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May 30th, 2014, 00:21 Posted By: wraggster
The only vector-based home console with an integrated screen, GCE’s Vectrex remains desirable and iconic today, decades after its debut and subsequent decline. Where most systems of the era offered embryonic games with rudimentary visuals that have aged poorly, Vectrex’s brilliant white vector lines that light up its black screen like laser comets remain irresistibly chic.The system, on the market for just two years, was home to just 30-odd commercially available games. The Vectrex’s rise and fall exactly mirrored that of the wider video game industry, enjoying the boom success of the early 1980s before suffering the obliterating crash of 1984.The original idea for the machine derived from Western Technologies. One of the company’s employees, John Ross, bought a one-inch CRT screen, the type used in aircraft heads-up displays, in a surplus store. He brought it in to work with the idea of using the technology to develop a prototype handheld game. Kenner, best known for its range of Star Wars figurines, saw the potential and partnered with Western to build a prototype using a 5-inch screen, before promptly pulling out of the deal. Weeks later, GCE stepped in, changed the hardware design to accommodate a 9-inch monitor and gave the project the name ‘Mini-Arcade’. This feature is an extract from Simon Parkin’s book, An Illustrated History of 151 Videogames.
By January 1982 the console was nearing completion but GCE had no games. Ed Smith, Western Technologies’ head of engineering, began to recruit students from Georgia Tech College, setting them the challenge to create 12 games by June that year. One staff member recalls visiting the warehouse at the time: “One programmer used to snort whipped cream gas all night while programming. [People would] trip on the cans when coming in for work the next morning. There were cases of them all over the floor. GCE management apparently put up with this…” The technique appeared to work. By April the games Mine Storm, Berzerk, Rip Off and Star Trek were all complete and, following a brainstorming session, the console’s name was changed to Vectrex.Despite the relatively high price point, the system sold well. In March 1983, the board game developer Milton Bradley bought GCE, just before the market crashed in 1984. MB reportedly lost around $31 million on the Vectrex as the bottom fell out of the market while Atari allegedly threatened to withhold their games and systems from any distributor that also carried Vectrex products.In recent years, the machine has enjoyed a resurgence of interest thanks to its unique graphical aesthetics. When it comes to vector-based game consoles, the Vectrex has no rival. If you long for a minimalist vector glow to light your living room, there is nowhere else to go.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/...dware-vectrex/
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May 27th, 2014, 12:18 Posted By: wraggster
 Year: April 1982 Manufacturer: Sinclair Original Cost: Ł125-175 (dependent on size of memory included)
Clive Sinclair, known affectionately as Uncle Clive by his fans and followers, was the embodiment of the British boffin inventor with his bald pate, thin-rimmed spectacles, tidy ginger beard and his determination to retain freedom of action and choice. He built his company and reputation in the 1960s, by reverse engineering the latest, most expensive consumer electronics and releasing his own versions at a fraction of the cost of the originals.By the early 1980s he’d enjoyed a rich mixture of successes and failures: while his pocket calculators had turned an exclusive technology into a ubiquitous one, his digital Black Watch had almost brought about bankruptcy through defective returns. Sinclair’s approach to business was that of the purebred inventor, with his ambition for each invention straining no further than hoping to fund the next.It was from the ashes of another of Sinclair’s failures that his greatest success was born, one that kick-started the British video game industry and inspired the first generation of so-called bedroom coders. By the early 1980s Sinclair was no stranger to home computing. His ZX80 machine, with its extraordinarily low price point of Ł99.95 (Ł79.99 if the consumer optedfor the kit version, which they could solder together themselves), had brought computing to the masses, fast becoming the UK’s biggest-selling home computer. While the Commodore PET and Apple II were still prohibitively expensive, the ZX80 and its more powerful successor the ZX81 were affordable to most households, and the first British-developed games began to appear.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/...e-zx-spectrum/
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May 23rd, 2014, 00:25 Posted By: wraggster
[Carl] got his hands on a dead Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A. He decided he wasn’t just going to fix it, he was going to improve it! The ZX Spectrum Compact is literally a “sawn-off” Spectrum +2A. [Carl's] inspiration came from a similar mod at the Old Machinery blog.
Amstrad seems to have had a habit of bolting on additions to their products. In the case of the Spectrum +2A, it was a tape drive. Tapes weren’t a great storage method in the 80′s, and today they’re downright annoying. [Carl] didn’t need the tape interface, as he’s using a DiVide ATA interface.
