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Games Entertainment

Even Better Than The Portable 2600 98

Posted by Hemos from the more-retro-than-retro dept.
Walton C. Gibson writes: "Instead of a portable 2600, how about a device that plays EVERY 2600 game ever made in hardware, and it all fits inside a single Atari 7800 enclosure? Check out Bankzilla -- as well as some this guy's other projects like the NES music format, making a portable NES."
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Even Better Than The Portable 2600 More

Even Better Than The Portable 2600

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  • Um, technically, Slayer was never a 'Death Metal' band. They were a thrash metal band, Metallica was a speed metal band, Megadeth was a techno-speed metal band, and Antrax were a borderline crossover metal band. There's the big four, let me know if you want more ;-) (oh yeah, Pantera is a Power Groove band).

    And quite honestly, all we saw was that as the heavy bands got older they really did lose their ability to play anything requiring any skill. Look at Metallica (now a radio-pop band). And Slayer now plays hip-hop, or damn near it from what their last album sounded like. This isn't a sign that morality is coming back into style. This is a sign that even our greatest heroes are now falling for the 'money is everything' creedo that has become the mainstay of corporate sponsored American culture. Sorry if I sound bitter. The death of real metal has left me feeling a little empty.

    Of course, metal still lives in my house. Just ask my wife and neighbors;-).


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them

  • Re:Portable C64 (Score:4)

    by Phexro ( 9814 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @01:31PM (#624113)
    if you want to get stuff from c64 disks (1541 & 1571), take a look her e [tu-darmstadt.de]

    you'll also need a copy of star commander [c64.org] or trans64 (can't find a link for trans64, sorry).

    it does require that you have a 1541 or 1571 drive, and i don't know about it working on the mac... but it works just great on a pc.

    i seem to recall a linux driver for this style of 1541 interface a few years back, but i can't find anything about it now. it would probably work under dosemu or vmware though.

    --
  • Just a note about that link, Kevin's Tetris is for the Colecovision, not the 2600.

  • What is the deal with these people?

    It's a hobby I imagine. I imagine the fun was in the building and problem solving. Personally, I've always found hacking a game more fun than playing it.

  • TI99/4a (Score:2)

    by asn ( 4418 )
    I'd like to see a portable version of the TI99/4A with all of it's games installed.... Any takers?

    Or maybe a multiplayer version of "Tunnels of Doom"... *droool*

  • $99 would be a good price-point - it's affordable and has a great value (imho, at least). While yes, you can get an emulator for a computer, it's just not the same as playing in front of a TV.
  • only if he sells it or used other people's ROMs. if as i suspect hes hacked together lots of his own HW to make something new then hes done zilch illegal... except being too cool perhaps
  • And all the EE majors say "Amen brother".


  • This doesn't break any laws so far as I see mentioned on the site. He doesn't say where he got the roms for the cartridges. If he downloaded them from the net, then ok, he broke some laws. If he bought all those cartridges at flea markets, this thing is totally legal. If he were to mass produce this thing for selling, he would need a licensing agreement with the copyright holders of the games in his system.



    Seth
  • the deal? the joy of creating, problem solving, designing
  • Aww, brother that picture is useless as far as fabricating a board.
  • >I smooshed a hamster with my car yesterday.

    If it was sitting on a Visor, you'd get thrown into the Quickies for sure.
  • I posted this one twice and it got slapped down in a minute both times
    Yes, and you've posted in in comments about a dozen times already since then. Cut it out already.
  • Which of course is the whole joke since, correct me if I'm wrong, there is no way to "buy" ROM's anymore.
  • Hello no, I'd not pay more than $20 for this, if even that, since it would just take up space and would lose my interest after a few minutes of playing, since I've been so over-sensitized by "modern" games. These emulators entertain me for a few seconds and then I'm off back to playing Quake III.
  • Now if I can just get a Commodore 64 with every game to fit inside of a Palm, I'll be set.

