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About this blog

Mostly Atari-related projects, and other ramblings. Home of the Artie the Atari comic strip.

Entries in this blog

New old music - part 2

I actually got this DVD months ago, but never got around to reviewing it:     The World of Maynard Ferguson was a TV special produced in 1970, featuring Maynard and his big band, plus some special guests. Just prior to this period, Maynard had hung out with Timothy Leary for awhile and had a brief fling with under-the-counter medicine, went to India where he was influenced by the culture and music and got bit by a snake, and then moved to England where he formed a completely new band. "The
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 37

Time again to dust off the ol' 7800.   Failsafe 4/5   Failsafe is an unofficial sequel to the Atari 5200 game Countermeasure. Having never played Countermeasure, I can't judge Failsafe's success as a sequel, only on its own merits as a standalone title.   The goal of the game is to drive a tank across hostile enemy territory, while destroying enemy gun emplacements, jeeps, terrorists and cruise missiles, while collecting pieces to a code that will allow you to to disarm a nuclear missile b
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 35

So what's left over when you've tested and reviewed everything else in the AtariAge store? Is this the end of Homebreviews!? * Labyrinth 1/5 Labyrinth is an unreleased prototype of the game Escape From The Mindmaster, which requires the Supercharger peripheral to play. The game comes on a CD, so you'll need to plug the Supercharger cable into the headphone jack of a CD player, then play the CD for about a minute for the game to load. Once loaded, you maneuver through a maze in first-person p
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 34

No games (as such) this time around. I'm getting near to the end of what the AtariAge store currently has to offer... Testcart 3/5 Testcart is a utility cartridge that allows you to check an Atari 2600's various components and controllers to see if they're working properly. When you plug in the cart, it displays a few colors onscreen so you can make sure your 2600 video circuitry is working, and plays music so you can check the audio. After a few seconds, the screen will change to a display s
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 33

So it's time to go back to the arcade! Or perhaps "hack to the arcade", since these reviews are all about AtariAge's "Arcade" hacks. As with previous hacks the question is: Is a hack worth paying for if you already own the original game? This entry also contains my 100th Homebreview! It's hard to believe, but I've gotten almost as many games from AtariAge as commercial releases that I'd bought back-in-the-day. And there are even more new games on the way. But first... Pac-Man Arcade 4/5 Pac-M
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 32

Ah yes, the Atari 7800... the poster child for "too little, too late". The 7800 had great promise when it was previewed in Electronic Games magazine back in '84, but the industry crash killed it before it even got out the door. By the time it was finally released several years later (to cash in on the success of the NES), nobody took notice, and nobody wanted to take a chance developing titles for it. The 7800's miniscule library eventually was the death knell for the system, at least as far as
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 30

Well, if I don't start writing some more reviews, I'll never catch up. So we'll start off with two games with musical names! (Okay, so one of them isn't a game. But "two carts" wouldn't have rhymed. ) Harmony Cart 5/5 The Harmony Cart is a programmable multi-game cartridge that allows you to load almost every game ever written for the Atari 2600 onto an SD memory card, and play them on a real console. While there have been other programmable cartridges for the 2600 before, the Harmony has se
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews index - part 3

It's been almost a whole year, so it's time again for an update to the Homebreviews Index. There are now 89 reviews, arranged alphabetically, by score. There weren't too many new releases this year, but more are on the horizon. With any luck I'll hit the 100 mark sometime in 2010.   Reviews added since the last index are labeled New. All reviews are for Atari 2600 homebrews, unless otherwise noted.   5/5 2005 Holiday Cart: Reindeer Rescue 2005 MiniGame MultiCart 2007 Holiday Cart:
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Getting Mooned

I haven't seen a whole lot of movies this summer, including most of the big action blockbusters. Maybe I'm just tired of having my senses (or sensibilities) assaulted, but I really haven't missed them any.   That said, me and a couple of friends wanted to go see something, so we looked through the listings and found Moon.   Moon has kind of fallen under the radar this summer since it's not a big-budget, well-advertised, mainstream-audience movie. But it is well-reviewed, and looked like it w
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Cos and effect

Well, the San Diego Comic Con happened recently. One of these days, I must really go and see it. Not because I'm into comic books (I was cured of that particular disease years ago), but because of the whole spectacle of the thing.   Yes... I'm talking about Cosplay again.   This is what happens when Gorfs intermarry   There's a rather impressive bevy of barely bedecked babes, people who've packed on ponderous poundage, comedic creative costuming, and just some stuff that you have to see
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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New old music - part 3

Once again, Sleepy Night Records digs through their vaults an old trunk, and dusts off some more "Lost Tapes":     Maynard Ferguson - The Lost Tapes Volume Two, revisits some more vintage demos and live recordings of Maynard and his big band from 1968-1974.   As with Volume One, these were never intended for release, and are presented warts and all. These are recordings for fans, to be sure. Fans of Maynard, or any fans of hard-core, heavy-hitting big-band jazz. Yes, that's a weird descri
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Summer Full 'o Movies pt. 4 - Kung Fu Panda

Well, I hadn't originally planned to go see Kung Fu Panda, because most Dreamworks animated films are dreck. Seems to me they even have a few films named Dreck or Wreck or Shlock or some such thing. Whatever.   But when positive reviews started showing up on Cartoon Brew, I thought I'd go see it anyway. The readers on Cartoon Brew tend to be pretty merciless when reviewing animated films that don't live up to their (generally over-inflated but often accurate) standards.   So, as part of work
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Review To-do

