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August 22nd, 2015, 17:37 Posted By: wraggster
Ever wondered how early 1980s video game engineers were able to get so much out of so little horsepower? Wonder no more.
The iBookGuy's video, below, on oldschool graphics is an easy-to-understand explanation for how developers of games on the likes of the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Commodore 64 created vibrant visuals despite having next to no computer memory to work with.
We see how developers used workarounds to get more out of the systems they were working with, some of which had just 16k of RAM. There's some pretty interesting stuff in there about pixels, colours, and sprites.
Did you know Mario was made up for multiple sprites? I didn't.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...raphics-worked
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August 20th, 2015, 21:14 Posted By: wraggster
Resident Evil 2 is the latest game to ride the wave of ‘90s nostalgia that has swept into the market.
The iconic 1998 horror game is being remade, publisher Capcom has announced. The news comes just two months after Square Enix revealed that its own 1990s epic – Final Fantasy VII – is being recreated for release in 2017.
Other ‘90s revivals include the recent Chart-Track No.1 Rare Replay, a new game in the long-dormant Shenmue series and the upcoming Super Mario Maker, a game that delves into Mario’s back catalogue of 2D platformers.
“Nostalgia is a powerful thing,” said Capcom brand manager Brian Ayers.
“As we get further away from the ‘90s, the rose-tinted glasses start to come out, and a fondness forthe period starts to creep back-in. It runs through everything from fashion to music to film, and games are now an established enough culture that they’re affected, too.”
Gavin Price, studio head at Playtonic Games, which is developing Yooka-Laylee – a game inspired by 1990s 3D platformers – added: “The longer time passes with such experiences missing-in-action, the more and more the pressure builds to do something reminiscent. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I would say.
“A plainer explanation would also be that there has never been a better environment and set of circumstances to allow creators the freedom to do what their hearts desire.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/back-...siness/0154668
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August 19th, 2015, 20:16 Posted By: wraggster
We take powerful computer graphics for granted nowadays, to the point where we complain when 4K games won't play at 60fps. But YouTube's showed how tough designers had it back in the 80s just to make color graphics work, period, on 16K machines of the day. They had to use a variety of workarounds just to get 16 colors on a 320 x 200 screen, as that would normally eat up your entire 16K of RAM right there. Developers for machines like the NES and Commodore 64 resorted to dividing the screen into "cells" that could each hold only two colors, a trick that used up just 9K of memory.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/19/8...raphics-video/
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August 13th, 2015, 21:36 Posted By: wraggster
An anti-piracy group acting on behalf of Columbia Pictures has hit video hosting site Vimeo with a slew of copyright takedowns to prevent piracy of its Adam Sandler summer film, Pixels.
Entura International sent the video hosting site a number of DCMA take-down notices on videos using the below criteria:
"Pixels", "Pantone Pixels", "Pixels", "Pixels - HD Trailer", "Detuned Pixels - Choco", "Pixels - Life Buoy", "Pixels: Redeye @ Kettering", "Pixels Festival 2015", "Love Pixels- VJLoops", "Pixels Official Trailer (2015) - Adam Sandler, Peter Dinklage"
This resulted in a number of indie projects being taken down including .
Ironically, this took down the film’s trailer, as well as the award-winning short film on which Pixels is based.
Speaking to Kotaku, Vimeo says that it is looking into this, and that they are going to restore everything in the nextfew days.
“The videos were takedown in accordance with Vimeo’s DMCA policy,” a spokesperson told Kotaku. “However, Vimeo’s Trust & Safety team are further evaluating the claims made and will have an update in the coming days.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/pixel...videos/0154042
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August 8th, 2015, 23:47 Posted By: wraggster
 It wasn't until after I'd repeatedly pummeled an oversized rat's testicles that I realized why preserving video game history is so important. Were it not forRare Replay, an anthology of 30 games spanning 32 years, I'd never have played Battletoads Arcade and would've missed one of the finest moments from one of gaming's most storied developers.
Replay is an invaluable record of developer Rare's legacy, but it's neither complete nor perfect. Before Microsoft purchased the studio for $375 million in 2002, Rare made games almost exclusively for Nintendo. GoldenEye and theDonkey Kong Country series (arguably its biggest hits) are absent here thanks to publishing and licensing deals, while other games have been scrubbed free of Nintendo references entirely. While Replay's remastered contents are the best they'll likely ever look, games aren't movies, and visuals are only one part of the equation here. So can a slick, modern package make up for any shortcomings that result from playing decades-old games? The answer isn't so simple and it fluctuates wildly from one classic Rare title to the next.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/07/rare-replay-review/
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July 7th, 2015, 22:00 Posted By: wraggster
In the Early 1980s, the BBC launched a project to teach computer literacy to a generation of British schoolchildren. This project resulted in the BBC Micro, a very capable home computer that showed a generation exactly what a computer could do. These children then went home, turned on their ZX Spectrums, and became a generation of software engineers. Still, the BBC Micro is remembered fondly.
