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April 10th, 2014, 23:23 Posted By: wraggster
The dig hoped to surface thousands of E.T. The Extraterrestrial Atari 2600 cartridges from a New Mexico landfill will begin on April 26.
The Alamogordo excavation will be open to the public from 9:30 am to 7:30 pm, Microsoft noted on Xbox Wire. A documentary film crew working with Xbox Entertainment Studios will be on hand to record the events along with "a team of archeologists" and the game's designer, Howard Scott Warshaw.
 The landfill has long been rumored to be the final resting place for the cartridges and other Atari products. According to urban legend, the firm filled as many as nine garbage trucks with unsold merchandise and sent them off to Alamogordo.
The fate of the dig was uncertain when the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) voiced concern over a 2004 study of the landfill which found elevated levels of several chemicals and claimed "22 compounds of concern" had been found at the site.
The NMED has since approved the dig as long as the three production companies adhere to a number of safety conditions.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-for-april-26/
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April 7th, 2014, 21:08 Posted By: wraggster
Thought the Vintage Computer Festival would just be really old computers with hundreds of people pecking 10 PRINT “HELLO” 20 GOTO 10? Yeah, there’s plenty of that, but also some very cool applications of new hardware. [Michael Hill] created PetPix, a video player for the Commodore PET and of course the C64.
PetPix takes any video file – or streaming video off a camera – and converts 8×8 pixel sections of each frame to PETSCII. All the processing is done on a Raspberry Pi and then sent over to the PET for surprisingly fluid video.
There is, of course, a video of PetPix available below. There are also a few more videos from [Michael] going over how PetPix works.
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/06/vcf-e...commodore-pet/
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April 7th, 2014, 21:00 Posted By: wraggster
 You’ll need a soldering iron to install a battery clip, but it’s a longterm fix, especially if what you’re saving is a Pokémon cartridge from generation two onwards.
Sean LaBrecque has repaired a lot of Pokémon cartridges. Each week, confused and upset customers bring copies of Pokémon Gold, Crystal, Ruby and various other shades to his Las Vegas-based vintage-game store, A Gamer’s Paradise. And they all ask the same question: “Why can’t I save my progress any more?”Like all cartridge-based games released before the mass adoption of flash memory, the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance Pokémon games rely on batteries to save and back up data. Game data is stored in active memory, and that memory is kept on life support by a tiny three-volt battery that’s soldered to the game board. All of these batteries will eventually die; when they do, your game saves will be instantly lost along with them.It’s a problem that affects – or will affect – thousands of old games, but few seem to die as quickly as those in the Pokémon series. “I don’t really see any carts other than Pokémon,” LaBrecque says. Even the oldest battery-backed cartridges are alive more often than not, so long as they’ve been well looked after. The Legend Of Zelda was among the first home console games to use a battery to save data, and has in many cases managed to survive some 28 years.With the second generation of Pokémon games, Nintendo introduced a clock that caused certain events to happen based on the passage of time in the real world. Berries on trees regrow after a few days and some trainers offer new challenges every 24 hours. It was a step forward for the series, but one with consequences: to keep the clock running properly, the carts have to pull extra juice from the battery. Thus few Pokémon game cartridges retain the ability to save even after just five years. Dedicated Pokémon trainer may find their game saves going missing after five years.
