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Atari Comeback on Wireless Devices 37

Posted by Hemos from the return-of-the-orange-fire-button dept.
Markgor writes "Just read an article on Wuzap.org about efforts to port classic Atari games on to wireless devices. Given that smart phones don't exactly have a lot of memory, it would seem like it's a no-brainer to slap a little game of Pong or Combat on. The article can be found on wuzap."
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Atari Comeback on Wireless Devices More

Atari Comeback on Wireless Devices

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  • You're correct about screen size (although you can hold a phone a lot closer to you than a 14" tv), so I'm sure that the designers will have to be careful about single-pixel bullets etc, but the old lo-res atari with a one button joystick reflects the constraints of the phones very well.
  • Ah, memories. I still have my old Pong only box that Dad bought for 'me' (even though he probably played it more than I did) back in about '76 or so. Oh man, the fun we had trying to beat each other with that game.:-)

  • http://www.atari-history.com/mainmenu.html
  • When atari was the bomb. Seeing a lot of Generation-X kids are growing up they are trying to find a way to have them remeber thier childhood It is a simple thing people are seeing a market so they are going after it.

  • 2 things that most people don't realize (Score:3)

    by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2001 @05:51AM (#382042)
    1. PONG itself would be hellishly difficult to code. In fact, the original PONG didn't even have code, so to speak. It was entirely generated and controlled by analogue circuits. At best, you could make a passable simulation of 2 'bats' and a 'ball'. Something tells me this has been done before.

    2. To those who write 'programming 2600 games is easy'... check out the source code for Combat [alienbill.com]. (It's a bit down that page). Sure, if you wanted to write some c++ game that shows a block that shoots other blocks, no problem. But for those of us purists, nothing beats the original code.

    Just port an emulator and be done with it! Oh wait, it's impossible to emulate PONG... :)

  • Let me rephrase that, it wouldnt be that hard to write an atari like game, like tetris or snake.


    Fight censors!
  • hey, i had SUPERPONG in 1976 or 77 (from sears but presumably atari inside).

    it played pong, pong doubles, and a few other variations.

  • You're right that Pong wasn't released for the 2600, but lots of variations were. Video Olympics is what's in the Atari upstairs right now, and games 1-4 of that are almost exact Pong clones.

    'Though my favorite from the Olympics is Pong Hockey. Oh, baby!

    Brian
  • Actually, I sort of figured I proved I was a real coder when I programmed Wall Ball back then, but yes, I was aware of the other controllers. I think my point stands, though -- even the keypad was hardly a "normal keyboard". I suspect the earlier poster was thinking of 400 & 800's.

  • great (Score:3)

    by wunderhorn1 ( 114559 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2001 @05:05AM (#382047)
    one more thing to piss me off on the train to work in the mornings.

    The people who have the cell phones ring with "fur elise" and then blather on at the top of their lungs about absolutely nothing were bad enough.
    Now we'll be forced to listen to the wanker playing 'Pitfall' on his phone, with all the annoying sound effects and cursing when he gets eaten.
    Expect a huge wave of commuter fatalities if this ever catches on...

    blah!

  • In addition, the early TV games and coin-ops known by the "pong" umbrella term, as well as the official Atari Pong, were almost all analogue devices, not digital computers as the 2600 was.
    --
  • What I want are the 2600 adult games on my cell phone.
    You know, like Knight on the town [seanbaby.com] and beat 'em and eat 'em.
    The only problem is that with 1 hand playing the game and the other handling my joystick, I'd have to steer with my feet.
    Thank god for cruise control.
    If you want to learn more about the truly fucked up games that came out for the 2600, go here [seanbaby.com].
    That's some freaky shit.
    --Shoeboy
  • Yep, looks like ports of "classic" games are winners. I have a friend who was debating if he should buy a dreamcast "just to play the cool mini games on the memory card thing". Even GORILLA.BAS has been converted to PDA's...

