Post by CrazyTerabyte

Posted: 7/17/2008 2:40 AM

Post subject: Atari 2600.

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Cheezwizz

Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103

Why? There are a few games that seem to never stop getting harder as you play... Example? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXK54HS5bQQ

Posted: 7/23/2008 1:37 PM

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nesrocks

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Player (241)

Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil

I've tried to talk people into adding re-recording to an atari 2600 emulator, but no programmer is interested, and there also doesn't seem to be interest to support atari 2600 runs in this website. Shame!

aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios

Posted: 7/23/2008 2:14 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Honestly, are there any *good* atari 2600 games? And I mean from the point of view of *watching* someone playing it. The graphics are quite crappy, so there must be something else that would make a TAS entertaining. From all the (few) atari 2600 games which have some kind of ending, I suppose just a small fraction are barely enjoyable to watch. Is it worth making a rerecording emulator for just a few games?

Posted: 7/23/2008 3:55 PM

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alden

Player (120)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Warp wrote:

Is it worth making a rerecording emulator for just a few games?

Yes, yes it is. And it would probably be more than a few. Are there any 2600 emulators that support savestates even?

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 7/23/2008 5:21 PM

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nesrocks

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Joined: 5/1/2004
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Location: Rio, Brazil

how isn't NES crappy?

aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios

Posted: 7/23/2008 8:53 PM

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moozooh

Senior Moderator

Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away

NES could at least do some physics simulation. FODA, I believe you're completely missing the point that [at least some] Atari games have been interesting to play, or at least watch done manually; but in a TAS, their ugly repetition (because you could pack only this much data in a 2600 cart) comes forth and makes it look as boring as ever to pretty much anyone who's not a complete 2600 junkie.

Warp wrote:

Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.

Posted: 7/23/2008 10:30 PM

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nesrocks

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Joined: 5/1/2004
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I don't think NES videos are interesting for people that aren't NES junkies.

aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios

Posted: 7/23/2008 11:42 PM

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RT-55J

Player (147)

Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA

NES games typically have more variety than 2600 games.

Nach wrote:

I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.

Posted: 7/24/2008 12:59 AM

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upthorn

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Emulator Coder, Active player (388)

Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 1802

FODA wrote:

I don't think NES videos are interesting for people that aren't NES junkies.

I've never been a big fan of NES, but I have enjoyed watching several TASes of it, even of games that I'd never heard of before watching the TAS. I really cannot imagine this being the case with any Atari 2600 game that I know of.

How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

Posted: 7/24/2008 1:29 AM

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4matsy

Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 498

upthorn wrote:

I've never been a big fan of NES, but I have enjoyed watching several TASes of it, even of games that I'd never heard of before watching the TAS. I really cannot imagine this being the case with any Atari 2600 game that I know of.

Adventure? Donkey Kong (Jr.)? E.T.? Frogger? Kung Fu Master? Pitfall (2)? Raiders of the Lost Ark? Space Invaders on ridiculously hard settings? SwordQuest (insert element here)world? ...Custer's Rev--*brick'd*

Posted: 7/24/2008 1:36 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

FODA wrote:

I've tried to talk people into adding re-recording to an atari 2600 emulator, but no programmer is interested, and there also doesn't seem to be interest to support atari 2600 runs in this website. Shame!

I'm not sure if you recall, but my viewpoint has been all the time (for example, at http://tasvideos.org/EmulatorResources/Requirements.html#2 ) that I desperately want someone to prove me wrong in my opinion that no Atari 2600 game TAS could look very interesting to watch, considering that they are usually looping games.

Posted: 7/24/2008 1:01 PM

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ZeXr0

Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883

Does your opinion actually matters ? :P Just a joke :P

Posted: 7/24/2008 2:00 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

FODA wrote:

how isn't NES crappy?

Hmm, let's see... Atari 2600:

NES:

Need I say more?

Posted: 7/24/2008 2:15 PM
(Edited: 1/23/2022 10:25 PM)

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
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Warp wrote:

Need I say more?

If that's all your opinion, then let me show you another "fair" comparison. Super Nintendo:

Nintendo 64:

I think interestingness of gameplay should be at question here, not the graphics. In my opinion, a game such as Frogger (mentioned above) is hardly very interesting to watch especially if you just zoom through. However, for classic game documentation value it might be good. But that brings to another hard question: Game ending. Those games rarely had actual endings.

