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Player/Missile, a new Atari 8-bit game podcast


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Once it's on iTunes, it only takes a few minutes after you upload it to show up on iTunes. I really wish I had time to get to the game before the episode came out, I played my 800 cart games but didn't get a chance to plug in the disk drive. Looking forward to listening tonight!

 

For all eleventy-billion podcasts out there in iTunes, that's really impressive of Apple to be able to scan all those rss feeds. I'm looking forward to your review of Solaris, the 2600 game by the same author.

 

It just auto-downloaded for me! 6;32 CST. Im saving it for tonight.

 

Nice! Good to hear I didn't mess up the RSS feed. I'm generating it myself because Python. And I get into that a little in the introduction. :)

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Eagerly listened this morning. Well done! Nicely researched and presented.

 

Star Raiders was one of the first games I ever saw on an Atari computer. My friend who lived across the street got a 400 for Christmas (must have been 1980?)... and watching him play that game, and playing it myself when he finally relinquished the joystick, I was blown away. It's one of the reasons I eventually got my own Atari 8-bit computer a couple years later (an 800XL).

 

I appreciate all the work you're putting into the show - and I know it's a lot of work, especially going through the magazines. Looking forward to the next episode.

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Eagerly listened this morning. Well done! Nicely researched and presented.

 

Star Raiders was one of the first games I ever saw on an Atari computer. My friend who lived across the street got a 400 for Christmas (must have been 1980?)... and watching him play that game, and playing it myself when he finally relinquished the joystick, I was blown away. It's one of the reasons I eventually got my own Atari 8-bit computer a couple years later (an 800XL).

 

I appreciate all the work you're putting into the show - and I know it's a lot of work, especially going through the magazines. Looking forward to the next episode.

Awesome, thanks! So, the magazine section is interesting enough? I ended up recording over 2 hours of raw audio; well, 3 with all my pauses and screwups... So, given the amount I edited out, I clearly spent too much time taking notes. I think the magazines will get more fun when I get to ANALOG and Antic. Slogging through the Creative Computings is not as fun as I had thought it might be.

 

But I still have 1980 to get through...

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Awesome, thanks! So, the magazine section is interesting enough? I ended up recording over 2 hours of raw audio; well, 3 with all my pauses and screwups... So, given the amount I edited out, I clearly spent too much time taking notes. I think the magazines will get more fun when I get to ANALOG and Antic. Slogging through the Creative Computings is not as fun as I had thought it might be.

 

But I still have 1980 to get through...

 

I think it adds an interesting perspective. I have a large box of old video game and computer magazines from back then (they are my childhood originals, for the most part), and I love to periodically look through them, reading old game reviews, "coming soon" features, and the advertisements. Obviously you have to pick and choose when it comes to the items you want to include in each episode, but ultimately, I think it is a cool feature of your podcast.

 

I assume you'll draw from Compute! as well? I don't recall if that was one of the magazines you mentioned. They had a lot of Atari coverage.

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CIRCLE "ENJOYABLE, GOOD JOB" ON READER SERVICE CARD

 

Re: magazines- IMO keep this feature, but the ones I like are COMPUTE! & ANTIC, & even then I'll already be familiar with most of what you read from them, as I subbed to ANTIC (Jan '86 on) & the library had COMPUTE! I like the nostalgia, but if it becomes a hassle & negatively impacts your show, by all means remove it.

 

& I'm guessing for type-in games (& other programs) you won't be PLAYING them, as ferg does? I know I'd enjoy not necessariy a full review, but at least some words on it.

 

Maybe some "crossover" shows with ANTIC podcast, where they interview a past game author (as they did JD Casten), then you'd review his corresponding type-in game from that month/issue.

 

Stan Ockers, David Plotkin, James Hague, Rassilon, to name some I recall.

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I like the magazine part too. As I've said elsewhere, I totally missed the home computer era of the 80s so I like hearing about it.

 

Here's my editing advice: Use Truncate Silence as I mentioned to you (I think Nurmix can help with the settings on that one). Once that is done, DON'T edit out every single um or uh or anything like that, just the really horrible ones (like the 6 second ones that change pitch four times). Most people talk this way and you don't even notice it after awhile. Trust me, editing is the hardest part of doing a podcast in my opinion, you don't want to loathe doing it right out of the gate.

 

Other than that, 10/10 would listen again. :)

 

PS - It will be years before I get to Solaris. Star Raiders will be in the next few months.

Edited by ferghead
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Mega reply about magazines:

 

I assume you'll draw from Compute! as well? I don't recall if that was one of the magazines you mentioned. They had a lot of Atari coverage.

 

Yep, Compute! will be featured. They did a lot of great books as well, I may cover them in a special episode or two. Or maybe a crossover with the ANTIC guys for those if they'd be interested.

 

Re: magazines- IMO keep this feature, but the ones I like are COMPUTE! & ANTIC, & even then I'll already be familiar with most of what you read from them, as I subbed to ANTIC (Jan '86 on) & the library had COMPUTE! I like the nostalgia, but if it becomes a hassle & negatively impacts your show, by all means remove it.

