Happy Birthday, Samus!

[tamakun]

"Metroid" was originally released in Japan on August 6th, 1986. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Metroid franchise! Happy Birthday, Samus Aran! All Your History is doing a retrospective on it right now, go check it out!

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I've been having a couple of strange itches recently that I don't know if I'll be able to scratch.

One is that I've really been wanting to get out to my Grandmother's cottage in Nippissing this year. However, my new work schedule being so erratic and the inability to take vacation for the first 6 months (which I have to respect, I am in that probationary period, after all), I don't think I'll be able to make it out there this year. :(

The other is a little easier, but I discovered that the LCD TV doesn't like it much. I want to unearth my old C64 and play through all my old games again. After picking up the Humble Indie Bundle 3 (and getting the 2nd pack for free!) I've been wanting to play old games that play similarly to VVVVVV, specifically a strange, odd game called The Dark Tower. This is apparently the lesser-known of the two "Dark Tower" games on the C64 since everyone knows Dark Castle which had some awesome stone-throwing mechanics. The music from Dark Tower has been stuck in my head for awhile. (go back to that Lemon64 link, click "Listen" under the Music column, and select tune 1.)

The tricky thing with the Commodore 64 is that the output of the computer runs to an RF Adapter, and these things are old and introduce lots of static to the signal (especially with all the radio frequencies floating through the air these days). The LCD screen reads this as interference and so it doesn't show anything. The old CRT TV has no problem displaying it, but it's fuzzy as all heck. I did manage to get the VICE emulator working on the Kubuntu laptop with perfect sound emulation too, but alas, it has no joystick to truly enjoy the games. (I get this feeling I'm repeating myself.) I guess the next step would be to try to get the C64 emulator working on the PC which has an Xbox controller attached to it. Closest I could get to a true C64 controller. :)

I sound like I'm repeating myself... have I said this before? :P

I'm sure I haven't said this before -- There was a Short Circuit game? To only hear about this now (and not when I was such a Johnny 5 Fanboy), this is just blowing my mind! (And they have a neat chiptune of the opening track, too, track #4.)

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If you're wondering about my work schedule, it turns out I will be going to the Beaches, but for next week (i.e. starting on Friday) I'll be going to the Newmarket location for a week, then on to The Beaches until the end of September. Then, I will be back at Bloor West Village "permanently". I'll put out more info later on. :)

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I think you gave the wrong link for the Short Circuit game >.>

Oh, man, I didn't know they ported Dark Castle to other platforms! I still think the mac version looks coolest, but, I tend to think that about everything XD

Hmmm... it looks like there are mods to add S-Video output to a C64? Although apparently the hardware isn't the sturdiest thing to be mucking about with >.>

On the other hand, if all you miss is the joystick... :D http://www.stelladaptor.com/

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

Drat, that's what I get for not double-checking my links! I guess Lemon64 uses frames. Ugh. XD

Yeah, the Mac version of Dark Castle looked better, I think -- primarily because it was in black-and-white, everything had to be so well-defined!

From some of the forums I was skimming last night about C64 and LCD TVs, it looks like the C64 actually outputs video outside of the standard range, which might be why the new digital TVs don't like it. But, that little adapter might work well -- once i find one of my old joysticks! (I would guess it would work for C64 as well. ^^) Heh, I knew the C64 and Genesis used the same port, I forgot the Atari did the same!

[davidn]

By simple reverse extrapolation, then, I can tell that I got married on Metroid's 20th birthday, completely by accident. There's probably some geek credit to be had there, though I'd sort of prefer people not to think that I did it deliberately :)

There seems to be a decent amount of Commodore 64-related software around even now - C64Gen is a good development environment for it. Really, anything is good compared to clunking through a program on the actual machine's tank-like keyboard, and it's got a sprite and screen code generator. For something called BASIC, it's... really weird looking at how difficult it is compared to anything else, now.

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

The fact that you did it unconsciously is even geekier ;)

I originally cut my teeth in BASIC. I never got the hang of anything more complex than that. I remember writing games that involved pages of "graphics" which were using the C64's version of ASCII. I really just want to play all the old games again, but today's computers can emulate so much easier than having to find all the components necessary to play a single game :)

I learned that VVVVVV was originally written in Flash, and has now been updated to run in C++ (with the level editor). I wonder how difficult it would've been to port the game from one language to another.

[davidn]

Most languages now are based on the one sort of syntax template, so I imagine most of the way things worked could remain the same... though Flash has some sort of organization into objects which C++ doesn't, so that part of it would have had to be written to take it out of Flash and into C++. It's difficult to say without seeing the process!

I got it again as part of the Humble Bundle - it's actually the subject this month of the game club I accidentally started - and have been playing a bit with the level editor myself. Some of the provided ones are downright sadistic!