[ Newsbits ] May 15, 2014
May 14th, 2014 by Benj Edwards
Since I missed last week’s column, I decided to fold some of those links into this week’s edition. So there may be a few older newsbits, but at least they’re still interesting.
Recent News
- 2300 Console Games Now Playable on Internet Archive
‘Ole pal Jason Scott writes about the sudden influx of games playable on the Internet Archive website
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working with a range of volunteers on a massive expansion of what we call the Console Living Room at the Internet Archive. Previously weighing in at about 800 game cartridges from seven console systems, the new collection is roughly 2300 cartridges and a total of 21 different consoles.
- George R. R. Martin Writes Using WordStar 4.0 in MS-DOS
I’m not surprised. To avoid distractions, I sometimes write using Word 6.0 for DOS on a Compaq Aero 4/25 laptop.
The ‘Game of Thrones’ author confessed to late-night talk-show host Conan O’Brien that he prefers to write his popular books on a DOS word processor instead of the latest laptop.
‘I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital letter. I don’t want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key.’
- Nintendo Forces Takedown of GBA Emulator for iOS
From the not-very-surprising department
In order to play titles like Super Mario and Zelda on your iPhone, then, you have to look at unofficial alternatives. GBA4iOS was one of the most popular — but after its creators received a DMCA notice from Nintendo this week, it is no more.
- Analogue Interactive’s $499 NES Clone Up for Pre-Order
TinyCartridge reports on this fancy console with a healthy grain of salt mixed in. (Memories of Generation NEX still make me shudder.)
Analogue has opened pre-orders for its Nt, the Famicom/NES device with RGB output, four controller ports, and purported ‘unparallelled'” compatibility with American and Japanese games and accessories.
- New Book About How Sega Nearly Won the Console Wars
Chris Kohler provides an overview of Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle That Defined a Generation.
If a few small things had changed, might we be gaming on a Sega PlayStation right now? That’s the picture Blake Harris paints in his new book Console Wars. It is a narrative history of the brief time period in the lifespan of the videogame publisher Sega when it was on top of the world.
- Midway Planned HD Remakes of Mortal Kombat Games
I would have really loved to see this
With the [ Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection], Midway’s initial plan was to release HD remakes of the original games with new actors, and even though that’s not what happened in the end, these images with Liu Kang, Sonya, Shao Kahn and the others show that the remakes would have been quite faithful to the original
Cool Links
- The Last Survivors of Meridian 59
A rare examination of obscure Internet game culture from a mainstream publication (The New Yorker)
Today, almost eighteen years after Meridian 59’s launch, Barloque’s streets are quiet and vacant, its cobblestones buffed and rounded by little more than a digital breeze. They are rarely visited by more than twenty people in the world at any one time.
- The Great Works of Software
Paul Ford muses about a software canon
Is it possible to propose a software canon? To enumerate great works of software that are deeply influential—that changed the nature of the code that followed?
- How Steve Wozniak Wrote BASIC for the Original Apple From Scratch
Woz himself writes for Gizmodo, re: BASIC 50th anniversary
The problem was that I had no knowledge of BASIC, just a bare memory that it had line numbers from that 3-day high-school experience. So I picked up a BASIC manual late one night at HP and started reading it and making notes about the commands of this language. Mind that I had never taken a course in compiler (or interpreter) writing in my life.
- How Sega is Rejuvinating its Classic Games in 3D
I’m not sure if “rejuvenating” is the right word here, but I welcome Sega dipping into the past
Few games have had as much attention lavished upon them as the Sega 3D Classics series. The first wave of titles was released between November and December of last year, in pairs over four successive weeks.
- Super Mario Bros. Level Belt (Etsy)
Incredible artistry — an entire Super Mario Bros. level crafted into a leather belt
The images are of a belt that I crafted for my brother, who is a big Super Mario fan, and depicts the last level of Super Mario brothers where Mario finally rescues the princess.
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May 19th, 2014 at 10:27 pm
Time flies by… I remember Meridian 59. Back in 99 or so I badly wanted to play it, playing against 100s of other players around the world seemed so inconceivable at the time. Sadly, we only had Dial-Up without a flatrate, so at most I could play for like 5-10 minutes. It would have bankrupted my parents if I played more 😉
By the time I had my own apartment and DSL with flatrate, Meridian was already forgotten – Diablo 2 and later Final Fantasy XI & WoW were my first real experiences with that type of gaming experience.
Oh, and Benj, thanks for all your articles and this site in general – I don’t even remember how I found this site a few years ago, but I greatly enjoy reading your stories and hope you keep this up in the future 🙂