Apple ][ DTV???

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

I wonder is there anything similar to this but for Apple ][ ?

DTV64 Micro Tower
http/www.64hdd.com/projects/hardware/c64-dtv64.html

The only thing that would even be cooler is to rig it with a USB port
so that it can use a 8-in-1 media card reader as a drive

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

On 15 Sep 2005 15:05:32 -0700, "Mad Scientist Jr"
<usenet_daughter@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I wonder is there anything similar to this but for Apple ][ ?
>
>DTV64 Micro Tower
>http/www.64hdd.com/projects/hardware/c64-dtv64.html

I am not aware of portable Apple II device like the portable C64
device released last year. It would depend on if there's plenety of
fun games for Apple II and enough demand for it. A majority of fun
Apple II games I've played in the past were limited to mono color or 4
colors which would severely reduce the wow-cool factor, driving away
new customers.
--
When you hear the toilet flush, and hear the words "uh oh", it's already
too late. - by anonymous Mother in Austin, TX
To reply, replace digi.mon with phreaker.net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

However, the quality of the game play on a lot of those 8-bit games was
pretty high, even the 4-color ones. I'm suprised at the poor game
choice for the DTV64 unit.

Of the ones included on the c64, the only games that stuck in my memory
as being any good
Impossible Mission,
Jumpman Jr.
Pitstop II (and what good is it with one joystick!)
Summer Games
Uridium
Winter Games,

They left out many of the best! From memory these include

- Lode Runner / Championship Lode Runner
- Beach Head / Beach Head II / Raid Over Moscow
- Boulderdash I & II
- Crossroads I & II
- Mail Order Monsters
- Pinball Construction Set
- Racing Destruction Set
- Archon
- Bruce Lee
- Falcon Patrol I & II
- Wizard
- Jumpman (w/level editor)
- Spelunker
- Space Taxi
- Goonies / Zorro (cool puzzle style video games)
- Apple Cider Spider
- Bandits
- Karateka (btw this plays great on an Apple ][ emulator if you speed
it up)
- Way of the exploding fist + sequels
- Track & field (and any # of arcade conversions that were pretty good)
- various Activision conversions that were good
etc etc.

It should come stock with a PS2 keyboard port, to play games like
- Ultima I - 6
- Infocom text adventures
- Bard's tale etc

Most if not all of the above games were available for Apple ][, and the
game play I'm sure was just as good as on the C=64... You may be right
though, the Apple version would need a keyboard plug and a USB port to
plug in a memory card reader, so users could access disk images and run
BASIC programs, etc, and relive the home computing aspect of it.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

Mad Scientist Jr wrote:

> However, the quality of the game play on a lot of those 8-bit games was
> pretty high, even the 4-color ones. I'm suprised at the poor game
> choice for the DTV64 unit.

From what I understand from Jeri Ellsworth, the engineer responsible for
the C64DTV, the choice of games in the C64DTV was driven more by licensing
issues than by which games were better or more popular. Another factor was
that some games required more input than would have been convenient with
the C64DTV's on-screen keyboard (text adventures are a good example). The
C64DTV unit did not include any of the ports seen on the site you listed.
Those were all hacked on by the owner. For more information on the C64DTV
and what can be done with it see:

http/www.dtvhacking.info/

--
Golan Klinger
Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

I understand about the hacks - point is, including a PS2 port alone
would increase the usefulness of the unit a thousand fold.

Regarding licensing issues, who else is going to re-release these old
C64 games?! Why would the original game publishers turn down a chance
for their 20+ yr old games to get back on the market and make some more
money?

 

[Larry]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

Because the original publishers (like EA) may not have a market for
them now, but if there is a classic games revival they would have a
large library to mine from, also some of them may be interested, but
they may be asking for too much $$ in return for licensing rights.

>From my understanding there is a second version of the DTV (coming
out..when or where is anyones guess) that will have different titles
(it wasn't as much of a time crunch to get games for the unit this time)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 Larry wrote:

> Because the original publishers (like EA) may not have a market for
> them now, but if there is a classic games revival they would have a
> large library to mine from, also some of them may be interested, but
> they may be asking for too much $$ in return for licensing rights.

Tulip Computers/Ironstone Partners/DC Studios got a good deal from
Epyx and Hewson in using their games in the C64 DTV.

