[Which games would you like to see in 2015?]

Would be great to see a Star Raiders type game, perhaps an version of phaser patrol. CV would be great for that type of game with the keypad and all.

[How do/did you feel about "Atarisoft"?]

I've played quite a few on the Vic 20 and on the whole they are very good, not sure on the enormous boxes tho! Defender, dig dug and donkey kong are all solid conversions tho, well worth a play or 10. Centipede is a good 'un too.

[Between-Season 2600 Tournament!]

I'm in! Great little game this one, thanks for setting this up buddy

[The reason the Amiga failed.]

The reason the Amiga failed was because it was cheap and manufactured by a toy company. For all the might and mighty graphics & sound (of the day) it sported, businesses wanted nothing to do with cheap plastic machines that had limited expansion.

 

And let's face it, the blue and white default colors of the CLI were campy. Whereas the professional looking monochrome text of a real computer.

 

It had slots you say? That didn't matter, the custom chips weren't upgradeable because they were too entrenched in the backbone. While you could put a faster CPU in there, the custom chips were the real limiting factor. In fact making the whole system go faster would require redesign of those 3 parts - so intimate were they to memory and i/o.

 

It might have been better to have taken "Amiga technology" and package it into a multi-media board for the PC. And make it cheap. Had that passed through we might not have needed Creative Labs or 3Dfx/Nvidia or all those sound and videoboard add-ins we so painstakingly upgraded throughout the years.

 

Instead we'd have a board that would be known as the AM³. Amiga Multi-Media-Module. This was discussed but rejected due to the typical infighting and inability to settle on a standard, which was the downfall of many 80's companies.

 

 

You sir are a knob of monumental size and scope. At what point did the Amiga fail? It was king of the hill from 1987 till the mid 90's. Really I despair of rubbish like this.

tosser.

[Convince me that a Genesis is worthwhile, if you will!]

Road Rash series.

Bio Hazzard Battle.

De-Cap Attack.

Dragon's Fury and Dragon's Revenge.

Arrow flash.

Insector X.

Pacmania.

[Lessons you have learned from video games.]

If you want a well-written story with deep, compelling characters and an interesting plot, read a book.

LOL

[23 consoles in a motorhome? yep!]

What a wonderful home! Great stuff

[Back in the early days of computing, __________________.]

Ram-pack wobble on the ZX81, one touch and programme is gone, official Sinclair solution was Blu-tac! How far we have come, but never again will we have a mainstream computer for £49!!!

Mastertronic 1.99 games, sold in newsagents and petrol stations, truly pocket money prices, great stuff. I have almost all of the Vic-20 games they released.

 

Computer magazines worth reading, Crash!, Zzap! 64, Popular computing weekly, Personal computer news.

 

Variety, how many systems were out there? now it's a one horse show.

[Systems you still own from the original release]

Original launch model Playstation 2(still going strong after 14 years!)

OUYA, got for birthday Cctober last year.

 

all the others have been bought used or as replacements.

[Games Beaten In 2014!]

Gears of War- Xbox 360.

Skylanders Spyro's Adventure - Xbox 360.

Blacksite-Area 51 - Xbox 360

Gran Turismo Concept 2002 Tokyo/Geneva. PS2.

[Savage Pond Atari 5200]

I remember playing this game a lot on Acorn Electron in the 80's was a very fun and unique game, must install an emulator and have a play on this version.

Great to see some of the old more obscure games being converted from mostly forgotten machines!

Best regards,

Chris

[Centipede, Donkey Kong, Pac-man or Something Else]

got to be Pac-man seem to have a version for every system i have, Centipede has to be a close second.

[When did the PC market get "stupid"?]

 

I stopped worrying about graphics cards after the GeForce 4 era, mostly. Following all the marketing-induced granulation and thousands of variations just got to be too time-consuming. No fun anymore.