    Scott

    EventNation.com [eventnation.com] to find, post, and discuss upcoming events of all kinds.
  • Now, yes, this is cool. But, on his FAQ page he goes to great lengths to say he will not share (just about) anything about the project above that single page. What the hell good is this to other people who might want to build the same thing? He won't even SELL the spec sheets! There's the hacker spirit for you...
  • ive done that of course. :) but I am talking handheld size.. something that fits in my hand or two.. and runs off of aa or aaa batts..

    anyway.. blah :)
  • I dunno, it seems to me that the 70's were the Big Thing in the 90's. You had all the stupid clothes... my wife would continuously point out teenagers wearing things she wore when she was 12 or so, a lot of period movies and 70's influenced music (disco == bad, but rock == good). Don't forget that 70's show on Fox (I wish I could remember the name of it ;) ). Nick-at-Nite and TVLand are running tons of shows from the 70's (whereas they used to run mostly older shows).
    There was a run of popular "disaster films" just like in the 70's. Gas prices have been rising....

    Of course you realize that any month now Smurfs will re-emerge...

  • Sounds like a cross between the 5200 and the 7800.

    I'm thinking either 5200 graphics, but with the 7800 controllers, or worse, 7800 graphics with the 5200's non-self-centering analog joystick. (Ugh!) :)

    I loved both the 2600 and the 7800.. Damn good consoles.

  • Portable C64 (Score:3)

    by Tin Weasil ( 246885 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @12:56PM (#624132) Homepage Journal
    What I always wanted as a kid was a portable Commodore 64 (wasn't there a luggable model 64sx?) I have pulled one of my old C64's apart, and it looks like it would be very difficult to reconfigure the internals (but I am no expert, so it may be easier for some of you). Anyone have any ideas on how to do this?
  • Yeah, just remember that basically the same sort of accusations were levelled at Mozart and Beethoven during their time period. Of course, looking back, they don't seem to be nearly the freaky, fucked-up individuals they were percieved as. And you would be extremely suprised at the similarities between heavy metal and that sort of 'classical' music.

    Metal is rock and roll a bit louder and faster/heavier. Rock and roll is forever, as anyone that has every felt it coursing through their viens would tell you. Backstreet Boys/NSINK, and whatnot will all fade in time, and be nothing. But these metal bands that weren't ever popular will leave a legacy because the people that listened to that type of music still do, and always will. They aren't fad bands, and if you only get into the fads, then these bands definitely aren't for you.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • Overkill? Macabre? Help me out...
  • don't let the law get in your way or anything

  • Livin' on Slashdot Time (Score:5)

    by b1t r0t ( 216468 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @01:44PM (#624137)
    This thing is like three years old now. About the right lag time for a Slashdot article, though.

    FWIW, the real reason he doesn't want to even try to sell these is because it would be an unholy pain in the butt. This ain't no Heathkit we're talking about here. I've done EPROM mods for the 7800 and ColecoVision, and installed region mods for Saturn and Playstation, and this is way above that. I've also made three cart dumpers, the first was a socket adapter for an EPROM programmer, the next was a rigged TRS-80 Color Computer, and the third was a rigged 7800, and I dumped quite a few rare cartridges with them.

    The trickiest part of designing this thing was emulating all the bank switching schemes used on the 2600. There were well over half a dozen different schemes used, plus this emulates the Supercharger, which had its own bank switching scheme. An FPGA was used here to give maximum flexibility with a minimum of chips.

    The reason bank switching on the 2600 was so non-standardized is that there was no R/W line, so you had to use special addresses to trigger bank switches, and separate address ranges for reading vs writing any RAM on the cartridge.

    And then there were the cartridges with custom chips, like Pitfall II, which had a chip containing the music data, copied to the volume registers at the start of each scan line, and the Supercharger's main chip, which had to be removed from an actual cartridge and insterted into the project. The Stella TIA chip also had to be salvaged from a real 2600.

    On top of all that, he's got an 8085 and TMS9918 to control it, and to generate the audio signal for the Supercharger games. That's like putting a second custom video game system into it.

    Also not mentioned above is that Kevin wrote a Tetris for the 2600 [tripoint.org].

