Old School Game Blog

Exploring the rich past of gaming

Tag Archives: website

Starring the Computer: Computers in Movies and Television

Starring the Computer (taken from http://starringthecomputer.com/)

Starring the Computer (taken from http://starringthecomputer.com/)

Hi folks,

While browsing Amiga.org today, I noticed a thread posted by a forum member called Florida. I checked it out and to my surprise it contained information on a very cool website. The name of the site is Starring the Computer and it contains information on movies and TV-shows that features old computers. The guy behind the project is James Carter.

Being an Amigaholic, I just had to browse the Commodore section. It is safe to say that I was not disappointed. ;)

Did you for example know that an Amiga 4000 can be seen in the movie “Quantum Apocalypse” from 2010? Or that Alf used an Amiga 2000 for trading stocks in an episode in season 4? An Amiga 1200 even appeared in Bones, the popular TV-series, in 2007. This was all new to me.

Alf used an Amiga 2000 to trade stocks (taken from http://alf.fanspace.com/)

Alf used an Amiga 2000 to trade stocks (taken from http://alf.fanspace.com/)

You will also find interesting information on computers like the Amstrad CPC 6128, the Atari ST, the Commodore 64 and last, but not least, the portable SX-64 (that’s an awesome computer..).

If you want to know more, please head over to Starring the Computer and you’ll get your fix. :) Highly recommended!

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Website: GOG (Good Old Games)

Part of the GOG homepage (snapshot by Old School Game Blog)

Part of the GOG homepage (snapshot by Old School Game Blog)

Hi everyone,

Today I’m going to write about a website that I recently discovered through Amiga.org. The name of the site is GOG (Good Old Games) and it can be found here.

GOG is basically an Online store were you can purchase and download old-school games. There’s no copy protection or usage restrictions, so when you’ve bought a game, you own it in full. You can install the software on any PC you want, re-download whenever you feel like it and play without an Internet connection. The games are fully compatible with newer versions of Windows, like Vista and XP. GOG also provides after-sales support, which can be handy if a game refuses to work on your setup. As a bonus, you’ll even find wallpapers, manuals and other stuff for download. All this looks pretty good to me, so I decided to make an account. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but I probably will in the near future. Lot’s of goodies to pick from. ;)

When you sign up for an account, you’ll get the option to download free games. These are (at the current moment) Tyrian 2000, Teen Agent, Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of the Temptress, Ultima IV and Dragonsphere. Not bad for just signing up! All of these are true classics and well worth trying out if you are not familiar with them. I particularly recommend Tyrian 2000 for shoot’em up fans and Beneath a Steel Sky for bold adventurers.

An in-game screenshot from the PC version of Teen Agent (taken from http://www.gry-online.pl/S055.asp?ID=12945)

An in-game screenshot from the PC version of Teen Agent (taken from http://www.gry-online.pl/S055.asp?ID=12945)

The catalogue of games contains some real gems like Caesar 3, Cannon Fodder, Superfrog, Fallout 1 & 2, Simon the Sorcerer 2 and Call to Power 2. For a complete list of games, please head over to the catalogue.

Now, what does it cost to purchase a game through GOG? I can tell you that it is pretty cheap.. most of the titles seems to cost $5.99 (£3.89) or $9.99 (£6.49).

I just have to mention that your account contains a “virtual shelf”. The covers of the games you buy (plus the once you received for free when you signed up) will be displayed there. Looks quite cool. You can even change the style of the shelf.. I went for the wooden one. Here’s a picture of it:

Old School Game Blog's virtual shelf on GOG

Old School Game Blog's virtual shelf on GOG (snapshot by Old School Game Blog)

Personally, I think GOG is a great website for old-school gamers. It offers a wide range of quality games for download, the prices are fair and the software should work properly on modern versions of Windows. Now I’m off to browse the catalogue.. ;)

What do you think of this store? Hope to hear from you concerning this. Are you going to sign up?

