three more

Yes good memories there Potsmoke!

For me though, this was the bomb

Any one know of a good front for Mame I like to revist some these old arcade games. ❓

Frontend for mame?

i use MAME32

but i think this is the most recent one http://www.mameui.info/

btw, is that your machine geraldine? or a pic from one of the arcade nutheads, you find in web? i know some have entire collections of arcade machines, crazy, really crazy.

a unstarted task of mine, since im not bad as a carpenter, also envolved in electronics, i allways wanted to put mame on a (not so)old PC of mine as a single thing, then fix it up in a arcade like shell with a tubescreen of course, and some heavy buttons to hammer on. 😆

this (phoenix) and 'cresta was the first games i really get addicted to, i guess it was the docking sequence what makes me addicted to mooncresta.

and would you believe me i could play, aged 15 of course, mooncresta's 7&8 stage (where the missiles drop from the top) with a covered screen, just by the stereo sound of the game.

RIGHT ON!

Oh I WISH Potsmoke I could be that crazy and have my very own Defender arcade machine in my home <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' /> You are correct that there are people out there who have their homes full of them. These genuine machines go for crazy money these days. If you still have an Amiga up and running, look out for Oblivion, a great Defender clone. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

I was actually wondering if putting a collection of ROMS in the download area would be legal for me to do? I know most of these games are 20+ years old but some companies will still whine about it. But it is also another way to archive the past for others to enjoy later on in the future 🙂

I have been having the hardest time tracking down info on old games and whether they are abandoned and can be legally hosted for free on a website. So if anyone knows of any good websites that show lists of games and that are abandoned or released as freeware do let me know. So I can gather them up and post them here.

My all time favorite is Galaga and i remember chatting about FunSpot here it is one of the largest classic arcades in the world here in my home state of NH and (30-40mins from home) and love going there and playing the oldies.

Cheer's potsmoker66 will have get down to downloading some rom for it. 😀

Not sure about the legal aspect about hosting old games,but there are a lot of sites hosting old game,maybe you need to put in some sort of disclaimer to the effect that you will remove the game if any one objects it being there.

Have a look at

http://www.abandonia.com/en

and

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

Yea, I agree with Pinback, just put in a disclaimer, so if there are any legal objections, it's easy to pull the offending material. If all else fails, you could always provide links to other sites who provide "demos", ..........if you get what I mean 😉

As for building your own full on arcade machine, there are loads of sites on this, here is a link to just one of them http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

Yeah I know. I might just go ahead and do a little over time. I just hate seeing games disappear forever because a company doesn't want to give up the distribution rights to a 10-30yr old game that they don't make any money on any more. Thought about making packages for each of the game types like Atari, Coleco, Spectrum, C64, Amiga, Nitendo and Genesis games that are only space related and make one download with all the roms in them. It's a little project but would be a great archive of the space games in the future. Then work on the PC related ones.

That's a very ambitious aim Darkone. A Space Sim Smithsonian online forever! :girlcrazy: Yea, I can picture a very bored crew of a real star ship in the far future (Darkstar?), wondering, "what you want to do tonight?" says one. "Hey why don't we look at those crazy retro space games they used to play 100s of years ago in the ship's database, you know listed under some site on what used to be laughingly called the internet. Space Sim Central, I think?" says the other. "Yea why not, I've tried all the holo deck programs already and it's just the same old rubbish that I can't be bothered with plus the drinks have no alcohol, BORING!!", says the other in a strangely Homer-a-like voice. :girldrunk:  Hey, you never know, it could happen. Wonder what they would make of our posts on here? :girlhaha:

If so Geraldine I want to download my subconsciousness to a computer and be the virtual tour guide to the past 🙂

Yeah that is a long term goal is to do my best to archive everything and start with the oldest and work forward while there is still places to get the downloads from. And as long as I am able to run SSC I will renew the hosting every year and even if I couldn't I would pose something to the community to ask for help. But SSC is in a nice niche place and hopefully be around long enough to be in someones spaceship archive when there making long distance runs to Pluto 🙂

It would be nice someday to celebrate a 25th anniversary. Just that feat alone will be a big one (heck yeah because i'll almost be retirement age by then... i'll have to make a name change from DarkOne to OldOne... hehe). And I might need a super computer to house all the software and archive the site. In 25 yrs there could be tens of millions of posts in the forums.

Never mind the fact that will we even be sitting at a computer to surf the net by then? Or will everyone have an implant that streams content directly into your brain...? Be like the matrix.

oh btw Galaga for the win....

