From nbs at sonic.net Fri Sep 15 14:14:05 2023 From: nbs at sonic.net (Bill Kendrick) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:14:05 -0700 Subject: [atariparty] Portland Retrogaming Expo in October & other chit-chat Message-ID: <20230915211405.GA29513@sh.sonic.net> Hi Ataripartians, For folks who feel like taking a very long drive (or flying) up to Portland in October, the annual Portland Retrogaming Expo (PRGE; https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/) is coming up in a few weeks. I plan to be there on Saturday; maybe I'll bump into some of you!? (I know Marlin will be there, with a booth for "The Brewing Academy".) I also realize I forgot to share some sad news with folks here (at least, not via this mailing list). Sal "kjmann" Esquivel, who was based near Portland, and came down with others from the retro scene in his area to help with Atari Parties a few times, sadly passed away last December. Here's a thread over on AtariAge: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/345181-rip-sal-esquivel-kjmann/ Finally, it seems the Atari company has been doing some interesting things lately (and less of the "weird" things, like crypto currency, hotel plans, and baseball caps with builtin speakers, that they had been getting mocked for in recent years). Atari picked up a new CEO, Wade Rosen, back in 2021 (https://atari.com/pages/wade-rosen-enters-the-scene-as-ceo), and some recent things I've spotted include: * "Atari50: The Anniversary Celebration", a collection of games and history for Steam, Nintendo Switch, Sony PlayStation 4 & 5, Microsoft Xbox One & Series X|S (huh?), and Atari's own new "VCS" console. It was developed by Digital Eclipse. https://atari.com/products/atari-50th-the-anniversary-celebration * An "Atari 2600" LEGO set! https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/atari-2600-10306 * The "Atari 2600+", a modern remake of the console that plays real Atari 2600 & 7800 cartridges, uses real controllers, and has HDMI output. (Seems to be emulation, rather than the classic chipset or FPGA remakes, under the hood, IIRC.) https://atari.com/products/atari-2600-plus * They've _purchased_ "AtariAge.com", the huge, decades-old community (forum, discord, reference/info archive, etc.), and hired the site's founder, Albert Yarusso! https://forums.atariage.com/topic/354609-atariage-atari/ https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-acquires-atariage Also, apparently this year's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) up here in Seattle was heavily Atari-themed. (I had a coworker who went, and sent me a bunch of photos. ;-) ) This was the clincher for me deciding whether or not to venture down to Portland for PRGE. I'd be surprised if some big Atari things weren't in store...! (It's also been 4 years since I've gone to any kind of event.) Anyway... some day I'll make it all the way back down to California and try to meet up with folks if I can. In the meantime, I hope everyone out here's kept safe & sane the last few years! Take care, -- -bill! Sent from my computer Extra-large PS -- Although I'm not running any kind of Atari show up here in Washington (PRGE and some Seattle retro events hopefully satisfy the demand), I HAVE still kept somewhat active with my Atari roots! :-) I was one of the co-hosts of "the Atari XEGS Cart by Cart Podcast" until I got too busy back in 2018. (https://xegs8bit.com/) I ported two of my earlier Atari 8-bit games to C and updated them a bit: my puzzle game "Gem Drop" (previously in Action!) and my word game "Invenies Verba" (previously in TurboBASIC XL). (http://newbreedsoftware.com/gemdrop_deluxe/ and http://newbreedsoftware.com/iverba/) Prior to Twitter's downfall, I helped Kay Savetz a bit when they were first getting an Atari 8bit Bot running. You'd tweet some code at it, and it would run it and spit out the results as a reply. I thought it was ported to Mastodon, but I guess not yet. (Some (probably outdated) info: https://atari8bitbot.com/) I wrote a couple of astronomy-related networked apps that use the FujiNet device. One is an Astronomy Photo of the Day (APOD) viewer. The other tracks the International Space Station (ISS) and can tell you who's currently up in space! (http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/fujinet-apod/ and http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/fujinet-iss-tracker/) And finally, in the past month, I've started working on a new game; it's a twin-stick shooter, except you're not shooting at bad guys, you're a firefighter putting out fires and trying to save people. It's only a few levels so far, and has terrible chonky graphics, but people seem to enjoy the concept at least! (http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/firefighter/) Whew! From kundservice at axofinans.se Fri Sep 15 14:14:26 2023 From: kundservice at axofinans.se (Kundservice Axo Finans) Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 21:14:26 +0000 Subject: [atariparty] =?utf-8?q?Tack_f=C3=B6r_ditt_mail?= In-Reply-To: <20230915211405.GA29513@sh.sonic.net> Message-ID: <20230915211426.08ae2934806f007e@mgeu.axofinans.se> Tack f?r ditt mail! Vi ?terkommer i ditt ?rende s? snart vi kan. V?r kundtj?nst har ?ppet: M?ndag - Torsdag: 08:30-20:00 Fredag: 08:30-16:00 L?rdag - S?ndag: 10:00-14:00 Vill du ans?ka om l?n klicka h?r Ha en trevlig dag, Med v?nlig h?lsning AXO FINANS Sv?rdv?gen 21, 182 33 DANDERYD Kundtj?nst +46 771 323 400 E-post kundservice at axofinans.se Webb www.axofinans.se -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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