Best video game system ever?

pukka · Post by **pukka** » Tue May 04, 2004 1:41 am

Tahrey1043 wrote: commodore and atari owners were'nt best pals

ah this thread sure brings back some memories... tho I have forgotten the names of most of the titles I use to play... lol...

atari ST... what a machine!!... spent many hours on this... on games and learning about 'computer things'. I never did get round to using those amiga beating midi ports tho!...

the original Neo Geo was fab for beat em ups. original gameboy and SNES for pure gameplay games... mario world etc...

dxg · Post by **dxg** » Tue May 04, 2004 5:17 am

The ST was great for messing about with. Bceause it's OS (for what it was worth), wasn't multitasking you could get straight "down to the metal". It had a lot of hang-overs from the 8-bits, like fixed memory locations that always did certain things.

For example, the first 1k of the ST memory held all off the 68000's exception vectors. One exception was the reset line - triggered by the reset button on the back. All you had to do was alloc a block of memory, fill that block with your code, replace the right vector with a pointer to its base, insert a "magic number" into another memory location (the OS checked this as it reset) - if you get all this right, pressing the reset button wouldn't reboot the machine, but instead woudl start your code -- great fun - hence "reset demos". The Lost Boys were first to do that, on the Mindbomb demo, as I recall.

There were so amny really great features of the ST. For example, the keyboard controller was a 6510 (i.e the cpu from the CBM64). You could pogramme this independently and have it doing things like shifting memory about independently of the 68000 - hence people were able to claim that the ST had "hardware scrolling" like the Amiga. But it didn't really, it was just the ingenuity of what you could get up.

For example, another way of getting "hardware scrolling" was to programme the DMA chip (the controller for the hard drive port) "incorrectly" by telling to transmit and receive data at the same time - there was a bug in the design of the chip that, in this state, would cause it to pass its data through it - but rotated by 1 bit. Hence *really fast* hardward a scrolling became possible.

Then there was overscan, which was just messing about with the video controller (turning the display on when it wasn't supposed to be and setting its pointers to bits of memory that weren't supposed to be screen memory, but filling that memory with image data, and linking the timing of turnign the thing on and off with the HBL (and counting to know when to turn it off again (i.e. to let the OS turn it on again when the scanline had reached the start of the "real" display).

What else can I remember? The chiptunes were just 3 to 4k chunks of machine code. All you'd do was dump them into a chunk of memory, send the program counter off to the base address of that chunk to start the tune (it would install itself on the VBL). Sending the PC to its base address + x bytes would jump straighing into its routnine to turn the tune off. This was great as it gave you turns for only about 3 or 4 scanlines. Somewhere aroung 15 to 20 for digidrums stuff. Oh yeah, who recalls changing the screen colour to count how many scanlines your various routines were taking? For me, I would count myself lucky if I could get them all into one refresh!!

Deek.
(It's late, I'm tried and the allnighter for this mornings 9am isn't going well...)

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Tue May 04, 2004 12:57 pm

Pukka... I had a MIDI compatible keyboard in the last year of the ST's life (before the monitor blew and the mouse/kb controller started giving up), a Roland E15, what a beast

Made some really awful bits of music using that, it's built in not-quite-a-1-track-sequencer (record yourself once, then play over that), and a couple of cheap midi cables linking it to the computer running a magazine-cover copy of Sequencer One...
...and stood back in awe once I finally got it to properly play back some of the tunes that had been sent in for competition entries to the magazine, using that program. People got skillz. (even though i'd heard them umpteen times thru the internal soundtracker it had, 4 voices at 4-bit, 8khz just can't stack up to a 40-note polyphonic, full cd-quality sampled keyboard)

Rock and roll..... think when i get a poly phone i'll have to try converting some of them

DXG, i'm going to have to search for your handle on the old demoscener sites now you've said all that

or did you go by another name?
Hardcore stuff dude

I would so like an opportunity to be reincarnated... into a baby born about 1974 so i'd have a chance to play with all that stuff first time round rather than being an observer. You just don't get the chance these days. (Don't see too many magazines putting old versions of popular basics, Cs, assemblers onto their cover discs any more)

PS Anyone play Defenders of Oasis? (GG)

Petrified · Post by **Petrified** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:21 pm

If anyones interested I'm trying to get rid of an Atari 520 ST and Amiga 1200, lots of software, all working + lots of extras. I can bring to Inters Â£30 for the lot.

Sorry for the advertising!

James.

***UPDATE: The Amiga is now accounted for.
The ST does not have a TV lead as it was used with a monitor, unfortunatly the monitor is knackered. It comes with around 10-15 games, mouse, joystick x2, everything else was for the Amiga... I'll take Â£10 for it if anyone wants it! or perhaps swap for something at GTI

***

Post by **Josh_PoloGTi** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:31 pm

PM Sent!

