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[#] Tue Dec 03 2013 09:16:16 EST from zooer

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Wasn't it always two chips? One in the console and one in the cartridge? I know every game is now on one chip
but I think it was simple at the time.

[#] Tue Dec 03 2013 09:19:57 EST from zooer

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A few years ago I remember seeing a bunch of games built into a controller and the controller plugged into the
tv.

[#] Tue Dec 03 2013 17:28:11 EST from ax25

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Strange, but some retro folks are still making new games and carts for the 2600.



[#] Tue Dec 03 2013 17:53:53 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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There were a couple of revisions of the 2600, but the basic design was at least three chips:

* The MOS Technology 6507 CPU (basically a 6502 in a smaller package)

* MOS Technology 6532 (multipurpose chip containing some I/O, some timers, and 128 *bytes* of RAM)

* Atari's custom "TIA" (Television Interface Adapter) chip, which produced graphics and sound. Of particular interest is that this chip was designed by none other than Jay Miner, who went on to design the Amiga.


These were all socketed chips. The retro-consoles have two surface mount chips covered in "don't touch me" glue. I'm guessing that one is the entire 2600 chipset, and the other is a ROM containing the game library.


Atari 2600 programming is fascinating to read about -- but it must have been super frustrating. The TIA has no frame buffer, just a couple of registers holding various objects that could be drawn on the screen. Programmers had to do all sorts of manual work to make changes happen on every frame during different portions of the scan.

[#] Wed Dec 04 2013 04:23:47 EST from the_mgt

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Tue Dec 03 2013 17:28:11 EST from ax25 @ Uncensored

Strange, but some retro folks are still making new games and carts for the 2600.

A friend of mine is active in the Vectrex scene, he repairs those things, built some hardware, wrote some games and they do have annual fairs for all things retro here in Europe. I guess the fascinating thing about those devices is, that you really have a chance of almost completely understanding every single circuit.



[#] Wed Dec 04 2013 14:09:22 EST from wizard of aahz

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Found that Atari at Rite Aid.. Don't know who else might be selling them. Not all the games work completely.. But that just makes it a typical Atari experience.

[#] Thu Dec 05 2013 04:31:31 EST from the_mgt

Subject: Mr. Atari

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv_MuChX3M4

http://www.mr-atari.com

Can be considered nerdpr0n, so nfsw ;)



[#] Fri Dec 06 2013 01:02:14 EST from ax25

Subject: Re: Mr. Atari

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I knew a guy that had one of the hook it up to the tv and the speaker output things to make "dazzling" images in the screen in time to the music.  Yea, it pretty much was used for what Mr-Atari says it was used for from what I could tell.



[#] Sat Dec 21 2013 08:46:06 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Subject: Re: Mr. Atari

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Just for tripping?  :)

And to think, the rest of the world just used Pink Floyd for that.



[#] Thu Dec 26 2013 00:01:27 EST from ax25

Subject: Re: Mr. Atari

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Yes, but you used both at the same time (Floyd and the flashing / blinking).  The movie came later than the album as I recall.



[#] Wed Mar 19 2014 06:58:16 EDT from fleeb

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I forget where I've mentioned this before, but for those folks who remember Elite, the guy who originally created it is working on a significant upgrade to it in Elite: Dangerous:

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/

[#] Wed Mar 19 2014 06:59:57 EDT from fleeb

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(Er, please note that it costs 200 pounds sterling to get into the alpha for this... I expect the game, upon release, will not cost as much).

[#] Wed Mar 19 2014 07:01:06 EDT from fleeb

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Oh, yeah, I was right:

https://store.zaonce.net/elite-dangerous-cat.html

[#] Mon Mar 24 2014 07:35:42 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Imagine my disappointment when I clicked on a link thinking I would be shown an "elite dangerous cat" and instead it was a catalog of video games.

[#] Mon Mar 24 2014 16:54:50 EDT from fleeb

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Oh, er, yeah. Sorry about that.

[#] Sun Apr 06 2014 08:41:23 EDT from fleeb

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Anyone I know playing ESO?

[#] Mon Apr 07 2014 09:13:36 EDT from wizard of aahz

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Still playing LOTRO

[#] Tue Apr 08 2014 20:16:56 EDT from Sig

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Just finally got Mass Effect 3 a few weeks ago.

I inadvertantly caused the extinction of my girlfriend's entire race. She jumped off a cliff. Awkward.

[#] Wed Apr 09 2014 10:15:11 EDT from fleeb

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D'oh!

[#] Wed Apr 09 2014 21:16:35 EDT from LoanShark

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I inadvertantly caused the extinction of my girlfriend's entire race.

She jumped off a cliff. Awkward.

Bummer.


I played through as a female Shepherd (because of the hot lesbian action, of course), so I didn't have that particular option.

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