[hsimg] [/hsimg]

Excellent idea,but you might not want to do Saga/Nintendo as they are quit protective of there copyright.also you need to put links to the emulator

good site for finding many old 8/16 bit games.

http://www.thegamearchives.com/?val=0_2 ... _1_0_5_0_0

Have a look at this. While watching it I had a stupid grin appear on my face <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_redface.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':oops:' />

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=EqxfDnmRB1M

Thats amazing 😀 ,wonder what his electricity bill is like. 😆

this get's my eyes popping out 😮

wow, a electronic dreamland (for a arcade addicted like i was),

i never thought this thread will get so much attention, but on the other hand i knew, everybody must rember it

yes, copyrights are a problem, for some of the rom images i spent nights to find them in the most unexpected places where you can search for e.g. there was a very big list of images on, believe me it's true, Buenos Aires tourist's information page, in between all the ad's for hotels, casinos, pools, and i don't know, was a little thread for home entertainment, if you went there there was the thread for the mame rom images, i guess then (~2000) it was the most complete list i found.

of course nintendo (foremost) and sega still watching over their games like argos, but arcade, except sega of course, they havent made. there is only one nintendo mario coin op i remember, and it's the battle scene you find in supermario (p vs p).

original donkey kong belongs to namco (which stands for nintendo of america corporation?), i guess, even if nintendo is the copyright holder now.

funny to read sometimes the piracy warnings: "IF YOU PLAY THIS GAME OUTSIDE OF JAPAN THE YOU ARE INTO A SERIOUS CRIME", funny to read when you sit at home knowing that you should own the original machine before you can play at home anyway.

personnally i guess to they should free that stuff, but i know nintendo still makes money out of it when they release some old stuff for the mobile phone, they had and have still the hardest business behave, every game that has started to sold less has been taken from the market, no possibilities for retail or off price. sony, sega, any you can buy after a certain time for the half of the new price or even less, nintendo never, full price or nothing, bandits in my eyes, a real piracy.

further they kept their games locked up good, waited for the next handheld and released the same crap again, now they sell it for the mobile, next will be when you have you console on your watch they will release supermario again, i'm shure.

30 years selling the same game over and over again 😆

wait, next will be a console in your sun-glasses, so you can play with the glove while jogging through the forest 😆

but i must say i also have no idea how or where to get the information, which rom images are free (if any at all), i guess some have bought copyrights it's still a business as long as there is a market for it, even when they are only interested in the brand, i guess. NAMCO imo would still sound good, so you can buy this brand for your own purpose, even when you are not interested in the 30 years old coinops they made, they belong then to you. (remember what has happened to the brand AMIGA, you can never sell any computer with that name no more, they sell cheap plastic crap for home or office use under that name now 👿 )

but those people would make money from a piece of ...., i don't have to tell you.

finally if i count all the money i dropped in to the slots of flippers and space shooters, i would own them anyway (not the game, the company i ment). i wasn't the best player at all and had allways to spend a lot money to reach scores like some of my friends did, or i never reached it anyway, two of them was able to play on the "easy" machines like "gyruss" for 4 hours with one credit and they wasn't finished then, but bored or tired.

found a defender PC version

http://forgottenroots.de/index.php?way=game&gid=371

I also uncovered an Amiga version of Defender called Oblivion. This was the best version of Defender I ever came across. Not for the faint hearted! 😈 I had to dig through my coverdisks to find the right one, but here is a link for an ADF file, the disk you need is "B" http://amr.abime.net/issue_337_coverdisks

Also here is some info from The One Amiga magazine in which the game originally featured, have fun! 😉

thanx a lot geraldine

havn't visited this thread since long i know

sounds impressive (and old...)

no, in fact the other game they was talking about "cybernetix" i had (i guess it's ashes now, but i knew then i could get all back via web now) and played it even very often

btw, got my miggy back home now (both)

good to know she's not longer gone astray 😆

oh, yes, do you know any address where i can get some A4000 hardware

i broke my scsii emulator chip for the A4000, since i don't know... (poor mans cd-rom drive solution)

the thing was back then i had no web (of course not) and the amiga stores was about to close then, anyway there wasn't many in switzerland, two to be exact, in a wide circle around zürich.

i still have broken cd32 i guess (not confirmed) in the box and for shure a communicator (confirmed) 🙂

there's a little story story behind the cd32 i bought

a big discounter here re-imported them from GB and dumped the price for it completely (SFr. 200.-, ~150 euro now, price on market before ~ SFr 400.- )

but they never sold a piece of software for it, stupid no?

i had to travel elsewhere then to get some games for it (usually i don't order things, i like to see what i buy, old fashioned, i know and first of all, i hate bills)

more history,

the first A500 i got as a leftover from a friend

then i bought me a second-hand A2000 from someone who thought that it is no "real computer" 😯 (is a pc a real computer?)