> From my understanding there is a second version of the DTV (coming
> out..when or where is anyones guess) that will have different titles
> (it wasn't as much of a time crunch to get games for the unit this time)

The games should be somewhat different. I'll know for sure when
my PAL C64 DTV v2 comes in from England.

When my British friend receives
the PAL DTV in the mail on Monday,
he will then post it off to me,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http/videocam.net.au/fcug

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

What's this about the D2TV supporting flash memory?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

"Mad Scientist Jr" <usenet_daughter@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126903735.710601.123030@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I understand about the hacks - point is, including a PS2 port alone
> would increase the usefulness of the unit a thousand fold.

Margins are incredibly thin on products like these-- take a retail price
point of $19.95 and then start subtracting margin for the end reseller, the
distributor, the marketer, the developer, the licensing fees, and pretty
soon you're worried about pennies on the product. Adding components and
increasing circuit board area and plastic tooling complexity results in a
more expensive product (and thus less money to be made on it) which is the
wrong direction to move on these types of devices...

> Regarding licensing issues, who else is going to re-release these old
> C64 games?! Why would the original game publishers turn down a chance
> for their 20+ yr old games to get back on the market and make some more
> money?

The problem tends to be finding who actually owns the rights as much as
negotiating the deal. A lot of time ownership reverts to the program
authors after a certain number of years, or very often there are multiple
claims of ownership. (One company may be a direct decendent of the original
company and claim they have the rights, but years ago they may have sold
some assets along the way to another party who now claims to own the rights,
and the original author may say that they have it, etc...)

Clearing the rights takes lawyers and time which equals $$$. If a lawyer
needs to spend 40+ hours per game tracking down the owners and negotiating
and you have 20-30 games on a device you can easily pass a few hundred
thousand just in legal fees-- and then you still have to pay a licensing fee
and per unit royalties.

By the time you get letters of credit, bonded inventory, plus legal fees and
paying the developers you're looking at >$1M cash required just to get in
the game. Getting all the titles from one source with one contract makes
for a big savings on the development of the device and will really help your
net margins...

-Clay

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

While your explanation does seem very reasonable and I'm sure is true,
I just can't accept going 9/10ths of the way there in recreating the
C=64 then leaving out two simple inexpensive parts (a ps2 keyboard and
2 joystick ports) that would make it actually useful. Maybe I'm just
overly idealistic, but even from a marketing standpoint, wouldn't it
make sense that the people buying it would be C= nostalgic, and thus
want a real computer experience? Furthermore, and I may be pushing it,
but if they made it capable of reading disk images using a flash media
card (include that USB port) they wouldn't have to worry about licenses
for ANY games, the users could get their own disk image files and run
whatever they want. That is the difference between a status quo
product, and an insanely cool product. Then they could charge even more
for the thing, and I am willing to bet people would pay for it.

Anyway thanks for your down to earth and realistic response. I can only
hope someone crazy like me or better yet Steve Jobs gets on the C=64
DTV v3 project and gives us something insanely cool (Apple II anyone?)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

On 20 Sep 2005 05:33:24 -0700, "Mad Scientist Jr"
<usenet_daughter@yahoo.com> wrote:

>C=64 then leaving out two simple inexpensive parts (a ps2 keyboard and
>2 joystick ports) that would make it actually useful

Figure the math:

Assume it'd cost about $0.50 per unit for those 3 ports plus solder.
Then do a run of oh say about 10,000 units, the total cost added would
be about $5,000

By not including those 3 ports, they saved several thousands dollars.
It may not seems much but when there's silm profit margin, those
dollars do count.
--
When you hear the toilet flush, and hear the words "uh oh", it's already
too late. - by anonymous Mother in Austin, TX
To reply, replace digi.mon with phreaker.net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

"Impmon" <impmon@digi.mon> wrote in message
news:q9j0j1lfudeerkc3eovj9o06qdjgjegp2j@4ax.com...
> Figure the math:
>
> Assume it'd cost about $0.50 per unit for those 3 ports plus solder.
> Then do a run of oh say about 10,000 units, the total cost added would
> be about $5,000
>
> By not including those 3 ports, they saved several thousands dollars.
> It may not seems much but when there's silm profit margin, those
> dollars do count.

