Greyfox

Many thanks again for bring more to the table, it's amazing that snippets of information from the sources actually complete the over all story of the history of both the game devs and software houses of the time.
 
Cheers fella.

Great video on this title, I subbed! 
 
 
 

Who couldn't LOVE Amiga? I grew up with Lynx and Jaguar and Amiga feels a lot like those to me. They had some of the same games too. I think Amiga had the best looking games and the most fun games of its generation. 

Zapiy reviewed the gremlin books, if you check the reviews tab, you see it.

Many thanks for your kind word Lost Dragon and delighted you liked the reviews, I did my best to be subjective to the content on both as a reader of the information and a technical merit to how I feel this would be best executed by a publisher, I believe the best content on any media is when the Author is very well in tune with the content, any graphic designer can design a book, but if he doesn't know the subject matter well, it will show to avid readership , take the Art of Atri for instance, the author was so well in tune with the content it would of being difficult to match or even better that layouts and the content, proving that the love for this the author so clearly had has made that a very special book etc.
 
Yes I can say that the VHS boxart book is something truly unique and incredible to anyone who loved the classic VHS cover art we all depended on to sell us the movie good or bad, if it had amazing VHS box art you were hooked. and I highly recommend this, but a bit of advice don't lend this to anyone as you might find it difficult to get back of them lol..more on the way, I'm reading the "Super Famicom Box art Book" from bitmap books and the "Art of Oliver Frey Extended edition" from Retro Fusion books at the moment and they are seriously impressive books. Reviews coming soon.
 
have a good one

Hi Guys,
 
I was meant to post this a while back, but when I'm not out saving the world and preaching religion of all things Atari, I get the opportunity to write book reviews that have been sent to me via the Retro Video Gamer Portal and forum to which I never knew I had a talent for and probably still don't lol but I wanted if it was okay to post direct links to them here for those that may have never seen or heard about these books. So with that, I hope you enjoy reading the reviews and if you are all interested in considering in getting them for you Retro book collections.
 
first up.

More coming soon, I hope you all enjoy these..there are also many other book reviews written by staff over at RVG you can all check out as well, these ones are the ones I wrote.
 
cheers
 
Darren

At last!, Amazon must of being reading this post, my copy arrived today, a little damaged at the bottom corner, not bad but still..
 
And what a book, this has to be the pinnacle of what Atari was, it reems pure nostegia of the golden age of the company, I really can't see this been subseeded or been bettered and it is a pure delight for any Atari fan out there and to be honest the lost art of video game illustration never to be repeated, yet sealed forever within this book, I think Tim has done incredible work on this book, the layouts, the art, the pages are amazing. It's not often a book like this comes our way and that is the only reason why everyone must get this book.
 
The Art of Atari is one of the best examples of what a great company can accomplish, so I thank you Tim for throwing us all back into pool of excellence both by yourself and the once great Atari company.
 
Cheers.

At last!, Amazon must of being reading this post, my copy arrived today, a little damaged at the bottom corner, not bad but still..
 
And what a book, this has to be the pinnacle of what Atari was, it reems pure nostegia of the golden age of the company, I really can't see this been subseeded or been bettered and it is a pure delight for any Atari fan out there and to be honest the lost art of video game illustration never to be repeated, yet sealed forever within this book, I think Tim has done incredible work on this book, the layouts, the art, the pages are amazing. It's not often a book like this comes our way and that is the only reason why everyone must get this book.
 
The Art of Atari is one of the best examples of what a great company can accomplish, so I thank you Tim for throwing us all back into pool of excellence both by yourself and the once great Atari company.
 
Cheers.

My first foray into the Amiga platform was in the fall of 1985. I learned about through Byte and AmigaWorld. It was totally cool reading about a system so different than the 8-bit hobbyist computers I was used to working with. And it looked on-par with the Mac, with color. But the Mac was too expensive. So I got an A1000, 2nd drive, 256K memory module, and 1080 monitor from Farnsworth Computers near Oakbrook Mall. Despite it only costing me $1495, it didn’t work out for me for numerous reasons.
 
Mainly the system was way too new and nothing was available for it. And no one had them, let alone knew what one was. I had TextCraft and GraphiCraft, but it wasn’t enough. They seemed to be too different from what I was accustomed to.
 
Luckily I was able to sell it back to the store for about $1250. I took the money and bought some Team Associated RC car stuff among other things.
 
The second time around was in the fall of 1987 and based on the A500 + 512K/Clock expansion + 1084s monitor. This cost somewhere between $600 and $700. I got it from some place in Barrington called Protecto Enterprises or some store affiliated with them. It was like a warehouse in a barn - IIRC.
 
Shortly thereafter I also got a Digi-View digitizer and PhotonPaint. Got them from Software+ in Hanover Park / Streamwood. This was more like it now! These two tools made the whole platform cool and really worth it. I had loads of fun. I learned plenty of foundational techniques such as color mixing, dithering, brushes, cutting and pasting images, colorization, among all the special features contemporary “paint” programs of the day showcased. I also learned about what would become mainstay graphic formats and how to handle them and convert between them. Many of the techniques I learned on DeluxePaint, DigiPaint, and PhotonPaint have carried over nicely to modern-day Photoshop and Lightroom.
 