Posted: 7/24/2008 4:19 PM

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alden

Player (120)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Well we have Elevator Action, Donkey Kong and Circus Charlie...

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 7/24/2008 8:22 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Bisqwit wrote:

I think interestingness of gameplay should be at question here, not the graphics.

From a viewer's point of view graphics have a big impact on entertainment. The Atari 2600 just falls into the really ugly graphics side of old consoles.

Posted: 7/24/2008 8:31 PM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
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For the most part, I actually like Atari 2600 graphics. (Well, at least for the more popular games...)

Posted: 7/25/2008 12:15 AM

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nesrocks

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I think 99,999% of the human beings on this planet think n64 games and below are incredibly bad graphics, so graphics really don't matter. To tell you the truth, I only enjoy TASes in two cases: 1 - a TAS of a game I enjoy 2 - a TAS that exploits an unexpected glitch, even for a game I'm not very fond of. For atari games, I think the second cathegory is hard to happen, with very few exceptions. But on the first one, I am very interested to see how far does Seaquest go, for example, in terms of insane difficulty. You can progress through the difficulty levels very quickly. In River Raid you can go farther than anyone has ever gone, by avoiding getting points. This would make an extremely long video, but it would be interesting for enthusiastics. I think it all comes down to this, how many enthusiastics are there. We know for a fact that NES has more fans than atari 2600, so that may be what's holding back interest in working on this system...

aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios

Posted: 7/28/2008 12:03 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
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Location: Arzareth

I would add TASing support to Stella, but I cannot make heads or tails about its architecture... It is way too modular for my tastes. Such an elaborate structure requires equally elaborate documentation, which is unfortunately nowhere to be found. (For maintaining, sure, modular programming is a great thing, but when you are not yet in to the system's secrets, you'll have not 4 big puzzles, but 200 small puzzles. And because there is nothing that shows how those puzzles connect to each others (they're modular after all), you're lost. I can't find a single main loop or something that would actually do something instead of providing potential services for something else. And yes, I'm sure it'll be a piece of cake once you find the end of the ball of yarn (considering that Stella seems to have rather robust savestates, RAM initialization randomness not counting), but until that, there's nothing much I can do. And my patience and time is limited, unlike how it was 10 years ago...)

Posted: 7/28/2008 1:36 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Modularity is a great (and IMO essential) programming technique, but it's not a silver bullet. Modular design can go wrong, and if the overall structure of the program is not easy to figure out, the design has failed. It is also possible to overmodularize: Split the program into a humongous amount of very small modules. The amount of modules becomes so large that the entire program becomes basically a modular version of spaghetti code. Basically it's just modularity for the sake of modularity, without a good design. Not a good thing.

Posted: 7/28/2008 5:32 PM

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Dwedit

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Joined: 3/24/2006
Posts: 692
Location: Chicago

So do people want to see the "run" of Adventure that beats the game while inside a dragon? The thing about Adventure is that aside from generating game 3, the game is completely deterministic. The only interactions that can happen without the player at the screen is the bat stuff. So make the bat come by, and drop the Chalice at the location of the open yellow castle, then all you have to do is get to the yellow castle screen to win the game before the chalice gets pushed out of the way by bat or magnet. So that means you can just fly by dead inside a dragon to the yellow castle, and win the game inside a dragon.

Posted: 7/28/2008 5:47 PM

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DarkKobold

Skilled player (1637)

Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 2202
Location: Killjoy

Bisqwit wrote:

.... And my patience and time is limited, unlike how it was 10 years ago...)

This is the real problem. We've got great coders working on this site - however, the majority of them are working on perfecting the TAS abilities of current tasable emulators. The question isn't whether or not to add TASability, its "who has any friggin time these days?"

Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.

Posted: 8/4/2008 2:10 AM

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Cheezwizz

Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 103

There is one game with a definite "end" also, by the name of Solaris. The game itself is comprised of a bunch of maps connected in a mazelike way, where every object takes you to a fight or otherwise a warp jump. The object is to get to the blinking star in one of those sectors... It can take quite a while to finish that game (probably moreso to do EVERYTHING in the game, as everything happens in real time, whether you're there for it or not. some systems' bases will be under attack before you even get to them... Managing your time would be a big challenge.)