 

I think it will get more fun just focusing on the Atari-specific stuff, certainly when Antic and ANALOG roll around. I'm looking forward to ROM and Atari User, the UK magazines that I've never looked at before.

 

I like the magazine part too. As I've said elsewhere, I totally missed the home computer era of the 80s so I like hearing about it.

 

Cool. If I run into any 2600 stuff, I'll send you the links in case you wanted to mention it in your show. I wasn't thinking; I should have done that before with the review in the Oct 79 Creative Computing but now that I look at it again I think you've covered all those games.

 

Keep the magazine segments in. Remember, that was our "internet" for computer news back then. However, avoid the Family Computing segments as it was pure fluff, and no substance.

 

Good bandwidth in one direction, but really high latency! Yeah, there's just too much stuff to cover everything. My notes were like 10000 words, granted more than half of that was raw cut-and-paste article highlights, but clearly too much to think about for a < 1 hour show. I've got to streamline, so I'll try to make sure I focus on the Atari highlights in the multi-platform magazines, although if a random article hits my interest I'll mention that but not in detail.

 

 

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CIRCLE "ENJOYABLE, GOOD JOB" ON READER SERVICE CARD

 

[...]

 

& I'm guessing for type-in games (& other programs) you won't be PLAYING them, as ferg does? I know I'd enjoy not necessariy a full review, but at least some words on it.

 

Maybe some "crossover" shows with ANTIC podcast, where they interview a past game author (as they did JD Casten), then you'd review his corresponding type-in game from that month/issue.

 

Stan Ockers, David Plotkin, James Hague, Rassilon, to name some I recall.

 

Reader service cards! I had totally forgotten about them, so that was a nice bit of nostalgia.

 

As far as type-in games... I'm definitely going to review some of them, specifically Livewire! as that was very first one I typed in with all those effing hex digits. There's so much good stuff in Antic and ANALOG that I might have to do individual episodes on each one. That would really push the number of episodes up. I had kind of been thinking one episode would cover a single month, but start getting into 1983 and there are 4 magazines a month. It'll be a trade-off between number of episodes, length, and depth of coverage.

 

But I'm anxious to get into the Atari-specific stuff. I'm kind of thinking of doing 1980 in 2 episodes, 1981 in 3 or 4, then the floodgates open.

 

I like the crossover idea. I will have to talk to them more and see what they'd be interested in doing.

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New new plan. 1980 in one episode, and by month after that. I've charted out the first 4 episodes for 1981, and then have list of game suggestions categorized by year after that. I might do a yearly best-of-the-rest/wrap-up episode for games that didn't make the cut for an individual episode.

 

I'll add to the list of games based on suggestions that come in.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Episode 2 is out; new new new plan: I decided to split 1980 up into 2 episodes, and will review Space Invaders for Episode 3. So I had to find something to review for this episode and looked at Super Breakout which is fun but will be better with a spinner/paddle controller.

 

Starting Episode 4 I'll go month-by-month.

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Episode 2 is out; new new new plan: I decided to split 1980 up into 2 episodes, and will review Space Invaders for Episode 3. So I had to find something to review for this episode and looked at Super Breakout which is fun but will be better with a spinner/paddle controller.

 

Starting Episode 4 I'll go month-by-month.

I've started the episode, and am really enjoying it. Larry Kaplan wrote Super Breakout for the 8-bits according to his DP interview

http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_larry_kaplan.html

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I've started the episode, and am really enjoying it. Larry Kaplan wrote Super Breakout for the 8-bits according to his DP interview

http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_larry_kaplan.html

 

Thanks for the pointer to that! My fault for not searching more. After you mentioned it, I discovered links all over the place, like in http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-75.html

 

I'll add a bio to the corrections section of episode 3, and I'll have to add Digital Press to my list of places that I search for references.

 

Thanks!

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I thoroughly enjoyed episode 2. I like the technical breakdown of the game code. I haven't heard so much DLI (Display List Interrupt) talk since I was teaching myself Player Missile Graphics coding in 1983!

Edited by nurmix
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I thoroughly enjoyed episode 2. I like the technical breakdown of the game code. I haven't heard so much DLI (Display List Interrupt) talk since I was teaching myself Player Missile Graphics coding in 1983!

 

Yeah, I'm having fun with these little technical interludes! Brings back memories for me, too. Next episode looks like it will be a little bit about character set remapping.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Episode 3 is out. Space Invaders and a clue to the contest that I'm sponsoring over at Ferg's 2600 Game by Game podcast.

 

Another thoroughly enjoyable and well researched episode! It was very interesting hearing about the programming techniques used to make the game work on the 8-bit. I never knew how it was done (never looked into it I suppose), but the combination of player missile graphics and remapped character sets seems brilliant in retrospect. Nice outro music choice too. Gyruss is awesome.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Listening to your latest (Caverns of Mars) ep, not sure what TenPence Arcade said re: your speaking voice, but i can only assume it was favorable.

 

I for one always found your voice unique & soothing & pleasurable to listen to. In fact, & I dont want this to come out the wrong way, but I keep your 1st couple eps. to fall asleep to. I work overnights so listening to your voice as I drift off drowns out any outside noise (I have 2 boys & 2 barky dogs).

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