The years between Batman and X-Men were dark and filled with things like the nippled batsuit. To me, X-Men was the start of the golden age of comic movies we're living in now.
A Spiderman reboot? Unnecessary! Reboots work for things that went irreversibly in the wrong direction, and Mr. Raimi's direction is far from wrong.
Curiously, his IMDB listing includes "Spiderman V" and "Evil Dead IV." Hope it all comes true.
Curiously, Tesla uses laptop cells for their battery pack—the logic being to let others worry about battery technology while they worry about their cars.
If those nanowire cells with the theoretical 10x power potential don't come to be, they'll start using Bosch batteries... which actually sounds very natural.
I remember that, and I bought that issue just to scan the centerfold which isn't on that link, but was my Weird Item of the Day a few years back. Nowadays, it's buried somewhere in my archive...
It would have been more entertaining if Perot bought Dell, then maybe I'd like them. After all, he caused the world's largest jailbreak that appears in the Guinness Book.
Right on! Maybe I should have tried to find a way to capitalize on my skills. The woman I dealt with was just an idiot--too bad the sign featuring people's records the previous owner put on all the machines were gone.
[Thanks, & likewise to you, for your "use of the force", young jedi! lol...]
LOL! Thanks. I remember one freaky thing happening--before I mastered that game, I was talking to a friend of mine and not paying attention. Somewhere along the way I realized I had all six of my shields back and was going on automatic pilot. I guess I grew a few neural connections with all the repetition--much like playing bass.
[Sorry, but that? THAT, I never saw... as I quit playing games in the arcades right after my 2nd yr. of collegiate academia (was busy keeping up grades, dealing with women I dated etc. et al, & playing a sport in college (lacrosse, ate quite a bit of my time everday, during the spring & fall seasons))...]
Aye, having no life is a prerequisite to excellence in videogames (and programming for that matter!)
[P.S.=> Boy, I "fired up" DEFENDER here, & I stink @ it now, lol... @ least, by way of comparison to what I used to be able to do on it in the arcades! apk]
Yes, I had that experience too. I know I could get back to my old skill level (surviving to wave 10 on a good day) or even conquer the game, but I don't want to dedicate that kind of time. Besides, I have a life now. *looks around* Okay, sort of. Heh heh.
That looks interesting, especially since "Williams" was involved in the project. My only complaint would be the need to unlock half the tables. If I walked into an arcade and saw a Firepower machine, beeline would be the operative term.
I don't know if the original game's hardware and code are emulated, because playing samples of Jarvis' classic sounds would be heresy, especially for dynamically generated effects like Firepower's lit-spinner sound--the most beautiful sound to ever come from a pinball machine.
If they made that package for the PC, I'd probably buy it. The Visual Pinball tables are great (especially PacDude's work,) but they don't always play realistically, and every once in a while, a ball will drain through a flipper. D`oh!
For original tables with realistic physics and 3D acceleration, check out the free Future Pinball.
Have you played Blasteroids? It's the fourth in the Asteroids series, and one button lets you cycle the size and capabilities of your ship between three sizes. In two player mode, if one ship is large and one is small, they can merge into a large ship that moves fairly fast and fires large shots, and the small ship becomes a turret that fires a spread of little shots, but has no say in the direction of travel. That made for some interesting arcade playing.
It may be hard to do with emulation though--the game calls for dial controls and three buttons. Maybe an original game can still be found...
Firepower too--it was monotone, but robots were cooler in '79. "Enemy destroyed you..." followed by the sound effect that would later mean an extra life.
I remember reading about Mr. Daily--it's hard to believe someone could have heart failure at that age, but I do know the stress once you make it to the "fast cyan" robots around 10,000. My personal best was the "fast red" ones (17,000+: very, very lucky!) You're facing an empty maze, and you know it's going to be full of constantly firing robots in one second, and you have maybe 1/10th of a second to decide which way to dodge when they appear. Often one will be right in front of you, meaning instant death.
Re:Defender is an all time classic
on
A History of Robotron
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· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, Defender was a continuation of the Williams pinball machines as far as sound effects went. They used a separate CPU (a 6809 I believe) that ran a set of sound routines that Eugene Jarvis created that were brilliant. The game running on the main CPU would set a flag on the sound CPU to begin the next sound effect, which was done by an digital-to-analog converter tied to the second CPU. Defender also had a power switch under the front of the console, much like a pinball machine!
