Snakes...
erm thanks
Yes it i a trip down memory lane for me to,
somewhat at least, i never stopped playing SimCity and as i already pointed out the classic one is still the best one to me, just because of playability.
SC2K is as good it even won't eat up weeks to build a city and can be played on an afternoon.
To me it is the game which started all for computer gaming, you fir sure noticed i'm a "Intellivisonairy" in fact i play "video games" since 1972 since my father made a Pong/Lightgun game for me. He disassembled it quite soon because of the heavy burn in on his beloved b&w tv which he kept running until it took felt 10 minutes to warm up the tube.
It's nice to have a tinkerer as father but it's a hell when he keeps a b&w tv set running for 30 years while "all the world" is already watching in color "Ach das macht die Nachrichten auch nicht besser" (colors won't make better news).
"Das geht doch noch, das kann man noch reparieren!" i'm not that extreme but well...
Likewise for my father my flat is filled with replacement parts cables plugs and whatever, but:
"Gernot do you have a .... cable,plug,socket i need this to connect ... to ..." - "i guess yes lemme see..."
"Gernot i inherited this Yamaha movie theatre amplifier but it didn't runs can u fix it?" - "dunno but let me porouse it" - "Buddy that's a nice thingy you inherited MOS-FET technology and toroidal transformers, very solid '80s high-fidelity and unbreakable... most probably... yes the speaker fuses i can replace them i have such at home"
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It was something complete different to lean back and not be stressed by a fast shoot 'em up or jump and run.
As very first i had contact with SimCity when my father bought an IBM clone and i bought this rotten game for it (together with another unbeaten standard "Populous" even this game i still like to play for exactly the same reason, playability).
The following game was SimEarth and then i bought me a used A500, which i got a bit stressed of after a little while and bought a used A2000 with a whopping 250MB HD.
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Yes 1990 is a little late for one born 1966, but i had a "technology pause" from 1986 to 1989 (roundabout it's long ago and something i don't like to remember often), i became a victim of a christian sect and neither computers electronics or games interested me then.
This was my first dead and second birth, you start a new life when you enter such a sect and you need again to start new when you drop out of it.
And until 1985 i used the Inty for gaming, it hasn't survived my religious trip since my dad assumed i won't need it anymore he disassembled the console, "that hurts" was Joe (Zbiciaks) comment.
Before i return to the miggy this little sidenote, without the so called video game wars the Inty and the Miggy could have become siblings, the hardware developing division of Mattel Electronics had planned to use the brand new M68000....
It never came to this.
On the other hand it's the only left which annoys you with "decles" (ten bit instructions for the GI1610).
Factually this isn't a big difference to 8bit most is 8bit, coding is 8bit, but it reflects the strange ideas they had at start of the '80s, "reserved for future applications" as we know the "future" of any CPU isn't far it won't last that long.
In fact when i thought about this uttering of GI not to long ago i came to the conclusion that these was most probably kept reserved as control bits, it would allow to change a lot of things how the processor interpretes an instruction, at this time it might have been a progressive decision. Not really "future applications" but it would allow to change the instructions on the fly and while processing which is a sort of "future applicaton" seen from this ward. Because i guess instead to emulate such would allow to process foreign native code - as i assume. In other terms the reserved bits are to see as flags.
The GI1610 has depth, really, but when it was used first for "little 'bro" (Champion 2711) it was totally unexplored what it can offer for gaming, check out what is on my YT channel, "decle" not that decle this decle, he's a dev. and his task is to write scripts which convert in the best case "decles" to "decles" without to lay a hand on it.
The result is "little 'bro" and "StudioVision" the latter is a "RCA Studio II" erm emulator doesn't matches it's native GI1610 code as well just that it runs on the Inty instead of the "Champion 2711" or the "RCA Studio II".
Just for your amusement the "Champion" had a one button controller, yes you've read right a single button and nothing else (oh pardon a second reset button on each controller). No steering cross or anything to control something like a cursor or elswhat just a single frickin' button. But it had a great sounding name "Champion 2711" which even rhymes.
Of course gaming is extremely limited due to this, poker & blackjack obviousely you won't need much more even if it's a hassle to enter your bet by pressing the single button at the right time while the numbers scroll up from 0 to 9 for each digit. The rest of games works in a similar way and one game "decle" coded new for the "Champion" - "Bottom Gas" a dragster race even this needs obviousely only one button - the bottom gas, push the pedal down to the tar.
A memory game even this can be played with a single button just wait until the cards are lifted up and several arithmetic games which also can be played with a single button... if you are patient enough to wait for the proper number to appear.
It has the exact same heart which my inty uses but it feels like it would run on a quarter of its capabilities. "Zero graphics and uninspired games".
The "Studio II" i always gazed at it was a little before i earned my first own money and daddy assumed it's nothing more as a "brown box" in a different shell, he wouldn't have gifted me one and was not little surprised when i bought my first Inty and how the games appeared on this console, he started to get somewhat addicted to Golf which is a game i still like to play, it's still interesting and hard to control, the randomness of certain unseen things is major to what is called today "faith shot" you never know exactly where a shot will end.
End of time-warp