Website: Amiga Music Preservation (AMP)

An Amiga Music Preservation logo by Anarkhya (http://amp.dascene.net/logos.php)

An Amiga Music Preservation logo by Anarkhya (http://amp.dascene.net/logos.php)

Hi everyone,

In my last post, I wrote about the new Amiga music album called Immortal 4. This time I’d like to tell you about a website that seeks to preserve Amiga music for future generations. The name of the website is Amiga Music Preservation, or AMP for short, and it was launched on the 14th of December 2000.

AMP has created the largest and most accurate resource on Amiga music on the Internet. According to the authors, the site is meant to bring Amiga enthusiasts together with the people who made the music in the first place. In their own words:

- “It’s the chance for anyone to discover the amazing contribution of Amiga artists to the world of music creation.”

The website does not only preserve Amiga music, but information on the authors as well. If you look up a random musician, for example Jeano, you’ll see that there are 38 modules for download. You can also read which groups he was a member of in the past or check up on his real name. Another example is the composer known as Powerslave. Here you’ll find an interview of him!

How many modules are currently available for download at AMP? A quick look at the news section of the site gives us an answer..

On the 23rd of September 2011, they had collected and made available for download a whopping 115.000 tunes! These can be divided into the following formats:

  • 81462 MOD’s
  • 14768 XM’s
  • 4760 S3M’s
  • 3447 IT’s
  • 3634 MED’s
  • 6929 Others

Totally amazing.. :) I remember back in the 90′s, when I was proud to have a partition on my hard drive consisting of over 400MB (!) of mods.. that’s apparently not much these days. ;)

To play the music, you’ll need a module player. On the Amiga I recommend the brilliant Hippoplayer. You can find it here. It’s easy to use, not resource-hungry and very tidy. I like it a lot. I’m a bit unsure on which program to choose for PC’s running Windows though, but I think Deliplayer or XMPlay would do the trick. Deliplayer is unfortunately not supported anymore, but XMPlay is. I tried to find the official page for Deliplayer, but it was down and replaced with a generic blog. If you have some suggestions for modplayers for Linux, MAC, Atari and the likes, please feel free to leave a comment below. ;) Thanks in advance.

Amiga Music Preservation logo by X-Ray (http://amp.dascene.net/logos.php)

Amiga Music Preservation logo by X-Ray (http://amp.dascene.net/logos.php)

If you’re interested in retro computer music, I recommend that you visit AMP at once. The music you’ll find there (for free of course) will keep you busy for years to come! There’s s much cool stuff to discover. If you happen to have some old mods you’ve made that was never released, but you’d like to share them with the world now, I’m sure the authors of the site would be interested. :)

Happy listening! Hope you’ll find many nice tunes. If I had to recommend five artists to check out, it must be Jeano, Bethoven, Dr. Awesome, Jester and Dreamer.

ACube Systems: Launches Online store

The ACube Systems store is now Online (picture taken from http://www.acube-systems.biz/)

The ACube Systems store is now Online (picture taken from http://www.acube-systems.biz/)

Hi folks,

Yesterday the Italian company ACube Systems launched an Online store. Here you’ll be able to purchase everything from AmigaOS compatible systems to various accessories. The AmigaOne 500 is of course available, but it was surprising for me to see SAM Flex motherboards for sale as well. Haven’t seen those in stock at other dealers for quite some time.

You can find the store here: https://acube-systemsbiz.serversicuro.it/shop/

Please read on for the press release:

Bassano del Grappa (Italy) – 7th of November, 2011

ACube Systems is proud to announce the immediate availability of its brand new online shop were, starting from today, it’s possible to purchase all ACube Systems products.

After many requests, a central place where everyone can check product availability, description and current, up to date, price and shipping costs and place orders using our secure server is finally available.

Please visit our shop by pointing your browser to:
http://www.acube-systems.biz/shop

As a welcome bonus we dropped the prices of some products like the Minimig, but only while stocks lasts!

Visit ACube Systems’ homepage for further news or follow us on Twitter and also on Facebook.

Now I’m off to check out the store a bit further.. :) Enjoy!

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