HAM mode was my favorite to work with because of the subtle shades of colors. And then eventually SHAM. And my style of working was to grab a digitized image, mod it, colorize it, and mix several of them together. Sometimes just using the camera to input shapes and shadows. Just enough to get perspective and an idea of the interplay of light in a scene. While I could do that stuff on the Apple II, with similarly styled graphic paint programs, the resolution and color mixing was severely limited by what was essentially 1970's hobbyist-class hardware. So I kept the Apple II for productivity, word processing, modems & BBSing, and other miscellaneous tasks while transitioning graphic work to the Amiga.
 
I was inspired by James Blinn from JPL. I ended up doing sci-fi art, and other futurism material in the same style. Animation didn’t matter too much to me at the time and the Video Toaster/Flyer was way out of my price range anyways.
 
I never got much into gaming on the Amiga. No one in my geographical area had one. So supply was limited. But we thoroughly enjoyed Flight Simulator II, Jet, F/A-18 Interceptor, Terrorpods, F-29 Retaliator, Marble Madness, and a few other assorted games. Often times till 1am in the morning.
 
So I continued graphics work, pro-level and recreational, till about 1992-1993. At that time I moved ALL my work from the Apple II and Amiga onto the PC platform. Pretty much out of necessity. Industry standard file formats, data interchange, colleagues having the same platform, raw clock speed, more standardized word processing and communications features. All that stuff. It was about that time that the PC began to match the Amiga’s static image resolution and color gamut at a reasonable price.
 
Somewhere in that timeframe I discovered emulation, first for the Atari VCS and some arcade games. Then more. Over the next 2 decades emulation grew to cover all the early 8 and 16 bit platforms. Amiga included.
 
In 2010 I sold the A500 and the few bits and pieces of hardware I had accumulated. I was beginning to feel the bulking strain of having too much old hardware around. All kinds of old hardware. Emulation was good enough to run the software I had in the 80’s and so that was that.
 
Today I dabble in the Amiga ecosphere from time to time via WinUAE.

You can emulate the commodore amiga series and the cd32 via WinUae emulator so you don't actually need real hardware to play these, Amigajay the guy behind the Unofficial CD32 website has done many amazing compilations that you can freely download and play via your pc or real hardware. But not without some field work, you need a selection of bios files for the the amiga platform or "Kickstart.rom" files, since the Amiga over the years had different revisions of their OS, from 1.2 to 3.9 kickstart, the cd32 needing 3.0/3.1 to run cd32 comfortably.
 
YouTube and Google are your friend here, as the kickstart roms are still held under copyright from Cloato or you can purchase a full amiga suite covering all platform for a ridiculously cheap price from clonal website under their "Amiga Forever" series the latest being the 2016 edition is a one stop front end for the Amiga platform being run under Windows and is well worth the effort for those who never experienced this incredible machine , it was light years ahead of itself and is so well supported today, it's amazing and this post is testimony to this.
 
So for those you never had an Amiga in any form this is an incredible opportunity to now try it out, the games on this platform are a whole world in their own right, with some 2,000 games that can be play from a game collection of 20+ years as well as brand new homebrew titles that are as good as commercial games.

You can emulate the commodore amiga series and the cd32 via WinUae emulator so you don't actually need real hardware to play these, Amigajay the guy behind the Unofficial CD32 website has done many amazing compilations that you can freely download and play via your pc or real hardware. But not without some field work, you need a selection of bios files for the the amiga platform or "Kickstart.rom" files, since the Amiga over the years had different revisions of their OS, from 1.2 to 3.9 kickstart, the cd32 needing 3.0/3.1 to run cd32 comfortably.
 
YouTube and Google are your friend here, as the kickstart roms are still held under copyright from Cloato or you can purchase a full amiga suite covering all platform for a ridiculously cheap price from clonal website under their "Amiga Forever" series the latest being the 2016 edition is a one stop front end for the Amiga platform being run under Windows and is well worth the effort for those who never experienced this incredible machine , it was light years ahead of itself and is so well supported today, it's amazing and this post is testimony to this.
 
So for those you never had an Amiga in any form this is an incredible opportunity to now try it out, the games on this platform are a whole world in their own right, with some 2,000 games that can be play from a game collection of 20+ years as well as brand new homebrew titles that are as good as commercial games.

You can emulate the commodore amiga series and the cd32 via WinUae emulator so you don't actually need real hardware to play these, Amigajay the guy behind the Unofficial CD32 website has done many amazing compilations that you can freely download and play via your pc or real hardware. But not without some field work, you need a selection of bios files for the the amiga platform or "Kickstart.rom" files, since the Amiga over the years had different revisions of their OS, from 1.2 to 3.9 kickstart, the cd32 needing 3.0/3.1 to run cd32 comfortably.
 
