Category: Uncategorized
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The Wild Gunman (1976)
“A gun is never empty” my dad told me. He was looking straight at me. He was looking into my eyes. He had never done that before. That I could recall any way. “A gun is always loaded” he repeated, changing the words slightly but not the meaning. It…
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Excerpt From The Diary Of An Atari Nerd
Note: Here is a piece of creative non-fiction. I’ve changed the names, and compacted some events, but everything is true that happened. I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a fictionalized diary based on real events for a long time. The article in the last section is the real…
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Atari Vault : Multi-Player Breathes New Life Into Age-Old Games
I spent much of last weekend attempting to get a multi-player games started with someone, anyone, on the internet. It was not a game of Star Wars Battlefront, or Words With Friends, or even Clash Royale. It was a game of Atari 2600/VCS Basic Math. Let me back-up a bit. Basic…
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Old Crap From My Attic: Atari and Sega Extravaganza!
Old Crap From My Attic: Atari and Sega Extravaganza: Atari 400/400/xl/xe, Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear storage space win! Well, not exactly from my attic, but from my garage this time, and not exactly from there, but from my brother…oh, just forget where it came from and bask in it’s glory……
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The Dead Lexicon Of Classic Video Games (Ver. 1.1)
by fultonbot-Version 1.1 At the beginning of of the video game era, gaming nomenclature was yet to be coined. This is our first look into the fascinating world of “The Dead Lexicon Of Classic Video Games. The editors and writers of magazines like Electronic Games created much of the…
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Top-10 Classic Video Game Magazine Christmas Ads, Covers, & Content
By Steve Fulton Some of these are good, some are terrible, but all of them are memorable. Here is a run down my favorite Christmas content from classic gaming and computer magazines like Electronic Games, Joystik, Electronic Fun and Atari Connection. #10 Subscription Pleas Every magazine contains advertisements…
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Atari Nerd Chronicles: 1982-1983: Computer Lab
Note: I’ve been writing these little stories on the internet for the better part of the last decade. Out of my entire close and extended family, only a very few have taken the time to read them. One of those people was my Uncle Richard. My mom’s brother,…
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What Video Game Journalists In 2014 Could Learn From Electronic Games Magazine in 1983: Standards
Note: In the light of some more recent events in the gaming world, this seems even more relevant today than when I posted it in 2011. So here it goes again. I was looking through my old copies of Electronic Games, and I happened upon an editorial by Arnie Katz…
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BASIC 50th Anniversary: Riding An 8-bit Rocket
I was 9 years old when I first touched the keyboard of an Apple II computer. It was 1979, and I was visiting my friend Eric’s house. Eric’s dad was a computer engineer at Hughes Aircraft, and he was the first person I ever knew who owned his own…
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Celebrate the Web’s 25th Anniversary with O’Reilly – 50% off all Web Dev e-books
So you have been waiting to get your hot little hands on a new bo0k to compete in the emerging market for web and HTML5 (for mobile and web). O’Reilly makes it easier today with 50% all e-books related to web development in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the…
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Outpost 2 is quite simply the best free web game ever created!
By Jeff Fulton (8bitjeff) A couple old buddies of mine from the UK and Germany have created what I consider to be quite simply the best free Web game ever created. It’s a retro-style top-down shooter / adventure game. Think Half Life if viewed from above. And you have an…
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Resetting what appears to be a dead Garmin Forerunner 210
Resetting what appears to be a dead Garmin Forerunner 210 (works for 110 also) The Garmin Forerunner 210 is a great little device that allows for both Satellite GPS distance tracking and heart rate monitoring at he same time. As well as a host of other features this is one…
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RETRO: The Multi-Format, Throw-Back Video Game Magazine : Kickstarter
[iframe frameborder=”0″ height=”380″ scrolling=”no” src=”http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socalmike/retro-the-multi-format-throw-back-video-game-magaz/widget/card.html” width=”220″][/iframe] We here at 8bitrocket.com are huge fans of the UK based Retro-Gamer Magazine. It is the one bright spot on the physical magazine landscape that is otherwise a dried-up and dust bowl of screaming previews and AAA me-too shouting. We need more…
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Enthusiasts Plan Kickstarter Campaign To Buy Atari Assets And Run It Like It’s 1977 All Over Again
The current company that holds the Atari brand and assets is filing for bankruptcy and planning to sell everything to the highest bidder That fact is not as much news as an update to the “when will Atari go bankrupt again” section of the Atari entry on Wikipedia. What…
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Xbox 360 Internet Explorer Plays HTML5 Games…But Not Flash
This morning I work up early to download the new Xbox Live update that includes Internet Explorer. My goal was to try out some of our HTML5 Canvas game experiments to see is they work on the new I.E for the Xbox. To my surprise, they work fairly well.…
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In His Latest Column, Bob Cringley Finally Tackles The Current State Of I.T.
Bob Cringley has finally done it. He has finally written a column that tries to tackle the current sad state of corporate IT. You have to read until the end, but in a single paragraph he crystalizes the issue: “Against this we have a cadre of IT workers who have…
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Producto Studios Video for GE.