The good news is that these batteries are replaceable. Using a soldering kit, old ones can be easily switched out. The majority of games, from the original Zelda on NES to Ocarina Of Time on N64 (one of the few N64 games to use battery saving), contain the same generic CR2032 watch battery, which
is available everywhere for pennies. Though many Game Boy games came with slightly thinner CR2025 batteries, most have enough room to spare for a CR2032 replacement, which can even significantly upgrade their lifespans.Serious game collectors, such as videogamemuseum.com’s Mark Weber, future-proof their carts by installing battery clips onto their game boards after removing the original battery. Clips allow collectors to pop new batteries in and out without any future soldering required. Once the clip is installed, batteries can be replaced like any watch battery, though that’s not to say that everyone should risk taking a soldering iron to their most prized games. Michael Marks, who has written online guides for replacing batteries in old games, urges collectors to be careful. “I screwed up the first cart that I tried to fix,” he says. “I think I overheated the circuit board. Now I’m much more cautious about how long I’m holding the soldering iron to the board.”The soldering iron shouldn’t be your first resort. Before deciding to replace a battery, it’s best to test it with a multimeter. If it still has close to three volts remaining, it doesn’t need to be replaced. But while there are battery-replacement methods that don’t require soldering knowledge, these are undeniably inferior.Derek Mead, editor of Vice’s Motherboard blog, has successfully used a hot knife to remove and replace a battery in his copy of Secret Of Mana, but says he wouldn’t recommend that others use the technique. “I didn’t have a soldering iron at the time and I didn’t feel like ordering one off of Amazon,” he explains. “It’s a lot cleaner and easier just to solder it.”
http://www.edge-online.com/features/...ep-them-alive/
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April 4th, 2014, 22:43 Posted By: wraggster
Remember all of those fantastically horrible handheld LCD games that hit the toy stores back in the ’90s. You know, the ones that had custom LCD screens to make for some fake animation. Here’s an example of what those should have been. It’s an LCD-based handheld with some soul.
The entire thing is roughly the size of a television remote, with a 3D printed case making it very presentable. But looking at the wiring which hides inside proves this is one-of-a-kind. The Arduino Pro Mini is probably the biggest difference in technology from back in the day compared to now. It has plenty of space for all of the different settings and games shown off in the clip below. The user interface itself is definitely a throw-back though. The Nokia 3310 screen boasts a whopping 84×48 pixel monochrome area. There are four buttons serving as a d-pad, and two as action buttons. Perhaps the greatest feature (besides the printed case we already mentioned) is the ability to recharge the internal battery via USB.
[Zippy314] built this with his son. What’s more fun: learning to program the games, or mastering them and discovering the bugs you missed along the way?
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April 4th, 2014, 21:25 Posted By: wraggster
Film crews gear up to document recovery of thousands of game cartridges and consoles
The planned excavation of the fabled Atari dump site said to be filled with thousands of copies of E.T. The Extraterrestrial game cartridges has overcome its latest hurdle.
According to Alamogordo News, The New Mexico Environment Department has granted approval for the dig having previously blocked previous plans, claiming they were "too vague". There were also concerns that the ground held certain chemicals found to exceed federal thresholds.
Xbox Entertainment Studios, Fuel Entertainment and LightBox Entertainment however will now be able to dig up portions of an old Alamogordo landfill to search for the game cartridges, believed to have been dumped there after the title's catastrophic failure which nearly single-handedly destroyed Atari.
The NMED has asked to be notified five working days in advance of any excavation and the companies must register as certified or commercial haulers of waste before they can start the dig.
News of the dig first emerged last year when film company Fuel Industries, which plans to document the whole excavation, was granted permission by Alamogordo to dig up the landfill site, which has remained buried since 1983. It was believed that Atari dumped 14 truckloads of discarded cartridges and computer equipment into the area, and covered the landfill over with concrete.
The company has around six months to excavate the land and find the game cartridges, if they exist.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/m...p-site/0191394
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March 27th, 2014, 23:51 Posted By: wraggster
3D Realms isn't backing down from its most recent legal dispute with Gearbox, after the studio asserted it has the rights to develop its Duke Nukem game, and more than that, it has the sole rights to the Duke Nukem trademark.
Following 3D Realms' tease of Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, Gearbox announced it's suing the developer over unauthorized use of the Duke Nukem property and a violation of trademarks. In its complaint, Gearbox said 3D Realms sold the franchise rights to Gearbox in 2010 but then "sought to privately convince others that the sale never happened."