Many of the sounds on Defender and Robotron came from the classic pinball game Firepower, which was also difficult and ate quarters, but it was so good, we kept feeding it, desperately trying to trigger the killer multiball countdown. You can find this machine in the Visual Pinball/PinMAME arena.
Gottlieb came close, Atari was great, Namco was classic, but nothing could touch the excitement of Williams' late 70's pinball and early 80's videogames.
LMAO! I salute you for your Defender skill. I was once kicked out of an arcade for conquering Star Wars. The woman in charge said I did something to the machine because it was going so slow. I handed it off to another arcade-goer, and he lost all six shields and died within a minute. She still didn't get it, even though she saw me weaving through the holes in the trench barriers while using the force (not firing until the end for the big bonus.) "It's not cheating--it's skill!"
It was an unhappy occasion when games started working on the "feed quarters to continue" business model.
Funny, I bought a butane soldering iron/torch a few years ago, and they checked my ID, even though I was almost forty at the time. Apparently they cater to a crackhead demographic now.
That visit was also the point where I learned how much lead-free solder sucks. I'm just waiting for the day my mother calls to report fireworks in the back of her TV when a tin whisker takes out the power connector.
Count me in the Radio Shaft column. I've been using that name for at least a dozen years. I tried to get a job there a few years ago, and they're looking for someone who is essentially a used car salesman. No wonder they aren't any help when looking for parts.
I found out just last year they discontinued their free battery cards, which probably shows how little I care about the name change.
Ahh. I remember the good old days when they advertised having a selection of over 2000 tubes, heh heh.
Slashdot Mirror
The years between Batman and X-Men were dark and filled with things like the nippled batsuit. To me, X-Men was the start of the golden age of comic movies we're living in now.
A Spiderman reboot? Unnecessary! Reboots work for things that went irreversibly in the wrong direction, and Mr. Raimi's direction is far from wrong.
Curiously, his IMDB listing includes "Spiderman V" and "Evil Dead IV." Hope it all comes true.
Curiously, Tesla uses laptop cells for their battery pack—the logic being to let others worry about battery technology while they worry about their cars.
If those nanowire cells with the theoretical 10x power potential don't come to be, they'll start using Bosch batteries... which actually sounds very natural.
Just eat a few burgers before sex to turn the drive back on. There's a joke here somewhere...
All it needs are a pair of hands.
I'm still laughing my ass off at this one. It reminds me of the vampire parasites from the Necroscope books.
The thought of enemy soldiers afraid to sit down or sleep... hmm, what would Sam Raimi do?
Yikes! It looks like the future of medicine isn't all medical tricorders and hyposprays... it's robotic colon spiders and robotic tape worms!
I remember that, and I bought that issue just to scan the centerfold which isn't on that link, but was my Weird Item of the Day a few years back. Nowadays, it's buried somewhere in my archive...
As long as they don't try to attract it with a cigarette lighter!
All hail the Robotic Colon Spider Overlords!
www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/10/02
Just listened to this the other night at work--worth finding in U-space. ;-)
...or not switching the phone off before going to movie theaters, which is a common reason they end up in people's colons.
If I only had .0256% of that deal!
It would have been more entertaining if Perot bought Dell, then maybe I'd like them. After all, he caused the world's largest jailbreak that appears in the Guinness Book.
I want to point out a good interview with Norman Borlaug on Penn Jillette's short-lived radio show.
Go to www.pennfans.net/category/Audio_Archive/PennRadio/20,120/ and hit the link for "Penn.Jillette.Radio.Show.2006.08.09"
It was interesting, and Mr. Borlaug is one of Penn's greatest heroes.
It would be interesting to find out.
That slide show reminds me of the Newegg tour posted here some time ago.
Right on! Maybe I should have tried to find a way to capitalize on my skills. The woman I dealt with was just an idiot--too bad the sign featuring people's records the previous owner put on all the machines were gone.
I loved Vanguard--GRUB RIDES!
[Thanks, & likewise to you, for your "use of the force", young jedi! lol...]
LOL! Thanks. I remember one freaky thing happening--before I mastered that game, I was talking to a friend of mine and not paying attention. Somewhere along the way I realized I had all six of my shields back and was going on automatic pilot. I guess I grew a few neural connections with all the repetition--much like playing bass.
[Sorry, but that? THAT, I never saw... as I quit playing games in the arcades right after my 2nd yr. of collegiate academia (was busy keeping up grades, dealing with women I dated etc. et al, & playing a sport in college (lacrosse, ate quite a bit of my time everday, during the spring & fall seasons))...]
