30: The Neighborhood Software Pirate

00:00SPEAKER- We went on a bike ride, that was nice.

00:01SPEAKER- Wait, yeah, you're one of them.

00:03SPEAKERYou're one of the people that got in the way

00:06SPEAKERof my trip outside of the house.

00:07SPEAKER- What?

00:08SPEAKER- I walked to the park.

00:10SPEAKER16 days in the house and I was like,

00:12SPEAKERI need to go outside and get a walk.

00:13SPEAKERI need some movement, I need to have any blood flow.

00:16SPEAKERSo I walked to the park for about five minutes.

00:19SPEAKERThen there were so many people biking and jogging

00:21SPEAKERand huffing and puffing all over the place

00:23SPEAKERthat I turned right around and came home.

00:25SPEAKER- One of the things I've found,

00:26SPEAKER'cause we go on a couple, two, three bike rides a week,

00:29SPEAKERis that different people have very different ideas

00:32SPEAKERof what the four meters is.

00:35SPEAKER'Cause we're bad at metric in the US.

00:37SPEAKERSo like my idea of four meters being based in science

00:40SPEAKERand reality is about 12 or 13, about 15 or 16 feet.

00:44SPEAKERMost people's idea of four meters is like two arm lengths

00:47SPEAKERaway, which is not sufficient for social distancing

00:50SPEAKERguidelines in my world.

00:51SPEAKER- I think you should just do what Mike Micah does

00:53SPEAKERand stay in the basement.

00:54SPEAKER- That's what I do.

00:54SPEAKERI mean, why would I leave?

00:55SPEAKER- I know, look at, people can't see it.

00:57SPEAKERThis is gonna play very well on an audio show.

01:00SPEAKERIf you could see the room that he's sitting in right now,

01:02SPEAKERI would never leave that room either.

01:04SPEAKER(upbeat music)

01:27SPEAKER(upbeat music)

01:36SPEAKER- Welcome to another episode of Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.

01:40SPEAKERI'm Will.

01:41SPEAKER- I'm Brad, right there in the episode, in the show title.

01:43SPEAKER- It's like your name is in the title.

01:45SPEAKER- I know.

01:46SPEAKER- You're a headliner.

01:47SPEAKER- Almost like we planned it that way.

01:48SPEAKER- We didn't plan it that way at all.

01:50SPEAKER- Oh no.

01:52SPEAKER- This week though, as you may have guessed

01:53SPEAKERfrom the cold open, we are joined by a very special guest.

01:55SPEAKEROne, Mike Micah.

01:58SPEAKERHe is the studio head of Digital Eclipse

02:00SPEAKERand a board member of the Video Game History Foundation

02:02SPEAKERand a long time, he's a friend of the pod

02:04SPEAKERthat has been a friend of the pod so long.

02:06SPEAKERHe's been a friend before there was a pod.

02:07SPEAKERYeah, way before.

02:09SPEAKERWelcome to the show, Mike.

02:10SPEAKERThanks for coming on.

02:11SPEAKER- Oh no, this is great.

02:11SPEAKERIt's, you know, with everything that's going on,

02:14SPEAKERthis is like one bit of normalcy

02:16SPEAKERthat usually would have been a little harder,

02:17SPEAKERlike not so normal before,

02:18SPEAKERbut now it feels like I can actually connect with people

02:20SPEAKERby doing these.

02:22SPEAKER- The human contact, it turns out,

02:23SPEAKERfrom a hour-long podcast is really nice.

02:26SPEAKER- Yeah, you know, we will take what social interaction

02:28SPEAKERwe can get these days in whatever form.

02:30SPEAKER- Exactly.

02:33SPEAKER- So I have to ask right off the bat,

02:35SPEAKERwhat does it feel like to be a board member?

02:37SPEAKER- Oh, you know, I've always dreamed of being a board member

02:40SPEAKERbecause I've heard of other people being board members,

02:42SPEAKERlike Ed Fries, for instance, who's from Microsoft.

02:44SPEAKERHe's on the board of like every tech company in the world

02:47SPEAKERand he seems to be having a lot of fun.

02:48SPEAKERSo I kind of wanted to do that.

02:51SPEAKERI don't know really, all I know is like,

02:53SPEAKERI get asked a lot of questions

02:54SPEAKERand I just say a lot of opinions

02:56SPEAKERand then I get asked to do things a lot.

02:57SPEAKERAnd then I usually buy food too,

03:01SPEAKERif we have meetings in person,

03:02SPEAKERbut we don't do that anymore, so I save money.

03:04SPEAKER- Do you get to say, did you get to say things like,

03:08SPEAKER"We need to increase productivity 30% by February

03:11SPEAKERor else we're going to shut the whole thing down

03:13SPEAKERand then bang your fist on the table?"

03:15SPEAKER- You know, I do that, but it's so out of context

03:17SPEAKERthat people just look at me funny.

03:20SPEAKER- You're living the dream.

03:21SPEAKERYou just get to have opinions and people care about them.

03:24SPEAKER- That's exactly what it is.

03:25SPEAKERI mean, essentially it's just,

03:27SPEAKERI think from my perspective,

03:29SPEAKERit seems like a board member is just somebody

03:30SPEAKERwho's done a lot of something that's important

03:32SPEAKERto the people who ask you to be on the board.

03:33SPEAKERSo in this case, with the Video Game History Foundation,

03:36SPEAKERI know a lot about classic games and finding old games

03:39SPEAKERand finding source code and weird stuff.

03:41SPEAKERSo that kind of became important, I guess.

03:44SPEAKER- Yeah, like honestly, in all honesty,

03:46SPEAKERyou having done a lot of something

03:47SPEAKERis exactly why we wanted to bring you on.

03:50SPEAKERAnd that's something, of course, is making games,

03:53SPEAKERgetting your hands on games for a very long time.

03:55SPEAKERWe talked about your basement setting there in the intro,

03:59SPEAKERbut it's just a who's who of Dragon's Lair posters

04:03SPEAKERand Street Fighter II machines.

04:04SPEAKERAnd I see you post pictures of that place

04:08SPEAKERon Twitter all the time,

04:09SPEAKERand it looks like the most comforting room

04:12SPEAKERon the planet to me.

04:13SPEAKER'Cause it's literally just wall to wall,

04:16SPEAKERold computers, old games, old arcade hardware,

04:19SPEAKERold CRTs, honestly, when I think who's an expert

04:23SPEAKERin old games in the Bay Area,

04:25SPEAKERyou're definitely one of the first names that comes to mind.

04:28SPEAKER- Oh, thanks.

04:29SPEAKERIt's one of those things I think I was born to do.

04:31SPEAKER(laughs)

04:32SPEAKER- So I guess we kind of wanted to just kick this thing off

04:34SPEAKERwith just a little background on how you got started

04:36SPEAKERand all this stuff in terms of what your earliest experiences

04:40SPEAKERwere making games like coding,

04:42SPEAKERgetting your hands on old computers,

04:43SPEAKERlike what platforms, what languages,

04:45SPEAKERlike how you got into programming and stuff like that.

04:48SPEAKERI'm just kind of curious,

04:49SPEAKERlike when you got your start and how.

04:51SPEAKER- Okay, I mean, it was a long time ago.

04:53SPEAKERI was probably in, oh, it was like third grade,

04:56SPEAKERwhatever year that was, 1980 something.

04:59SPEAKERAnd I was a huge fan of arcade games.

05:03SPEAKERAnd it was one of those things where everything,

05:05SPEAKERit was that time when everybody had an arcade machine.

05:08SPEAKERSo you could go to laundromat,

05:09SPEAKERyou can go to like a restaurant,

05:11SPEAKERyou can go like go play tennis or whatever.

05:13SPEAKERThere's always an arcade machine within like 10 feet

05:16SPEAKERof wherever you were, there's everywhere.

05:18SPEAKERAnd so I got really into arcade games

05:20SPEAKERlike everybody else did back then.

05:22SPEAKERAnd one day it was, I think it was third grade actually,

05:28SPEAKERjust out of the blue in class,

05:30SPEAKERthey wheeled in an Apple II on a little rolling cart.

05:34SPEAKERAnd it was kind of cool.

05:35SPEAKERIt looked like it was from the future and everything.

05:37SPEAKERAnd they were talking about everything it could do.

05:39SPEAKERAnd I was kind of excited, but like, I'm still like,

05:41SPEAKERhardcore video game nerd,

05:42SPEAKERdidn't realize there was a connection yet

05:43SPEAKERuntil my teacher brought up that she was saying,

05:46SPEAKERoh, you can keep records on this.

05:48SPEAKERYou can do all this other stuff.

05:49SPEAKERIt was all boring.

05:50SPEAKERAnd then she's like, oh,

05:51SPEAKERand this is what you use to make video games.

05:52SPEAKERIt's like those games you guys like to play.

05:54SPEAKERAnd then like, my mind just like froze in that moment.

05:56SPEAKERIt's like, wait, what did she just say?

05:58SPEAKERAnd so she continued to talk about everything else,

06:00SPEAKERbut I kept raising my hand going like,

06:02SPEAKERso what do they use to make video games on it

06:03SPEAKERand all this kind of stuff.

06:04SPEAKERShe didn't know how to answer it.

06:05SPEAKERSo my friend who was also just as crazy as I was,

06:08SPEAKERconvinced to stay in on recess or during recess

06:11SPEAKERto use the computer and try to figure out

06:13SPEAKERhow to program on it.

06:14SPEAKERAnd over like, I'd probably say like half that school year,

06:18SPEAKERwe started to teach ourselves how to program.

06:20SPEAKERWe would get these books from my friend's brother

06:23SPEAKERand we would just sit down with them

06:24SPEAKERand try to type in stuff and learn how to do it.

06:25SPEAKERAnd by the end of it,

06:27SPEAKERwe had like these little games that we had made

06:29SPEAKERand I was already,

06:30SPEAKERI was just already going crazy over that and addicted to it.

06:34SPEAKERBut all that while I still didn't have a computer at home.

06:37SPEAKERSo the other thing that would happen is like,

06:39SPEAKERmy parents would go shopping to this department store

06:42SPEAKERand they would always take like two to three hours.

06:45SPEAKERAnd so now that I had started to learn how to use computers,

06:47SPEAKERI would go to the computer section and that time

06:49SPEAKERthey would always have the big eight bit computers

06:51SPEAKERaround this big circle and you could try every one of them.

06:53SPEAKERThey're all just on.

06:54SPEAKERAnd none of them really had anything on them

06:55SPEAKERother than their prompts.