  • 830+ games that no one would ever want to play...
  • Good to see Kevin Horton has been /.'d -- not only does he do hardware hacking, he's written a couple Colecovision games. [Hey, did you ever finish Zookeeper?!] Now, if I could only find a good Coleco stick, I'd be playing Kevtris right now...
  • that's not what cowboy neal sounds like!!! you have completely miswritten his part!!!! for example, his timing is all off. and where is his sense of irony? HELLO... go back to film school, you dialogue HACK!
  • No to mention Marilyn Manson is really a glam rocker with unusually dark themes... not even close to any true form of death metal.

    I forgot what Suicidial Tendancies sound like, but if you can understand the lyrics, it's probably not death metal ;-)
  • What, does EVERY frickin rock band have it's own "style" of Metal? Metal? WTF? As far as I can tell, "Metal" was born in the song "Born to be Wild". Most agree that at least the term "Heavy Metal" originated there. It enjoyed a nice 5 or so years, The Guess Who, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Iron Butterfly, Dare I say Rush?, then Metal DIED with KISS, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, (just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?) Ratt, (ugh! remember them?) Though a few good bands continued on during this era - Black Sabbath, Van Halen, etc. then, Poison, and all the glam-rock fags.

    Metallica, IMHO was the rebirth of metal, but it had mutated into something else, different, a bit more thoughtful and mature, and of course a lot of crappy bands glommed on and killed it again quickly (your Whitesnakes, Panteras, Slayers, and other over-cliched rip offs). Seattle/Grunge kind of revived the style, but again, a whole shitload of crappy copycat bands glommed on and ruined it (like Nirvanna!) And, of course, Metallica had to sell out, the bad half of Pink Floyd kept the name when they split up, and sold out. The Who still rocks I guess, I saw them on the Simpsons the other night (that fat dumb and bald guy sure plays a mean hardball!).

    This just all underscores your point, and the point that has been made by EVERY major art movement in western history:
    New ideas are born of creativity, and are soon shackled to the slavery of greed. Every major art movement has been a rebellion against the previous movement - which was a rebellion against the one before it, etc. Why all this rebellion? Because as soon as "society" recognizes the creativity, the novelty of the new art, it quickly becomes valuable, and as it becomes valuable, it is commoditized, copied (superficially), and manufactured for the masses, quite often, not containing most of the qualities that made it valuable in the first place. Of course, all of these "copies" need to come up with some sort of superficial definition that makes them different enough from their progeny. "We're not Heavy Metal man, we're something MORE than that, our fascination with death and violence, we're Death and Violence Metal man." Why do you suppose someone would want to rebel against that?

    Of course, I should retract my DISsing of KISS. They were pretty much the most bizzarre thing on 8 legs in their day - nothing like them anywhere. (Consider GWAR to be a modern rip-off and extension of KISS). I just didn't like them. But they really did represent an innovation and the beginning of an evolution of the Heavy Metal tradition. It's just unfortunate that that branch of the family spiraled downward and mutated into the whole GOTH craze (as far as I can tell).
  • Two words:

    Custer's Revenge.

    Unless I've been misinformed...

  • NES games are still being developed (Score:3)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @03:07PM (#624144) Homepage Journal
    There is still a hard-working nesdev community [parodius.com] developing NES software. I am a member of this community, and I have developed some NES software [8m.com] myself.
  • It has over 800 games. At your $1 per cartridge ebay price you are still getting a great deal for $200. Not to mention the ease of acessibility/storage and coolness factor.

  • There is a third-party portable NES (Score:3)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @03:11PM (#624146) Homepage Journal
    There is a third-party portable NES, and it's called the Game Axe. Read more here [google.com] and here [google.com].
  • Sure it has 800 games, but how many of those would you actually play? A lot of them you might load up, play for 5 minutes or so, and then realize it's a crap game and never load it up again. Meanwhile, you continue to play the 25 or so standards (Yars Revenge, Asteroids, River Raid, etc). Having Atari put out something like this would be cool as hell, but no way I'd pay over $100 for one. Price them around $59, advertise it as "800 Classic Games for the price of one!" or something like that, and you've got something. I gotta think that Atari could still make a profit at that point if they mass-produced them.
  • Somebody HAS to do a re-release of this. Mind you, it wouldn't be too hard if you could get your hands on the Tunnels of Doom Editor(which I had, lots of fun!) since it showed you alll the monsters, magic items, and other stuff. The maze was generated dynamicaly.