Aye, having no life is a prerequisite to excellence in videogames (and programming for that matter!)
[P.S.=> Boy, I "fired up" DEFENDER here, & I stink @ it now, lol... @ least, by way of comparison to what I used to be able to do on it in the arcades! apk]
Yes, I had that experience too. I know I could get back to my old skill level (surviving to wave 10 on a good day) or even conquer the game, but I don't want to dedicate that kind of time. Besides, I have a life now. *looks around* Okay, sort of. Heh heh.
That looks interesting, especially since "Williams" was involved in the project. My only complaint would be the need to unlock half the tables. If I walked into an arcade and saw a Firepower machine, beeline would be the operative term.
I don't know if the original game's hardware and code are emulated, because playing samples of Jarvis' classic sounds would be heresy, especially for dynamically generated effects like Firepower's lit-spinner sound--the most beautiful sound to ever come from a pinball machine.
If they made that package for the PC, I'd probably buy it. The Visual Pinball tables are great (especially PacDude's work,) but they don't always play realistically, and every once in a while, a ball will drain through a flipper. D`oh!
For original tables with realistic physics and 3D acceleration, check out the free Future Pinball.
Ooooh! I like that idea.
Have you played Blasteroids? It's the fourth in the Asteroids series, and one button lets you cycle the size and capabilities of your ship between three sizes. In two player mode, if one ship is large and one is small, they can merge into a large ship that moves fairly fast and fires large shots, and the small ship becomes a turret that fires a spread of little shots, but has no say in the direction of travel. That made for some interesting arcade playing.
It may be hard to do with emulation though--the game calls for dial controls and three buttons. Maybe an original game can still be found...
It's funny--I thought of that control scheme a couple years before Robotron came out. I thought it would be too complicated--shows how much I knew.
Firepower too--it was monotone, but robots were cooler in '79. "Enemy destroyed you..." followed by the sound effect that would later mean an extra life.
I remember reading about Mr. Daily--it's hard to believe someone could have heart failure at that age, but I do know the stress once you make it to the "fast cyan" robots around 10,000. My personal best was the "fast red" ones (17,000+: very, very lucky!) You're facing an empty maze, and you know it's going to be full of constantly firing robots in one second, and you have maybe 1/10th of a second to decide which way to dodge when they appear. Often one will be right in front of you, meaning instant death.
Actually, Defender was a continuation of the Williams pinball machines as far as sound effects went. They used a separate CPU (a 6809 I believe) that ran a set of sound routines that Eugene Jarvis created that were brilliant. The game running on the main CPU would set a flag on the sound CPU to begin the next sound effect, which was done by an digital-to-analog converter tied to the second CPU. Defender also had a power switch under the front of the console, much like a pinball machine!
Many of the sounds on Defender and Robotron came from the classic pinball game Firepower, which was also difficult and ate quarters, but it was so good, we kept feeding it, desperately trying to trigger the killer multiball countdown. You can find this machine in the Visual Pinball/PinMAME arena.
Gottlieb came close, Atari was great, Namco was classic, but nothing could touch the excitement of Williams' late 70's pinball and early 80's videogames.
LMAO! I salute you for your Defender skill. I was once kicked out of an arcade for conquering Star Wars. The woman in charge said I did something to the machine because it was going so slow. I handed it off to another arcade-goer, and he lost all six shields and died within a minute. She still didn't get it, even though she saw me weaving through the holes in the trench barriers while using the force (not firing until the end for the big bonus.) "It's not cheating--it's skill!"
It was an unhappy occasion when games started working on the "feed quarters to continue" business model.
Funny, I bought a butane soldering iron/torch a few years ago, and they checked my ID, even though I was almost forty at the time. Apparently they cater to a crackhead demographic now.
That visit was also the point where I learned how much lead-free solder sucks. I'm just waiting for the day my mother calls to report fireworks in the back of her TV when a tin whisker takes out the power connector.
Count me in the Radio Shaft column. I've been using that name for at least a dozen years. I tried to get a job there a few years ago, and they're looking for someone who is essentially a used car salesman. No wonder they aren't any help when looking for parts.
I found out just last year they discontinued their free battery cards, which probably shows how little I care about the name change.
Ahh. I remember the good old days when they advertised having a selection of over 2000 tubes, heh heh.