06:56SPEAKERLike when you started up,

06:57SPEAKERit would always say like ready or whatever

06:58SPEAKERand you could just type on it.

07:00SPEAKERThey would occasionally pull down games

07:01SPEAKERif you asked to look at something and they put it in there.

07:04SPEAKERBut since I knew how to start programming

07:06SPEAKERa little bit on the Apple too,

07:07SPEAKERI decided I tried doing that with the Commodore 64

07:09SPEAKER'cause it looked like it had some pretty cool stuff on it.

07:11SPEAKERIt was kind of cool because the department store

07:13SPEAKERright in the middle of the computer section

07:14SPEAKERwas right next to this book section

07:15SPEAKERwhere they would sell books.

07:16SPEAKERAnd in that area, they had a whole bunch of like

07:18SPEAKERcreating games on home computers.

07:19SPEAKERSo I would grab those books,

07:21SPEAKERtype in things over on the display models

07:22SPEAKERand within that two hours,

07:23SPEAKERI'd learn some stuff every single time.

07:25SPEAKERAnd one time when my dad came to grab me before we left,

07:29SPEAKERhe came by and I was playing this little "Moon Patrol" game.

07:31SPEAKERHe's like, "Oh, which game is that?"

07:32SPEAKERI'm like, "It's a game I made."

07:33SPEAKERHe's like, "What?"

07:35SPEAKERI'm like, "Yeah, I made it like this."

07:36SPEAKERI showed him how I did it.

07:37SPEAKERAnd then literally like one week later,

07:39SPEAKERwe had a Commodore 64 at home.

07:40SPEAKERMy dad was just like super cool.

07:42SPEAKERHe's like, "Just keep doing that thing you do

07:43SPEAKERwhere you're making that stuff."

07:44SPEAKERAnd I'm like, "All right."

07:46SPEAKER- That's awesome.

07:47SPEAKERBudding child entrepreneur.

07:50SPEAKERWhat kind of, let me preface this question

07:52SPEAKERby saying I am asking these questions

07:54SPEAKERfrom the position of a layman.

07:55SPEAKERSo forgive any ignorance or naivete,

07:58SPEAKERbut like what kind of languages

07:59SPEAKERwere you working with back then?

08:00SPEAKERWas it just like basic and stuff like that?

08:02SPEAKEROr was it easy to get like actual access to the hardware?

08:05SPEAKER- Everything back then pretty much used basic

08:08SPEAKERas a starting point.

08:09SPEAKERAnd so I learned basic like everybody else.

08:11SPEAKERBut then I remember there was a few things I would get,

08:15SPEAKERlike we would trade a lot of software.

08:17SPEAKERAnd one of the biggest trading places,

08:21SPEAKERusually back then was on bulletin boards

08:23SPEAKERand also just people you would know,

08:24SPEAKERyou'd trade games like pirate games and all that stuff.

08:27SPEAKERAnd I remember I was talking to this whole other thing too.

08:31SPEAKERI was talking to this older layer named Mrs. Cripps,

08:34SPEAKERwho was the neighborhood software pirate.

08:36SPEAKERShe was like 80 years old.

08:38SPEAKERShe was a chain smoker.

08:39SPEAKERAnd all the kids in the neighborhood

08:40SPEAKERride their dirt bikes to her house.

08:42SPEAKERSo her dirt, her front lawn was always covered in dirt bikes.

08:45SPEAKERAnd inside there was just stacks of drives

08:47SPEAKERand just games getting copied constantly.

08:49SPEAKERAnd she would always be in the corner chain smoking

08:51SPEAKERand playing this game called Ultimate Wizard.

08:53SPEAKERAnd she had a really ravely voice and it was kind of crazy.

08:59SPEAKERAnd my friend introduced me to her and she told me like,

09:04SPEAKERI can only come there if I had things

09:05SPEAKERto give or contribute or trade.

09:07SPEAKEROtherwise don't bother coming.

09:09SPEAKERAnd so at first I made these levels in Ultimate Wizard

09:13SPEAKERthat I would give her and she loved that.

09:14SPEAKERSo she's like, you can have whatever you want.

09:15SPEAKERAnd then like later on, she got bored of that.

09:17SPEAKERSo I started making games, but it'd be in basic

09:18SPEAKERand she didn't really like them.

09:20SPEAKERSo then one of the guys I met there said,

09:22SPEAKERI should talk to this guy named,

09:24SPEAKERhis handle was Riff Raff.

09:25SPEAKERHe knows assembly language.

09:27SPEAKERI'm like, it's like, it's machine code.

09:29SPEAKERIt's talking like you speak to the machine directly

09:32SPEAKERand it makes everything faster.

09:33SPEAKERAnd I'm like, what?

09:34SPEAKERSo like he introduced me to this guy named Riff Raff,

09:35SPEAKERwho I never knew his real name.

09:37SPEAKERI know that he worked eventually for like NEC

09:39SPEAKERand then he did some stuff for like Activision later.

09:42SPEAKERI eventually learned his name,

09:43SPEAKERbut I always remember as Riff Raff now.

09:45SPEAKERAnd so I met this guy first on a BBS and we're talking,

09:50SPEAKERhe sent me some samples of machine language

09:52SPEAKERand I kept asking all these questions.

09:53SPEAKERHe was a little annoyed at first,

09:55SPEAKERbut then I kept asking all the right questions.

09:57SPEAKERAnd eventually I was able to like start coding

09:59SPEAKERreally cool things in machine language

10:01SPEAKERthat he was kind of teaching me.

10:02SPEAKERAnd he recommended a few books to me.

10:03SPEAKERAnd so I started, I went from basic to machine language

10:06SPEAKERand there was a little step in the middle

10:07SPEAKERwhere I understood how basic worked.

10:10SPEAKERAnd then I would do a little bit

10:10SPEAKERof machine language with basic.

10:12SPEAKERAnd then I would do a little bit more machine language,

10:14SPEAKERa little bit more machine language.

10:15SPEAKERAnd eventually I just did everything in machine language.

10:17SPEAKERSo at that time was 6502 machine language.

10:20SPEAKERAnd when you talk about machine language or assembly,

10:21SPEAKERyou're usually referring to the language

10:23SPEAKERthat the processor speaks.

10:25SPEAKERIn this case, it was 6502 that I understood,

10:27SPEAKERwhich was not too different from say a Z80,

10:29SPEAKERwhich would end up being in the Game Boy or the Spectrum.

10:32SPEAKERAnd there's a very popular processors back then.

10:34SPEAKERThere's like the 6502 and it's family of processors.

10:36SPEAKERThere was the Z80 and it's family of processors.

10:38SPEAKERSo I grew up with a lot of 6502 assembly.

10:41SPEAKERAnd that was kind of my transition to more grownup stuff.

10:44SPEAKER- Okay.

10:45SPEAKERI had intended to ask you if you ever did the thing

10:47SPEAKERwhere you typed code in from the back of a magazine

10:49SPEAKERor like recorded it from the radio in like analog form,

10:51SPEAKERbut like, it sounds like you blew right past that stuff.

10:55SPEAKER- Wait, you recorded stuff from the radio?

10:57SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

10:59SPEAKEROh, heck yeah.

11:00SPEAKERNot only that, my uncle was a ham radio operator

11:03SPEAKERand they had a channel where somebody would broadcast

11:05SPEAKERwares, games, over this channel.

11:08SPEAKERAnd you would record it on tape

11:09SPEAKERand you could load it into your Commodore 64.

11:11SPEAKERSo we're getting wares from like Russia

11:13SPEAKERor something like that.

11:13SPEAKERAnd we're loading them on a Commodore 64.

11:16SPEAKER- I've heard of the radio stuff,

11:18SPEAKERbut I've never thought about harnessing a ham radio

11:20SPEAKERfor that purpose.

11:21SPEAKERThat is some real like post-apocalyptic piracy.

11:24SPEAKER- I just can't believe that there was an elderly lady

11:27SPEAKERin your neighborhood who had a ratioed pirate house

11:30SPEAKERfor software in the 80s.

11:31SPEAKERThat's like, just my mind is exploding here.

11:36SPEAKER- Greet from XXX, Mrs. Crips, XXX.

11:40SPEAKER- Her son ran this bulletin board

11:41SPEAKERthat was a very popular zero day wares board.

11:43SPEAKERAnd I remember, I don't remember the name right now,

11:45SPEAKERbut I remember bringing it up like years ago.

11:47SPEAKERAnd one of the guys in a business meeting was like,

11:49SPEAKERI used to go to that board all the time.

11:51SPEAKEROh my God.

11:54SPEAKER- I really appreciate that everybody's entrance

11:56SPEAKERinto early game development

11:57SPEAKERseems like it's a comic book character origin story,

12:00SPEAKERlike chain smoking old lady, like the shadowy dude

12:02SPEAKERnamed Riff Raff.

12:04SPEAKER- Well, I mean, the thing that's weird about this now

12:07SPEAKERthat we don't think about now,

12:08SPEAKERespecially people who are coming up now don't realize

12:10SPEAKERis that like I lived in Northeast Tennessee

12:12SPEAKERand there wasn't really any place

12:14SPEAKERthat sold computer software outside of like Word Perfect

12:18SPEAKERand stuff like business software.

12:21SPEAKERSo if you wanted to get games,

12:22SPEAKERthe computer show came around twice a year.

12:25SPEAKERAnd other than that,

12:26SPEAKERit was either you had a friend who had access to some BBS

12:29SPEAKERand you brought him some floppy disks

12:30SPEAKER'cause he'd bring you back games or there was nothing.

12:33SPEAKERLike you couldn't go to GameStop.

12:37SPEAKER- It's true.

12:37SPEAKER- Yeah.

12:38SPEAKER- Yeah, like I kinda, I mean,

12:39SPEAKERit sounds like you touched on this a little bit.

12:41SPEAKERYou got your hands on books,

12:42SPEAKERyou track down people that knew stuff

12:44SPEAKERthat they could tell you,

12:45SPEAKERbut like it's so hard for me to visualize

12:47SPEAKERin the pre-internet kind of before era,

12:50SPEAKERhow you would access like repositories

12:52SPEAKERof knowledge like that.

12:53SPEAKERLike it's just, it's such an esoteric and arcane subject

12:56SPEAKERto dive into without all the incredible amounts of knowledge

13:00SPEAKERat our fingertips these days.

13:01SPEAKERLike it seems like that must've been like,

13:03SPEAKERjust kind of hard scrabble,

13:04SPEAKERlike learn what you can, where you can.

