[ Newsbits ] May 1, 2014

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

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Vintage computing and retrogaming news small enough to eat.

Recent News

  • See Atari’s Buried Treasure: E.T. Among 30 Retro Games Unearthed In The Desert
    I never thought I’d live to see the day

    “The legend was true, but that’s not all. Atari buried a lot of stuff back in 1983–and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

  • Andy Warhol’s Amiga Computer Art Found 30 Years Later
    Always felt Amiga + Warhol was one of the more bizarre partnerships in computer history

    “The Andy Warhol Museum has recovered a set of images, doodles, and photos created by the seminal pop artist on a Commodore Amiga home computer. The artworks, made by Warhol as part of a collaboration with Commodore Amiga, had been stranded on Amiga floppy disks for almost twenty years after the artist saved them in the mid-1980s.

  • ICHEG Preserves Atari Coin-Op Divisions Collection
    It gives me great mental relief to know someone is doing this so well and so thoroughly

    “ICHEG has acquired a massive collection of materials chronicling the history of Atari’s pioneering video arcade and pinball machine divisions from 1972 to 1999. The collection represents the largest and most comprehensive assemblage of archival records and other documentary items related to Atari’s coin-operated games anywhere in the world.

  • Bob Hoskins, Actor Who Played Mario, Dead at 71
    Now both live-action Marios are gone

    “Bob Hoskins, the pugnacious British actor known for playing gangsters, tough guys and working-class gentlemen in such films as ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit,’ ‘The Long Good Friday’ and ‘Mermaids,’ has died, publicist Clair Dobbs said Wednesday.

  • Fifty Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal
    Harry McCracken’s epic study of BASIC on its 50th

    “Once upon a time, knowing how to use a computer was virtually synonymous with knowing how to program one. And the thing that made it possible was a programming language called BASIC.

  • A Short History of BASIC, as Told in Animated GIFs
    An animated supplement to McCracken’s BASIC story above

    “I used a neat program called Camtasia and some post-processing in Photoshop to create animated GIFs capturing what I saw as I loaded some significant BASIC programs, listed the code and then ran it.

  • Sony Quietly Removes Ability to Download PSP/PS One Games Unlocked a Few Days Ago on PS Vita
    An update to last week’s Vita story

    “A few days ago we reported about Sony suddenly unlocking a large amount of PSP games and PlayStation Classics for download and play on the PS Vita. Unfortunately its time to mourn, as that ability was quietly removed this morning. None of those games is available for download anymore.

  • Atari Landfill Tweet from Scott Weinberg

    “My generation buried those E.T. Atari cartridges for a reason. You’re awakening something not even Lovecraft could imagine.

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Kotaku’s Emulation Fear Mongering

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

Ouya Console

Over at Kotaku, Tina Amini recently wrote a piece titled “Ouya Tries To Dispel Fears That The Console’s Nintendo Emulators Will Promote Piracy.” It’s not a good piece.

First of all, the author isn’t clear whose fears Ouya is trying to dispel. By my reading, it is only the author herself who “fears” what may happen if Ouya allows Nintendo emulators on its console, and only because she wants to drum up controversy for a blog post. Fear mongering bullshit.

Tina, don’t use fear over emulation or piracy as your traffic-boosting media pawn. It doesn’t help anybody.

Emulation isn’t the enemy. Piracy isn’t even the enemy. They’re bogeymen that help preserve a system where media companies overcharge and re-charge for their works over and over and over again. (I’m talking all media here, not just video games.)

The never-ending war against piracy isn’t a war against pirates. It’s a war against consumers. The content industry has dressed it up to look like a battle of good vs. evil when it’s really just a battle to keep your wallet pried open while dollars pour out.

That war has real casualties for everyone that are far worse than piracy: things like consumers’ fair-use rights over products they have rightfully purchased or licensed, free speech, security research, and our historical legacy.

Piracy, if left completely unchecked, would definitely hurt publishers. But it’s not unchecked. It’s illegal.

Let people do what they want with open platforms. Let the law be the law, and let the people decide if it’s in their best interest to respect it or break it.

You could always put people in straitjacket if you didn’t want them to break any laws, but it wouldn’t allow them to be free, would it?

DRM is a digital straitjacket, and a “walled garden” is a fancy name for a comfortable prison. If a company like Ouya is brave enough to let their console be used for whatever purpose, that should be commended, not discouraged.

P.S. Fix the DMCA