The modification is rather straight forward. [Carl] broke out the hacksaw and cut the right end cap away from the tape drive. He then cut the entire tape drive away. The motherboard wasn’t safe from the saw treatment either, as the printer interface was cut off. Thankfully there were no components on the printer interface. Apparently [Carl] didn’t short any traces as he went to town with his saw.
With the motherboard modified to fit the abbreviated case, [Carl] was ready to begin reconstruction. He glued the cap onto the sawn-off case with Grip Fill glue, which also served to fill any gaps. Some sanding, priming, and painting later, The ZX Spectrum Compact was finished. This isn’t a perfect mod, as the gap is still slightly visible under the paint – but it’s good enough for [Carl]. Hey, it’s good enough for us, too – we can’t all be[Ben Heck]!
http://hackaday.com/2014/05/21/sincl...-2-slims-down/
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May 22nd, 2014, 23:49 Posted By: wraggster
Gamers of a certain age will probably remember Descent, a game that combined first-person shooters with flight sims in a way that has never really been replicated. GameSpot has an article calling for a new entry in the Descent series, and it reminded me of all the stomach-churning battles I had as a kid (when the game wasn't bringing my 33MHz 486 to its knees). 'Here's where modern gaming innovations make Descentan even more tempting reboot. From the two-dimensional mines of Spelunky to the isometric caves of Path of Exile, procedurally generated levels help deliver fresh experiences to players in a number of genres. The mines of Descent would be perfect candidates for such creation, and they wouldn't have to be limited to the metallic walls and lunar geology of past Descent games.
Imagine exploring organic tunnels carved by some unknown alien creature, or floating past dazzling crystalline stalactites in pristine ancient caves. Perhaps the influences ofRed Faction and Minecraft could also come into play as you bored your own shortcuts through layers of destructible sediment. All of Descent's dizzying navigation challenges could be even more exciting with the immersive potential of a virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift or the Sony Morpheus. Feeling the mine walls close in on you from all sides could get your heart racing, and turning your head to spot shortcuts, power-ups, or delicate environmental details could greatly heighten the sense of being an explorer in an uncharted land.'"
http://games-beta.slashdot.org/story...t-games-return
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May 21st, 2014, 01:08 Posted By: wraggster
We love old video games, but we hate the way analog interlaced video looks on our new LCD monitors. [Michael] feels the same way, so he’s created NeoVGA, A Neo Geo Line Doubler in VHDL. Neo Geo, like many classic consoles, didn’t use the full resolution of an analog TV. In NTSC mode, it ran at 320×224 pixels. PAL users got an extra 32 vertical pixels for 320×256 pixels. The system ran with an approximately 15kHz horizontal sync and ~60Hz vertical sync.
This is not exactly a VGA compatible signal, so it would be relegated to composite or S-Video capable displays. The signals looked pretty good on a CRT, but on an LCD, they tend to look crummy. Modern LCDs don’t natively handle interlaced and/or low resolution input signals. The TV’s controller performs the magic of buffering, interpolating, and transforming the input signal to be compatible with the LCD panel. As [Michael] explains, most of these algorithms are optimized for TV video signals with lots of motion. They perform poorly on static high contrast images such as the background of a fighting game. TV controllers also add lag to the signal chain. Not much of a problem when watching movies, but it’s a big problem when you’re trying to pull off that triple hit combo.
http://hackaday.com/2014/05/20/neo-g...-line-doubled/
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May 19th, 2014, 21:27 Posted By: wraggster
The notorious Mega CD title Night Trap will be re-released in the future, its co-creator has confirmed.
James Riley, who holds the rights to the game, told the closed Night Trap Facebook community the news earlier today.
 The community has been trying to persuade Riley to re-release a remastered version of the game or sell the rights to someone who will, in the hope that they can play an improved version with better quality video no longer affected by the heavy compression used in mid-90s FMV games.
"I appreciate your on-going interest," Riley replied, "but please understand I do plan to re-release Night Trap and have been talking with a number of interested parties to do so. However, the specific platform(s) have not been confirmed (including online) and I will let you know once we have a definite plan and release schedule.
"Night Trap will come back, in better resolution and game play than before, we just want to be sure it's the best strategy for all involved."
Night Trap gained notoriety in 1993 due to its full-motion video graphics and its premise of a group of teenagers in a house being stalked by vampire-like creatures called Augers.
It was one of the main games that led to congressional hearings on violent video games, and the subsequent creation of the ESRB.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-says-creator/
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May 9th, 2014, 00:07 Posted By: wraggster
Remember all those fun plug and play consoles they used to make? Usually just one offs with a few games here and there, typically designed to get poor old grandmothers to try buying them instead of the official Nintendo or SEGA systems for their grandchildren…
Anyway, some of the games were actually pretty good! But who wants to store a system for every individual game? [Sharon] decided to make the ultimate portable console — and jammed every plug and play console… into cartridges for safe keeping!