13:05SPEAKER- Oh yeah, so you mentioned computer groups before.

13:08SPEAKERI would go to computer groups with my dad

13:09SPEAKERand there was this one called the Ford,

13:11SPEAKERit was the Ford Commodore User Group,

13:13SPEAKERI think is what it was called.

13:14SPEAKERIt was Ford Motor Company.

13:15SPEAKERAnd you never really met the people who made games,

13:19SPEAKERbut in Michigan where I grew up,

13:21SPEAKERthere was a lot of people

13:22SPEAKERwho did create a lot of software around there

13:23SPEAKERand they created a lot of like bulletin board system software

13:26SPEAKERand stuff like that.

13:27SPEAKERSo they would tour around to these user groups.

13:29SPEAKERI remember, I think it was,

13:31SPEAKERI think that was the user group that Peter Molyneux

13:33SPEAKERfor some reason was in the US touting something

13:36SPEAKERfrom, they was working on for either the Commodore

13:38SPEAKERor the Amiga or something like that that was coming,

13:39SPEAKERor no, it was Commodore 64 I think.

13:41SPEAKERAnd he managed to just come by this user group.

13:44SPEAKERAnd like, before I even knew who he was

13:46SPEAKERor anything like that, like it was years later,

13:47SPEAKERI'm like, wait, why was he there?

13:50SPEAKER- You experienced the rare 80s Molyneux?

13:52SPEAKER- I remember his hair was like coming out of like,

13:53SPEAKERhe looked like a Krusty the Clown almost.

13:56SPEAKERAnd you know, it was just like one of these things

13:59SPEAKERwhere these people kind of come around

14:00SPEAKERand you would hope that you would meet somebody

14:01SPEAKERwho knew the inner knowledge of how a machine worked

14:03SPEAKERor that sort of thing.

14:04SPEAKERSo you ended up more often than not

14:06SPEAKERjust writing letters to people.

14:07SPEAKERI wrote letters to Activision, Electronic Arts,

14:11SPEAKERand occasionally somebody would write back.

14:13SPEAKERI remember somebody from Atari wrote back

14:14SPEAKERand explained some concepts of programming.

14:16SPEAKERSomebody from Activision did, but more often than not,

14:19SPEAKERpeople would think you were just like

14:20SPEAKERsome weirdo looking for free games.

14:21SPEAKERSo they would just send you flyers

14:23SPEAKERor where you can order stuff, but it was hard.

14:26SPEAKERIt was really hard to get that information.

14:27SPEAKERSo that's why the magazines that the type-in programs

14:29SPEAKERor compute, which was a really big popular magazine

14:32SPEAKERfor programming, they would publish spiral bound books

14:35SPEAKERthat had all kinds of crazy nuggets of information

14:37SPEAKERon how to read joysticks, read paddles, do sound,

14:40SPEAKERdo graphics and that sort of stuff.

14:43SPEAKER- Did you ever read the books that had like the,

14:46SPEAKERthey're like choose your own adventure books

14:48SPEAKERwhere you had a puzzle that had to be solved

14:50SPEAKERby writing a computer program?

14:52SPEAKERAnd of course, if you went to the back of the book,

14:54SPEAKERthe puzzle that solved was there,

14:55SPEAKERbut you could figure it out on your own.

14:57SPEAKERAnd it was the most satisfying thing in the world

14:59SPEAKERto write like some hundred line basic program

15:02SPEAKERto solve a math problem in the mystery book.

15:04SPEAKER- Something 2000 series or something like that

15:06SPEAKERwas one of them.

15:07SPEAKERAnd there's a few different series.

15:09SPEAKER- Yeah, that's the one I have, I think.

15:10SPEAKER- And they were really cool.

15:12SPEAKERBut I remember like by the time I started

15:13SPEAKERlike kind of getting into those, I'm like,

15:14SPEAKERah, this is all like, this is all cool.

15:17SPEAKERBut I was already moving on to like,

15:18SPEAKERI want to get like raster interrupts

15:20SPEAKERand more colors on screen

15:21SPEAKERand like how to get stereo to come out.

15:26SPEAKER- So what was the point where you started

15:28SPEAKERmaking money making games?

15:29SPEAKERLike when did you go from amateur to professional

15:32SPEAKERon that stuff?

15:33SPEAKERWhat was the first game you sold?

15:34SPEAKER- The first game, well, the first game I sold

15:36SPEAKERwas in a weird homemade box that I was selling

15:39SPEAKERat the local computer store.

15:41SPEAKERAnd it was a Qbert clone called Sir Bounce-a-Lot.

15:46SPEAKERAnd you were like a spring hopping around

15:48SPEAKERon like the cubes, like from Qbert.

15:50SPEAKERBut instead of like just changing colors,

15:52SPEAKERwhich you were doing, you're also trying,

15:54SPEAKER'cause I was just a kid, I was like 14 maybe.

15:56SPEAKERI'm like, you're trying to save these druids

15:58SPEAKERthat are crossing this weird bridge

16:00SPEAKERthat's being attacked by these,

16:02SPEAKERwell, it starts being attacked by flower pots,

16:04SPEAKERbut then it gets attacked by meteors and everything else.

16:06SPEAKERSo it's just this weird, doesn't make any sense game.

16:08SPEAKERI look back on it now going like, what was I thinking?

16:10SPEAKERBut it was the first one I sold

16:12SPEAKERand it did pretty well in the computer store

16:15SPEAKERto the point that I thought like, okay,

16:16SPEAKERif I could scale this up and I could actually get

16:18SPEAKERreal distribution, I could probably make money.

16:21SPEAKERSo that was kind of my wake up.

16:23SPEAKERAnd the real, like, I really kind of broke out

16:27SPEAKERwhen Game Boy was near the end of its initial

16:29SPEAKERblack and white life cycle, because I went to college.

16:33SPEAKERI, you know, you do all that other stuff

16:34SPEAKERwhere it's like, you're a kid,

16:35SPEAKERyou wanna do other stuff in life.

16:36SPEAKERAnd then it was like right around getting,

16:38SPEAKERjust when I was getting out of college,

16:40SPEAKERI started to get back into programming

16:41SPEAKERbecause I kind of missed it.

16:43SPEAKERAnd processors have kind of come a long way.

16:46SPEAKERAnd I used to do assembly programming.

16:47SPEAKERSo the closest thing to what I used to do was the Game Boy.

16:50SPEAKERSo I started reverse engineering the Game Boy

16:52SPEAKERwith some documents I found online.

16:54SPEAKERI had this like really rudimentary hardware

16:56SPEAKERand I was able to write my own carts.

16:58SPEAKERAnd from there, I was able to get more and more stuff

17:00SPEAKERworking over time.

17:01SPEAKERI recreated the game, Yars Revenge.

17:03SPEAKERRemember the old Atari game?

17:04SPEAKER- Oh yeah. - Yeah.

17:05SPEAKER- The best cover, the best cover art on that whole system.

17:09SPEAKER- I agree, I agree.

17:10SPEAKERAnd so I made that game and I posted online

17:13SPEAKERfor people to check out.

17:14SPEAKERAnd somebody said that I should show it

17:16SPEAKERto Howard Scott Warshaw who was the guy

17:18SPEAKERwho created the original Yars Revenge.

17:19SPEAKERAnd he gave me his email address, said like send it to him.

17:22SPEAKERSo I did and Howard wrote back.

17:25SPEAKERHe's like, "This is really cool.

17:26SPEAKER"Where are you?"

17:27SPEAKERAnd I'm like, "Well, I'm in Michigan.

17:28SPEAKER"I know you're in California."

17:29SPEAKERHe's like, "Well, I'm gonna be in Michigan next week.

17:31SPEAKER"Where are you in Michigan?"

17:32SPEAKERAnd I told him and it happened to be going to a hotel

17:35SPEAKERfor some convention that was literally like two miles away.

17:38SPEAKERAnd so we met up, my friend and I, we got together

17:41SPEAKERwho helped me with the music and stuff on it.

17:42SPEAKERAnd we met with them one night.

17:44SPEAKERAnd this is before everybody knew the story of Atari

17:47SPEAKERor the story of ET or the story of any of that crazy stuff

17:49SPEAKERthat happened before.

17:51SPEAKERAnd he regaled us all night with everything

17:53SPEAKERthat happened at Atari and all history of Atari.

17:55SPEAKERAnd then he was getting in all the technical stuff.

17:58SPEAKERHe talked about everything that he was doing

17:59SPEAKERin Yars Revenge, why he had to do this stuff

18:01SPEAKERthe way he did it.

18:01SPEAKERHe talked about all the stuff he wanted to put in

18:03SPEAKERbut there was no way to get it in in time

18:06SPEAKERas well as with all the technical limitations.

18:08SPEAKERSo I ended up putting all of those features

18:10SPEAKERinto the Game Boy version of Yars Revenge.

18:12SPEAKERAnd that was my first commercial, real commercial game.

18:15SPEAKERIt was published by Telegames in '97, I think.

18:20SPEAKEROr it was at least started in '97 and then that went out there

18:25SPEAKERand that paid for a lot of stuff like home theater.

18:28SPEAKERThose kind of things that I had never thought

18:30SPEAKERI would afford ever for a while.

18:32SPEAKERSo that was my first kind of break.

18:34SPEAKERAnd then after that, I started working with Digital Eclipse,

18:37SPEAKERAndrew Ayer, who's my partner now in the same business.

18:41SPEAKERAnd we did the first kind of color,

18:45SPEAKERgames for Game Boy Color that were not Nintendo.

18:47SPEAKERSo it was Midway's, NFL Blitz, Mortal Kombat,

18:51SPEAKERand there was another one.

18:53SPEAKERAnd we launched those and those did extremely well.

18:55SPEAKERAnd that was it.

18:56SPEAKEROnce those kind of hit, they sold ludicrous amounts.

19:00SPEAKERWe suddenly realized Game Boy,

19:02SPEAKEReven though the black and white had died,

19:03SPEAKERthe Game Boy Color was taking off.

19:04SPEAKERAnd I had at that point worked on so many games since.

19:08SPEAKERFrom there to today, I think I just went over

19:11SPEAKER300 games I've worked on.

19:13SPEAKER- Wow, that's holy cow.

19:15SPEAKERThat's a big number.

19:16SPEAKER- It's too big.