3D Realms filed its response to Gearbox last week, and the now Interceptor-owned studio provided Polygon with the following statement explaining its position:"On March 17, 2014, 3D Realms filed its answer to the complaint by Gearbox Software in Dallas, Texas. 3DR denies all allegations set forth in the complaint. In its answer, 3DR has submitted evidence showing that Gearbox at no point intended to enter into good faith negotiations but instead sought to force former owners, Scott Miller and George Broussard, to improperly surrender what rightfully belonged to 3DR.
"It is our position that 3DR retains the right to develop the tentatively titled "Duke Nukem Survivor" game for specific platforms. This game was previously licensed for development to Interceptor Entertainment. Furthermore, it is our position that the Trademark for "Duke Nukem" was never assigned to Gearbox, but remains the sole property of 3DR." A spokesperson for Interceptor Entertainment explained "Duke Nukem Survivor" is the tentative title for Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction. Interceptor provided its own statement to Polygon, adding that "It's unfortunate that Gearbox has shown no intention of finding a peaceful solution with us. We will however continue to work towards a solution."
Last month's legal action comes five months after 3D Realms and Gearbox's last dispute. 3D Realms filed a lawsuit against Gearbox in June 2013 over unpaid royalties from Duke Nukem Forever, only to withdraw it three months later after reviewing the evidence.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/27/3d...nukem-tradema/
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March 22nd, 2014, 23:30 Posted By: wraggster
 Fuel Industries' planned excavation and documentation of a New Mexico landfill which would, in theory, unearth a burial of E.T. cartridges for the Atari 2600, has been put on hold. The Almagordo Daily News reports that the New Mexico Environment Department has rejected Fuel Industries' waste excavation proposal, saying that it was too "generic" as well as lacking in site-specific details.
Those details aren't just bureaucratic red tape, either. According to the Daily News, the NMED called for further testing of the Almagordo landfill in 2004, when studies showed increased chemical levels at the site. Twenty-two "compounds of concern" were noted at the time. Imagine cracking open the soil of a landfill to hunt down a video game graveyard only to have noxious fumes and chemicals poison you, like you'd opened up a pharoah's tomb and suffered the mummy's curse.
It's unclear how the delay will impact the development of Fuel Industries' documentary, which was planned to air on Xbox this year. The NMED stated that their findings were sent to Fuel Industries on February 27, but as of March 17, they had not seen a revised proposal.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/22/do...veyard-denied/
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March 4th, 2014, 23:31 Posted By: wraggster
Broderbund Software's legacy is sure to live on through ports, sequels and source code, but what about the game developer's behind-the-scenes history? Thankfully, it won't be fading away any time soon. Company founder Doug Carlston hasdonated Broderbund's software and corporate records to The Strong, a museum dedicated to all forms of play. The move should help illustrate the creation process behind every title that Broderbund published, including classics like Myst, Prince of Persia, the original SimCity and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. The collection isn't limited to game assets -- Carlston is donating correspondence, photos and other material that reveals the studio's culture. Few people will get to see this treasure trove of gaming nostalgia in person, but it should preserve Broderbund's accomplishments for a long time to come.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/03/b...seum-donation/
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March 2nd, 2014, 02:03 Posted By: wraggster
 In this extract from Read-Only Memory’s Sensible Software 1986–1999 retrospective, studio co-founder Jon Hare – lovingly nicknamed ‘Jops’ in the tome – recounts the making of 1991 Amiga strategy game Mega lo Mania to author Gary Penn. Hare is also joined by fellow industry figures of the time to recall Sensible’s doomed deal with Mirrorsoft…
— Mega lo Mania’s involved play is underpinned by the use of tech trees spanning epochs, pre-empting Sid Meier’s Civilization by months, and all wrapped up in real-time strategy game sentiments over a year before Westwood’s Dune II and four years before Command & Conquer. Jops is understandably proud of those facts.Jon Hare: Yeah, it was certainly ahead of its time. The idea of tech trees was in the design from the start – it was the basis of the game. Mega lo Mania was one of the first computer games to use tech trees. Initially though, the game was called ‘My Little Warhead’ and its logo had a nuclear rocket with a pink My Little Pony wig on. The idea was that you were flying around in a spaceship, controlling the sectors in much the same way as in the final game, with exactly the same structure but it was all futuristic. You had to fly a spaceship and do the combat with all this shit zapping around at the same time. That was the initial idea. I don’t remember the exact moment when we realised it was too hard – impossible really, for players to fly the spaceship while doing all this complicated management – but at some point the penny just dropped that the game needed simplifying. Mega lo Mania was called ‘My Little Warhead’ until six months before its release, when we changed it from spacemen to cavemen.Gary Penn: Why shift the setting from the far future to the distant past?