YouTube and Google are your friend here, as the kickstart roms are still held under copyright from Cloato or you can purchase a full amiga suite covering all platform for a ridiculously cheap price from clonal website under their "Amiga Forever" series the latest being the 2016 edition is a one stop front end for the Amiga platform being run under Windows and is well worth the effort for those who never experienced this incredible machine , it was light years ahead of itself and is so well supported today, it's amazing and this post is testimony to this.
 
So for those you never had an Amiga in any form this is an incredible opportunity to now try it out, the games on this platform are a whole world in their own right, with some 2,000 games that can be play from a game collection of 20+ years as well as brand new homebrew titles that are as good as commercial games.

Unofficial CD32 Ports   
CD32 160 Game Compilation 

 
http://unofficial-cd32-ports.blogspot.ca/2014/09/cd32-160-game-compilation.html
 
https://mega.co.nz/#!ldBAia5Y!y-0O6WrhtfBzyEVMXBHAmTo3bUOlPpY652kUtJgcHdg
 
 

Thanks guys! That means a lot coming from everybody. I tried to do something creative and fun that would touch the hearts of anybody who grew up with those dino dudes. I'm sure there'll be more to come 

Fantastic work.

Fantastic work.

A great synopsis of the book there ball blazer, for the unlucky few(me) has been no progress or the deviating from their recommended date of delivery of December 2nd which is an entire month from to the day before I receive the book which can be easily picked up from amazon uk and be delivered within three days including the discount which see me at a loss both financially and recieving the book like everyone else on time as promised. I can't even cancel this order as its in transit now by cybernetic pigeon delivery.
 
I won't be ordering from Amazon.com ever again after this, it's a complete and utter let down on their promise as far as I'm concerned. I've reviewed many books for my home on the web and I'm glad this one wasn't one up for me to review as it would have been and gone before I'd of produced it. I know this book is sheer history in the making regarding the Atari brand, the best years in my opinion , but has been tarnished thanks to amazon's complete lack of incompentant months after the pre-order, recieveing stock and dispatch.

A great synopsis of the book there ball blazer, for the unlucky few(me) has been no progress or the deviating from their recommended date of delivery of December 2nd which is an entire month from to the day before I receive the book which can be easily picked up from amazon uk and be delivered within three days including the discount which see me at a loss both financially and recieving the book like everyone else on time as promised. I can't even cancel this order as its in transit now by cybernetic pigeon delivery.
 
I won't be ordering from Amazon.com ever again after this, it's a complete and utter let down on their promise as far as I'm concerned. I've reviewed many books for my home on the web and I'm glad this one wasn't one up for me to review as it would have been and gone before I'd of produced it. I know this book is sheer history in the making regarding the Atari brand, the best years in my opinion , but has been tarnished thanks to amazon's complete lack of incompentant months after the pre-order, recieveing stock and dispatch.

I finally received my copy yesterday from Amazon.  The wife and I spent much of last evening flipping through it together... then I spent even more of my evening looking at it more closely (making notes for a forthcoming review).
 
In short: it's great -- better than I hoped it would be.  The quality of the product is top-notch, the curation/design of all the research done is fantastic, and I'd be hard-pressed to come up with significant ways to improve it.  <$25 for the standard edition is an incredible bargain.
 
That said, I don't regret my Deluxe Edition purchase at all -- I'd planned to pick up Atari Vault for Steam anyway (current regular price $20; I was going to wait until it hit $10 so... I'll call it a $15 value), the Cliff Spohn limited print is very nice and good quality (if a little small), but it's the book packaging that seals the deal.  I really like the design of the standard edition cover, but having the heavy-duty slipcase that looks like an Atari box to protect the book that looks like a picture label cartridge is just a brilliant idea.  Having the Deluxe book leather-bound takes it over the top.  Just one man's opinion, obviously, but -- the standard edition is a great book; the Deluxe is a work of art in itself.

Have you updated the retropie emulation station front end? Found in the configuration for the retro pie? Latest vrsions 4.2 I think fixed and I proved a huge amount of emulators under the hood of retro pie.

Well I was originally told November 18 and then that mysteriously leap to December 2 so my book is on a banana boat somewhere. Cancelling the order won't make it get here any sooner, I went for regular delivery charges, but didn't think that meant fecking dark ages..

Geez, LD, that's nuts.
 
I haven't reached out to them yet. It says delivery is scheduled between October 31 & November 2. I'm okay with that, I'm just wondering why it's taking them so long to ship them out when it has hit the streets long before those dates.

I pre-ordered the standard version on April 9. It still hasn't shipped. I've never had an issue like this with Amazon. 

Starting to wish I'd ordered the standard version, as I'm in the same boat as you, Greyfox.  Amazon claims I'll have it on Monday or Tuesday...
 
I guess I'll just read my interview again. 

Tops......
 
I can't understand the UK is 40 min plane flight, they get the book over there on time and living in Ireland appears to be some far away tropical location to where things arrives months later? By the time the book arrives either his second book will be in production or the postman-men will know about the content than I will
 
You guys are living it up over while I play hiding in the closet waiting there like Mike Myers in a boiler suit. Not happy about this..