the second A500 which still lives on i found on a construction site, yes its true, we was doing up a copy shop then

that poor machine was pushed into a dark corner, complete with the monitor

i asked, and yes "of course take this rubbish where you like"

i guess if i never give one computer away it will be exactly this A500, i saved her soul from beeing wrecked (still some pink color sprinkles from the copy shop are on top of it) 😉

Hi Potsmoke, yes that link for Oblivion contains even more wonderful stuff on that site, glad you liked it! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> Now to your question about obtaining Amiga bits. The best place I have found so far is Amibay, link, http://www.amibay.com/index.php The site is run on a very strict basis to ensure all trades are carried out fairly and honestly. My own 4000 has been dead for 10 years, but thanks to that site, I am almost there to bringing her back to life. There is also lots of handy hints to carry out repairs yourself too and one last bit of advice concerning the 500+, 2000 and 4000 Amigas, take the battery out right now! After all this time, they leak and could destroy the motherboard circuits with acid! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//shok.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':O' /> The one in my 4000 very nearly did, but I got lucky and got it out just in time.

As for Cybernetix, here is a link for another ADF file, look for the cover disk that says Shepherd on it, left hand side of the web page, second one down, Cover disk number 85b http://amr.abime.net..._241_coverdisks <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

thank you, i will check that soon, yes battery acid is a murder.

one is leading to the next memory

the shepherd, ha, still got that installed for the winuae, not so long ago i played it again.

since i liked "god games" most besides of frontier a real favorit

and imo i havn't seen many so nice put together shareware games like this, gfx, story, allover a good job

of course measured with todays standarts low in gfx, but still nice to look at (read me, don't eat me 😉 ).

populous, of course, i still have the box (misused for pencils or oil colours now), i owned this as second game ever, was back in beginning of the 90's the computer (if it's worth to call that one), a 386 belonged then to my father

first i ever owned was guess...

SimCity

then Populous

after i bought SimEarth

Will Wright stated at the end of the "booklet" (>300 pages) who will ever read all this

i did Will, i did, more then once.

games with wich i made people addicted to gaming who stated before that they won't play computergames (my father 😉 *)

but not everything is stupid crash, boom, bang...

* not quite true we played together many hours of golf on the intellivision few years before.

first cut is the deepest?

yes

i still love the inty, hard to understand maybe, but first cut is the deepest!

still i play sometimes a round of golf, i like the unpredictable things like wind you can't measure or slope you can't see, lawn that really exists but you can't tell.

only 9 holes, but you can't play them each game in the same way

if i look at my other golfing sims... predictable. once you now where the optimal line is you can play allways the same.

except turn to a harder option for TWPGA08 that means joystick control for swing that's ok, at least needs confidence

for TWPGA2k turn to mouse swing and and use a emulated mouse on the stick.

but the unpredictability is gone still, you will know exact wind m/s, you can check the exact slope in feet, lawn that you not only see, no it's measured too.

btw, i like sid's simgolf, i know you can't really play active, strokes been made by the program, but exactly that's the charm, you can be as good as you like, sometimes you mishit.

one i really disliked was the golf i bought once for gamecube, predictable and typical nintendo, play in the way they suggested it and you win, allways.

complete different to my own courses i made for TWPGA2K, take some risky shot, be creative, no one said you have to play allways on the fairway, maybe you got a chance to gain a stroke or two, or lose one or two (ok, AI is completely overwhelmed in that case, that's the direction of fairway, he plays this direction, hitting the same tree 20 times 😆 ).

course design is leaned mostly on inty's course, you can't do much better, i guess, allready the layout makes it hard to decide, should i play fade or draw? long or short? stay on the fairway or risk a shot over that immense bunker or lake, maybe in front of the lake is a good position for the next stroke? but there is this steep slope, risky.

i know in reality i guess you will never see such a course, but it's computer golfing and real courses are boring to play on the computer, mostly straight, slight dogleg left or right but not much to decide how to play the hole.

one of the more interesting ones for computer golfing is st.andrews, even if the holes are mostly straight but appearances are deceptive and the heavy wind kills many good planned stroke, also i find distance is very clever on the layout and often you land on the very front of the crumbled extra large green, a bad position to play from.

gernot, stop it now this is SSC not GSC.

