Microsoft invite you to attend the Atari Landfill excavation on April 26

[Unkillable Cat]

I get the same vibe from this event as the time when they opened Al Capone's vault live on TV... only to find it empty.

 

[Grimlorn]

 

[Whisky]

Funny that they're digging up Atari's old shame now.

Atari just released a new shame:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-tycoon-4-mobile-released.90974/#post-3216201

 

[Outlander]

Let's dig around for Larry 4 too

 

[Spectacle]

Now that I think about it, the old Atari ET game plays a lot like a modern 2deep4you indie game

 

[Infinitron]

I actually played E.T. on the Atari as a kid (of course the cartridge was old even then).

It was an interesting game that was trying to be complex in some ways, but it wasn't really very fun. It might have worked today as a mobile game with some sort of Flappy Birds-esque addictive control mechanic.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Wait, wait, WHAT?!
THIS GAME?!

Holy crap.

 

[Astral Rag]

Warning: contains endgame spoilers



Hopefully they take this expert with them to document this historic excavation.

 

[taxalot]

Isn't there a lot of Pac Man games dug there as well ?

 

[Abelian]

Meh, at best they'll find a load of crushed black plastic, the labels will have deteriorated by now.

You'd be surprised. Depending on how the cartridges where dumped in, there might be some in the top-center that are well preserved in the anaerobic environment.

Or everything will be covered in shit, who knows.

In that case, how will they be able to pick out the game?

Spoiler

 

[Whisky]

Isn't there a lot of Pac Man games dug there as well ?

Yeah, the 2600 port of Pac-man was notoriously terrible with constant graphic flickering and poor AI.

 

[Metro]

They should do something useful and hunt down the lost relics from the Sword Quest games they never produced (and thus never awarded in the contests held for first few installments).

The persistant rumour is that Jack Tramiel had them, no idea if that's true or not.

So I've heard. Always thought it would make a humorous Jack Black-esque movie to have some older geek hunt them down/break into Tramiel's house.

 

[Topher]

ET get's a bad rap. It had a screwed up development cycle even for back then and the guy who threw it together was actually a really solid developer. Interesting story.

 

[Jaesun]

They should do something useful and hunt down the lost relics from the Sword Quest games they never produced (and thus never awarded in the contests held for first few installments).

 

[Gragt]

They should do something useful and hunt down the lost relics from the Sword Quest games they never produced (and thus never awarded in the contests held for first few installments).

Let's make a Codex fundraiser to start an expedition!

 

[Metro]

A... quest?!?!

 

[Bio Force Ape]

I thought they did hunt down the Swordquest prizes? Didn't one guy melt his down to sell the gold?

 

[Spectacle]

Isn't there a lot of Pac Man games dug there as well ?

Yeah, the 2600 port of Pac-man was notoriously terrible with constant graphic flickering and poor AI.

Hm, I never saw any problems like that myself. Then again, I only got the 2600 as a gift by the time it was already obsolete, so maybe they'd patched the game.

A friend of mine tried connecting his Amiga mouse to the 2600, since it used the same kind of connector, and reported that Pac Man flew all over the place. I guess they couldn't spare any processor cycles for validating input on those old machines

 

[taxalot]

That flickering problem is actually more obvious on LCD screens than on CRTs, because of remanence.

 

[Whisky]

Isn't there a lot of Pac Man games dug there as well ?

Yeah, the 2600 port of Pac-man was notoriously terrible with constant graphic flickering and poor AI.

Hm, I never saw any problems like that myself. Then again, I only got the 2600 as a gift by the time it was already obsolete, so maybe they'd patched the game.

A friend of mine tried connecting his Amiga mouse to the 2600, since it used the same kind of connector, and reported that Pac Man flew all over the place. I guess they couldn't spare any processor cycles for validating input on those old machines

Huh, didn't know the amiga mouse used the same connector. That's cool. I heard of some people using a Genesis controller on their 2600s to some success.

 

[Bio Force Ape]

Homebrewers have come up with some impressive stuff in recent years for the 2600, though its hardware constraints still create the flicker problem -- I think it can only handle 2 sprites on the screen at a time, so to do more than that causes flicker (and the programmer to use tricks like making the extra sprites part of the background).

Wasn't this a topic in another thread (creating new software for old machines)? That dude should definitely not peek into the abyss of modern day Atari 2600 programmers.

 

[Luzur]

well, they arent that rare for Microsoft to want to cash in by digging them up, i got a ET cartridge too if they want it.

 

[Aurelius]

In case anyone still cares:

Spoiler

 

[circ]

Watch as the codex turns apologist even for piece of shit titles like ET.

 

[taxalot]

But what about the prices on ebay now?