January 2016
January2016 Newsletter FOREWORD By Captain Irata: "Pain is weakness leaving your joystick trigger finger! Hoo-rah!"
Welcome to the New Year, 2016! What new Atari gear arrived in your household for the holidays?? Sounds like last month's SPACE party went off well as always. Sorry I couldn't make it, but thanks to everyone for taking part! My latest Atari research, based on material collected at the Minneapolis Central Library (plus one item at the Wilson Library at the U), has Table ofContents
President's Corner: 1 Treasurer's Report: 1 Secretary's Report: 2 8-bit DOM Review: 3 Atari News: 4
me living in the Atari world of the mid-1970s. Many people concern themselves with the origins of Atari, and many others are familiar with the Atari of the 80s and 90s, but relatively few sources are available covering the time in between in depth. For one thing, I've come to the conclusion that several "RARE" items likely were never really released at all, the only surviving artifacts are likely prototype, preproduction units. Such as Pong In-A-Barrel, Dr. Pong, and Puppy Pong. I've concluded that what some sources call "Dodgeball" was almost surely the illusive "Dodge 'Em", a popular VCS game based on an Atari arcade game that doesn't seem to have ever actually come out! I've also gotten much more clear about the extended rollout of Atari's Pinball Division over 1976-1977. Cool fact: the Atari manufacturing plant for pinball production was transformed for 400/800 computer line manufacturing in 1979.
Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday January 8, 2016.
Not a bad turnout for the SPACE December Christmas party this year. We had five members and two spouses in attendance. The chicken tacos were apparently great and I can attest that the mini hot dogs were also. The desserts were excellent and thanks to Beverly, Glen, and Steve Bergund. Jackie made the tacos and Glen made the mini hot dogs. There were a lot of leftovers so our grandchildren were more than happy to finish up on Saturday. Lance is almost ready to show us his updated SD 1010 hard drive supposedly with a much larger capacity. He also has a new game ready to demo possibly next month. Sounds
like a good way to start off the it possibly at the January new year. meeting. In the new business, more games are coming from As for the SPACE account for V61. They will capitalize on the end of the year; we had a the success of Secretum balance of $444.54 and added Labyrinth, the last successful four 8-bit and three ST DOMs release. Keep reading in future for an additional $21.00 to posts of the Newsletter for give us an ending balance of more developments. $465.54. We had no expenses for December as neither Nolan Steve Berglund showed off a was there to collect the webFalcon computer that needed site fee or was the bill for the repair at the meeting. Even in 2015 room rental received. I its state of disrepair, it was suppose I will have to call for magnificent to see. I hope that the bill again. it will be refurbished soon. The Party was much ado Well that's it for now. A very about tacos yet again, but still busy time for Jackie and me fun and I quite enjoyed it. before Christmas. Speaking of The meeting and Party ended which, Merry Christmas and at 9:00 PM that night. Happy New Year to all our members and families. See This concludes the Report. In you in 2016. Stan Lee’s famous ending salutation… EXCELSIOR!
The December 2015 Meeting commenced at 7:40 PM on the 11th of that month. The current membership count is at eight members. In the old business, the 8 GB 1010 Evolved SD drives have been prototyped. They are described as lightning fast and they will have a better LCD display. Not much is known after that but Lance will demo
It was definitely detailed with the graphics, and that is all I am going to say about that. Now the scores: Graphics: 8 Sound: 8 Gameplay: 8 Animation: 6 Total score: 30/40 NOTE: This game was not complete, since one part of it was missing. It took another disk to encompass, and that was not included. SIDE TWO: Arsantica 3: This is a smashing demo with 3D graphics and sound in real-time. I loved it. It shows a spacecraft speeding past planets and I thought that it was extremely crafty and creative. So, there you go.
HELLO WORLD! Welcome to the first Secretary’s Report of 2016. I will waste no time and just get started, without further adieu.
It shows pictures of nude models. You have to spot certain parts of the models' anatomies (hence the name).
8-bitDOM Report
BySteven Peck
Graphics: 10 Animation; 10 Sound: 10 Total score: 30/30 (perfect)
Welcome to the first 8-bit DOM Report of 2016! So, I will Atari: This picture showed the go ahead with all of the nittyword "Atari", but without gritty details: knowing the name of the file you would not know that it SIDE ONE: was spelled that way. Booby Jackpot: WARNING! this game is not suitable for those under the age of 17, for it is of a mature subject.
The letters were displayed in such a way that they were twisted out of shape, making it hard to discern the name of
the iconic computer and video cool. game company. Graphics: 8 Henceforth, here is the score Total score: 8/10 for that: Graphics: 5 Total score: 5/10
Turbo Snail: In this game, you help a hungry snail find food. however, there are poisons you have to avoid. You can also shoot certain poisons to Little Game: In this game, avoid them, however. youo go into a cave and fight Overall, it's a neat game. creatures to collect treasures.
Compo Filer 1: This graphic is in real-time and shows a person's head moving on the screen. Nice scaling and animation effects.
It is very difficult, but once you understand how to play it the game gets easier.
Graphics: 5 Gameplay: 7 Sound: 7 Animation: 7
Total score: 26/40
Graphics: 8 Animation: 10
Graphics: 5 Sound: 7 Animation; 6 Gameplay: 9
Well, this concludes the DOM Report. Thanks for reading and I will be back next month. Total score: 27/40 with another Report. I will see Planetary Defense 2012: In you then. this game, you pilot a satellite defense system over your planet, defending against incoming missiles from space. You can control your weapons, but not the rotating satellite.
Total score: 18/20 Fourth of a Kind: This music is peppy and fast and has somewhat of an urban style of music, I guess you could say. Overall, it was a pretty interesting soundtrack. Sound: 9 Total score: 9/10 Iron Man: This music indicates impending action and suspense, at least to me. Overall, I thought it could have been better.
So, with that said, you can hit your own planet. It is a great game, but hard. Graphics: 7 Gameplay: 7 Animation: 7 Sound: 7
I thought it was sort of Total score: 28/40 monotone, myself. but I still Spadajacy kotek: This picture liked it a lot. shows a cat in mid-air with balloons attached to its paws. Sound: 8 It looks cute for the kids. I like it. Way to go. Total score: 8/10 Lightman: This pic shows a Graphics 8 spark of electricity with eyes and a mouth. Looks pretty Total score: 8/11
Atari News
SentbyMichaelCurrent
playback; SAP recording.
type
R
Input: New interactive controller tuner with tunable zones; fully phaeron writes (12/20/2015): dead customizable keyboard Version 2.70 of my emulator mapping. Altirra is now out: Performance: Faster NTSC more efficient http://www.virtualdub.org/ artifacting, Direct3D 11 vsync, reduced altirra.html audio load on Vista+. It's been about nine months since the last release. Thanks to everyone who tried it out, reported bugs, and gave suggestions. 2.70 final is almost the same as the last test release (2.70-test40), except for a minor fix to the assembler. Highlights of the 2.70 release: Accuracy: Many 65C02/65C816 fixes; core ANTIC/GTIA/POKEY/PIA fixes; added 800 floating I/O bus emulation; many fixes for undocumented U1MB and XEP-80 behavior. Built-in ROMs: compatibility of many fixes and keywords added BASIC.
Improved AltirraOS; nine new to Altirra
Debugger: Many 65C816 fixes; new stepping and search commands; expanded profiling support with basicblock mode, multi-frame capture, and performance counter tracking. Device emulation: Added RVerter and Veronica; added 1050 timing and drive sounds. Format
support:
SAP
The next Meeting is on Friday, January 8, 2016, at 7:30 PM. We Hope to See you There!