    The only thing you'd have to reverse engineer was the game mechanics.

    WIth the simple(yet good) graphics of ToD, someone should port it to the PalmOS.
  • /*
    too bad the creator is a prick and won't give us hard core geeks some semantics
    and part lists to make one. t
    */

    Erm, I think you meant schematics.=)
  • Seriously. True "death metal" has never been part of American mainstream music. The closest thing to "death metal" that was ever considered popular was pre-Youthanasia Megadeth (Mustaine isn't anything special without his cocaine ;-) and much of Slayer's material, but even that is pretty tame compared to your average European metal band.

    The original post was flamebait. Personally, I agree with the anti-Backstreet Boys sentiment: I can't respect artists who don't even write their own music. They're amateurs, and couldn't survive as real musicians without support of a major record label and MTV. The fact that the poster referred to Manson as "death metal" just clarifies the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about or is simply trolling.


    All generalizations are false.

  • Now the new wave and electronic styles of the 80's are re-emerging.
    You mean to say that maybe in a year, I'll be able to play my Kraftwerk CDs loud without shame? ;-)

    Now, re: your .sig... could you possibly point me to the source of that quote? (I code Java, but I have a sense of humour. I think it's almost necessary, if you catch my drift. :-)


    All generalizations are false.

  • But where did he find the vintage 512k memory stick? =)

    --
  • What I wouldnt mind would be to have *one* console that played all the old games.. atari.. nintendo.. celeco!(sp?), etc.. I would definatly get one of those...
  • And you got peanut butter in my chocolate! Bastard!


    All generalizations are false.

  • What Would You Pay? (Score:5)

    by Fleet Admiral Ackbar ( 57723 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @12:36PM (#624155) Homepage
    The designer states that he will not sell this, and legally I can see his point. The question becomes, would any of us pay $199 for a mass-built one with Atari's blessing? I suspect that I would. What about the rest of you?
  • No code.
    No source.
    No schematic.

    Nothing else to know...
  • What the hell is an Atari 7200? Is that like an Atari (7800 - 600)?

  • New Slashdot strategy (Score:5)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @12:38PM (#624158)
    CmdrTaco: "OK boys, we've run too many repeat articles. Any suggestions?"

    Cowboy Neal: "Beer?"

    CmdrTaco: "Already tried that. Hemos?"

    Hemos: "How about we run another anti-Microsoft article? Or say that RedHat has 2000 bugs again?"

    CmdrTaco: "Too plain."

    Timothy: "I know. What if were to run an article similar to the repeated ones, but not nearly as engrossing?"

    CmdrTaco: "Great idea! All in favor?"

    All: "Aye!"

    Cowboy Neal: "Beer?"

    CmdrTaco: "Soon, son. Soon......"

  • This thing is going to have so many lawyers swarming around it you'd think the designer had tobacco leaking out of his breast implants.

    Atari is making money selling emulated versions of their 2600 games for computer. I would count on this device going the way of most rom sites. Too bad - it'd be real cool

  • You fucking SHIT-HEAD! I would love to find out who you are so I could expose you for the FUCK that you are!


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them

  • Fascination with Retro is Good for America (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @12:36PM (#624161)
    Am I the only one that looks upon this whole fascination with retro to be a good thing for this country? We see people playing Atari 2600 games like they're the latest thing, people are falling all over themselves playing Pole Position on emulators such as MAME, old style dressing is coming back into style, etc. Even the good old music has come back into style. "Death metal" such as Slayer is being phased out in favor of lively swing music and much more upbeat music such as the offerings from the Backstreet Boys and Jaci Valesquez.