JH: It was me realising that what we were doing wasn’t working. We’d been using lots of placeholders and suddenly we needed proper art. In the back of my mind something was saying ‘NO!’ I can remember seeing Populous and those little cavemen. We usually ignored what everybody else was doing, but I saw this and thought it was a good idea. I thought we could start the game with cavemen then progress through Romans, Normans, the Middle Ages, the World Wars, the modern world, the future…GP: Dramatically that’s a much stronger sense of progression … So how would you summarise Mega lo Mania? Is it a god game? A real-time strategy game?
JH: I used to play a board game called Campaign with my dad. I think Mega lo Mania is based more on that than anything else. Instead of a country you’ve got a little sector and instead of cities you’ve got buildings…
http://www.edge-online.com/features/...of-mirrorsoft/
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February 23rd, 2014, 23:38 Posted By: wraggster
The following Utilities have been submitted and approved to the database (in submitted order oldest to newest):
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February 23rd, 2014, 21:23 Posted By: wraggster
There is a very interesting project underway to recreate the ZX Spectrum and more. The Bluetooth ZX Spectrum has been successfully crowdfunded, and it is due to go on sale in September 2014. If you want to go back to the 1980s — to the wonderful era of 8-bit gaming, you can instead try one of the many ZX Spectrum emulators."I remember being excited at the new Sinclair when my dad brought it home, but my strongest memory now is of what might be the worst keyboard I've ever had the chance to use.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...with-a-new-one
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February 16th, 2014, 21:32 Posted By: wraggster
The arcade is dead. It's not even a statement to be contended any more. The London Trocadero's Funland pulled its shutters down two years ago, and late last January, Goodge Street's Casino, a yellowing warren that once housed an eclectic and exciting array of cabinets, gave up on arcade gaming altogether. It's not a phenomenon exclusive to the UK capital, either: in Tokyo, the 50 yen arcades synonymous with the rose-tinted view many have for the Japanese scene are dwindling in number, with Shibuya's finest example shutting its doors for good last year. There are the occasional havens - Acton's Heart of Gaming is a destination as thrilling as any arcade that's gone before for the real aficionado - but they're museums, preserving a moment of time and tenderly suspending it in stasis.Arcade games, though, are doing great. At least that's what a Tuesday afternoon stroll around the amusement and leisure show EAG International would suggest, where you're met by a large hall within London's Excel Centre buzzing with the noisy energy of slot machines, toy catchers and over-sized video games. It's an odd event, where the trashy flotsam of seaside resorts is polished up and presented under the stark light of an exhibition centre, and where kids' kart manufacturers go head to head with their knock-off Ronolt and Bull Dog F1 cars.Yet despite the end-of-pier atmosphere, it's still the biggest names commanding some of the biggest floor space. Bandai Namco bosses the centre of the hall, spearheading this year's renewed focus on its most recognisable mascot with a dizzying array of Pac-Man products: there's Pac-Man Ghostly Bowling, Pac-Man Ticket Mania and Pac-Man Basket, as well as a genuinely brilliant branded air hockey game Pac-Man Smash, which floods the play space with dozens of pucks at set points during a match. The stuff of nightmares. Where's UK Resistance when you need it?