19:18SPEAKER- I wanted to ask if you had much professional

19:20SPEAKERkind of hands-on experience designing

19:22SPEAKERand building arcade games, but it sounds like

19:23SPEAKERby the time you were really getting into it professionally,

19:25SPEAKERthe arcade scene was, I mean, it didn't die immediately,

19:29SPEAKERbut like late '90s, turn of the century is when

19:32SPEAKERconsole started kind of surpassing

19:33SPEAKERwhat arcade machines could do.

19:35SPEAKERSo did you get a chance to work on any arcade cabinets

19:37SPEAKERdirectly or?

19:38SPEAKER- No, that was my dream because like I was racing the clock.

19:41SPEAKERI really wanted to get to the point that I could work on

19:44SPEAKERkind of crazy fantasy hardware.

19:45SPEAKER'Cause if you think about it,

19:46SPEAKERarcade machines were fantasy hardware

19:48SPEAKERbecause you had a specific budget,

19:50SPEAKERyou could use whatever you want

19:52SPEAKERto make a really cool experience within that budget.

19:54SPEAKERAnd so you'd always have the latest and greatest processors,

19:56SPEAKERgraphics and displays and sound and all that stuff.

19:59SPEAKERAnd meanwhile, like the home stuff

20:00SPEAKERwould always be much cheaper and really harder to work with.

20:04SPEAKERSo I always wanted to do that.

20:05SPEAKERBut the closest I got at that time

20:06SPEAKERwas just recreating those arcade games.

20:09SPEAKERAnd I never really got like source code

20:12SPEAKERfor a lot of stuff back then.

20:14SPEAKERSo I'd have to try to mimic and recreate games.

20:15SPEAKERLike one of my favorites being Galaga,

20:17SPEAKERI remember making a version of that.

20:18SPEAKERAnd I would try to get it so precise and arcade perfect

20:21SPEAKERthat I ended up learning just by doing that,

20:23SPEAKERhow this stuff kind of worked.

20:25SPEAKERWhich I still do today, almost the same process.

20:27SPEAKERThere's times that we can't get source code.

20:28SPEAKERSo we have to recreate a game

20:30SPEAKERand it's like an observational port.

20:31SPEAKERYou're looking at everything, dissecting it,

20:32SPEAKERyou're reverse engineering whatever you can

20:34SPEAKERwhen you get the stuff.

20:35SPEAKERBut really you're just trying to understand

20:38SPEAKERand get in the head of the people who created the game

20:40SPEAKERand understand how their logic works

20:42SPEAKERand everything like that.

20:42SPEAKERAnd what you find,

20:43SPEAKERand I was just discovering this earlier today,

20:44SPEAKERI'm working on a project that's very similar to this

20:46SPEAKERwhere at the onset I'm looking at it like,

20:48SPEAKERthere's no way we can reverse engineer this,

20:49SPEAKERbut I'll start putting stuff in that mimics what's going on.

20:52SPEAKERAnd before I knew it, like half the work's being done

20:54SPEAKERbecause the way I was implementing things

20:56SPEAKERis exactly how the game does it.

20:58SPEAKERAnd a lot of the stuff I thought I would have to figure out

21:00SPEAKERjust started to fall into place.

21:01SPEAKERAnd I didn't really have to do anything.

21:02SPEAKERAnd so he sees these weird eccentric moments in the game

21:05SPEAKERthat you're like, why would they do that?

21:07SPEAKERBut it's just a natural progression

21:09SPEAKERof just the implementation of some of the mechanics

21:11SPEAKERthat it just does it without having to implement it.

21:13SPEAKERIt's so cool.

21:14SPEAKER- That's, I'm gonna have to resist going off

21:16SPEAKERon like 18 different tangents during this conversation.

21:18SPEAKERBut when you're reverse engineering an old game like that,

21:21SPEAKERI assume you're not just doing it by eye, you know,

21:23SPEAKERlike what are the, what kind of tools are you using

21:25SPEAKERto do that in like a quantifiable way to like measure stuff

21:28SPEAKERbefore you try to attempt to remake it?

21:30SPEAKER- So when you have no source code,

21:32SPEAKERthere's a few things you're gonna have to do.

21:34SPEAKERLike one, you wanna make sure you have the original hardware

21:35SPEAKERbecause you'll want to use that to get exact timing,

21:38SPEAKERexact graphic look, feel, and everything like that sound.

21:41SPEAKERAnd then you'll wanna try to modify that hardware.

21:44SPEAKERIn this case, this game was also on the Commodore 64.

21:47SPEAKERAnd so there's, while it's on the Commodore 64,

21:49SPEAKERwe do know in the past that it was ported

21:51SPEAKERfrom another machine to the C64 little source.

21:54SPEAKERSo the logic is all exact.

21:55SPEAKERSo because it's on the Commodore 64, I actually have,

21:58SPEAKERit was called the Ultimate 2 64 motherboard,

22:00SPEAKERwhich is this crazy beast if you want to look it up.

22:03SPEAKERIt has, it's a modern version of the Commodore 64

22:05SPEAKERthat uses all the original chip set.

22:07SPEAKERIt's all expanded,

22:07SPEAKERbut it also has all these debug capabilities.

22:09SPEAKERSo I put the game on there and I'm able to step through

22:12SPEAKERthe process and the logic as the process is going through

22:15SPEAKERthe game and see exactly what's going on in any moment.

22:17SPEAKERSo I'm able to log game states, memory usage,

22:20SPEAKERall the stuff that's going in there.

22:21SPEAKERAnd I start to see a picture of what the game's doing,

22:23SPEAKERhow it's thinking through that.

22:25SPEAKERAnd then I'm capture video and oftentimes I'll get video,

22:28SPEAKERI'll use high speed recording to get move sets

22:31SPEAKERor things where I know there's some complicated

22:33SPEAKERmovement and behavior.

22:35SPEAKERI'll record all that so I can just look at it

22:36SPEAKERand make sure that the weirdness of the machine

22:39SPEAKERand what it's trying to do with the game

22:40SPEAKERis being replicated by the stuff we're recreating as well.

22:42SPEAKERSo you'll do things like with Street Fighter,

22:44SPEAKERwhere you know, when you press the button,

22:46SPEAKERyou know that delay to screen, it has to be factored in.

22:49SPEAKERAlso like what happens when it gets to screen,

22:52SPEAKERwhat's on screen when that button's released

22:53SPEAKERand all these sorts of things.

22:54SPEAKERYou have to really look at all this video

22:56SPEAKERand try to make sure that everything is being replicated

22:58SPEAKERexactly like that.

22:59SPEAKERAnd that the color and all the stuff that's strung up

23:01SPEAKERon the screen is also replicated.

23:03SPEAKERAnd then all that stuff aside,

23:06SPEAKERwhen you start building a disassembly.

23:07SPEAKERSo the tools that you use are,

23:10SPEAKERyou get a whole bunch of things.

23:11SPEAKERLike in this case, the game I'm doing it,

23:13SPEAKERthere's a disassembler called DASM.

23:15SPEAKERThat lets you disassemble a family of processors,

23:18SPEAKERof older processors.

23:19SPEAKERAnd in this case, the commerce processor,

23:20SPEAKERwhich is a version of the 6502, 6510, I think.

23:24SPEAKERI'm able to disassemble that then as well.

23:26SPEAKERAnd I get the stuff I'm stepping through.

23:28SPEAKERI can map to that and start taking notes

23:30SPEAKERon that disassembly.

23:32SPEAKERAnd so I'll outline sections that's like,

23:34SPEAKERoh, here's the player in this state.

23:36SPEAKERSo he's standing and here's a jumping state

23:39SPEAKERand here's this.

23:39SPEAKERSo I'll start putting those notes in.

23:41SPEAKERAnd then eventually as I start going through that stuff,

23:43SPEAKERI start to deduce other things that are going on

23:46SPEAKERin the game.

23:46SPEAKERI can figure out, oh, this draws the screen.

23:48SPEAKERThis moves the map pointers to let a screen scroll.

23:52SPEAKERThis is audio routine and this audio routine

23:54SPEAKERcalls all this data.

23:55SPEAKERSo that must be the driver here that then looks

23:57SPEAKERat all this different data that drives the driver.

24:00SPEAKERSo all this stuff starts to come into focus.

24:02SPEAKERAnd then usually what happens is you have some amount

24:05SPEAKERof time upfront, say a majority of the time upfront

24:07SPEAKERis all understanding the stuff.

24:08SPEAKERAnd then it's a really short time before the game

24:10SPEAKERjust starts working on the new target platform

24:13SPEAKERyou're building it on.

24:13SPEAKERSo it's like this really weird miracle happens

24:15SPEAKERwhere for the longest time you're like,

24:17SPEAKERI don't know if this is ever gonna work.

24:18SPEAKERI don't know if it's ever gonna work.

24:19SPEAKERAnd usually you're super frustrated.

24:21SPEAKERYou compile and you check something and suddenly

24:23SPEAKERit's just the whole game's up and running.

24:24SPEAKERAnd you're just looking at it like, oh, okay, there it is.

24:26SPEAKERAnd you're playing it and it's like,

24:27SPEAKERyou don't see it coming, it just happens.

24:29SPEAKER- How did that happen?

24:30SPEAKERHow often do you ever get source code for these old games

24:34SPEAKERthat you're reporting over or not really?

24:37SPEAKER- I'd say 20 to 30% of the time we get source code

24:41SPEAKERand the rest of the time they don't have it,

24:44SPEAKERthe people who own it or whatever.

24:45SPEAKERAnd then out of that, if I say all the games that we work on

24:49SPEAKERwe end up finding the source code ourselves

24:51SPEAKERprobably 60 to 70% of the time.

24:54SPEAKERSo we'll look at who made the game or who worked on it

24:57SPEAKERand we'll just do,

24:58SPEAKERwe call it kind of like digital archeology.

25:00SPEAKERWe go out and try to track down who might have a copy

25:04SPEAKERof the source to some game.

25:05SPEAKERSo for instance, NFL Blitz that I worked on before,

25:09SPEAKERsince then there's been a lot of discussion

25:10SPEAKERand there's been all these interviews where people are like,

25:12SPEAKERthe source got lost because what they did at Midway

25:16SPEAKERwas as soon as that first game came out

25:18SPEAKERthey started working on it again

25:19SPEAKERand they didn't really save a state of the game.

25:22SPEAKERThey just worked on the next year's version on top of it

25:24SPEAKERand they kept doing that stuff.

25:26SPEAKERBut when I made that Game Boy game,

25:27SPEAKERit was right after they made the first NFL Blitz.