The numbers are much bigger than what's suggested above-- and that $0.50
comes off the *net*. Let's just take a WAG at the breakdown:

$19.95 retail
-$3.45 ($16.50 distribution price,retailer makes ~17%)
-$1.99 (10% royalty to the licensor)
-$2.99 (15% marketing overhead, advertising, channel promotion, samples,
co-op dollars, etc.)
-$8.00 (COGS, estimate $4 silicon, $1 PCB/discretes, $1 plastic, $1
package, $1 labor)
-$1.50 (OPEX, developer royalties, NRE expenses, etc.)
-------
$2.02 "net profit" per unit to the company

Now then, if you add $0.50 in Cost Of Goods Sold for a couple
connectors+PCB+labor you drop your per-unit profit not just by $0.50, but by
*25%*!

The above model is super simplified because you really tend to have up front
licensing fees, expedited shipping expenses, price-protection for unsold
inventory, warranty returns, etc. But any way you slice it the company that
creates the product isn't looking at much more than a few dollars net income
per unit as 'profit'. So, these things (like most toys) sell in the 100's
of thousands of units to make it worthwhile.

Now if the C64DTV sold ~500K+ pcs I will personally guarantee that 99.95% of
the people that bought them could absolutely care less about a PS2 keyboard
connector. ;-) If EVERY even remotely active C64 scene person bought one
we'd be talking what-- maybe 10K people worldwide? So it would generate an
additional $20K profit for the company. Meanwhile, the other 490K units
cost $0.50 more to make-- making for a loss of $245K in net income. Getting
$20K in sales at a cost of $245K isn't too good...

-Clay

 

[crock]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

Steve Jobs? Are you kidding? Steve Jobs did everything within his
power to kill of the Apple II every chance he had. He was even ousted
from the company for it. It will be a cold day in he** before he would
ever allow such a thing to take place.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

Yes, he was a bone head about the Apple II - shoulda treated his own
employees with the respect they deserved and supported them and Woz to
make the Apple II the 1st PC with a GUI, with a low cost ROM based
add-on. That woulda been truly revolutionary.

But I mention Jobs only because he would push for whatever product he
was developing at the time to be better, or "insanely great" as he puts
it. We'll leave out the part where he later abandons that product for
something new, he never was one for common sense or trying to save a
customer a buck.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

I must admit my opinion is largely biased, having had so many C=64
games and programmed some of my own. Sometimes it's hard to see it from
the other point of view. Also for $20 I guess it's not all that bad,
you do get Impossible Mission, Jumpan Jr, Pitstop II (though 2 players
was whatmade this the most fun), Summer Games, Uridium, Gateway to
Apshai, Sword of Fargoal, Tower Toppler (I had this under a different
title), Uridium ... For the $ I guess it's decent. I am still
disappointed because this is so close to a full C64 rerelease having
the original processor intact in the unit. Ah well.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

I guess you're right. Doesn't the new V2 version now have the 2nd
joystick's circuit "outside the die" or something to that effect,
meaning you can have a true hack for 2 joysticks?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.classic (More info?)

On 21 Sep 2005 13:46:22 -0700, "Mad Scientist Jr"
<usenet_daughter@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I must admit my opinion is largely biased, having had so many C=64
>games and programmed some of my own. Sometimes it's hard to see it from
>the other point of view. Also for $20 I guess it's not all that bad,
>you do get Impossible Mission, Jumpan Jr, Pitstop II (though 2 players
>was whatmade this the most fun), Summer Games, Uridium, Gateway to
>Apshai, Sword of Fargoal, Tower Toppler (I had this under a different
>title), Uridium ... For the $ I guess it's decent. I am still
>disappointed because this is so close to a full C64 rerelease having
>the original processor intact in the unit. Ah well.

Well, average Joe probably wouldn't know and it's probably better the
extra ports were left out anyway. We can easily hack in some of the
extras to make the unit more like C64 than just another game toy.

Pretty much the same thing with Flashback 2.0 machine, most people
probably don't even know (or care) that it is a 2600-on-a-chip and
could support regular 2600 carts with little add on.
--
When you hear the toilet flush, and hear the words "uh oh", it's already
too late. - by anonymous Mother in Austin, TX
To reply, replace digi.mon with phreaker.net