There are more traditional games, too. New, brasher and bolder configurations for Dead Storm Pirates, an on-rails shooter on the grandest imaginable scale that's a distant successor of 1991's Starblade, or a four cabinet set-up for Mario Kart Arcade GPDX. There are new games, too, such as Raw Thrill's Batman, a punchy romp around an open world Gotham City in the Batmobile that's housed in an exquisitely showy cabinet, or Super Alpine Racer, a towering remake of the original complete with a 55-inch vertically mounted screen.Towards the far corner of the hall, Sega Amusements has set up camp. It's an odd outfit itself, or at least one that's not widely understood; originally set up as a local distributor for Sega Japan, it soon became a wholly-owned subsidiary that would import over cabinets or components for assembly from its Cardiff base. Over time Sega Amusements has become much more, though, branching out to develop its own games as the global appeal of the arcade waned."I think it's really because in Japan the core demographics changed for amusements," Patrick Michael, Sega Amusements' head of local R&D, tells us of the shift in arcade appetites. "The arcade market in Japan is to a certain extent a lot older - there's a lot more repeat business, and it's a much more social thing where people go after work to play a game for maybe an hour. They're more expensive games that require a lot of commitment, or a save game with an IC card - they're big, expensive things. Like World Club Champion Football, which is a football management title - that 8-player cabinet is Ł80-90,000, and that's a big investment for a European operator who has a more casual player-base who perhaps go to a location once a month."A trip to any popular Japanese arcade would bear that out, where salary men recline in expensive multiplayer set-ups for sports management games, while elsewhere younger players flock around mech battlers spun out from Mobile Suit Gundam, or Sega's own Border Break. They're titles alien and most likely impenetrable to western audiences, making translation for local audiences improbable or even impossible. Two men about to share a Special Dream in Dream Raiders, a motion cabinet that offers a lightly interactive ride. It's proven a hit for Sega since its release in 2012.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ade-redemption
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February 15th, 2014, 23:32 Posted By: wraggster
Twitch Plays Pokemon looks like an average Twitch game stream at first. In fact, it is a game in itself, as viewers are able to control the hero of Pokemon Red and Blue by inputting commands in the streaming platform's chat window. As of this writing, the stream is nearing ten thousand viewers after close to two days of play, many of which are wildly typing "a," b," "up," "down" and other instructions, sending the obedient Pokemon master into frenzied directions. We've embedded the stream after the break.
As much as it sounds like players would never be able to accomplish much in this fashion, viewers were able to push on past the second gym leader of the game, Misty. Our math may be shaky at best, but we figure that with the diligence of the stream's viewers, we'll have collected all the Pokemon in a month. We shudder to think of what will happen with the beloved, singular Master Ball in the game, however.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/02/14/th...imultaneously/
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February 14th, 2014, 01:33 Posted By: wraggster
Check out this sweet-piece of homemade handheld gaming! [Jianan Li] has been hard at work on the project and published the updates in two parts, one that shows off the PCB he had fabbed for the project, and another which details the 3D printed case. This is, of course, is the culmination of the Tetris project we first saw as an incredbily packed, yet thouroughly tidy breadboarded circuit.
We really enjoy the 8-sided PCB design which hosts all the parts and gives you a place to hold and control the unit, all without seeming to waste much real estate. The case itself is quite impressive. The openings for the square-pixel LED matrices (the original design had round pixels) and the bar graphs all have nice bevel features around them. The control area has a pleasant swooping cutout, with blue buttons which stand out nicely against the red. Check out the slider switch by his left thumb. He printed matching covers for this slider, and the two that stick out the bottom. Also on the bottom are female pin headers so that you don’t need to disassemble the case to interface with the electronics.
All of this and more are shown off in the clip after the break.
http://hackaday.com/2014/02/12/updat...-pcb-and-case/
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