    Can this be a sign that the declining moral values of this nation have started to make a U-turn and head back in the right direction? Perhaps. I do know one thing for certain: in NO Atari 2600 game were you able to graphically rip your opponent's spine out or "gib" somebody into a thousand pieces with a grenade. Kids today need a little bit more Pitfall and a little bit less Quake. This fascination with the technology of yesteryear is a step in the right direction.
  • Get a laptop and put that emulater Mame on it. It does lots of systems.
  • Noise is the most different thing out there. I'll take Merzbow over any boy band any day.
  • Some of the retro is cool. The games are great as I played them as a kid when they were new. It's nice to see some of the younger ones enjoying what we once did for hours on end in front of the t.v. (though Mame is still no replacement for wasting hours playing my Atari 5200 on my t.v.) The music mentioned, however, is not worth a damn. Meaningless pop has always been around, it just seems to get worse. Backstreet Boys are worthless. I'd take Slayer any day.

  • Just get someone to port the emulators to PalmOS, they should be able to emulate the old 8 Bit systems real good.
  • Those 838 ROMs come from different companies. An US Copyright lasts 75 years, so you have to compensate all those other companies for using their ROMs. It would add up to over $800 to get the licensing for the ROMs to sell it legally. 75 years from 1976, or whenever the 2600 came out, they might be able to put the game system into the public domain and anyone can clone it. But where would you get the old 8 bit chips to make the darn things?

    If he made it without the built in 838 games, and it uses NES controllers with the Cart option, it still would be great but would need the legal ok from Atari or whomever owns the 2600 copyrights.
  • I do not want to wait until 2020 for a portable 1Ghz computer with a Geforce card.
  • Great idea, but if he thinks hell get in trouble why even tell us, now I wonder how Im going to get all my dreamcast cds to fit in one dream cast :)
  • Make a Playstation emulator on a CD-ROM that loads the 838 games off of it. It wouldn't be legal, but you could create one for yourself to run. Someone could port Stella or something to the Playstation or Dreamcast and then sell the CD-ROM without the 2600 ROMS. Then you just burn a CDR with some 2600 ROMs on it and play those.

    Make an interface to use the Playstation / Dreamcast controllers.

    After all, Bleem [bleem.com] is out for the Dreamcast to play Playstation 1 games on it. Why not make a 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, 7800, 5200, NES, SNES, Genesis, SMS emulator disk?

  • Re:Portable C64 (Score:4)

    by TWR ( 16835 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @01:01PM (#624170)
    There was a portable 64, the Executive 64. It had a 2-inch b&w screen, a floppy drive (or two; I forget) and a C-64 all in a portable case. I don't think it was battery-powered, though.

    Right now, the best way to do a portable 64 is via emulation. Frodo exists on multiple platforms, and Power64 on the Mac is damn good; it works well enough to run GEOS 2.0. Now if I still had my floppies full of games and a way to get them onto my PowerBook...I miss that 64!

    -jon

  • The ones that cannot control 3D games, and must learn by playing the simple games first.

    I have a 2 year old son, and the N64 is too complex for him to learn to play games. I was thinking of buying an old 2600 or NES or SNES to have him learn on when he is old enough.

    Or heck, I could teach him Unix by the time he is 6, and he can hack into his school's web server? ;)
  • Oh heeeellllppp! I grew up in the 1980's and 1970's. Jane stop this crazy thing! Arrrgghhh! Where's the beef? Whip it good! It's a pet rock! Rubik's cube! Lava lamp! Disco fever! Nanoo nanoo! Video killed the radio star! Black light posters! Ronald Regan! Max Headroom! Use the force Luke! It begins!

    Now my Pentium II PC has turned into a Commodore 64 with a 300 baud modem, my Honda has turned into a Ford Pinto, and I got acne yet again! ;)

    P.S. For those who didn't get it, this post was a joke. :)
  • So what do you want? An animated AVI/MPEG/QT file showing the unit in action? He put the schematics for the two boards on his page with pictures of the boards and how they fit.

