Homebrew? Yes or No?

[zzip]

16 minutes ago, Keatah said:

At the same time a lot of today's homebrews incorporate 21st century knowledge and internet collaboration. And modern emulators & debuggers either. Those tools were not available in the late 1970's and early 1980's. So a touch of modern is present via programming technique.

That's a good point,  modern toolchains do boost productivity and efficiency.   Also modern graphics tools.    There's cases in the old days where graphics were worse than they needed to be, not always due to systems limitations but maybe because of lack of good drawing tools or maybe the programmer was just not an artist?   The one that comes to mind is Miner 2049er.  The "Bounty Bob" sprite always looked weak, and someone posted a hack a few years back replacing the sprite with something looking more like the Bounty Bob from the game's cover art,  proving it didn't need to be that way.

 

47 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Today with every game on every system it's still overwhelming. But I've taken a different stance. Have the original via MAME, and then simply select my fav ports for my fav systems. Eliminates the problems of trying to be a completist. Atari 400/800 Defender and Atari 2600 Missile Command would be good examples of desirable ports.

Yeah these days I will almost always go with the arcade version since it's the version most of us wish we had back then.   The exceptions usually are when I played the port before I encountered the arcade version and took a liking to the port, that becomes my preferred version.     So as much as I despise 2600 PacMan,  I do understand why the people who never encountered it in the arcade often think the 2600 version is great.   It becomes the definitive version to them.

[Keatah]

12 minutes ago, batari said:

Personally I think Doom on hardware never intended for it is really cool, even if is just a novelty and ultimately doesn't have a real utility.

I've seen and read about so many cool tech things in the 70's & 80's that were described with authority and in a way that made us believe they would become reality. Think flying cars, or space shuttles and space colonies for the masses. None of it is close to happening.

 

To prevent brain cloggage I now tend to filter out tons of irrelevant tech.

 

The act of playing Doom on a camera or pregnancy test or engine controller is novel. And that novelty is entertaining for the duration of watching it happen. Then it suddenly becomes like whiptyeffendoo. I don't denounce the hacking skill or whatever's required to do it though. But let us not make worldwide headlines about it.

[zzip]

56 minutes ago, Keatah said:

4 hours ago, zzip said:

But how many have actually played a full game of pregnancy test Doom?   Just because something can be done doesn't mean it's useful.

Right. This is done so much in tech. It's such a turn-off. It makes discovering new things fatiguing as you try to figure out what can or can't be relevant & revolutionary.

This stuff was common when I used to browse Slashdot in the 90s.   But it was so novel that it seemed cool then.  I remember people used to log into internet enabled Coke machines and get them to print out their inventory..   Nowadays I'm more likely to think "OMG a malicious AI could hack into that Coke machine and turn it into a weapon!"  

 

Nowadays I'm more jaded so the umpteenth port of Doom to a non-gaming device isn't that impressive anymore.   But I guess I should be grateful that the person is porting old software and not teaching AI's to weaponize vending machines

 

[Keatah]

9 minutes ago, zzip said:

So as much as I despise 2600 PacMan,  I do understand why the people who never encountered it in the arcade often think the 2600 version is great.   It becomes the definitive version to them.

2600 could never ever be a definitive version for me. And I played the arcade version precisely 3 times back then. But the 2600 iteration is nostalgic and sentimental to me on many notes.

 

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

Nowadays I'm more jaded so the umpteenth port of Doom to a non-gaming device isn't that impressive anymore.

I'm not so much jaded as I am fatigued. Playing with tech can be very time consuming.

[Albert]

1 hour ago, batari said:

Personally I think Doom on hardware never intended for it is really cool, even if is just a novelty and ultimately doesn't have a real utility. I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from hacking whatever device they wanted because some think it's stupid!

I agree, it's always amusing to me when I see Doom has been ported to yet another obscure device.  I remember when this craze was fairly young, and I was able to install and run Doom on an early Kodak digital camera I had (Kodak Digital Science DC260 Zoom or similar).  The camera had a small color screen, audio output, and a d-pad, and the game actually ran fairly well, much to my shock.  Obviously I didn't spend a lot of time playing it on that device, but it was astonishing to see it running on the camera. 

 

 

 ..Al

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, batari said:

Personally I think Doom on hardware never intended for it is really cool, even if is just a novelty and ultimately doesn't have a real utility. I wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from hacking whatever device they wanted because some think it's stupid!

Exactly! A couple months ago, it was all over Hackaday and the classic Lego community that someone figured out how to get DOOM running on a tiny chip+OLED display combo they could integrate into an little translucent angled Lego block of the sort used in classic Lego Space sets of the 70's/80's, then put the chip inside some of those sets in place of the screen-printed "computer console" pieces they were initially sold with. THAT IS FECKING AWESOME. 

