johnreder
2600 Jr.
Bad spellers of the world UNTIE!
Posts: 27
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Post by johnreder on Feb 5, 2017 15:58:21 GMT -5
Link of list of videos (29 total in two possible formats to download OGV (small) and MP4 (large)) Full list: archive.org/download/StellaAt20Main site: archive.org/details/StellaAt20True treasure troves of insight and knowledge about what game making is truly all about!
I finished watching these and put up this review:This is a must see for anyone who looks back on the late 70’s and early 80’s as the spark that created the wonders of the technical world we live in today. It is also a great time capsule of where we were in the late 90’s. These wonderful engineers gave birth to the video game console, we owe them for years of entertainment as a result of their contributions. They were engineers, they weren't looking for fame or glory, and they were just doing their job, but through some miracle they came up with one of the most open approaches in hardware design allowing the very talented programmers to fill in the rest. Although limited by memory, their ingenuity and imaginations conquered these challenges and they managed to gift us with one of the best periods in time, here on earth to be a kid....
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Post by fergojisan on Feb 6, 2017 17:16:39 GMT -5
Wow, you watched all of it? Congrats to you, that is amazing. I haven't checked out any of it yet. Thanks for posting!
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johnreder
2600 Jr.
Bad spellers of the world UNTIE!
Posts: 27
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Post by johnreder on Feb 8, 2017 20:13:31 GMT -5
Yup, it took me 2 weeks! (I suggest treating it like a pod cast and do a bit every day) The first 2 were a bit off topic, the second 2 were painful (too much directing and the featured programmer was not able to find his way past all the nit-picking) After that it got pretty interesting and when they started filming at Nolan's estate (around #13 & #14) I felt like a time-traveler ghost, spying of all of these guys catching up with each other at a private party. The remainder were group sessions that were really entertaining as they all sat around and walked us through the entire story of the Atari VCS and Activision and all of their lessons learned along the way... Well worth slogging through the first few. It's interesting to see how some of the stories you read about in all the published recountings seemed to have slightly morphed over time, but most of the really interesting ones were re-told with a detail or two extra, and a few I never heard before, like how they intentionally mis-marked chips in their products that looked like other more expensive chips that were actually incompatible electronically, just to make reverse engineering them a big headache for their competition, and another one, where they found that they purchased 20,000 '555' timer chips at two times beyond the actual number of chips that actually existed in the world according to their manufacturer (10,000), and found that their staff had pilfered their stock and sold it to companies that were continuing sell them back to Atari in a never ending loop... crazy stuff!) I hope you get the chance to hear them all, it might be more exciting to start at #13!!!
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