[atariparty] Portland Retrogaming Expo in October & other chit-chat

[Bill Kendrick]

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!