[Lord Mushroom]

7 hours ago, littaum said:

People have been porting Doom to all sort of crazy platforms.  Doom may not be available on an Atari 2600 just yet, but it is available to play on a .. pregnancy test.

As scary as Doom is, nothing in gaming is as terrifying as the positive ending of the built-in game of a pregnancy test.

[Keatah]

Doom on a pregnancy test.. Might mean hellspawn is coming!

[+Black_Tiger]

On 3/20/2023 at 3:20 PM, Keatah said:

Let's expand it a little. A programmer working independently of corporate directives, is homebrew.. How many times have we heard the Pac-Man and E.T. stories about meeting deadlines? Or the game being restricted in size because corporate said 8K and not 16K, for cost restrictions.

 

These are all real factors for most new Intellivision games.

 

Games are usually worked on by multiple people or teams, and most games are bought after completion or comissioned to order by publishers.

 

At least one publisher buys official licences for ports.

 

Keeping rom size small enough to avoid fancy carts with bank switching is even more of an issue now than before.

 

Games aren't only sold direct by publishers. Third parties carry or distribute them as well.

 

But companies like Limited Run Games sell their products direct. I don't think it's fair to call them homebrew.

[Mr SQL]

On 3/24/2023 at 4:29 PM, batari said:

Give us an objective, unambiguous definition of "enhanced" that can be agreed upon. We will wait  

 

Here is a clear definition on this AtariAge thread with a functional example:

This design could also be implemented with a more powerful CPU providing the extra cycles or on the Commodore 64 using the VIC-II as a co-processor to provide even enough extra cycles to emulate the Atari 2600 as well. You may like that I'm working on emulating 2K and 4K batari BASIC games right now with another indie Dev from AtariAge  

 

You have a lot of fascinating aspects in your design of bB, particularly the myriad kernel options to wrap my head around! This is taking some time and a lot of hard work... hopefully this won't become another Knight Rider Project:

 

 

[zzip]

On 3/24/2023 at 10:39 PM, Lord Mushroom said:

As scary as Doom is, nothing in gaming is as terrifying as the positive ending of the built-in game of a pregnancy test.

How to read your Doom Pregnancy results:

 

Not Pregnant

 

 

Congratulations, you are having a baby!

 

 

Inconclusive Result

[MrMaddog]

This is the Maury Povich version:

 

"You ARE the Father!"

 

 

"You are NOT the Father!"

 

 

 

And the accompanying dance...

 

[Giles N]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:40 PM, Mr Hudson said:

I know there is a lot of talent and amazing projects that people have turned out, but some people are purists and only will collect/play titles that were originally released?

 

Would like to hear others opinions on the matter!

I, given some warming-up time, would like to contribute - if occasion arises - with graphics, level-design, story etc on some 7800 original game, free from any or all copyright-questions whatsoever.

 

I’m of the old-fashioned type, having a liking for games going in the direction of good guy/gal to shred ‘n incinerate classical-typical evil being (GnG, Castlevania 1-4+, etc etc)

… stuff like that…

 

If utterly novel, new … as new to be utterly the makers own in all ways,  all strings conceivably to be attached, cut off, nor even given a single glance, - fine, more than fine - since its new, novel then to be the makers own thing,   - and then as to the questions of the final output… if made outstanding; I have no other care than that the final game is excellent in all areas … 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Giles N

[Keatah]

On 3/18/2023 at 4:40 PM, Mr Hudson said:

I know there is a lot of talent and amazing projects that people have turned out, but some people are purists and only will collect/play titles that were originally released?

Could you point out some people/articles/videos specifically saying as such?

 

On 3/18/2023 at 4:40 PM, Mr Hudson said:

Would like to hear others opinions on the matter!

My continuing opinion seems to settle on this. Most early consoles had an intended lifespan of a just a few years. In the case of the 2600, I think it was 4. That's what I kept hearing over the years. And Atari seemed to extend the life of the console year after year. From 1977 through 1992, far exceeding the original projection.

 

In that time Atari kept innovating with new BS schemes. Each one bringing a new level of capacity/capability. And purists accept it all as canon. Well guessawhat? Homebrews have done the exact same thing. They've increased the technical capabilities of cartridge and system. So homebrews are simply a showcase of present-day advancements.

 

And when the purists say "originally released", are they referring to the console mfg's carts only? Or might that include 3rd party releases of the day too? Because, in the case of the 2500 again, there were many important and iconic games from Activision and Imagic. Some of were even genre and system-defining. And are those included in their definition? If so then other great games of today must also be included.

 

Final analysis tells me all games that fit in the slot are real and valid evolutions of what first came out in 1977.