    Looks like it works to me.
  • Because they couldn't charge money for new games if they made a portable NES instead of a Gameboy. Then they got us again with the Color Gameboy and now the Advanced Gameboy.

    You might as well ask why Atari made the Lynx instead of a portable 2600/7800 unit? ;)
  • The benefit of a cartridge seems to me to be that you can remove it and stick another one in.

    What does this guy do if a ROM burns out? He'll have to use solder to get it off, I gather.
  • Ah yes. I run the "VICE" emulator on my Laptop so I can carry around all my favorite old C64 games. Unfortunately, I have never had the pleasure of running GEOS on the C64. I did, however, run PC GEOS under DOS before I switched to Linux. GEOS is still a wicked cool environment, expecially considering that it can run on such a small memory footprint.
  • What was death metal back then?

    Celtic Frost.
  • yup that's a 7800...just some moron can't get the numbers right...i don't think anyone can get the numbers right on that thing except the people who actually owned the systems (like myself :)

    Daikak
  • Ummm... There is _always_ a cultural undercurrent of fascination with retro from about 20 years ago. Growing up in the 70's, the big fad was the 50's with Happy Days, Sha Na Na, Grease, etc. I remember the big deal being made out of 1987 being the 20th anniversary of the "Summer of Love". Of course, now everyone is inundated with 70's culture including all the bad clothing (but strangely none of the good clothing!). Now the new wave and electronic styles of the 80's are re-emerging. This is nothing new, and generally represents people's in their 30's and 40's nostalgia for the popular culture of their youth, and is perpetually glommed onto my mass-marketing (especially the commodities of popular music, movies and TV). I have a lot of nostalgia for compauter and video games of the 80's, mostly because so many of them were very rich given the technological limitations. Many hot-n-fancy 3D games these days have mindlessly simple and repetitive game play and the NetHack remains one of the most sophisticated games ever for over 15 years. I used to covet the few machines in the AJ Computer Lab at Virginia Tech that had 320k of memory because then I could play PC-Hack (what it was called back then). Anyhow, the whole nostalgia thing is always fun, but it's certainly nothing new. And as far as music goes, the real renaissance has been in the progressive realm. There is more good sophisticated music coming out now than any time I can remember in the last 25 years. With such wonderful virtuoso groups as Spock's Beard, Dream Theater, the Flower Kings, Bozzio, Levin and Stevens, Transatlantic, Liquid Tension Experiment just to name a few we can enjoy complex music created by people versed in classical and jazz rather than heroin and nihilism. Of course, you will never hear any of this on the radio, but hopefully the 90's trend of deliberately bad music ("grunge", anyone? 60's garage music without the energy and passion) will give way to popular music that is once again merely boring.
  • how about instead of complaining about how old a topic is, we make an effort to post new ones? whining about old topics is getting pretty old itself
  • There's all kinds of other crap going on here that's offtopic-and I get modded down. Thanks, trollboy who had their 5 points of fame. I'll just post the link again, and again, and again until I have a score of 1 so that people will see that Loki is looking for Tribes 2 beta testers. [lokigames.com] You'll see this story posted by CmdrTaco in about a month, mark my words. And it'll be new news to him.
  • You've never listened to death metal in your life. Admit it.

    Take one listen to Slayer's 'Captor of Sin'.

    Then listen to Third Eye Blind's 'Semi-charmed Life'.

    Then listen to anything by Napalm Death.

    Then listen to Pearl Jam's 'Soon Forget'. Also try practically anything from No Code.

    Pearl Jam and Third Eye Blind are not death metal.

    J
  • No, we're resentful about the fact that today's popular bands have zero talent and zero originality. The only reason they get famous at all is some major label finds a way to mass-market them.

    Adding to the problem is the fact that for the most part, kids believe what other kids tell them, especially in the area of what's "cool". All that the record company needs to do, then, is convince a few teenagers that Random Loser Group A is "cool", and the kids will do their marketing for them.

    Meanwhile, the kids with some musical sense end up being ostracized, and turn into us, or worse.