And the latest batch of goodies from AtariAge has arrived.   Looks like I've got some reviewin' to do...     ...and I still haven't gotten to the previous batch of reviews yet.   I think in order to catch up, I'm going to have to go back to writing shorter reviews. I don't think anything quite as epic as the Last Ninja/N.E.R.D.S rant is really necessary anyway.   The AtariAge store is starting to run out of stuff I don't have yet. I'm starting to dip into the hacks now. What do I do
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Making Labels - Part 6

Well, since there's now a label contest for Strat-O-Gems underway, I suppose I should wrap up this tutorial, just in case people can make some use of it.   Part 6 - Highlighting   Highlighting is part of the shading process. You're defining a light source, and then using that to apply light and dark values to an object. I make highlighting a separate step, just because it's a more flexible way to work. By putting highlights on a separate layer in Photoshop, it allows me to go back and adju
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Slightly more fun than coughing up phlegm

It's been awhile since I've reviewed any animated film. Mainly because it's been awhile since I've seen any animated film. However, since I'm home with the flu, I figured while snot was draining out of my head, it was as good a time as any to watch Meet The Robinsons. Mainly because nothing else is on, and a friend of mine loaned me the DVD, so it didn't cost me anything.   Here's my review, in a nutshell:       Seriously... if you're a filmmaker... never ever put scenes like these in
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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New old music - part 1

There's nothing quite as cool as getting new music from one of your favorite artists.   But maybe even cooler, is getting new old music from them. Stuff that, for one reason or another, was left in the vaults and never released.   Such is the case with Maynard Ferguson - The Lost Tapes Volume One.     This is a great collection of unreleased live recordings and demos from the late 60's - early 70's. Recorded by Maynard's manager at the time, Ernie Garside, these tapes - dozens of them -
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 9

Well, looks like I'll start off this batch of reviews with the sole 7800 title in the lot.   I still recall first reading about the 7800 as if it were yesterday...   Not that it's all that clear, mind you. It's just that I can't remember much about what I did yesterday.   Anyway, Electronic Games magazine had a huge preview of the Atari 7800 in their September, 1984 issue. I remember being wowed by the graphics, and all the specs they were throwing around. The fact it could play all of my
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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And then...

I've just been buried at work lately.   And by lately, I mean since early August. Non-stop. Tons of (unpaid) overtime.   I worked 90 hours one week. 20 hours in one day.   And those weren't even in the same week.   But things are starting to calm down. A little bit.   I had to supervise two major construction projects, including the building of an all-new computer lab for running Maya. We were put six weeks behind schedule due to construction issues (and asbestos removal), but fortun
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Another update on stuff

Did you miss me?   Funny thing about going on vacation and still having internet access - nobody knows when you're "gone".   Anyway, I'm back. Here's my current to-do list: Artwork, label and manual for Lady Bug - In progress Manual for Four-Play - Soon Juno First title screen Label and manual for the AtariVox Bitmap for Bob - Soon-ish Finish RPS manual - Waiting for game to be finished Finish MGD manual - Waiting for game to be finished Start editing "Stella at 20"
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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iPod, uPod, we allPod

Well, a saw a sure sign today that iPods have indeed, become a cultural phenomenon.   Yes, I'd heard there were iPod vending machines... but I didn't expect to see one... in my local grocery store.   That's right, the Vons on Lyons avenue, in little old Newhall, California, has one of these:     This isn't it, but it's the same basic machine. Except the one at Vons has nothing but iPods and iPod accessories.   Here's the really weird thing about all of this... I actually bought someth
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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More music

Some months back, I wrote an entry about some upcoming albums that were coming up that I was planning to buy. I already reviewed one of the albums in the comments (Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream & Other Delights - Re-Whipped), but hadn't gotten to the other ones yet.   One of them, "Weird Al's" new album, isn't finished yet. It's mostly finished, but apparently he has to go back into the studio for some reason (he mentioned something about silly record company politics on his site). Whenever
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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Homebreviews - part 5

Well, since Qb has been temporarily added back to the AtariAge store, I'd better get a review written for it before it goes away again.   Qb 5/5   Qb is what I'd describe as an "action/puzzle game". The goal is to slide puzzle pieces around and duplicate a pattern shown on screen. Sounds simple enough, but you're racing against time to finish each puzzle, and you also have to deal with enemies that can pop up and ruin all of your hard work (and you). The gameplay is completely addictive, an
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

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You're buggin' me, man!

Well, it turns out that one is a praying mantis - not a cricket. But I was right - it is giving me trouble.   The hardest thing about making these sprites (so far) is that if I were just making vertical versions (as the sprite rips shown in my previous post below are), then I could make pretty decent-looking conversions. There's enough vertical resolution (14 pixels) in the sprites to be able to make neat looking legs, spots, stripes and other stuff.   And there is a lot of that kind of st
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The most useless blog entry - ever!

Well, after being on vacation for a few weeks, it's about time to dust off the blog and start updating it again.   However, this isn't that update.   But I'll have something in here soon.   I'll post some opinions on the Flashback 2, write up a way-too-in-depth look at why the XBox 360 is going to lose out to the PS3, maybe add some thoughts about Apple's move to Intel, and also start up another "how-to" series - this one being about creating animated sprites for the 2600.   Meanwhile, t
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So many pixels...

I had a really nice Thanksgiving at my relatives' house. It's always nice to get away for a few days. Ate way too much turkey and mashed potatoes.And pie.Gotta have the pie, though.Anyway, I brought along an iBook and a Wacom tablet, so I could work on some more game sprites while I was down there.So far, I've done almost 50 sprites.For one game.Including the individual frames for animation I'm up to 151.Plus 30 font characters.That's a lot of pixels.Not all of it is going to get used. A few are
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