Strait of Hormuz Hell

Have you ever wondered how many countries have to be at war before it is considered a world war. I have no idea. Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Lebanon, USA and Iran. Plus civil wars around the world. 

Recently Iran declared the straight of Hormuz a military exclusion zone so any ships passing though their portion of the water-way would have missiles fired at them and they would be sunk. This means they're blocking oil from being shipped out of the Arabian peninsula. They have cut off the oil supply to the west. I think we are going to have a global recession very soon. 

While this was happening I turned my attention to the Atari VCS 800, a modern games console that was recreated in the style of the Atari 2600. When I was a young boy there were still Atari 2600 games consoles in people's homes. I recall playing space invaders and superman on it. The sound effects were nice. I felt like superman was a police man because he would grab villains and take them to jail. 

The new Atari VCS 800 is set up as a gaming PC so you could boot up a separate OS system from a USB stick if you wished. It would be nice it it could easily be converted into a steam deck and switched back again but it isn't at the moment. You have to put a modified version of the steam os on there. I like how some of the models have a wood panel finish just like the original 2600. 

If I was loaded (wealthy) I would buy one just to be different and because I like it. Something to distract me when the world descends into chaos. 

Look away. 

Balance is important

When I was younger I wondered why the Atari Jaguar games console failed to succeed. Now I'm older I understand what happened. It was too advanced. The thing was released in the first half the '90s but it had a 64 bit data bus and 5 processor chips. It was very hard to manufacture and games developers never used all the chips, they just used the Motorola sprite chip used for backwards compatibility. The console could probably play games like 'Zelda and the ocarina of time' or Spiro the dragon but the system was underused. They couldn't make it fast enough so it was always sold out in the shops. Very few people were able to get their hands on it. Doing too much can get you trapped. 

These days I find it hard to choose things. If I go on netflix or I want to play a podcast while I do chores, I spend 10 minutes just choosing something to play. In the old days there was less choice. You would turn on the radio and pick from a few stations. I was wondering if they have a similar problem to Atari, they put out too much stuff and make their own trade difficult.  

I often wonder what would have happened if atari managed to sort out the manufacturing problems and made a development kit that abstracts games developers from the hardware. If they made it easy for games developers to use the hardware fully. 

Balance and simplification are essential. Do not do too much with too little. And keep it as simple as possible. 

Atari VCS 800 slap

Back in the 90s, the Atari corporation went bankrupt. They went out with a bang, they made some amazing games consoles. Atari Jaguar and Atari lynx hand held with full colour screen. I like the first person shooter games like Doom and Wolfenstein that appeared on the consols. I would have chosen the Atari jaguar myself if I had a choice. 

I recently learned that a company has bought the Atari trade mark and remade a modern version of their retro consol called the Atari 2600. They are calling it the Atari VCS 800, or Atari box. This company is taking crowd funding and making a modern version of the retro Atari. They are setting it up so it can be used as PC and will boot any operating system that will run on ATX standard motherboards. (Windows and Linux). 

The problem is the price is about the same as the PlayStation 5 and is being released at the time, but it has less computing power. Also, everyone is being left in the dark about what the consol can do, the 11 thousand crowd funders and all the people that have pre-ordered it. And some people are looking between the lines, they are seeing a normal ATX computer that is being put in a retro case. Plus the Atari vault is very cheap so all the retro games can be bought cheaply on other consols. 

I want it to be successful, if I was loaded I would add it to my man cave, even if it was a rip off. Well, we will see what happens this winter, it will be very interesting.