25:31SPEAKERSo I went looking through all my stuff

25:33SPEAKERand I found that I have the original NFL Blitz source code.

25:36SPEAKERThat's the original untouched arcade release.

25:38SPEAKERSo I'm like, all right, this belongs in a museum.

25:41SPEAKERSo I make copies of that.

25:42SPEAKERI make sure I get that out to all the appropriate people.

25:45SPEAKERSo Video Game History Foundation or The Strong

25:48SPEAKERor the, I always want to say Video Game History Foundation,

25:51SPEAKERbut it's the Video Game Museum

25:53SPEAKERand History Museum in Frisco, Texas.

25:56SPEAKERThose guys, all these people are really good

25:58SPEAKERto get these things out to.

25:59SPEAKERSo I know that there's multiple locations

26:01SPEAKERthat people can go and find us.

26:02SPEAKER- Do you have any, this might be a touchy subject,

26:05SPEAKERdo you have any clandestine stories

26:06SPEAKERof like squirreling away source code

26:08SPEAKERor like kind of making sure it lives on?

26:11SPEAKER- Yeah, oh, there's plenty of those.

26:14SPEAKERAnd well, there is one, I won't mention names,

26:17SPEAKERbut like when Lucasfilm was moving

26:20SPEAKERfrom the Letterman Building and like Marin

26:22SPEAKERor wherever it was up there to the new building here

26:26SPEAKERin the Presidio, or no, actually I got that wrong,

26:30SPEAKERwhen they were moving before the Letterman,

26:32SPEAKERnot the Letterman Building, before the Firehouse Building,

26:34SPEAKERwherever it was that was there in Marin, that one.

26:36SPEAKERWhen they were there, they were on the ranch

26:38SPEAKERand then they moved to this other building.

26:40SPEAKERIn that transition, the person who was looking over

26:43SPEAKERa lot of the source code went to their,

26:45SPEAKERwent basically to the head of the studio and said,

26:48SPEAKER"What should I do with all this source code?

26:50SPEAKER"If we're gonna move, I wanna make sure it's in one spot."

26:51SPEAKERAnd the guy was like, "We don't need it, just toss it."

26:55SPEAKERAnd so the guy freaked out 'cause like,

26:56SPEAKERhe was the only one that was keeping anything.

26:57SPEAKERHe's like, "I don't wanna toss this stuff."

27:00SPEAKERSo he ended up backing all up onto these CDs

27:03SPEAKERand they told him not to take it,

27:05SPEAKERlike he has to destroy it.

27:07SPEAKERSo he didn't wanna do that.

27:08SPEAKERSo he hid them in like, it had a drop ceiling,

27:10SPEAKERhe hid them in the drop ceiling.

27:14SPEAKERHe's like, "I don't wanna destroy it."

27:16SPEAKERIt's kinda like one of those stories, like old fairytales,

27:18SPEAKERwhere like, kill the baby and then they run into the woods

27:20SPEAKERand like, give the baby to somebody.

27:22SPEAKERIt's like, he kinda did that, like he had to save it.

27:24SPEAKERAnd so he put it up in the ceiling and for years,

27:27SPEAKERso many years, it sat there.

27:29SPEAKERAnd then finally, when Lucasfilm's come around to like,

27:31SPEAKERoh, like we need to,

27:33SPEAKERwho should reissue some of these old games?

27:35SPEAKERWhere do we have source?

27:35SPEAKERAnd they realized they didn't have any of that stuff.

27:38SPEAKEROne way or another, that hidden source managed to stay there

27:42SPEAKERand been discovered and a lot of stuff has been able

27:44SPEAKERto be saved.

27:47SPEAKER- Man, foresight. - Wow.

27:48SPEAKER- Wow, that's an incredible story.

27:51SPEAKERSo like we said, the arcade games are kind of a big reason

27:54SPEAKERwe wanted to bring you on here.

27:56SPEAKERSo I wanted to step back a few years

27:58SPEAKERfrom what we've been talking about to kinda, I don't know,

28:00SPEAKERlet's say the first like 10 years, 10, 15 years,

28:02SPEAKERlike from Pong up through, I don't know,

28:04SPEAKERyou're through Space Invaders, through Donkey Kong,

28:06SPEAKERlike mid eighties, let's say.

28:09SPEAKERI personally like, I know what a computer is,

28:11SPEAKERI know what the guts of it look like

28:13SPEAKERand like what all the parts do.

28:14SPEAKERYou know, it's a generalized machine

28:15SPEAKERthat can do a lot of different things.

28:16SPEAKERAnd like even a game console,

28:18SPEAKEReven though it's a lot more specialized

28:19SPEAKERis still like somewhat familiar to me,

28:22SPEAKERbut the innards of an arcade game from that era

28:25SPEAKERare like practically a black box.

28:27SPEAKERSo I was wondering if you're able to like step us through

28:30SPEAKERlike just sort of what the component parts are

28:32SPEAKERand like how things were stored

28:33SPEAKERand how information moved around in there, you know,

28:36SPEAKERlike what kind of processing was going on,

28:38SPEAKERhow images got to the screen, like all that stuff.

28:40SPEAKER- I can do it on a very high level

28:41SPEAKERbecause even I, like, 'cause I was more of a software guy

28:44SPEAKERtrying to understand how the hardware stuff worked.

28:46SPEAKERAnd now that I've kind of gone through all this stuff

28:48SPEAKERand we've done a lot of emulation of arcade machines

28:51SPEAKERand all that stuff, it's like, I still understand them

28:53SPEAKERfrom an art, from a very like high level

28:56SPEAKERand a software perspective.

28:57SPEAKERWhen you're sticking out of the nitty gritty,

28:58SPEAKERit's amazing that these things even work to me

29:00SPEAKERbecause back in those days,

29:02SPEAKERsome of the very first things, like if you look at Pong,

29:04SPEAKERlike that's a good one.

29:06SPEAKERThat board was designed just discreetly.

29:08SPEAKERThere was no concept of RAM.

29:10SPEAKERThere was no processor per se.

29:12SPEAKERIt was just all these chips used for timing

29:14SPEAKERand to turn things on and off at specific moments

29:17SPEAKERand read input from things to just change,

29:20SPEAKERlike current essentially,

29:22SPEAKERwithout being like RAM or anything else.

29:24SPEAKERSo everything that's on the screen

29:26SPEAKERis because the layout of the board

29:28SPEAKERand the chips chosen and the timing used turned,

29:32SPEAKERbasically created a signal that would then prepare

29:36SPEAKERand then display that image on a black and white television.

29:39SPEAKERAnd so it's really hard to kind of like,

29:41SPEAKERa good way to put it is like,

29:43SPEAKERto understand how the, how display works.

29:44SPEAKERSo old CRT back then, black and white are color.

29:47SPEAKERBasically the beam starts in the upper left

29:49SPEAKERand it's like reading a book.

29:50SPEAKERIt goes across, gets to the end, goes to the next line,

29:54SPEAKERit gets across and does all this.

29:56SPEAKERAnd was it like 60, well, one frame is like, yeah.

30:01SPEAKER- 59.97, yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:02SPEAKER- And it's so fast and so crazy how that's working,

30:06SPEAKERbut it's doing it in precise timing.

30:10SPEAKERSo if you get a chip that matches, say,

30:12SPEAKERthe horizontal line time, and it has a clock tick,

30:15SPEAKERand you say, okay, this clock,

30:18SPEAKERevery so many fractions of like a second,

30:22SPEAKERis always gonna, like that clock's always gonna hit

30:24SPEAKERthe certain spot at the edge of the screen as it goes down.

30:28SPEAKERAnd I'm gonna, like, I know then I can determine

30:30SPEAKERwhen the beam resets to the left and when it starts again.

30:33SPEAKERAnd when it starts, I can then on certain time frequencies,

30:37SPEAKERchange the signal to white or black

30:39SPEAKERor whatever you wanna do to create like a paddle,

30:41SPEAKERa dotted line down the screen or these sorts of things.

30:44SPEAKERAnd so you're just running, you're basically using a clock

30:47SPEAKERto say, turn something on and off specific times.

30:51SPEAKERAnd then if you want to move a paddle,

30:53SPEAKERyou're changing when it's deciding

30:54SPEAKERto turn something on and off,

30:56SPEAKERand it's waiting for that clock tick and it happened.

30:58SPEAKERAnd everything kind of evolved from there.

30:59SPEAKERSo this is before bitmap displays or anything else.

31:02SPEAKERYou're literally just telling the beam

31:04SPEAKERwhat to display at what time.

31:06SPEAKERAnd you just need to know

31:07SPEAKERthat you're at the top of the screen every so often,

31:10SPEAKERso that you know that a vertical sweep has happened

31:13SPEAKERand you're getting ready to do another frame.

31:15SPEAKERAnd that's kind of how the early things work.

31:17SPEAKERAnd I don't know how they even figured out how to do that

31:20SPEAKERor any of that stuff like Al Alcorn and all these guys

31:22SPEAKERwho were pioneers in the space, Nolan,

31:25SPEAKERand of course our friend Ralph Baer who a few years ago,

31:30SPEAKERlike they all figured this thing out.

31:32SPEAKERAnd from there, that's when things started to explode

31:35SPEAKERbecause once they figured that out,

31:37SPEAKERand then microprocessors suddenly came out

31:40SPEAKERand that was much cheaper to deal with

31:41SPEAKER'cause you can have a unified processor with some RAM.

31:44SPEAKERThey started moving all those basic techniques

31:46SPEAKERto a processor.

31:48SPEAKERSo now the processor would have a timer

31:50SPEAKERand it knew when to turn things on and off.

31:51SPEAKERSo the Atari 2600 is very similar to a Pong system.

31:55SPEAKERAnd in fact, was designed to be essentially

31:57SPEAKERlike a more glorified version of a Pong system.

32:01SPEAKERAnd so it's sprites.

32:02SPEAKERSo if you think of it as the Atari 2600,

32:03SPEAKERit's not very different.

32:04SPEAKERIt was designed to have two sprites, so two paddles.

32:08SPEAKERIt has a play field in the background, very low res,

32:10SPEAKERwhich is for you to do lines and dotted lines.

32:13SPEAKERAnd then they had definable sprites,

32:15SPEAKERwhich were meant to be score numbers.

32:17SPEAKERSo you'd have those.

32:18SPEAKERAnd that's all the 2600 was meant to do.

32:19SPEAKERAnd then you could do whatever you want with those.

32:21SPEAKERIt doesn't have an X and Y position for sprites.