I had Jack Nicholas Golf on the miggy, there was tons of courses for that online back in the day, some of them if I remember right some had lower or heavier gravity settings, so you could in theory play a round on the moon. I was always hopeless at golf though <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' />

God Games, a really great late miggy game was Foundation, it took ages just to establish a stable population, never mind building up a settlement and eventually competing with your neighbours for resources. Looking forward to playing that again with RTG on the Cybervision card with the 4000. <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_cool.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='8-)' />

back to topic (i had a cup of coffe)

there was this "odd" game on the inty called Star Strike, a more or less simple game where you had just fly through a channel of a "death star" and bomb certain points while trying to evade to be shot down from the aliens that appeared behind you.

but there was something typical intellivision, intelligent like the name promises.

something i havn't seen often in space sims or shooters (never maybe?).

you not simply got hit and shot down, no your ship looses power in many ways sometimes you lost your bottom thruster, sometimes sidewards thrust, on other occasions your gun was hit, forcing it to have damp squib (is that right?).

chrt, chrt, chrt, piu....

i loved that, sometimes you wasn't shot down, you lost your bottom thrust and sank slowly down... boom

how i hated the aliens for that, helplessly sinking down, not to be blasted in one shot!

or loosing complete fire power, ok, i lost, i'm still alive but what can i do without a laser?

fight on, maybe i can evade the shots later on i still got my bombs and the mission can be completed.

more or less even, sometimes you still had a chance, sometimes not.

i guess this is worth to have in pioneer to, not beeing just hit and percentage of hull is lowered, no, you lose thruster power, parts of equipment (ok, frontier had such), or fire power.

and it shouldn't depend only on how hard you get hit, no, more where, or at least randomly.

very rude and often discussed in those days, if you lost the battle the earth was blown up by the death star.

typical inty too, you had different degrees of not only speed, from advantage to the kid to arcade mode where you never can win (endless points to bomb).

that's what i stated often, grafics might have been blocky and simple, but coding was intelligent.

on 8kb of rom! that's a few pages of code!

we have, i'm shure, nowadays games with a volume of a dvd needing at least 2GB of ram and a dual or quad core, so and so gfx card, but they have no such deepness.

sadly it was all over when mattel decided to retire from console games and and computer games at all,

the developers had allready plans for a new machine using the brand new M86000...

some foundet INTV later privat, INTV lived on until early nineties...(they had the first "web", you could download games from them via a telephone modem for a monthly fee), some went to form SEGA which used above processor in the arcade machines as well as in the master system.

another interesting fact, Intellivision invented the glove...

developers was dreaming allready of a complete action suit 1985!

truely they called themselfes "the riders of the blue sky"

That is very true, if today's devs used all that extra processing power for actual game mechanics instead of pouring everything into flashy graphics, the games we could have would be so much better. Then again perhaps it is beyond them, it's much easier to replicate the past great gaming achievements with better graphics rather than create a future full of innovative gameplay as it was back then in the 80s. As usual it will always come down to either the indi devs (who have little to lose by trying something different) or a mad genius (who doesn't care what the money men think). Will we see their like again? I do hope so. Keep The Faith! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_cool.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='8-)' />

yes, that won't mean i didn't like stunning grafix, no

and such little things, don't need much code, but the will to do it.

who was it stated just today, more random events in pioneer needed? s20dan? king haggis?

doesn't matter me to!

truely it's left up to the independend dev yes, companies are reasonably not interested when you play the same game for decades 😆

but, to me it's also a question to whom i hang on, if i played a game that satisfied me chances are high i will at least take a look at the next product from the same company.

at least i acted that way.

i had my beloved brands like EA or microprose, i followed them you could say, until some vanished (microprose) or they completely changed their philosphy (EA).

further on,

not many real new things can be invented for games that wasn't allready there, but i guess that didn't matters. who of us would not have this or that game he like to see into a new glance?

it's really just a question of willing to do it, i guess younger folks, gamers are often misjudged, tinking they might be interested only in a certain genre, because it's actually the best selling, but as far as i know, they would like to play some "old" ideas as well, if only presented right, in a actual polished up version.

and i was freakin' out when i discovered a 14 year old israeli got addicted to frontier, his most loved game, imagine!

he wasn't born frontier existed allready!

btw, ciao had loadet my "game review" of pioneer back to their servers, first i was banned (it's true) because they said it's off topic 👿 , but now two or three months later i received a mail from them that my account was reactivated.

well i guess my hard words i wrote them showed some effect, whatever, good to hear someway.

i wrote them that i knew it's not a real review, but also that it is a community project and no commercial interest behind,

i suggested then they would only respect reviews of games they can sell retails of...

i think that has borne fruits.

really, rapping could help sometimes

another not gaming related similar occurance, i downloaded a prog called free music editor,

installed it and found out that you could only use it fully against a fee...

i wrote a mail, i told them, "hey thats not fair you call your program "free", but it isn't".

not so long time after i received a mail with the serial no. to unlock it and a short apology

the only ones never answered is MS i guess i wrote allready three of such mails, i mean they force people to do, they say it helps to improve their quality, but i never received a answer...

in fact i would have been relly surprised 😆