral. Is the BBC as a concept wonderful? Yeah. Is it objective? No.
Yeah, well plenty of other people have accused it of being pro-Israeli, so go figure.
It would be terrible to grow up in a world where there are real consequences for our actions, wouldn't it? It's just wonderful that we have a nanny state to mandate the use of seatbelts, airbags, ABS, etc ad nauseum, all designed to protect us from our own idiocy.
If, as the GP said, people driving cars where they (or their passengers) aren't wearing seatbelts are more hesitant to apply the brakes sharply for the reasons given, this has consequences for other drivers on the road.
If it was solely a case of the unbelted drivers flying through their own windscreen or dying in a crash because they didn't want to apply the brakes, fair enough; but the latter case has consequences for others on the road. Therefore it's not simply a "nanny state" (i.e. supposedly for one's one good) issue, but more complicated.
Of course, taken to its extreme, you could use such logic to justify all manner of draconian measures. So it's a question of balancing the others' safety with the driver's freedoms.
Things liek partnerships with Netflix
And mudkips?
At least they saved money by using an installed-by-default font in the logo.
That's only for the sneak preview- they're using Comic Sans for the final release.
Sheesh, chill out, it was a stupid play on the headline making fun of a slightly stereotyped (but not untrue) type of Facebook user. That's all... :-)
Yeah, I've noticed that this "Facebook" app exposes an abject insecurity.
Namely that of the users who seem to be obsessed with their not appearing popular enough, and adding as many "friends" as they can.
you dont put a touchscreen vertical or horizontal. you put them at a 45 degree angle if it's at a workstation.
I'll take your word that they word well for that specific- and niche- use.
I was discussing their suitability for general purpose computer use. In which case isn't having the screen at a 45 degree angle an inconvenient angle for continuous viewing? And are those screens you describe being used for both controls/GUI and output displays (as most computer interfaces are) or primarily as reconfigurable soft-control panels?