 

I feel MMX ushered in a new philosophy in CPU design. Pentium-MMX. It was the first commercially marketed CPU that had a major new instruction set added. While MMX may have had dubious value in gaming and real-world applications, the trend it started did not. It was the first in a long long line of instruction set add-ons such as SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4 SSE5 AES AVX F16C XOP FMA3 FMA4.

 

I will however agree the marketing for it was a joke. Just as bad as the Disco era!

 

That and of course the NetBurst fiasco. Anything and everything "dotcom" and "net" related feels ridiculous to me. In fact, the bloated enthusiasm of the pc marketscape during 1998-2007 feels like a circus tent pressurized with oxygen!

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netburst

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_instruction_listings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_instruction_sets#Intel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

All of these supposedly "stupid" things have paved the way for computers to become what they are today, sure some technologies became dead ends, but all have driven us forward one way or another. I for one would not like to go back to 486 CPU's, in order execution, ISA or any of that.

Even netburst that you seem to deride so much much brought us forward, quad pumped FSB, Hyper-threading,vastly improved branch predictors and learning about the effects of electromigration, at very high clock speeds. none of these were a waste of time, it's all a learning curve.

I hope the manufacturers be it CPU or GPU continue to strongly compete, stagnation is worse than the occasional failure.

[Last 3 games you played?]

Golden Axe:Beast Rider, god that's dreadful!

[Was there a personal computer market crash (or correction) in the mid 80s]

The Atari console market must have been pretty strong here in the UK as we had the 2600 junior machines 2 years before they released in the USA.

[I'd like to compile a list of Pac-Man clones for the Atari 2600]

Shark Attack

[karokoenig]

Had a great trade with

karokoenig

Really nice chap to deal with, fast and well packed.

Great stuff!

Cheers buddy!!!

[Bald_Bull_jr]

Had a great trade with

Bald_Bull_jr

 

Items arrived well packed and as described, really nice person to trade with.

 

Thanks buddy!

 

 

[Just brought my first Atari 2600 (Woody) What are your thoughts?]

Everything looks to be in order, except the AC adapter is not the original.

That is an original UK PSU, ingersoll were the UK distributors.

[Gameboy games for old CPU's and video cards.]

Hi all, thanks for all the replies, i got hit by the storm xmas eve and most of my old PC stuff is trashed now with water damage from a damaged roof. I'm not about to start that particular addiction again now after the clean up.

I've had an offer on the games, but the GBC with case is still available.

Best,

Chris

[What was YOUR very first computer?]

Sinclair ZX80 was the first I owned, although I learned prior to that on an 8K Pet from school.

 

then it was: ZX81, Vic20, Speccy, Atari 400, C64, Atari 800, Beeb, MSX, Apple II, C128, then off into 16 bit.

Welcome Jeff!!!

 

nice to see you here.

 

Mine was a Vic 20, with C2N and 16K(oooh exotic!). Mmmm Andes Attack, Matrix, Gridrunner, Metagalactic Llama's

 

Thanks buddy, kept me amused for ages, still play then now.

[Gameboy games for old CPU's and video cards.]

Hi Folks,

 

I have lots of GB & GBC games i'd like to trade, what I'm looking for is older PC CPU's, i've been collecting for a while, but it seems a fair trade, equivalent weight etc, so international postage not a problem!

So if your into gameboy, have a look and see if you have any old processors hanging about. also some old Video cards, I find those of interest too.

I'm looking for working stuff to play with, not fried rubbish. This IS NOT a drive to get gold!

OK here's a list in no real order at all, as it comes out of the box! All are just loose carts, though some have those plastic clam cases.

 

ghostbusters 2.

Parasol Stars.

Kirby's pinball land.

Pokemon Crystal.

Jelly Boy.

Solar Striker.

Snakey Snakes.

Tetris.

The Flinstones Burgertime in bedrock.

Monster Max.

Dr Mario.

Zelda links awakening.

Balloon kid.

Burgertime Deluxe.

Flipper & lopaka.

V-Rally championship edition.

conkers pocket tales.

