In the two-week interim between dissertation submission and defense, I've been stir crazy. For the past seven months, I wrote 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week. In the final month of dissertation writing, I was writing 8-12 hours a day, 7 days a week. I wrote at home with a daily quota that I stuck to adamantly. The rigidity of a writing schedule can be grueling, but it also has a comfortable regularity. Once that schedule halted abruptly, I ...
In Soviet Russia, Famicom plays you. Most avid fans of the Nintendo Entertainment System know a bit about its international lineage. The console released in late 1985 in the United States was first released in Japan in summer 1983. Europe and Oceania had to wait even longer. According to Wikipedia, 'France, the Netherlands, West Germany, Norway, Denmark and Sweden and saw the NES released during 1986. The console was released in the second region, consisting of the United Kingdom, Republic ...
In the four years I've used Twitter (User #14,519,536) its form and function has transformed from an oddball novelty to a useful daily tool. In 2008, I may have had one or two friends on Twitter. None of them posted—their accounts were impulse sign-ups based on novelty. I felt the same way. I posted random musings of questionable comedic value (that at least hasn't changed). Nothing personal and no expectation of reply. In 2012, I follow an even balance of ...
The first Famicom/NES emulators began to appear around 1996. By most accounts, PasoFamicom, developed by Nobuaki Andou, was the first. Unfortunately, it wasn't user-friendly for most Westerners - the documentation and GUI were in Japanese, it required a licensing fee, and its split ROM format was difficult for non-technical types to wrap their head around. As a result, PasoFami was rampantly pirated, so much so that Andou cut off non-Japanese support and even started injecting malicious, HD-formatting code to ...
Dissecting the code behind an error The 2007 film King of Kong popularized much of the minutia of high-level arcade play. One scene showed underdog Steve Wiebe drawing Madden-esque diagrams to illustrate some of the underlying procedural patterns dictating Donkey Kong's barrel flow. A quick left-right flick on the joystick, for instance, could send a barrel down a ladder, smoothing some of the random chaos afflicting Mario's unending ascent. The film also highlighted Donkey Kong's infamous kill screen. In videogame lore, ...
How will we play NES/Famicom games 10, 50, 100, or 1000 years from now? We can imagine a not-so-distant future where all of the playable Nintendo Entertainment Systems are trashed, lost, non-functional, or beyond repair. Sound silly? Think of the early history of recording media. You may have friends who still buy vinyl, own a record player, and hopefully know how to operate said devices. Fortunately, vinyl has had a vibrant underground music culture to support its existence. But what about ...
The MOS Technology 6502 was a landmark microprocessor. It was powerful, easy to program, and cheap, debuting for an astounding $25 in 1975. In its wake, competitors scrambled. Microprocessor prices dropped dramatically, but the damage was already done. MOS’s bargain basement chip was overwhelmingly attractive to PC and videogame manufacturers: Atari, Commodore, and Apple, among others, launched successful videogame and PC platforms built around the 6502. But why did Nintendo choose the 6502? David Sheff's Game Over (1993) is widely regarded ...
This morning's Famicom research focused on the video half of videogames. In other words, I was looking at the oft-neglected world of cathode ray tubes, aka the big fat TVs we used before flatscreens came along. There's a reason many vintage game enthusiasts keep stocky CRTs around--old games look better on them. And this isn't mere nostalgic impulse. Early videogames were designed around two inefficiencies: our eyes and our televisions. Like cinema and animation, television relies upon the persistence of ...
During a recent computer backup, I came across some old family videos that I'd archived. A few years back, my dad lent me a box of VHS tapes that he'd recorded during the 80s and 90s. I made a day-long library trip to transfer them to hard disk, sorting through hours of basketball footage and poorly-lit Christmas gatherings. Around 1988, both my dad and uncle received camcorders as gifts from my grandparents. This was a big deal at the time. ...
A Lengthy Tour of NES Patents If you've ever seen a Famicom alongside an NES, you might be shocked that they're the same system. The NES's older Japanese sibling is a diminutive red and white plastic box with hardwired controllers and a top-loading cartridge slot. It's nothing like the muted black, white, and gray 'toaster' that millions of Americans brought into their homes. The NES is more VCR than child's toy -- a clever Trojan horse that helped Nintendo dominate the ...