OT: Retro TV

[ulthar]

Best TV Theme Song?

Barney Miller.

Though Hiawii Five-O comes in a close second.

Susan, have you noticed that a lot of contemporary shows don't even bother with the theme song anymore?  They have a few notes to 'signify' the commercial is over, and that's about it.  Right into the show, with credits just popping up.

[ulthar]

My computer history:

1st: a plug-in cartridge for the Atari 2600; it had 64 BYTES of memory, but one could actually program some basic games with it.  The coolest program I wrote for it put a 'clock' on the tv.  That was hard to do in 64 bytes.  The language was a basic Assembly Language using a register stack.

2nd: a TRS-80 Model I; bought it from my high school physics teacher.  It had a Z-80 and 4 k of memory.  No disks, just the cassette tape.  I wrote some programs for my Dad to use for a small business he was operating part-time.

Got a Timex Sinclair 1000 for Christmas in there somewhere, along with the 16 k Ram Pack.  Movin On Up.

3rd: a TRS-80 Model III, technically purchased by my Dad for his business stuff.

4th: A TRS-80 Coco; Best. Home. Computer. Ever...for years at least.  The M6809 rocked and rolled.  When I was in college, I wrote my own assembly language printer driver for it so I could dump graphics of molecular orbitals to my Dad's dot matrix printer (some Panasonic model); really impressed my P.Chem. teacher.  Also used this one to 'test out' of having to take a "Basic Computer Literacy" course the university started requiring my junior or senior year; I had to write a bunch of code to satisfy the dude in the CS department, which took me about 6 hours.

My sister had an Atari in here somewhere, too.  I wrote some programs for her as well.

5th: IBM-PC; Dad hated giving up that CoCo (we kept it for years...but I wish I still had it), but he really needed some software that was easier to get for the PC.  Oh well.

From there, it followed a basic course: 286, 486, etc.  And now it's a cluster of Athlon 64 X2's.  Oh how times have changed.

I will always remember that CoCo, the 6809 instruction set with it's cool MUL (multiply) instruction (that the Z-80's lacked...you had to manually do a looped addition) and SIX (count 'em, SIX) levels of indirect addressing.  That was a sweet little machine for it's day.

(Incidentally, the 6809 was the fore-bearer of the 68000 used in the first Apple McIntoshes and is basically the same chip that is STILL USED TODAY in TI graphing calculators like the TI-90; what other 1980-ish technology is still around and STILL PRODUCTIVE??).

Thanks for the walk down memory lane; I relish every chance I get to remember that CoCo.

[Ash]

MORE COOL 80'S COMMERCIALS

I think this site has been posted on here before....I forget.



Post Edited (09-12-05 10:28)

[AndyC]

The original hardware is somewhat collectible, depending on the rarity, but the old game software is turning into a heck of a bargain for people who just want to play the games, and the manufacturers are taking advantage. Aside from all of the emulators, and the people who are essentially giving away the old ROMs, it's gotten to the point where I recently got a CD of 80 classic Atari arcade and console games, with a nice front end, photos, company history, old manuals, ad flyers and all kinds of good stuff - in a box of cereal! That just blows me away. Remember when a good Atari cartridge would cost you upwards of 40 or 50 bucks, in 1982 dollars?

And I thought I was doing well after the game crash, when I was buying them for $2.99 at K-Mart.

Another thing I'm really interested in is the new Atari Flashback 2 console that is basically a replica of the 2600, with 40 built-in games, for around $30US. Anybody know when that's hitting stores?

[Susan]

andy, why by the new "flashback" when you can get the real thing for next to nothing?

[AndyC]

I have a real 2600, and a pile of cartridges. But for the price tag, one little console with the games built in would be a nice neat little package to have in front of the TV. I'd probably end up hooking them both up anyway, since I've got games that aren't on the flashback, and it has quite a few games I don't have on cartridges.

Of course, I'll probably add an Atari emulator and a full set of ROMs to the arcade cabinet (now on the back burner), but 2600 games really should be played on a TV if you want the full nostalgia effect.

[Ash]

Yars Revenge baby!

[Gerry]

ulthar wrote:

> Best TV Theme Song?
>
> Barney Miller.
>
> Though Hiawii Five-O comes in a close second.

I'd put the themes for "Greatest American Hero" and "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" in my top five.

[Gerry]

Texdar wrote:

> Showing my age.  I had a VIC-20 when I was a teenager and then
> upgraded to a Commodore 64.   Ahh, the technology!

Me too. I was so jealous when my friend got an Amiga, with 640 K!!!  That sucker was screaming fast!

[Ash]

THIS SITE lets you play several old games from Midway.

Robotron 2084....Yes!



Post Edited (09-14-05 08:27)

[dean]

ASHTHECAT wrote:

> THIS
> SITE lets you play several old games from Midway.
>
> Robotron 2084....Yes!
>

>
> Post Edited (09-14-05 08:27)


Robotron 2084... YES!!! [the capital letters imply I like it more than you]

But yes, Robotron was one of the first games we got on our family's first computer, the Apple Mac IIE [I think that's right: it's been a while] in all its green, black and white screened glory!  God I loved that thing!

That sites pretty 'rad' Ash, Spyhunter being my particular favourite out of the lot of them.

[daveblackeye15]

Damn they got Tapper!

I've wanted to play that for a while I mean they don't make pointless games like they use to.

[Susan]

speaking of retro i was talking to a friend about hypercolor shirts of the 80's and how they changed colors, that after washing they didn't work but i vividly remember the horror of having to put one on after you got good and sweaty after gym class. Found this amusing article

Hypercolor Shirts

[dean]

I had completely forgot about hyper-colour shirts.  Those things were crazy!!!  Ah memories...