32:23SPEAKERIt doesn't have any of that stuff.

32:24SPEAKERSo when you see an Atari game

32:25SPEAKERwith something that's moving horizontally on the screen,

32:28SPEAKERit's doing the same trick that they did for Pong,

32:30SPEAKERbut now in software.

32:31SPEAKERIt's counting cycles and saying, oh, draw it here.

32:34SPEAKERSo there's no X and Y.

32:36SPEAKERYou have to create that as some weird construct on your own

32:39SPEAKERand then wait and time things to have it display.

32:41SPEAKERSo the fact that they got anything to show up on a 2600

32:44SPEAKERis a miracle, let alone some of the stuff we see later

32:48SPEAKERin its life cycle.

32:49SPEAKER- Did this stuff all evolve

32:51SPEAKERfrom like the old oscilloscope games,

32:53SPEAKERlike the games that were basically,

32:54SPEAKER'cause the oscilloscopes you have basically what,

32:56SPEAKERlike two inputs or something

32:57SPEAKERand then it draws lines on a screen.

32:59SPEAKERIt seems like this is like a natural progression from that.

33:02SPEAKER- I mean, it kind of is.

33:04SPEAKER'Cause I think what was happening,

33:06SPEAKERif you look back on like say PDP computers

33:09SPEAKERand those early like computers that'd be over at like MIT

33:13SPEAKERand stuff, they had vector displays

33:14SPEAKERthat were basically oscilloscopes.

33:16SPEAKERSo space war and all these things were all developed on that.

33:19SPEAKERI think a lot of people learned, especially those early,

33:21SPEAKERthe early designers learn on those machines

33:24SPEAKERand then came to these new platforms,

33:27SPEAKERbut they brought with them a lot of principles

33:28SPEAKERand design on hardware as well as software from that era.

33:31SPEAKERSo you'll get people like Don Daglow,

33:33SPEAKERwho did Utopia for Intellivision

33:34SPEAKERand all these other great games later.

33:36SPEAKERAnd you look at like,

33:38SPEAKERwe look at space war and its evolution

33:39SPEAKERwhen no one created computer space and all that stuff

33:42SPEAKERfor the arcade, all those things,

33:45SPEAKERtheir life started back then on those kinds of systems

33:47SPEAKERand then evolved these newer platforms,

33:49SPEAKERbut they kept a lot of the logic process

33:51SPEAKERand a lot of the approach the same.

33:53SPEAKER- So did you talk about like this state

33:56SPEAKERin arcade development of kind of,

33:57SPEAKERit sounds like reinventing the wheel

33:58SPEAKERfrom game to game over and over.

34:01SPEAKERI think about like the later years of arcade development

34:03SPEAKERis when you finally started to hear

34:06SPEAKERnamed common hardware platforms,

34:07SPEAKERlike your System 11 and your Model 2 and that kind of thing.

34:11SPEAKERBut was it all through the 80s that the state persisted

34:14SPEAKERof just kind of people were just cobbling together

34:16SPEAKERthe parts that they needed on a per game basis?

34:19SPEAKEROr were you seeing more common hardware platforms emerge

34:22SPEAKEReven then?

34:24SPEAKER- More common hardware platforms start to emerge

34:26SPEAKERbecause eventually what would happen is

34:28SPEAKERpeople started to realize that you could,

34:31SPEAKERit's like riding a bike.

34:32SPEAKEROnce you started getting good at it,

34:33SPEAKERyou didn't want to just suddenly like then learn

34:34SPEAKERhow to ride a unicycle or whatever.

34:36SPEAKERIt's like, if you're good at it,

34:37SPEAKERyou can get better and better at it.

34:38SPEAKERAnd so Williams, they did a great job.

34:41SPEAKERThey had the MCR 1, 2, and I think MCR 3 platforms.

34:44SPEAKERSo it went from like Wizard of War

34:46SPEAKERto like Robotron type stuff to like Journey and Tron

34:51SPEAKERand all these things were all evolutions

34:53SPEAKERof a certain kind of platform.

34:54SPEAKERAnd so every manufacturer started to coalesce

34:57SPEAKERinto their own kind of platform.

34:58SPEAKERThey would evolve it a little bit here and there,

35:00SPEAKERbut it was one of these things

35:01SPEAKERwhere it made it cheaper for them to one, develop

35:05SPEAKERand release software and hardware for new arcade cabinets.

35:09SPEAKERBut also they started to learn that not every game was a hit.

35:11SPEAKERSo they would put something out there,

35:13SPEAKERlike look at radar scope from Nintendo.

35:15SPEAKERThey put this shooter out there that Miyamoto, I think,

35:17SPEAKERworked on, or at least was periphery to.

35:20SPEAKERGoes out there, bombs horribly.

35:22SPEAKERThey use the same platform to create Donkey Kong

35:24SPEAKERafter that as a result of this game being so poor.

35:27SPEAKERAnd they were able to just swap that board out.

35:29SPEAKERSo they were able to tell operators like,

35:30SPEAKER"Hey, I know that game sucks, sorry, but look at this one."

35:33SPEAKERAnd all you have to do is pay this little price

35:34SPEAKERto switch it out and they could still make a profit

35:36SPEAKERbecause they're making money on the board,

35:38SPEAKERbut they didn't have to ship this heavy cabinet

35:40SPEAKERand all this stuff.

35:40SPEAKERSo really what happened is the ability to swap games

35:43SPEAKERinto these cabinets then would eventually lead

35:46SPEAKERto like the JAMA standard and all these people

35:48SPEAKERputting into the same interface for the visuals

35:50SPEAKERand the sound, and then the boards themselves

35:52SPEAKERhaving a lot of similar interface by manufacturer.

35:55SPEAKER- Do you have any sense of if a lot of arcade operators

35:57SPEAKERwere doing those board swaps themselves back then,

35:59SPEAKERor was that something that like the game makers

36:01SPEAKERwould need to send a technician out to do?

36:03SPEAKERHow complicated was that?

36:04SPEAKER- So there was a whole ecosystem.

36:06SPEAKERYou had the arcade owners, then you had operators

36:09SPEAKERand distributors who were people who would be

36:10SPEAKERthe middle people to say an arcade manufacturer.

36:13SPEAKERSo those middle people ended up being the ones

36:15SPEAKERthat would go in there and do a lot of these swaps.

36:17SPEAKERThey would mark up all their stuff

36:18SPEAKERso the chain was really good.

36:20SPEAKERIt was really healthy.

36:21SPEAKERPublisher or creators would sell the distributors

36:24SPEAKERwho would then sell to arcade or lease and rent arcades

36:28SPEAKERand that sort of thing.

36:29SPEAKERSo it was a really healthy time in the '80s

36:31SPEAKERand early '90s for arcade machines.

36:34SPEAKER- So I think we kind of wanted to ask you

36:36SPEAKERto also put on your arcade machine owner hat

36:40SPEAKERa little bit here as someone, again,

36:41SPEAKERwho has a Street Fighter II and a Namco machine

36:44SPEAKERsitting right behind him.

36:47SPEAKER'Cause people are into arcade machine collecting these days.

36:51SPEAKERThey are making their way into more and more people's homes.

36:55SPEAKERI guess our first question is just like,

36:57SPEAKERwhat are the practical realities of owning a machine or two

36:59SPEAKERat this point in terms of parts breaking down,

37:01SPEAKERlike maintenance, is there anything you need to worry about

37:03SPEAKERmaintaining over time?

37:05SPEAKERIs there anything you need to worry about hurting yourself on

37:07SPEAKERif you're tinkering around in there?

37:08SPEAKERWhat are the do's and don'ts?

37:11SPEAKER- Well, the number one most dangerous element

37:13SPEAKERof any classic arcade machine is the monitor.

37:14SPEAKERIf it's an old CRT.

37:17SPEAKERI've known a lot of people who've shocked themselves

37:19SPEAKERreally badly on, there's a section in the back

37:22SPEAKERof the monitor where a lot of the high voltage

37:24SPEAKERemanates from and it's under the suction cup

37:26SPEAKERthat's on the tube.

37:27SPEAKERIf you lift that up or try to touch anything underneath that,

37:30SPEAKERthere's a good chance you could die.

37:31SPEAKERSo don't do that.

37:32SPEAKERAnd that's also the part of the machine

37:35SPEAKERthat breaks down the most.

37:37SPEAKEREverything else is easy to maintain.

37:39SPEAKEREven the motherboard, you can get that all fixed.

37:41SPEAKERReally, these things are so simple

37:42SPEAKERand a Google search can get you figuring out

37:45SPEAKERhow to take care of the rest of the machine,

37:46SPEAKERbut the monitor is the hardest part.

37:48SPEAKERYou can learn how to replace the capacitors

37:50SPEAKERon a monitor and do all that stuff yourself,

37:51SPEAKERbut the reality is, and the hard cruel reality is,

37:54SPEAKERCRTs are disappearing rapidly

37:57SPEAKERand resuscitating them over and over again

37:59SPEAKERis not gonna be, they can't last forever

38:02SPEAKERand nobody manufactures them anymore.

38:04SPEAKERSo at the end of the day, these machines

38:06SPEAKERare slowly losing what made them so special.

38:09SPEAKERAnd what I mean by that is CRTs,

38:11SPEAKERthe way they display the screen, how bright they are,

38:14SPEAKERthe way the color on the screen gets merged together

38:16SPEAKERwas all taken into account

38:18SPEAKERwhen they were making these games.

38:19SPEAKERSo when you switch those monitors out

38:21SPEAKERto what most people do and they get like an LED

38:22SPEAKERor LCD monitor and put that in,

38:26SPEAKERany sort of flat screen or whatever,

38:27SPEAKERthe problem is those are too clear

38:29SPEAKERand they don't recreate the artistic intent

38:34SPEAKERof the original game.

38:35SPEAKERSo when you take something like, let's say Altered Beast

38:37SPEAKERand you put it on an LCD or LED monitor

38:39SPEAKERand you put it in an arcade cabinet,

38:41SPEAKERyou see the pixels really rich and everything like that,

38:43SPEAKERbut the artists when they were designing that game

38:45SPEAKERdid not want you to see the pixels.

38:46SPEAKERThey chose colors and put them next to each other

38:49SPEAKERin certain combinations to allow for the CRT

38:51SPEAKERto bleed that over and give you the impression

38:54SPEAKERthat there was more color than the hardware could output.