Wait what? [Sharon] took 12 of the plug and play consoles, hacked them to pieces, and managed to stuff the guts into custom game cartridges she made herself. She then made the HandyPNP, a “base console” with buttons and controls, video output and an LCD screen. She meticulously mapped out every consoles’ controls, and wired them accordingly, so when you plug the cartridge into the HandyPNP, it’s like your playing the original system.
It’s probably one of the most impressive handheld console hacks we’ve seen in a while, just considering the amount of work required to convert one console, let alone 12, to a standard connection for the HandyPNP to communicate with. Stick around after the break to hear [Sharon] explain the project herself!
http://hackaday.com/2014/05/07/plug-...-dont-have-to/
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May 1st, 2014, 23:53 Posted By: wraggster
The SID chip inside the Commodore 64 and 128 is arguably still the gold standard for chip tunes, and the C64 itself still a decent computer for MIDI sequencing. [Frank Buss] realized most of the MIDI cartridges for the Commodore computers are either out of production or severely limited, so he set out to create his own.
Unlike the few Commodore MIDI cartridges that are available, [Frank]‘s Kerberos has MIDI In, Out, and Thru, controlled by the 6850 ACIA chip, just like the old 80s interfaces. This allows the Kerberos to interface with the old Sequential Circuits, Passport, and Datel software. He’s offering the Kerberos cart up on a crowdfunding site, so if you’d like to grab your own, have at it.
Because the Kerberos is also a Flash cart, it also ships with some of this software; [Frank] got permission from Steinberg to install their Pro 16 software with the Kerberos. SID Wizard is also pre-loaded on the cart, along with a few other fabulous trackers and sequencers. Of course, there’s no requirement for the Flash portion of the cart to only host MIDI and synth software. You can always upload a few games to the cart over a MIDI interface. Video of the Kerberos below.
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/30/c64-midi-and-flash-cart/
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May 1st, 2014, 23:45 Posted By: wraggster
"E.T. was the death of Atari." If you believe the urban legend, then that game, based on Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie, is the sole reason Atari flopped in the 1980s. As the myth went, the company, allegedly so ashamed of the game, decided to bury millions of unsold cartridges in the New Mexico desert and cover them with a slab of concrete; a curious tale we now know to be true. Like the oral histories passed down from one generation to the next, though, certain details of the story behind E.T.'s genesis and Atari's demise have been lost along the way, and mild inaccuracies have become fact. To find out what really happened more than 30 years ago, we went straight to the man who made the game: former Atari developer Howard Scott Warshaw. This is his story.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/true-story-et-atari/
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April 27th, 2014, 21:22 Posted By: wraggster
Xbox Entertainment Studios and Lightbox Entertainment's documentary on the excavation of a New Mexico landfill where supposedly thousands of copies ofE.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 won't be completed for some time yet, but if you want to know how the search went, well, the above image should tell you all you need to know.
Yup, they found E.T. - or at least one copy of the game. Xbox spokesperson Larry Hryb, AKA Major Nelson, tweeted pictures showing the cartridge, as well as other Atari 2600 games still in shrink wrap, from the landfill. Dude. Spoiler warning next time!
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/04/26/mi...e-at-landfill/
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April 21st, 2014, 21:41 Posted By: wraggster
Finally, after several years of hard work, D-D is happy to announce the release of Chaos Seed! This is a very special game that is so unlike any other; it’s part RPG, part SIM, part Adventure, and at times involves a lot of resource management. It’s such a unique experience that it is quite certain you have never played a game quite like it.
In the game you play the part of a Dousen or “Cave Hermit” who is tasked with the job of healing areas of the land that have become unbalanced and lost their energy. This is where the resource management aspect of the game comes in to play as you must build and maintain an Enchanted Cave in order to channel energy back into the earth. A large group of NPCs and monsters will both aid and hinder you in your progress to restore the land to its former self. This is not the only aspect of the game, however, as there are portions of each Scenario in which you must venture in to town to progress events in the storyline. The choices you make during these events can drastically alter the way each Scenario plays out, allowing for multiple endings and adding much incentive to replay each part of the story.
A lot of work went into this game. Bongo` is probably still having nightmares over the ridiculous number of hacks he had to implement! D-D hopes you enjoy the story as much as we do!
Note - For patch formats other than IPS, please visit the Dynamic-Designs homepage.
http://www.dynamic-designs.us/index.shtml
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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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