The computer revolution is long over, but today we suffer a sea change of embedded processors and microcontrollers. With Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, the BBC has decided it’s time to put the power of an ARM microcontroller into the hands of a million 11- and 12-year olds. The result is the Micro:bit. It’s a small microcontroller board with an ARM processor, an IMU, buttons, Bluetooth and a 5×5 LED array – exactly what you need if you’re teaching a million kids how to blink an LED.
Although the BBC has finalized the design for the Micro:bit, there are no specs at all. However, a few educated guesses can be made. The USB controller is provided by Freescale, who also provide the digital compass and magnetometer. Programming is done through a web-based, Arduino-like IDE with what appears to be a decent Micro:bit specific library. The board is also mbed compatible. Bluetooth, and apparently the ARM Cortex M0 core, is provided by a Nordic nRF51822. There are only three alligator clip-compatible I/Os, and its doubtful any student will be building anything that would be too complex for an entry level ARM. It’s also 3V logic; finally, the tyranny of 5V has fallen.
The Micro:bit is best seen as a tool that enables the relatively recent addition of a computer science curriculum in UK schools. There is now a requirement for seven-year-olds to understand algorithms and create simple programs. Previously computer education in the UK has consisted of PowerPoint. Now, secondary school students will be learning Boolean logic.
While the Micro:bit is utterly useless as a tool for doing real work, education is not real work. For blinking a few LEDs, having a device react to movement, playing with Bluetooth, and other lesser evils of electronics, the Micro:bit is great. Not everyone will become the digital technologists this initiative is trying to create, but for those who have an inclination towards semicolons and electrons, this is a great introduction to technology.
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/07/the-bbc-microbit/
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July 7th, 2015, 21:43 Posted By: wraggster
11 and 12 year olds across the UK are to receive a pocket-sized codeable computer courtesy of the BBC.
The Micro Bit was teased back when the corporation’s Grand Theft Auto drama was announced in April. A million of the devices have been ordered with the aim of supplying one to every year seven child in the country this October.
The unit houses a surprising amount of tech including an accelerometer, magnetometer, Bluetooth and two programmable buttons. The five I/O rings will also allow it to be hooked up to a range of equipment. What has been lost during development is in the incorporated battery slot, however, meaning that an external AA power-pack will need to be used when on the move.
A web-based programming tool developed by Microsoft will help students and teachers to explore the many possibilities.
"The BBC Micro Bit is all about young people learning to express themselves digitally,” BBC Learning head Sinead Rocks said. "As the Micro Bit is able to connect to everything from mobile phones to plant pots and Raspberry Pis, this could be for the internet-of-things what the BBC Micro was to the British gaming industry."
Let’s just hope the BBC isn’t dismantled by the government before it has chance to roll out the plan.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/the-b...-child/0152288
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July 6th, 2015, 21:27 Posted By: wraggster
The ZX Spectrum took the UK by storm after its launch in 1982. So much so that its creator was awarded with a knighthood the following year for ‘services to British industry’. But although we’re familiar with the story of how Sir Clive Sinclair’s wonder machine changed the face of British computing, his computer’s legacy on the far side of the Iron Curtain is less well known to western gamers. And it’s a legacy from which he never made a penny.
In the early 1980s, computers were hard to come by for the average Russian. Trading restrictions under the communist regime meant that it was almost impossible to import computers from the west, and the few that were smuggled across were hideously expensive by Russian standards. In 1983, the popular magazine Radio put together schematics for its readers on how to build a ‘Micro-80’ computer, one of the first DIY computers available in Russia, but it was difficult to put together, requiring hundreds of often difficult-to-acquire components.
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/07/06/t...ctrum-lived-on
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July 4th, 2015, 23:09 Posted By: wraggster
1981-era 8-bit BBC Micro computers and peripherals are displayed in a special interactive exhibit at the UK's National Museum of Computing designed to give modern students a taste of programming a vintage machine. Now, the museum is asking for help maintaining them. "We want to find out whether people have got skills out there that can keep the cluster alive as long as we can," said Chris Monk, learning coordinator at the organization.
"Owen Grover, a volunteer at the museum who currently helps maintain the cluster of BBC Micro machines, said they held up well despite being more than 30 years old. The BBC Micro was 'pretty robust,' he said, because it was designed to be used in classrooms. This meant that refurbishing machines for use in the hands-on exhibit was usually fairly straightforward. 'The main problem we need to sort out is the power supply,' he said. 'There are two capacitors that dry out and if we do not replace them they tend to explode and stink the place out. So we change them as a matter of course.'"
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/07...ing-bbc-micros
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June 28th, 2015, 21:50 Posted By: wraggster
GameStop now offers a selection of retro consoles and games for purchase online.
GameStop announced the news on Twitter, ushering a resurgence of classic games and hardware for the company.
The new retro portion of GameStop's website includes selections from NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, PlayStation and Dreamcast platforms. Offerings are quite pricey for the most part, but there appears to be at least a few gems to be had as well.
No word yet on whether the retro line will make it to the retailer's brick-and-mortar stock in addition to its online store.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/games...-games/0151695
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June 21st, 2015, 21:58 Posted By: wraggster
The following Translations have been submitted and approved to the database (in submitted order oldest to newest):
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June 21st, 2015, 21:53 Posted By: wraggster
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