38:57SPEAKERAnd so when you put those screens in,

38:58SPEAKERyou lose that quality

39:01SPEAKERand actually you lose the entire artistic intent

39:03SPEAKERof the person who created the artwork for that game

39:05SPEAKERby putting it on a device that wasn't intended for it.

39:07SPEAKERBut unfortunately, that's stuff we're gonna have to deal with.

39:10SPEAKERSo when you're getting an arcade cabinet,

39:12SPEAKERjust know that the CRT's lifespan

39:14SPEAKERis getting shorter and shorter

39:15SPEAKERand you can get it repaired by people.

39:16SPEAKERThere's people everywhere that can repair these,

39:19SPEAKERbut ultimately that's the thing that's probably gonna go.

39:21SPEAKERSo your next best option are these LED

39:23SPEAKERand LCD type monitors.

39:24SPEAKERAnd there's people who are actively working right now

39:26SPEAKERto recreate what happens on a CRT

39:29SPEAKERthrough a hardware solution that can go between the board

39:33SPEAKERand these new monitors, these HD displays.

39:37SPEAKERAnd what that will do is try to mathematically reproduce

39:41SPEAKERwhat happens on a CRT and various CRTs

39:44SPEAKERand then give you that input

39:45SPEAKERor give you that output to your screen.

39:47SPEAKERIt does introduce latency

39:48SPEAKERand that's why these things aren't really available now

39:50SPEAKERis because people are trying to figure out how to do this

39:52SPEAKERin a way that doesn't introduce too much latency

39:53SPEAKERbecause these machines and all these games

39:55SPEAKERwere built to have near zero latency in their play.

39:58SPEAKERSo if you're trying to play Robotron and it has latency,

40:01SPEAKERthat game sucks.

40:02SPEAKERYou have to have it with almost no latency.

40:05SPEAKERAnd most games back then, that's how they are.

40:07SPEAKERSo it's a really hard problem to solve

40:09SPEAKERand people are actively working on it,

40:10SPEAKERbut we haven't found a solution yet.

40:13SPEAKEREverything else though, you can find.

40:15SPEAKER- Okay.

40:16SPEAKERDo you think we'll get there with that visual effect?

40:18SPEAKERLike, do you think, you know,

40:19SPEAKERobviously like latency issues

40:20SPEAKERand other technical challenges aside,

40:21SPEAKERdo you think it is achievable

40:23SPEAKERto perfectly replicate that look

40:25SPEAKERonce I don't know when the CRT apocalypse is gonna happen,

40:28SPEAKERbut once we're at that point,

40:29SPEAKERdo you think we'll be able to actually still recapture that

40:31SPEAKERthrough these other things?

40:32SPEAKER- There are so many passionate people

40:33SPEAKERworking on this problem right now

40:34SPEAKERthat I'm sure we're gonna get there.

40:36SPEAKERAnd I've seen some incredible demonstrations.

40:38SPEAKERI've seen things on net hardware, for instance,

40:41SPEAKERthat simulate a CRT and does it really fast,

40:45SPEAKERthat it tricks your mind to think

40:48SPEAKERthat that's what it's gonna be.

40:48SPEAKERThere's still latency.

40:50SPEAKERSo I think we're really close to having it solved.

40:52SPEAKERAnd even for emulation,

40:54SPEAKERif you're gonna do emulation right now,

40:57SPEAKERthat's moving ahead so fast

40:59SPEAKERthat we'll get to that point to where

41:01SPEAKERyou won't have input or processing latency.

41:03SPEAKERWe have stuff going on in emulation right now

41:05SPEAKERwhere we predict forward, we call it.

41:07SPEAKERAnd so what you're doing is every possible combination

41:09SPEAKERthe player could be thinking about doing

41:11SPEAKERin the next few frames,

41:13SPEAKERit tries to emulate all those things.

41:15SPEAKERSo by the time it gets input,

41:16SPEAKERit knows what to display

41:17SPEAKERwithout having to process it post-input.

41:20SPEAKERSo it's able to just fetch and send stuff over

41:21SPEAKERso that it tries to create the sense of zero latency.

41:24SPEAKER- Because the possibilities based on some of the old games

41:26SPEAKERis relatively straightforward, right?

41:28SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, it's an eight-way joystick

41:30SPEAKERand it's really just like,

41:31SPEAKERit has an up and a down on and like a button.

41:33SPEAKERSo you can predict a lot of things forward,

41:35SPEAKERwhereas analog games, you don't know the precision

41:38SPEAKERand all that kind of stuff.

41:39SPEAKERSo analog controlled games.

41:40SPEAKERSo those older games we're getting really far with,

41:43SPEAKERbut it's going to be later when we do emulation

41:45SPEAKERin the future that it won't be so bad

41:48SPEAKERbecause they were designed for digital displays.

41:51SPEAKER- Here's another one of those tangents.

41:53SPEAKERI'll try to restrain myself,

41:54SPEAKERbut since you mentioned next-gen hardware,

41:56SPEAKERI mean, is there anything on the forthcoming consoles

41:58SPEAKERor also in the PC space,

42:00SPEAKERjust the amount of like raw compute that's out there

42:03SPEAKERand on the way that specifically for you

42:06SPEAKERas someone who spends a lot of time porting and recreating

42:09SPEAKERand remaking old games and kind of resurrecting them

42:11SPEAKERand breathing new life into them,

42:12SPEAKERlike anything in that space on this hardware

42:15SPEAKERthat excites you in that specific capacity?

42:18SPEAKER- Oh yeah, I really can't say things in detail,

42:21SPEAKERbut essentially the graphics processing

42:23SPEAKERof these two consoles coming now,

42:26SPEAKERplus some of the stuff coming up in the future

42:28SPEAKERare gonna lend themselves well

42:30SPEAKERto trying to solve this kind of display recreation issue,

42:34SPEAKERespecially since we can have higher resolution

42:35SPEAKERto do a lot of that like sub pixel work

42:39SPEAKERthat we need to do to make it look

42:41SPEAKERlike it's one of those older machines,

42:43SPEAKERand HDR and all stuff with higher frequency processing

42:47SPEAKERis gonna really go a long way.

42:48SPEAKERSo I think we're gonna see a lot of that getting solved

42:51SPEAKERon next-gen platforms to a certain degree.

42:53SPEAKERAt least it's gonna look beautiful.

42:54SPEAKERThings like vector displays,

42:55SPEAKERyou know how they have that super crisp look

42:57SPEAKERand they're very bright.

42:58SPEAKERWe can get there almost with next generation displays

43:01SPEAKERand it looks like it's a vector display.

43:03SPEAKER- I was just gonna say too,

43:04SPEAKERso to recreate a hand-built arcade machine from 1981,

43:09SPEAKERwe need a 12 teraflop computer

43:12SPEAKERand a 4K HDR display that can refresh at 120 Hertz?

43:17SPEAKERIs that seems accurate?

43:18SPEAKER- No, you're wrong, it's an 8K display.

43:20SPEAKER- Oh, sorry, my bad, 8K, yeah.

43:22SPEAKERAnd it needs to be vertical probably too,

43:23SPEAKERportrait 8K display.

43:24SPEAKER- You gotta be able to take that thing.

43:26SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

43:29SPEAKERHonestly, that's what you kind of need

43:31SPEAKERto recreate the visuals as they were intended to look.

43:34SPEAKEREverything up until then is too low res

43:36SPEAKERor it's not powerful enough to kind of get us there.

43:38SPEAKERIt's so weird how this works, but that's the truth.

43:40SPEAKERLike people always bring up the waterfalls in Sonic on CRT,

43:43SPEAKERso they look like translucent water coming down on a CRT.

43:47SPEAKERWhen you play it on an HD display,

43:49SPEAKERit just looks like a bunch of pixel lines.

43:51SPEAKERThat's just an artifact that we're not recreating

43:53SPEAKERon modern hardware.

43:55SPEAKER- Well, you need a massive amount of overhead

43:57SPEAKERto recreate that stuff.

43:59SPEAKERLike with Beast Nest and what's the cycle accurate version

44:03SPEAKERof Beast Nest?

44:04SPEAKERYou know what I'm talking about.

44:05SPEAKER- Oh, yeah.

44:06SPEAKER- Like the amount of horsepower that thing needs

44:08SPEAKERto actually properly recreate Super Nintendo games

44:10SPEAKERis immense, right?

44:11SPEAKERLike it's like orders of magnitude.

44:13SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause every other emulator pretty much

44:15SPEAKERhas to trick its way through that.

44:16SPEAKERWhereas the cycle accurate ones require a lot of processing

44:19SPEAKERand also the display requires a lot of processing.

44:21SPEAKERLike NTSC, somebody always had a joke.

44:25SPEAKERI've heard this joke so many times,

44:26SPEAKERbut NTSC stands for not the same color twice

44:29SPEAKERor something like that.

44:30SPEAKERLike, so it's like the display was so erratic

44:34SPEAKERand so error prone and just so noisy

44:37SPEAKERthat like there is no one way to simulate it,

44:39SPEAKERbut there is a lot of dials you need to create

44:41SPEAKERto make it like match what the intent was

44:43SPEAKERwhen something left a factory.

44:45SPEAKERSo like you, we actually, for Mega Man, we had to do this.

44:48SPEAKERWe had to, when we did the Mega Man Legacy Collection,

44:51SPEAKERwe made Mega Man the proper blue he's supposed to be.

44:53SPEAKERHe hasn't been the proper blue, it's the 80s.

44:55SPEAKERAnd so we actually figured out what monitor

44:58SPEAKERhe was developed on, everything like that.

44:59SPEAKERWe got everything tuned to where it was supposed to be.

45:02SPEAKERWe took the color reading off of a monitor

45:04SPEAKERthat was a replica of what it was.

45:05SPEAKERAnd then we did Mega Man's blue

45:07SPEAKERto be authentic Mega Man blue.

45:08SPEAKERSo since Mega Man Legacy Collection and forward,

45:10SPEAKERhe's now the proper blue.

45:12SPEAKER- Wow, that's the kind of attention to detail

45:14SPEAKERthat's gotten you where you are today.

45:16SPEAKER- Try.

45:18SPEAKER- Do you, I mean, this is very subjective,

45:20SPEAKERbut do you like things better the way they are now?

45:23SPEAKERLike everything is very digital and rigid

45:25SPEAKERand regimented and things work the way they're supposed to.

45:28SPEAKERAnd pixels are pixels or do you miss that era

45:32SPEAKERwhere displays were analog and everything was kind of messy

45:34SPEAKERand you had to worry about straight up electrons

45:38SPEAKERand stuff like that?