Over at Producto Studios, we are doing far more than just making it into the semi-finals of the Pong Developer Challenge. Here’s a fun cartoon we just wrapped up working with our buddy Michael Bly and his new studio Balihoo Productions. It’s a timeline on the history of gas pumps…
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*New Book Celebrates Atari For It’s 40th Anniversary*
(Atari Book Press Release) Authors tell the fun and inspirational stories behind the iconic founding brand of the video game industry. New York, June 27th, 2012 — Today, people ask, “Do you play video games?” but in the 70’s and 80’s, people asked, “Do you play ATARI?” The video game…
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I Wish I Had Made That! Dragon Fantasy From Muteki Corp
Dragon Fantasy This is a new column named “I Wish I Had Made That!” where we explore games that are so close to our hearts, that we wish we had made them ourselves. In fact, most will be games that we started and never finished, and someone has beaten us…
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Memorial Day Tribute To The Uncle I Never Knew : PFC John Fulton Jr. KIA 10/24/44
When I was little my dad told me a single story about World War II. He told no stories about his time in the army other than this single story. It was about the day he knew he was going to die. He was in Italy in 1945 serving with…
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Atari Pong Developer Challenge Inspiration: Pong In The Wild At The Redondo Beach Fun Factory
Today I took my daughter to the last remaining arcade from my youth, the Redondo Beach Fun Factory. I wanted to give her a chance to ride some of the vintage electro-mechanical vehicles in the establishment before they all disappear. While we were there, I went looking for an…
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Atari Announces Intriguing “Circus Atari” App for iOS
Atari announced that tomorrow, a free iOS app named Circus Atari” will be available in the App Store. The original Circus Atari for the Atari 2600 was compelling game that blended physics and Breakout. It was one of the best 2600 games of all time. [iframe width=”480″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/zGNAA9_8-EY” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen][/iframe]…
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Not Flash! : The Angsty Zeitgeist Of HTML5 Technology Burnout
More than two years ago we started taking a close look at the HTML5. To us, the HTML5 features like <canvas>, <audio>, and <video> were the most compelling part of the HTML5 spec because they were poised to be a true replacements for Flash. Flash had been our tool…
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Atari Pong Developer Challenge Inspiration Video #1
Here is a video we created to help inspire our team while we work on our entry for the semi-final round of the Atari Pong Developer Challenge. We used a classic Atari color cycling Fuji symbol (of our own design) with images of some of Atari’s early Pong coin…
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Flash Professional CS6 Includes Sprite Sheet Generator
Wow. It seems like just a few years ago, we here at 8bitrocket.com were the only ones talking about using sprite sheets with Flash, and now Adobe has embraced the idea, adding support to export Flash animations as sprite sheets. This is a GREAT feature that will help keep Flash…
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Randomness: The Best Cartoon ever Made: Feed The Kitty (now on youtube.com)
[iframe width=”480″ height=”360″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/VTorphrBlPY” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen][/iframe] This doesn’t look like it was posted by a legit source, so enjoy it while you can.
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The incredible story of Atari 2600 Star Castle
By Jeff Fulton Star Castle was one of thee very first arcade games that Steve and I (along with Eric Barth) became addicted to in the early 1980’s. There was a simplicity to the design and the objective that made it as addicting as any other game made in the…
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Semifinals, Here We Come! Producto Studios Makes It Into The Next Round Of The Atari Pong Developer Challenge!
By Steve Fulton Atari announced the semifinalists for their Pong Developer Challenge today, and Producto/8bitrocket Studios made the cut! Now we have to actually make the game we designed. I can’t wait to get started!
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Atari Pong Developer Challenge Semi Finalist Announcement Postponed A Week
According to Pocket Gamer, Atari is overwhelmed with entries (87 in all) so they are delaying the announcement of the semi-finalists until May 1st. This gives me an extra week to formulate bizarre Atari dreams and worry myself sick before we hear the news. With 87 ideas floating…
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Death, Disappointment And Pong Dreams : The Atari Pong Developer Challenge Is Getting Into My Head
Tomorrow, Atari announces the semi-finalists in their Pong Developer Challenge. I had planned to create a demo for the contest, but instead, got sucked into writing a design document that took me the better part of a week, and the demo never materialized. I felt really good about it,…
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Don’t Miss Lost Cast: HTML5 Game Development Podcast
I just found out about this today: Lost Cast: HTML5 Game Development Podcast from the guys over at Lost Decade Games. They have been creating podcasts since last November, and so far they are really good! You should go check them out.
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Amazing Atari Research Images From 1982 That Predicted The Future
By Steve Fulton In 1982, during the halcyon days of the original Atari, Bob Stein worked with pioneering computer scientist Alan Kaye in the Atari Advanced Research Labs. One of their projects was to imagine the future of encyclopedias. In a set of incredible images from 30 years…
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Atari Pong Developer Challenge: Challenge Met! How About you?
I worked all weekend on our submission for the Atari Pong Developer Challenge, and just submitted it a few minutes ago Even though there were complaints from some people about the terms and conditions for the contest, ultimately we decided it would be a fun and challenging project to tackle.…
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