So if homebrews made by fans/users/wotnot ....

[JamesD]

20 hours ago, potatohead said:

I never subscribed and feel I should have.  Seems like overall good experience.  Each month, period, the new stuff shows up.  That's nice.

 

For me, I was either saving up money from odd jobs to buy the few programs I really wanted, or copy parties and those were mostly games.

Not having to type it is was a huge win. 

[Mr SQL]

22 hours ago, JamesD said:

I subscribed to a cassette only magazine called Chromasette for a year.
As a bonus, they included a complete accounting system written in BASIC.
There were quite a few good programs, but quality varied a lot.

Very cool I remember Chromasette! I had a subscription to T&D Software which was similar and wrote several programs for them.

20 hours ago, potatohead said:

I never subscribed and feel I should have.  Seems like overall good experience.  Each month, period, the new stuff shows up.  That's nice.

X2 it was tremendous fun you never new how many good programs would be among the dozen or so you'd get each month without exploring them. Some were real gems  

 

[potatohead]

Like software Xmas!

 

Maybe it's possible to do it again.   At some point, there will be people coming into retro without as much context.  Giving it to them, handful of programs at a time might work in a way similar to how it worked originally.

Edited October 21, 2020 by potatohead

[carlsson]

On 10/14/2020 at 3:37 PM, carlsson said:

As far as I can tell, the Epyx trademark was renewed as recently as late September 2020, though Bridgestone Multimedia Group have zero content on their website about it.

Cool! Epyx, Inc is listed as the developer of 7 games on Steam. I don't know what that really means, if these games on Steam simply run inside custom emulators rather than completely rewritten for the native system.

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Epyx%2C Inc.

[high voltage]

On 10/13/2020 at 9:45 PM, youxia said:

For me "homebrew" will always represent the non-commercially oriented content from the console hacking/coding scene which arose somewhere around PSP era and continues since then. It has started earlier, perhaps with SNES, or maybe even some earlier consoles, but I suppose PSP was its peak time (see this interesting poll on GBAtemp.).

 

Wikipedia has a definition, and I largerly agree with it - as they say amateur programs written for micro- and "normal" computers have other names, be it "hobbyist" as they say, my favourite "bedroom coded', or modern "indie".

 

I know of course there are commercial homebrew programs as well, but for me this term associates best with the free ones.

 

Thanks for the links.

Very interesting, so the term originated from the early computer industry:

 

In 1995 – three years after Atari's withdrawal of the 2600 from the marketplace – independent developer Ed Federmeyer released another Atari 2600 homebrew project, titled SoundX, a cartridge that demonstrated the sound capabilities of the Atari 2600. Federmeyer used the term "homebrew" to describe this type of hobbyist-driven development, inspired by the California Homebrew Computer Club of early computer enthusiasts that included Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Originally designing the cartridge for his own use, Federmeyer decided to gauge interest among fellow retro game enthusiasts; like Dodgson, Federmeyer advertised his creation on Usenet, ultimately receiving over 50 responses. Following SoundX, Federmeyer created an unlicensed port of the game Tetris, titled Edtris 2600.

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by high voltage

[Swami]

My problem with games written in the 80's being homebrews is that games like Happy Birthday, Extraterrestrials and Red Sea Crossing were made by some guy in his home and sold much like Homebrews are today and in numbers on the same scale. I guess the difference would be they were directed at the public while homebrews began as directed at retro fans; First at conventions, then on websites. I suppose you could say "first as programs in fan magazines in the 80s". The computers vs consoles angle is an interesting one. Some computers were almost hybrids, as computers like the C64 and Atari 400/800 had so many game cartridges, like the consoles did, they differed from Apples and IBMs.

[Mikebloke]

Just a random addition to this, but in the UK we often used the term Bootleg for things that aren't officially endorsed and either freely distributed or sold without permission. NES games by Tengen for example would come under Bootleg because they bypassed Nintendo's chip. The term bootleg is loose, and can be marketed as bootleg for promotion (eg: Sega Saturn had "bootleg" previews and demos).

 

Bootleg can be either be paid to be or designed to be professionally produced, its the distribution itself that is "unofficial" or not accepted by the console license.