Fact Behind The Fiction

[Rogue Trooper]

after few topics in the forum and chatbox, had the idea of starting a thread which, i hope might help dispel some of the 'urban Legends' that have been connected to our past time.

I.E did ATARI really bury a million or so unsold E.T carts in a landfill site etc?.

Few to get ball rolling then:

1)The FICTION:Playstation 2 was so powerful it was banned from sale in places like North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya, as fears were it's technology could be used to control Nuclear missiles and process Nuclear fuel for weapons programmes.

The FACT:Japanese Trade Ministry Officials were concerned PS2 COULD be used for Military purposes as in 1998 'similar' devices (electronics wise) for civilian use, were found in a North Korean submarine which had been sunk by the South Korean Military.

It just related to the mounted camera/missile guidance technology used by remote firing stations, where operator could alter missilesflight trajectory as missile was in flight.

It had nothing to do with processing power needed to to turn Nuclear Material into weapons grade etc.


2)The Playstation 2 had NO Anti-Alising built into the hardware (one for C=Style ;-) ).

The Fact:PS2 had hardware A.A on a 'primitive level'-in english, it allowed the coder to choose HOW to do the A.A, it was seen as a more flexible approach, ie IF you wanted Fullscreen A.A, then you could, you just needed to allocate the resources for it (early example of it being used, Stuntman).

PS2 hardware was very different to PS1 hardware, it was designed to try and over come the problems of sheer bus speed and slow access to video.

The limited Texture memory WAS a headache for many coders, but as Core themselves said, when developing Project Eden on the PS2- 'I guarantee that if you had a 100 meg of texture memory, we would still say that there was'nt enough.The stakes have been raised so much that artist's imaginations run away with them, we'll always want more'.

(Thought after defending Sega's akward beast, the Saturn, only fair i give balance and cover Sony's).

[TrekMD]

Interesting about the PS2 and North Korea.  Of course, I'm sure the PS2 and other game consoles have sufficient computing power to also activate a nuclear weapon!  LOL

[DreamcastRIP]

How disappointing that PS2 was banned in Iraq and Iran given that the hardware was perfectly suited to rendering featureless, barren, jagged and brown-coloured landscapes. 

[Rogue Trooper]

How disappointing that PS2 was banned in Iraq and Iran given that the hardware was perfectly suited to rendering featureless, barren, jagged and brown-coloured landscapes. 

And North Korea, where people blindly believe what the great leader tells them....


Ken Kut. would have had a field day with hyperbole claims and his 'The People must work extra hard to afford Playstation 2' type remarks.

[TL]

Here is an obvious one:

FICTION: The Atari Jaguar isn't really 64-bit.

FACT: Yes it is, the data bus is 64-bit as are the Object Processor and the Blitter. The Jag does not have a CPU so the machine can not be defined by that.

And another Atari related one:

FICTION: The Atari 7800 was a failure in the marketplace.

FACT: The machine was actually highly profitable for Atari, they sold nearly 4 million of them in North America, which is twice as many consoles as Sega sold with the Master System (only 2 million). In Europe the 2600 & 7800 (Atari didn't separate sales figures for them unfortunately) were in second place behind Sega. So in Atari's 2 biggest markets they were second in both, far from a failure.

[Rogue Trooper]

Video Games are Bad For You:

Some fact's to that, but only in ISOLATED cases:

A 17 Year old girl had an epileptic fit playing the coin-op Dark Warrior (1981, Century Electronics)-1st RECORDED case of a seizure caused by a video game.

The arrival of Space Invaders marked the 1st evidence of RSI caused by video gaming.

Long periods of bad posture whilst playing videogames lead to the arrival of the term 'Nintendo Neck' during the 1980's in the USA (So you guys best be careful DC+Laird) :-).

Another case of RSI from arcade machines was Pac Man elbow, caused by position of arm whilst playing.

Nintendinitis (No, NOT what Laird+DC are currently suffering from, lol, but...) 3rd lot of RSI, real medical name is tenosynovitis, inflammation of tendons in the hand.


Also, a study in vibration on games controllers by Leeds Uni. found Rez on a PS2 controller found the vibration levels were above those found in both lawnmowers+electric hammer drills (used to break up concrete) and at peak, entered same range as those found in chainsaws.Though you'd have to be playing 7 hrs straight to do real harm.

[DreamcastRIP]

Long periods of bad posture whilst playing videogames lead to the arrival of the term 'Nintendo Neck' during the 1980's in the USA (So you guys best be careful DC+Laird) :-).

Yep, I really must stop gaffer taping my Ninty Virtual Boy to my head when playing it. 

[Big Phil]

Loving this thread!

Put me out of my misery about the E.T. cartridges though as I heard this years ago.(I'll avoid google to keep the suspense)

[Rogue Trooper]

The Playstation Performance analyser, responsible for developers really getting the best out of the playstation, but are folks aware of just what a difference it made to some key PS1 games?

F1'97 moved into the Playstations High Res.mode as a result of it, Porsche Challenge benifitted greatly from it as did Rapid Racer, without which, game would'nt have been running in PS High Res mode, at 50 FPS Pal/60 FPS NTSC and have the draw distance+number of textured polys, finished game did have.

[TL]

A couple more from me:

FICTION: The Atari Jaguar must be programmed in assembler to get any kind of performance from it.

FACT: High Voltage software wrote NBA Jam: TE (widely regarded as the best version) in C and it is said that they were programmed Dactyl Joust in C too. They wrote their own C compiler to make programming Jag games much easier but sadly it was never shared with anyone and lost.

FICTION: Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi invented the D-pad and it first appeared on the Nintendo Game & Watch.

FACT: The MB Microvision game Cosmic Hunter had a proper D-pad in 1982 and the Videomaster Star Chess had a basic directional pad in 1977.

[Rogue Trooper]

A couple more from me:

FICTION: The Atari Jaguar must be programmed in assembler to get any kind of performance from it.

FACT: High Voltage software wrote NBA Jam: TE (widely regarded as the best version) in C and it is said that they were programmed Dactyl Joust in C too. They wrote their own C compiler to make programming Jag games much easier but sadly it was never shared with anyone and lost.

FICTION: Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi invented the D-pad and it first appeared on the Nintendo Game & Watch.

FACT: The MB Microvision game Cosmic Hunter had a proper D-pad in 1982 and the Videomaster Star Chess had a basic directional pad in 1977.

Good work, keep 'em coming!

[Rogue Trooper]

The Fiction:

Saturn was under-powered in terms of 3D and lighting performance compared to Playstation.

The Fact:Just keeping reading the Saturn thread on here.....

:-)

[zapiy]

Nice read and a very interesting idea for a thread..

[Rogue Trooper]

Nice read and a very interesting idea for a thread..

Cheers.was trying to think of something above the norm, which would also help dispel some of the internet 'gospel'.

[Big Phil]

You really are keeping me in suspsense about the E.T. cartridges aren't you