    It's funny you mention the groups you did, because they really aren't all that different, the important distinction that they actually play instruments notwithstanding. Marilyn Manson is the M&M of last week, writing "shocking" stuff just to write "shocking" stuff, without really saying anything. Pearl Jam really plays straight-ahead rock and hasn't put out anything good since "Vitology". Third Eye Blind hardly deserves mention, but is yet another "alternative" pop band with nothing to say and nothing new musically to offer the world.

    Now, how to rationalize the fact that I like AC/DC? ;-) I guess it's because they have written great rock songs for forever. Sure, all their songs sound the same, but then again, their songs sound like no one else's. That makes them repetitive, but original. Actually, I applaud them for following no popular trends whatsoever during their career. I think that if they tried to change their sound they wouldn't sound like AC/DC any more.

    I've heard real death metal, not that crap you claim is "death metal", and it's actually rather amusing because they somehow manage to ruin dangerous, innovative music by putting Lucifer on lead vocals. If they had someone who could actually sing up to the standards the music requires, and not just growl incoherently, it would be 100 times better, I think. It does tend to get old fast, though...

    It doesn't look good for the future of music in America, unless MoronTV goes and the major labels go. There is tons of great music in the underground that doesn't get promoted except on college radio. I'm partial to WMSE in Milwaukee [wmse.org] and WNUR in Chicagoland [wnur.org] myself.

    P.S. I KNOW the kids won't listen to Merzbow with me, because they'll run screaming from the room, along with half the block ;-)

    I think they can be convinced to listen to King Crimson, Einstürzende Neubauten, or Orbital, though.

    Assuming I ever have any, that is...
  • Personally, I liked No Code, Yield and Binaural.

    J

  • There is always a cultural undercurrent of fascination with retro from about 20 years ago.

    Read an ;am using piece [nwsource.com] on this idea a little while ago. Damned if I can remember what led me there, but it was probably a couple of links away from an old Slashdot story. Anyway, their point was that the gap between a period and the point at which it becomes "retro" and "cool" is getting smaller and smaller.

    There was another piece on this, I'm sure I saw it on Salon but I can't find it now.. it went further, and predicted a "Retro Horizon" at which point the gap would shrink to nothing, and the concept of "retro" would cease to exist.

    But it's true.. like you said, in the 70's, the 50's was retro. But by the 90's, it was the 80's.. I betcha you could try to push the rave culture of the early 90's as retro now and get away with it. Peoples memories are getting shorter and shorter..

    What's this got to do with portable 2600's? Well, forget old consoles.. try showing a PC game of just a couple of years ago (say, a 3D game that missed the 3D hardware revolution and only had software rendering) to a young Quake ]I[ kiddie.. "what, it only does 320x200?!?! In 8-bit colour!?!"

    Now THAT'S retro!!

  • Finally, someone posts something that makes sense.

    I applaud you for your brilliant articulation of my sentiments.

  • Portable NES? Why, when there the GameBoy Color, and soon GameBoy Advance? I am sure that someone can concoct an adaptor for the old 8-Bit games, that is if you can find any if you didn't save your old NES and the carts....
  • Overkill I thought was also a speed metal band. Macabre? Dunno.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • I can't believe that no one is mentioning the band Death. I would definitely say that they held the crown in my opinion on Death Metal back in the time period we are talking about. And to the guy mentioning Black Sabbath, a band that definitely deserves a genre all it's own: black metal (sometimes called dark metal). Ah, this is starting to bring back such pleasant memories.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • Probably not...I remember talking to the guy who made this a long time ago on IRC. He's a collector...there's a good chance he actually owns the vast majority of the carts whose roms reside inside Bankzilla. And unless something's changed (can't check the site, it's being hit hard), it was more of a personal project than something he intended to sell.

  • I must be missing something here, but I remember my Atari 7800 played my friend's Atari 2600 games just fine. I guess I never tried playing ALL the games out there but I never found one I had a problem with. That's the reason I got a 7800 instead of the newer version of the 2600 anyway. I could play his games and still play the newer games for the 7800.

