MistaMaddog

I would say that there are a ton of great games.  Atari (and others) made really good arcade ports on cartridge, and then there was an unbelievable world of disk-based games.  Electronic Arts, Epyx, Datasoft -- so many classic games.  Literally thousands of the very best 8-bit games.  All that with super simple controls and great graphics/sound. 
 

My dream computer was the Atari 400.  Improved Atari games and those cool store kiosks made me drool. 
I ended up with a VIC-20 instead due to lower pricing and loved it.  But my dream came true a few years later when I found an Atari 800XL/1050 disk drive/1025 printer bundle on clearance at Sears.  The computer did not disappoint.  I loved it and still do.
 
 

Dream computer as a kid? Hmm... that's a good question. Well, I think I got my dream computer as a kid with the Atari 800, my first home computer. If I dreamed about anything, it was getting a disk drive and a 1702 monitor. I eventually got both. The 1702 was a huge upgrade over the 14" family TV (or whatever size it was) that over scanned and was a bit fuzzy with the RF connection.
I went on to having computers from the XL and XE lines and eventually got an ST and all that. However, I don't remember thinking of a dream computer during those days. That didn't happen until the early 1990s when I wanted a Macintosh IIci. I decided to switch over from the ST to something else, and the Macintosh Iici was what I drooled over. Having been spoiled using a GUI with the ST, I really didn't want to get a PC as it felt like I was going backwards in computer tech with the horrendous CGA graphics and sound and equally hideous pre-3.0 versions of Windows. However, I ended up getting a decked out Northgate 386/33 mainly due to being pressured by family and friends who already had a PC (I'm the tech support in my social circle).

That would be nice to see, and I hope that Disney doesn't try to shut it down b/c there is room for both original & final cuts (see Blade Runner).
The main thing that bothered me about the original trilogy was that versions of the movies we all loved in the 80's were considered by George Lucas as "mistakes" and the "improved" versions he had in mind due to improved technology were...eh, not that good from a writing standpoint.
 

Yeah, I used to buy PC Gamer magazine a lot and playing the demos off their coverdisk CD's.  Sadly the front-end menus never work so I end up extracting the demo install files off the disk anyway, my favorites being Unreal Tournament and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri which I end up buying.
The one demo disk I remebered the most fondly was one sent to me by Squaresoft (courtesy of EBGames) where the two games I liked, and bought, were Einhander and Bushido Blade.

This is just a sampling of the discs I have for PlayStation 2 and PCs. Used to buy a lot of video game magazines back in the day and I loved getting these discs stuffed full of samples, for computers, various software and games and of course for PlayStation 2 various game demos.


I definitely used to have a bunch for Dreamcast, but I don’t think I have any of those left anymore, pretty sure this is the last box that I have, a lot of the computer software would obviously be useless now being very old versions and some of it even nonexistent it’s still a fun and nostalgic look back at how we used to sample such things before broad band high speed Internet, access, high-speed, and so accessible to everyone.  It was a box for a pair of boots that I had bought, so it’s a pretty large box and pretty much every disc in here is in mint condition or at least very good condition with the sleeves. Of course, sometimes it wasn’t a demo for a game it might just be a video sample  of gameplay or in between cinematic. Fun times. Anyone out there still have some old demo disc lying around? 

I'm super stoked to join my friend @ShelionGaming TONIGHT 5/14 TUESDAY @ 7p PST/10p EST for a lively chat about @Atari, @arcade_1up, @AtGamesGaming, console #gaming & much, much more! Have u played #Atari today? #BCB #ShelionGaming #YouTube #arcade #homearcade Click:
 
 

While it is a cool mini computer, I feel it would be nice if it did receive more VCS exclusive content. I think it would benefit and be better remembered for games that were made just for it and not on every other platform in the galaxy. Just like XBOX has Halo, Nintendo has Mario, Sony has Gran Turismo, it needs its own games.

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The user base is too small for anything beyond timed exclusives. We have got a few of those. These come to mind:
- Food Fight: Culinary Combat
- Neo Sprint
- BPM Boy
The Recharged games were initially launched 30 days early on the VCS, with bonus missions. But they changed that after the first few releases.

I have continued to play Steam via Chimera. Performance is much better than with Windows, which bogs the 8 GB VCS down. I might try AtlasOS for greater compatibility, but ChimeraOS has been great so far.
Here's my last gameplay video of Battlezone Gold Edition (2018).  Feels right on an Atari. Also, it was on-sale for $3.84.
 
 

This is an incredibly cool perspective of Atari history from the inside as it was happening. Abominably awesome that this has made it to the net.

I got a Pentium II PC back in 1998 when I went back to college because I really needed a Windows PC which was what the schools used.
In the eariler 90's you could get away with dialing into VAX or UNIX machines for programming courses while everything else used DOS PC's (with Macs in Writing Labs of course).
 

I remember trying to teach myself C++ but couldn't afford to take classes at the time, so I bought a textbook from the community college.  It came with Borland C++ compiler but I didn't have a Windows PC b/c they were also expensive for me ATM.  I tried using GNU C++ off a dial-up UINIX account but it didn't work.
Once I was able to go back to school, and get a new PC, the teacher's used the same Borland Turbo C++ that came with my book...
Anyway, I'll check out that archive.
 

I remember trying to teach myself C++ but couldn't afford to take classes at the time, so I bought a textbook from the community college.  It came with Borland C++ compiler but I didn't have a Windows PC b/c they were also expensive for me ATM.  I tried using GNU C++ off a dial-up UINIX account but it didn't work.
Once I was able to go back to school, and get a new PC, the teacher's used the same Borland Turbo C++ that came with my book...
Anyway, I'll check out that archive.
 

Check out this site:  https://atariemailarchive.org/
 
 

 
It appears to be authentic and there's some interesting stuff here.  What do you guys think?  1983 - 1992 skips the early days, but we get a lot of later history. 
 
 

hahaha that reminds me of the time I was getting a developer to help me with my C++ homework. From 1997-2002, I was taking evening classes part-time at the university pursuing a second bachelor in computer science while working at Microsoft. Those weekly programming assignments were brutal. In case anyone is curious, I dropped out.

Very cool day to day minutia of Atari. 😄 Entertaining to see the culture going on through e-mails.
This one reminds me of when I bought a book on coding games in C for DOS around....1994 maybe. I did not have a C compiler or have access to a C compiler. 😅 Borland and Watcom were expensive at CompUSA, so...were off limits for me. At least Petrick had engineers she could mooch off of. 😛

And also, I don't think it's even fair to criticize Coleco.  They could have just as easily decided to NOT make any other console versions.  You want Donkey Kong at home?  You gotta buy a ColecoVision. 
 

I watched last night.  Excellent!  Very enjoyable to watch and hopefully this puts the issue to rest. 
Personally, I liked 2600 DK a lot.  I remember buying it at Toys R Us and being so excited on the car ride home to play.  I know it had it's limitations, but it was a lot of fun and definitely captured some of that Donkey Kong magic in my eyes. 
 

Here's some webcasts that had some episodes with interviews with Hasbro Interactive people at the time.  The one episode was were Hasbro said they would release all Jaguar coding into the public domain which led to this huge homebrew scene.  Anyway here's all the episodes of Back In Time...
https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A"Back+in+Time+Webcast"&sort=date
 

The B&W pics remind me of the CompuEyes digitizier from many years ago...and also the Game Boy Camera!
 

Preview was released today...
 

OK, here is what I have...

All together this time