Maxi C64 now need to get them to do a Atari ST

[leech]

7 hours ago, carlsson said:

If you anyway are a hobbyist knowing your way around things, wouldn't getting a MiST and load it with the appropriate core be your first step? Perhaps someone can design an Atari ST looking case for the MiST unless one already exists, which leaves the keyboard in order to get a semi-authentic experience. No, that will not be a mass market product you'll find at Bed, Bath & Beyond but for most purposes it will serve your needs as well as a "THEC64" version of the ST would do.

 

Big N took down some romz sites last year or so, but it seems most of the other publishers think it is more of a hassle than worth the paperwork. Still if you go commercial about a product and sell it in major stores as well as online, you want your licenses cleared or sell it anonymously so its origin can't be traced. I think a lot of the stuff you can find on Wish but also in some home electronics stores contains pirated stuff but then you only know it comes from one of a million different Chinese vendors and products disappear and new are added all the time.

Big N does thta because they are trying to get people to subscribe to Nintendo Online for their old NES and SNES games, or the various collections of old games (genesis, SNK, etc) on the Switch.  More and more companies are realizing they can still sell things that are ancient.

My biggest complaint is you can get the Genesis collection which has 'over 50' games on it, for like 30 bucks, and yet their SMS games they release on their store are all 7.99 for a single game...  So basically you can get Phantasy Star 2+3 and 50 other games for 30, and Phantasy Star 1 for 8 bucks...

[Christos]

9 hours ago, carlsson said:

If you anyway are a hobbyist knowing your way around things, wouldn't getting a MiST and load it with the appropriate core be your first step? Perhaps someone can design an Atari ST looking case for the MiST unless one already exists, which leaves the keyboard in order to get a semi-authentic experience. No, that will not be a mass market product you'll find at Bed, Bath & Beyond but for most purposes it will serve your needs as well as a "THEC64" version of the ST would do.

 

Big N took down some romz sites last year or so, but it seems most of the other publishers think it is more of a hassle than worth the paperwork. Still if you go commercial about a product and sell it in major stores as well as online, you want your licenses cleared or sell it anonymously so its origin can't be traced. I think a lot of the stuff you can find on Wish but also in some home electronics stores contains pirated stuff but then you only know it comes from one of a million different Chinese vendors and products disappear and new are added all the time.

Or if you want a more similar experience to THEC64, you could get a raspberry pi, one of the various atari st 3d printed cases and install Rastari (or BeePi for a more modern ST experience).

[carlsson]

Absolutely, a Pi does just about the same thing as any of those mini/maxi devices do and usually for a fraction of the price. As long as the broad market appeal is hard to identify, that is probably the way you'd have to take. As a bonus, a Pi is cheap enough that you can buy one as a gift for a friend who might be nostalgic about e.g. the Atari ST but thinks it is too much hassle to emulate it on the PC.

[eightbit]

On 1/15/2020 at 4:56 PM, carlsson said:

Absolutely, a Pi does just about the same thing as any of those mini/maxi devices do and usually for a fraction of the price. As long as the broad market appeal is hard to identify, that is probably the way you'd have to take. As a bonus, a Pi is cheap enough that you can buy one as a gift for a friend who might be nostalgic about e.g. the Atari ST but thinks it is too much hassle to emulate it on the PC.

 

 

I am not so sure. The 8BitGuy reviewed the delay/lag on the Mini, full size version and the Vice emulator on his newer Mac computer. The lag was evident on all of course, but the lag on the full size TheC64 was significantly less than even Vice on his Mac. That said, I suspect that the lag on a Pi C64 emulator (such as Combian) would be more than TheC64 full sized. That is just a speculation mind you as I have not tested that myself, but from the prior tests it makes sense. I suspect the devs for TheC64 have fine tweaked the emulation on this to perform better...which is a good thing.

 

The main thing you don't get with the Pi is the keyboard. That is the biggest downer in my book. It is absolutely a PITA to try to "discover" which keys are the specific PetSCII characters for example. This is true with all vintage computer emulators (and FPGA simulators). You can "deal" with using a Windows keyboard I guess. But I need a real representation of the keyboard. I need to see it as it should be.

 

Granted, it is not much of an issue when it comes to Amiga or ST, but I still hope they do an Amiga and an ST personally. I don't know if it will ever happen...but I will be the first online for one if it does. Physical representation of the computer to me is just as important functionality. I have a few Pi's running various things (such as Amiga Workbench) and while great, the physical representation (board in a box) just doesn't do it for me

Edited January 19, 2020 by eightbit