    -----

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm sure one of the early catridges (Video Olympics) contained a version of Pong amongst the many games.
  • My parents bought me a Hanimex (or Hamm'n'Eggs as I called it) pong game for Christmas in about '76 when I was 11. It had the classic Pong, pong with two linked paddles each, "Hockey" which was double-paddle Pong with walls (definitely the best game), and squash, which had the two players on the same side playing against a wall ...and the wall always won! ;)

    I might have heard of the 2600 by that time, and realizing that cartridge games were on the horizon, saw the potential for video games to explode. I made a comment to that effect shortly before Christmas not realizing I was getting one. Nevertheless, the Hanimex pong game got a lot of usage. My parents may even still have it.

    Ahh, back in the days when hand-held games had about a dozen LED's, 6 buttons (and probably not more than a couple hundred transistors) and kept us entranced for hours!

  • I love videogames, and i am proficent in 6502 assembly language (the main processor in the atari 2600, the apple II, the old nintendo, and several other 8 bit monstrosities...) =:-)

    If anybody is actually involved in this, and needs help, it sounds rad, and my e-mail address is here.
  • Now a cell phone is all fine and dandy, but the screen size of a palm is well, BIGGER. (Heck, at last year's Chicago Comdex, Alan Kessler gave away a free Palm VII for pointing out that difference).

    So when is someone going to port Stella to the palm? I mean, that handheld Atari that someone built is damn cool...but an Atari emulator for the palm would be too!

  • The Handspring game face [handspring.com] would be great for this. You get the joystick and buttons almost like Atari!
  • The point is not recode each Atari game, the goal would be to create a Mame which runs under various Palm / Phone devices so the 3000 or so ROMs that are available can be loaded into these machines with no alteration at all. Just put your virtual quarters in and go! Like this: http://www.yipton.demon.co.uk/content.html#EMame -info
  • Atari 2600 keypad games (except Basic Programming :) ) would probably work rather well on something like a phone
    It's been a long time for me...were there any?
  • This would be great on palm pilots. But on wireless phones? Give me a break.
  • Oh, that one rocked! It was pretty funny to see how all sports were basically the same old pong with different colors, and more paddles. :-) It did in fact include the regular pong; I guess it was labeled "tennis". :-)
  • That may be the same one I have. It's boxed up in the storage room at the moment, but it sounds like it has the same 'options' of play. It truly was an amazing piece of work at the time, and on the rare occasions when I still get to feeling nostalgic I get that out and my old Apple IIgs and play Pong and Bard's Tale II,GS version (I still say I haven't seen a better Role Playing Game since then).

  • What is the general legal status of Atari games? What all does Hasbro own? Are there any pieces that are actually free and clear?
  • 1. PONG itself would be hellishly difficult to code. In fact, the original PONG didn't even have code, so to speak. It was entirely generated and controlled by analogue circuits. At best, you could make a passable simulation of 2 'bats' and a 'ball'. Something tells me this has been done before.

    As weird as it may sound, I remember someone doing the actual circuit emulation, but I wasn't able to find a url again. If someone else knows where to find more info, I'd be glad to have that link back.

  • Sounds great... (Score:3)

    by Karma Sink ( 229208 ) <oakianus@fuckmicrosoft.com> on Tuesday March 06, 2001 @04:56AM (#382065) Homepage
    But, with all the emulators out there already, is this even a big deal? All that would have to be done is to port z26 [classicgaming.com] or Stella [classicgaming.com], and then find a good source of Atari ROMs [classicgaming.com]. This doesn't sound like it's exactly world rocking... we've had access to these games for quite a while.

    Cheers!
    Karma Sink
  • I personaly never liked any atarti games very much because my neigbors kicked my ass at everything, but I have always loved Zelda. I would really like a phone that has a version of that where you can continue on your quest while you are on hold, perhaps even get new quests via the net. I think atari games are a bit out, considering it doesnt take much to write any of those basic things. Why not RPGS? Why games like pong? I like snake, but to be honest, its boring.


