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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

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
Guest

Guest

0

The Martian - Spoiler-free movie review

Continuing the trend of semi-reality-based science fiction epics set in the undefined yet not-too-distant future that give Neil deGrasse Tyson something to Tweet about, we have The Martian. Having never read the book, I only had a passing interest in seeing the movie, since from the trailers it looked to be little more than the middle film of a trilogy set between Gravity and Interstellar, explaining how Matt Damon got marooned on a distant planet (although how all of Mars gets sucked through
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

3

The last PSP game?

Well, despite my hesitancy to be an early adopter, I did go out and buy Tron: Evolution for the PSP. It was an impulse buy, and I feel terribly guilty about it.   Mainly because I bought it at Wal-Mart.   It's not the same Tron: Evolution that's on the PS3 or XBox360, but rather a collection of mini-games. Most are similar to the games on the Tron: Legacy iPhone app, but the PSP version adds a few more. I suppose Disney chose to go this route since they're both portable platforms, and the
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

9

The Last Carfighter

Remember the movie, "The Last Starfighter"?   It's mostly notable for two things: being an early attempt at sort-of realistic CGI special effects, and being about video games. Otherwise, it's completely forgettable b-movie science fiction.   The premise was that there was an arcade game called "The Last Starfighter" which turned out to be a recruiting tool for actual starfighters. The game was a test of skill, and if you were good enough, an alien would come to earth, and haul you off to do
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0

The iPhone's Killer App

I don't own an iPhone. I don't even own a cell phone. But I do recognize the iPhone as being a pretty cool device.   Still, I didn't see any need for me to buy one, since I don't have much use for a cell phone. Nor do I need it as an iPod, since I already have one. And I don't need a mobile internet device, since I'm not usually very far from a computer anyway. And I own a PSP and GameBoy Advance, so why get an iPhone for a handful of games?   Coming from that perspective, I was rather ho-hu
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1

The inevitable death of TV

I pick up MLB.com At Bat for my iPhone pretty much every year. For those unaware, it lets you access standings, scores, stats, and news about your favorite baseball team, lets you listen to every game live, watch video highlights, and follow along with a neat little graphical app. You even get to pick your home radio station to listen to. For those of us living in an entirely different state than our home team, this is a very cool thing. The cost works out to less than a dime per game.   This
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

3

The Imitation Game - Spoiler-free review

Okay… here's the actual review for The Imitation Game.   The Imitation Game is based on a book about the life of Alan Turing - one of the founders of computer science, and creator of the Turing Test (and if you don't know what that is, you need to turn in your nerd card). Given the somewhat obscure subject matter of the film, and the low-key advertising campaign, I was surprised to show up to a theater with a long line waiting to see it, and a packed house.   The movie flips between three t
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

8

The Imitation Game - Review-free review

The Imitation Game is…   Wait a second.   It just occurred to me that writing these reviews is an awful lot like writing book reports back in high school.     I hated writing book reports.   The Imitation Game gets an 8/10.
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0

The Good Dinosaur - Spoiler-free movie review

Because there apparently aren't enough animated dinosaur movies out there already, and because Disney didn't learn their lesson from the last one of these that they made, we have Pixar's The Good Dinosaur. We had a screening of it at work the other week, and while none of the creative team were there to present it, the reps from Disney and Pixar who were there, felt under some obligation to tell us how "close to the heart" this film was for all of them, and how this movie was all about the "powe
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0

The end of MacMAME.net

For nearly ten years, I ran a website originally called MacMAME News and Info. After a couple of years, I bought a domain name, and it became MacMAME.net.   MacMAME was the Mac version of MAME - the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. A fantastic piece of software that allows you to play thousands of classic (and not-so-classic) arcade games on your home computer. I say "was" since even though MAME is certainly still around, MacMAME hasn't been updated in two years. The project, by all accounts,
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1

The death of "Cartoon Brew"

Let's see, what bad things have happened in animation recently?   Well, DreamWorks is reportedly laying off 20 - 25% of their employees.   Rhythm & Hues is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.   And the website Cartoon Brew is dead.   Where did I read about all of these? Why, Cartoon Brew, of course!   Cartoon Brew has been, for better or worse, a central source of animation-related news and opinion for the last nine years.   Co-founded by animation historian and author Jerry Beck a
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0

The Day After Tomorrow - Spoiler-free review

So you may ask "Wait... why are you reviewing this film??"   Well, it's not the 2004 movie where the world is destroyed.   Nor is it the 1983 TV movie where the world is destroyed.   Nope. This is the 1975 TV special produced by Gerry Anderson of Space: 1999 and UFO fame. (And also Thunderbirds... but that never aired where I grew up, so I never watched that show.)   And the world isn't destroyed in this one. Although it does make reference to us having ru
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

12

The Dark Knight Rises - Spoiler-free review

I'm at the theater yet again, and I've only got a few minutes before the film starts, so there's just enough time to post a super-quick pre-movie entry.   And that was it.   See you in three hours!     (Much, much later...)   You know what? I think I'm going to type this up tomorrow instead. It's late.     (The next day...)   Well, that was a long movie. And if I had to choose one word to describe it, it would probably be "tedious". It takes forever to get going, takes forever to g
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

4
7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 7

A friend and I decided to check out a place the other night that reportedly had classic arcade games: Let's Play Cafe in Monroe, WA. Admission was $20 and everything was set to free-play. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of actual classic arcade games they had there - most of which actually worked!   I played: Joust, Defender, Robotron: 2084 (all three part of a Williams multi-game cabinet), Qix (which had a slightly wonky joystick), Gorf (very reassuring to see that we nailed
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

17
7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 6

Get comfy! These next two entries are going to be a bit on the long side.   There's some saying in some profession or something somewhere where they say something like, "the first rule of whatever is to do no harm". Or something.   This poor 7800 has been through enough grief without incurring any more damage. But as they say, "You can't break any eggs without making an omelette". Or something.   As I was cleaning up the case of the 7800, I decided to try to polish
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

4
7800 repair

The 7800 Mod Mess Mixup Fixup - pt. 5

Well, this blog entry just about ended very differently.   But it's all-good now.   So close to the finish line... just a couple more things to do after this. But first, here's where we're at now.   When we last left this poor, abused 7800, I was about to install a UAV mod, using one of -^CrossBow^-'s 7800 UAV Mount Boards.    First - I need to install the wires (or a header, but in this case, wires). I soldered the first one, then held each successive wire in place
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum in 7800 repair

6
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