  • Re:Fascination with Retro is Good for America (Score:3)

    by buysse ( 5473 ) on Tuesday November 14, 2000 @12:46PM (#624192) Homepage
    I don't consider the Backstreet Boys a good sign for our civilization, personally.
  • that would be amusing, seing as a NES cartridge is bigger than a Gameboy Color itself...

    (tries to picture the kind of adaptor you would need, and someone on a train playing it)

  • I'd buy it, but not at that price. Think that you can get most games for a $1 on eBay. Now compact that into one ROM.

    I'd pay $100.

  • I agree with the live and let live part. The thing I don't like about bands like the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, etc is that they got lucky. Some record executive might have seen them in a mall, or they one a contest. Six months later they release a CD. Too many of the "bands" don't write their own music, if they even know how to write music, nor do they play instruments. Not to say they don't have good voices, but if it weren't for a pretty face, no one would know who they are. I don't want my kids growing up thinking that if you look good and wear the right close you can be a pop icon.

    You are correct in assuming (and I know you are) that I don't like "their" music either, no matter who writes it. I also don't like country or most of rap, but I recognize and respect musicians in those genres' that display a love for their music, not just a love for the money their music makes.

    Also, sometimes good musicians just get a lucky break, but I think those are few and far between. Most work their asses off at their music, getting paid very little if anything at all. Take for instance Lynard Skynard. They played every single little gig they could get their hands on, just because they loved doing it. They practiced in a little tin-roofed building in the middle of Alabama, with temperatures in the 100's. At that point they weren't making any money, just music.

    So, after rambling for a bit, let me just conclude by saying it's not them or their music that people don't like, it's the idea of them and their music.

    - Clvrmonkey -
  • What is the deal with these people? I love old tech stuff like Atari, but this seems a bit much. I spent about $40 last year getting an old 2600 and a dozen games from EBay, but in the long run they got about a half hour of playing time each.

    It's fun and all, but not THAT fun. How much time do you think this guy will spend actually PLAYING the games, other than for the show-off value?

  • Mame is not illegal. Downloading ROMs that you don't own is.
  • Not sure about you, but I love playing the older NES/SNES games that were never released in the states. Current fav is Tenchi Muyo for the SNES, a nicely done RPG that has a complete English Translation patch due to some wonderful hobbyists.

    Never did get into Atari though, other then for the original frogger.
  • "Man, if you got to ask, you'll never know..." -Louis Armstrong (originally about attempts to explain jazz)
  • One other thing, has anyone (but him) actually seen this working, we only have his word - Maybe THATS why he wont reveal his spec sheets.
  • It's not an actual 7800, however, but a 7800 case with 2600 guts and all the 2600 games inside the box. It's called "bankzilla" for all the switching done between the titles.
  • Oh yeah, that's right, the 2600 version is EdTris. It's been so long I forgot.

  • I would doubt that the hacks he's performed for his own personal entertainment would cause problems, but being a non-american myself and not familiar with the DMCA I'm not certain. Some of the other projects on his site do draw certain parallels with DeCSS, for example, CopyNES [tripoint.org].

  • While I can see some of his justification,
    what annoyed me is that just about every hardware
    question is effectively replied to with
    "I won't tell you because you're not smart enough to build it".

    Of course, after getting my mailbox filled with stupid
    questions from stupid g4m3r k1dd!3z, I would prolly start to have the same attitude. ;)

    --K
    ---
  • I do that all the time, but I guess I should be ashamed.

    Boing boom Tschak!

    p.s. The source of my quote is a personal friend who is a hotshot consultant with so much experience he regularly forgets more than I know.
  • Eventually we will feel nostalgia for nostalgia...

    "Remember when we used to have nostalgia for the 50's in the 70's. Those were the days."

    Rick
  • My God man! And you call yourself a geek!

    BECAUSE IT'S COOL.

    --

  • Death (naturally ... and Schuldiner is a great guitar player). Atheist (RIP, I think). Believer (what a wacky concept). Cynic (RIP).
    --
  • It may be a troll, but it is also funny as hell.

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