    Fight censors!
  • Why not custom design decent games designed for the intricacies of these interfaces.

    Somehow I though atari games were meant for big screens and normal keyboards... not what i want to see on my nokia.

    Why not redesign them, do it efficiently and add multiplayer capabilities that would make it a lot more fun.

  • 2600 != Pong (Score:4)

    by micromoog ( 206608 ) on Tuesday March 06, 2001 @05:15AM (#382068)
    I would like to set something straight here.

    When people hear about Atari 2600 games being ported to DOS/Linux/PDA/toaster/etc, often the first thing they say is "Oh joy, now I can play Pong!".

    Pong is an Atari arcade game released in the early 70s. It had such variations as Pong Doubles and Quadrapong, all arcade cabinet games (Pong Doubles was actually a tabletop game). Home Pong was released in 1974. It played one game: Pong.

    The Atari 2600 was released in 1977, for the purpose of playing games other than Pong. Pong was old news by '77. People wanted color.

    So, to my knowledge, Pong was never released for the 2600. Pong Sports is an old cart, and Mondo Pong is a new development (yes, people still write games for the 2600), but no original Pong cart for the 2600.

  • I don't understand this:

    Given that smart phones don't exactly have a lot of memory, it would seem like it's a no-brainer to slap a little game of Pong or Combat on.

    Not the correct use of words there. That's like saying it's a no-brainer to slap a copy of windows 2000 into a computer with a lot of memory.

    I wannna play games on my mobile phone! (I don't even have snake etc...) :-(


    --

  • I would kill to have a portable atari 2600 emulator. Pitfall, one of my favorite games of all time, was on the 2600 (I actually maintain a 2600 just to play pitfall.) In fact, lots of old 2600 games have avid followings. I mean, there's a guy who has acheived a nearly flawless play of pitfall. There was story about him on slashdot [slashdot.org] which had a host of useful links to all kind of other great 2600 games.

    Anyway, the classic 2600 game was not pong, it was combat. Imagine how cool combat would be if you could link up the players via that new radio talk feature the phones have and play the "three little planes vs one big plane" game over the airwaves. Good times would be had by all!

    I want one. I want one now.

    --

  • well, let's see, I can even remember a batteryless solar power flashlight. It sold as a comedy novelty. someone made money off that.

    So they will likely make a few bucks on it.

  • Old atari games were small, written for simple processors with simple instructions, relatively speaking.

    Therefore, it's easy to port the software to a phone of today.

    And saying two simple systems can be superimposed is a lot different than saying two complex ones can.
  • The idea of bringing older titles such as from the early consoles or PCs to today's less powerful devices is nothing new. Galaga and Arkanoid clones have been thriving on Palm's and other PDAs for a good many years now. Heck, if you're prepared for a little overclocking, you can get a fairly passable GameBoy emulator up and running on your Palm Vx.

    "Pong on my Palm would be great because it's simple, easy and people love to play with these games: Atari is a sort of a fast food in the game genre," says Hurlbut.

    This guy is living in a bubble. He should out Tucows [tucows.com] for all the PDA pong he can handle. Slapping an official Atari logo on it and charging a few bucks for it (or paying ludicrous airtime charges) doesn't sound like much fun to me. Especially for Pong, which may have been a cutting edge tennis simulation in the 70s but offers a very limited nostalgic appeal these days.

    The big issue is the interface, if you've ever played Nokia's Snake games you'll have quickly realised how badly suited current mobile phones are to arcade gaming, this is compounded further by the current WAP standard's lack of support for realtime interactive keypad input - it'd be like playing pong by selecting from an HTML drop-down menu for "move up" "move down" and then clicking a submit button.

    For decent arcade gaming on mobile phones, you'd be better advised to look at Sun's J2ME platform, a partnership between Sun, Sega and Motorola has resulted in the iDen phone (release here [sun.com]) which addresses gaming from a lower-level approach than can be acheived with the likes of WML/HDML.

    --

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