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Wed May 05, 2004 8:50 pm

Dude... you have a working Phillips 13" monitor at all, with cable?
(plus the ST and other accs, maybe... mebbe not the miggy

)

Wish i was going to inters now... but its just too much of a trek on a working weekend.

heh, all this advert-skimming, i'm going "virtually" broke (hell, i'm staring down a return trip to overdraft city already)

Petrified · Post by **Petrified** » Wed May 05, 2004 9:45 pm

Tahrey1043 wrote:Dude... you have a working Phillips 13" monitor at all, with cable?
(plus the ST and other accs, maybe... mebbe not the miggy )

Wish i was going to inters now... but its just too much of a trek on a working weekend.

heh, all this advert-skimming, i'm going "virtually" broke (hell, i'm staring down a return trip to overdraft city already)

I did atually have a 13" Monitor but it broke, I used the TV lead in the end, but it was nowhere near as good as the monitor.

I'm off to watch Edward Scissorhands!

James

Post by **Josh_PoloGTi** » Wed May 05, 2004 11:53 pm

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Thu May 06, 2004 12:44 am

Microswitches are ace.... who wants wooly PC analogue sticks anyway

The clicky click gives you the best speed and positive response.

I never was rich enough to have one of those fancy ones - all my joysticks were flimsy pretenders to the Quickjoy throne, in matt black, and a couple odd semi-arcade ones in Black & Yellow and Red/White/Blue. (all those buttons - and only one of em works / two if you put it in the mouse socket or had an amiga)

Some of 'em are still about, but ruthless mothering saw the back of a good number of favourites.

mm, scrabbling about under the front of the keyboard trying to plug the bloody things in.. what a fabbo design (looks good, but doesn't work too well)

Karl_CLCoupe · Post by **Karl_CLCoupe** » Fri May 07, 2004 11:17 pm

I didnt really get big on consoles til I was about 10. Before then, I was given a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and remember trying to play Outrun and Dizzy. I even had a go at programming at age 8!

From 10 I got a Megadrive II and never really played too much on that. I had Desert Strike and Micro Machines, but none of the other games really stood out. Its probably in a box somewhere round here...

After the Megadrive I got a Playstation. This was where I discovered I was best at racing games, and still stick to this theory. The early days of Gran Turismo. That was good fun.

Most recently I have got myself a PS2 and an assortment of racing games. I have all the GT's at the mo, and am awaiting the next one. They never did include the Polo in any of the GT's did they? lol

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Sat May 08, 2004 5:29 am

load up GT2, go to north city, and then volkswagen...

there should be a 6n (6n2?), 1.4 bogstandard 75hp polo waiting there for you to buy and rice out to the max.

apparently there's a mk3 G40 in there for you to find, but there's a good chance it needs a game shark as that game, famously, was released in a 98% complete state and is missing not only the code to make the car wash work properly, but some of the things you need to "complete" it - such as having every car (eg, the G40).

GT4 is supposed to have at least as many cars in as gt2, compared to gt3's relatively paltry selection (though, for it's salvation, it does have the TVR Tuscan - what a beast! 200+ MPH in stock trim, far more (and much improved handling) with a basic tune-up, dropped suspension and custom gears, and not *too* expensive..). Which should be good. Perhaps this they'll put in a few more american and euro classics (60s ford mustang anyone? dodge charger HEMI? find THOSE in gt2) and won't concentrate on the rather homogenous "home market" IE every tiny little cant-tell-them-apart-without-a-microscope special edition of the already faceless japanese salaryman's 4-door... i dunno... i wouldnt want to -try- getting every car in gt2 as i'd never be able to tell half them apart. What's the difference between a Silvia Ks, Qs, MINEs, and a wheelie bin with a lawnmower motor stuck to the back again?

Now, if only I could figure out what day I have to visit the subaru garage to be able to find the 360 Young SS in the used garage - apparently it pops up on a regular cycle... had it with my old savegame (from a pirated japanese version) but of course i had to delete all that

when switching to a genuine english language original. Now I can't find it again. Bizarre little cyclocar - slower even than the fiat 500, even after sticking a monster turbo on it (you have to rev it to 4000rpm to even hit the *start* of the torque band, let alone get any power - and of course EVERYTHING in GT idles at 750rpm and revs up real slow, with a super slippy clutch, even though the real thing would idle at 2500 and be incurably fizzy).... but so dinky and so lovably odd that it's essential.
(yeah, i got bored with buying all the supercars, and am just going for all the wierd ones now

)

polopowah · Post by **polopowah** » Sun May 09, 2004 10:32 pm

then
mega drive - mercs

now
PS2 - Gta vice city

o and of course not forgetting the gt's
though Gt2 has been the best so far i think, all those cars 700+ apparently, though still i found more in the used car section

cant wait for Gt4
-Ben-

rooboy · Post by **rooboy** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:51 am

The best game system EVER was the Sinclair ZX81 with PONG and that is that. Darn this new fangled technology.

now wheres my betamax video.......

alex · Post by **alex** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:53 am

You have a betamax Jeff, sheesh bloody yuppies I have a new gramaphone player in the car

rooboy · Post by **rooboy** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:58 am

alex wrote:You have a betamax Jeff, sheesh bloody yuppies I have a new gramaphone player in the car

You own a CAR

I have a penny farthing with a little boy on the back playing a flute as a music system.