Tech Deck skateboarding.

VIP.

Extreme sports with the Bernstein bears.

Tamagotchi 2 (Japanese yellow cart).

Kirby's Dreamland.

Double Dragon 2.

Road Rash.

Space Invaders(activision GBC version)

Seasame street Elmo's 1.2.3.

Rampage world tour.

Road Rash(GBC Version).

Top gear Rally rumble version.

Shanghai Pocket.

tonka Raceway.

Pokemon Puzzle challenge.

Maya the bee.

Godzilla.

space invaders(original GB version).

Sabrina spooked.

Mr Nutz(GBC version)

Planet of the apes.

Sabrina zappped.

PAC MAN Special color edition.

Bust a Move 4.

Battletanx.

Super mario bros deluxe.

Rampage 2 universal tour.

godzilla monster wars.

Moorhuhn 3.

Carl lewis athletics 2000.

Ultimate fighting championship.

ATV Racing(rocket games, pretty rare, came only as magazine stick on in UK)

space Invasion(Rocket games,pretty rare, came only as magazine stick on in UK)

 

also available is a very tidy GBC Grape console in a nice Pokemon carry case.

 

also could use a decent working Super socket 7 motherboard. Ram is always an option too

 

Best,

Chris

 

 

 

[Was there a personal computer market crash (or correction) in the mid 80s]

One interesting point is this was a time when the Asian producers fell flat on there faces, they had the television, Hi-Fi & Video markets but the computer was one area they never did master over here. Loads of machines did launch from both Japan and Hong Kong, but not a one made any kind of impact. If fact most of them are really rare today over here.

Examples:

 

Color Genie.

SORD M5.

Sharp MZ 700.

LASER 200.

COMX 35.

 

Also the MSX pretty much sank without a trace, despite Sanyo, Sony and even Philips producing the hardware.

The Mattel Aquarius, a Hong Kong design also disappeared without a trace too.

 

http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/mags/hcw/ills/017/lc-p022.jpg

 

2 of the HK machines are discussed here pre launch.

[Was there a personal computer market crash (or correction) in the mid 80s]

Here's some of the British computers I can remember. All these were gone by 1985.

 

Camputers Lynx.

Elan Enterprise 64/128.

Dragon 32/64.

Grundy Newbrain.

Jupiter Ace

Memotech MTX 500/512.

Oric 1.

Oric Atmos.

Acorn Atom.

Sinclair QL.

 

some of the survivors.

 

Sinclair Spectrum 128 +2(bought out by Amstrad, and remodeled).

sinclair spectrum +3, a +2 with 3" disk drive instead of tape, initially too expensive.

Acorn BBC Master.

Acorn Electron.

Amstrad CPC 364, 664, 6128.

Amstrad PCW 8256, 8512.

 

Later on there was the SAM Coupe, it was much advertised, much anticipated, but ended up being really late to launch & was too little too late in the end and stood no chance against the Atari STFM only a few thousand were sold and software support was awful, a real shame as it would have been the last great 8-bit.

 

The 32-bit RISC Acorns dominated the education market in the later 80's. A stunning machine and the basis for all those ARM CPU's we use today.

 

The Konix Multisystem, this would have been an awesome console, I so wanted one when it was first previewed, Jeff Minter was working on it too. Sadly never did get released. Spec's wise it annihilated the NES, 7800 or Sega.

 

 

 

 

.

[Was there a personal computer market crash (or correction) in the mid 80s]

OK, maybe this will help a little on the UK market in March 1983. Here's some retail prices for the home micro's.

 

BBC Model B = £399.

Sinclair ZX81 =£49.

Sinclair Spectrum 16K = £125

Sinclair Spectrum 48K = £175

Oric 1 48k = £169

Dragon 32 = £199

Commodore Vic 20 = £129

Commodore 64 = £299

Atari 400 16K = £324

Atari 800 48K = £485

 

All prices taken from Home computing Weekly magazine adverts issue numbers 2 & 3.