45:39SPEAKERDo you have a preference there in terms of development?

45:41SPEAKER- Well, you know, I love modern.

45:42SPEAKERModern stuff is just so much easier.

45:43SPEAKERIt's just a lot easier.

45:45SPEAKERBut it's like, the analogy of it being classic cars.

45:50SPEAKERYou can lift the hood and tweak the engine

45:53SPEAKERand do all these mods on a car.

45:55SPEAKERThose old days for computers and for old hardware

45:57SPEAKERis the same way.

45:58SPEAKERYou could get in there and you could,

46:00SPEAKERyou didn't have to worry about hundreds of processes

46:03SPEAKERor hundreds of elements of processing being orchestrated

46:05SPEAKERover all these ways of communicating and all this stuff.

46:08SPEAKERYou could get into an old machine

46:10SPEAKERand follow everything it's doing

46:12SPEAKERand literally get in there and change anything modded

46:15SPEAKERto understand it.

46:16SPEAKERYou could understand an old home computer

46:18SPEAKERin a matter of hours if you know what you're doing.

46:20SPEAKERThat is amazing.

46:21SPEAKERSo it's like today when I'm sitting there disassembling

46:23SPEAKERa game, I'm looking through it, I'm like this.

46:26SPEAKERI'm essentially disassembling something

46:27SPEAKERthat's really small compared to modern terms.

46:29SPEAKERSo I can do it pretty quickly,

46:31SPEAKERbut I'm having much more fun with that

46:32SPEAKERbecause I can see the whole thing at once.

46:35SPEAKERIt's like playing an old game, say Joust, right?

46:38SPEAKERVersus imagine Joust that was like 50 screens wide

46:41SPEAKERby 50 screens tall and you had to scroll around

46:42SPEAKERto find enemies.

46:44SPEAKERI like the Joust on one screen seeing everything

46:46SPEAKERand it's so much easier to do than say modern games.

46:49SPEAKERSo I prefer that.

46:50SPEAKERAnd I like making games that are like older games too.

46:52SPEAKERSo a lot of the modern stuff I like to work on,

46:54SPEAKERwe do a lot of like higher end games for next gen consoles

46:57SPEAKERand all that sort of stuff.

46:58SPEAKERWe're not just all classic stuff,

46:59SPEAKERbut I really enjoy doing stuff that's more classic.

47:01SPEAKERI'm working on a game for the new television

47:03SPEAKERcalled Night Stalker.

47:04SPEAKERIt's just such a breath of fresh air to work on something

47:06SPEAKERthat's much smaller, much smaller systems

47:08SPEAKERand the mechanics are more visceral.

47:10SPEAKERLike what you do affects everything on screen

47:12SPEAKERand everything you need to know is all on screen

47:14SPEAKERat the same time.

47:14SPEAKERThat's something that's really cool about all that.

47:17SPEAKER- So I think we just wanna loop back around

47:18SPEAKERto arcade machines for, we took some questions

47:21SPEAKERfrom our audience, so some people hit us up

47:23SPEAKERabout some stuff before we move on here.

47:26SPEAKERI was glad you mentioned vector monitors earlier.

47:28SPEAKERIs that category pretty much in the same kind

47:31SPEAKERof dire situation as traditional CRTs in terms of,

47:35SPEAKERyou know, they're not being made anymore.

47:36SPEAKERLike they're all gonna go away at some point or?

47:38SPEAKER- Yeah, vector games unfortunately are in a worse state.

47:42SPEAKERGetting a vector monitor or converting a monitor

47:44SPEAKERover to something that could display vector

47:46SPEAKERis really hard to do now.

47:49SPEAKERAnd in fact, like we might as well consider them dead.

47:51SPEAKERBut yeah, vector's in a really bad spot.

47:53SPEAKERThere are people who have figured out

47:55SPEAKERhow to convert vector games to raster displays,

47:58SPEAKERbut that's not quite as good yet.

47:59SPEAKERAnd people are, again, like we're trying to figure out

48:00SPEAKERhow to make that look good.

48:02SPEAKERBut other people are converting regular displays

48:04SPEAKERto vector displays.

48:06SPEAKER- Oh wow.

48:06SPEAKER- And so what remains of CRTs, some people are figuring out

48:09SPEAKERhow to convert those to proper vector XY.

48:11SPEAKER- Can you explain just a high level what the differences

48:14SPEAKERbetween a vector and a raster CRT would have been

48:16SPEAKERor display would have been?

48:18SPEAKER- Yeah, so earlier on when I say like the raster displays,

48:21SPEAKERlike a book where it goes left hand corner

48:23SPEAKERand sweeps the screen and goes down,

48:24SPEAKERa vector, you just tell the beam where to go.

48:26SPEAKERSo you have so many moves you can make,

48:29SPEAKERlike so many moves per round, so to say,

48:32SPEAKERand you tell the beam to go do that.

48:34SPEAKERAnd so it'll be on or off and you tell it where to go.

48:37SPEAKERSo you can give it an X and Y coordinate.

48:38SPEAKERUsually there's devices that I tell to do that,

48:41SPEAKERbut they're not very different from say a laser

48:44SPEAKERor like a show laser.

48:45SPEAKERSo we see those show lasers

48:46SPEAKERwhere they have an animated horse running

48:48SPEAKERand all that kind of stuff.

48:49SPEAKERIt's using the same kind of process

48:51SPEAKERthat a vector monitor does.

48:52SPEAKERYou steer the beam, you tell it where to go

48:54SPEAKERand what color it should be or if it's on or off.

48:59SPEAKER- So what we need to do is convert show lasers

49:02SPEAKERand get a phosphor screen that'll glow a little bit

49:05SPEAKERand then play our vector games,

49:06SPEAKERpaint it on the side of a building outside E3 next year

49:08SPEAKERand we're good to go, right?

49:10SPEAKER- Good to go, right?

49:11SPEAKER- It's so simple. - Oh, that's exactly it.

49:12SPEAKERYou know, I played "Star Wars" the arcade game

49:14SPEAKERon the side of a building

49:15SPEAKERthat was hooked up to the show laser.

49:16SPEAKER- Wow. - It's pretty amazing.

49:18SPEAKER- Oh, that sounds so good.

49:20SPEAKERI have possibly the most under the hood question

49:22SPEAKERI could possibly ask about a CRT right now,

49:24SPEAKERbut how does the electron gun aim itself?

49:26SPEAKERLike what is the mechanism that it actually uses

49:28SPEAKERto direct the beam?

49:29SPEAKERLike I'm sure there are no moving parts in there,

49:31SPEAKERbut is it just kind of like a wide emitter

49:33SPEAKERthat it's able to sort of specify angles out of?

49:36SPEAKER- Yeah, so this is where there's some similarities

49:38SPEAKERand it's a little bit out of my realm of expertise a bit,

49:41SPEAKERbut like there's similarities to what,

49:43SPEAKERthat's why you can convert a CRT to a vector display.

49:46SPEAKERThere's where the CRT was designed to display images

49:51SPEAKERin a very specific way over the air.

49:54SPEAKERAnd so data's being received in a certain format

49:57SPEAKERthat when it's just sent to the display,

49:59SPEAKERit just knows to put it in that order

50:01SPEAKERand everything just falls into place.

50:03SPEAKERBut you can unwind that

50:05SPEAKERand you can change its timings and everything else.

50:07SPEAKERAnd so at the end of the day,

50:08SPEAKERthe beam is just like the vector monitor,

50:10SPEAKERbut it's just being told by the hardware

50:11SPEAKERthat's hooked up to a CRT to do things a specific way.

50:14SPEAKERNow there's a lot more to it than that's beyond my knowledge,

50:18SPEAKERbut the monitor itself, the tube,

50:22SPEAKERand some of the hardware that's there, it's the same.

50:25SPEAKERAnd it's just how it's being driven

50:26SPEAKERby the stuff that's attached to it.

50:28SPEAKER- I think maybe the most insane thing about all this to me

50:30SPEAKERis that we're talking about like what,

50:32SPEAKERpractically a hundred year old technology at this point?

50:35SPEAKER- Pretty much.

50:37SPEAKER- So a couple more, let's see, arcade questions here.

50:42SPEAKERLike just any, if people are out there looking at machines,

50:45SPEAKERlike they want to buy their first arcade machine

50:46SPEAKERor get into that, plunge down that rabbit hole.

50:49SPEAKERLike anything in particular to look for out there,

50:52SPEAKERif you're shopping around, if you're looking at machines,

50:54SPEAKERif you want to inspect one that you're thinking about,

50:57SPEAKERtaking ownership of.

50:58SPEAKER- I mean, the biggest thing is if it turns on,

51:00SPEAKERthat's the biggest thing.

51:01SPEAKERIf it comes on, you can hear it, good.

51:04SPEAKERMost of the work's already done.

51:06SPEAKERBut then make sure you're playing with the volume knob,

51:09SPEAKERlistening for the sounds and stuff

51:10SPEAKERyou recognize from the game.

51:11SPEAKER'Cause a lot of these games will sometimes have bad audio

51:14SPEAKERor chips that are messed up.

51:15SPEAKERThere's a self-test that most games have.

51:18SPEAKERSo before you go, Google the manual for it

51:20SPEAKERand how to trigger the self-test.

51:21SPEAKERSo you can go and trigger that self-test

51:23SPEAKERand have it just go through its own diagnostic.

51:26SPEAKERAnd that will tell you pretty much everything

51:28SPEAKERyou need to know as well.

51:29SPEAKERAnd then the screen,

51:30SPEAKERmake sure that the convergence on the screen is pretty nice.

51:32SPEAKERSo if you see a white line, usually in that self-test,

51:35SPEAKERyou'll see, they'll put a white grid up.

51:38SPEAKERAnd convergence, the RGB, the red, green and blue beams,

51:41SPEAKERthey're aligned to be in exactly the same spot

51:43SPEAKERat each position that the beam comes across.

51:45SPEAKERBut if they're not, they're deconverging.

51:48SPEAKERSo you'll see blue to the left of white or to the right.

51:51SPEAKERYou'll see green off or whatever.

51:53SPEAKERAnd that's more problematic to fix.

51:55SPEAKERYou can get it fixed, but that's more to align

51:58SPEAKERand calibrate on a monitor if you're not used to it.

52:00SPEAKERSo just look for those things.

52:01SPEAKERI wouldn't say don't get a game for any of those reasons,

52:03SPEAKERespecially if it's a rare one you've been looking for,

52:05SPEAKERbecause most stuff is fixable on a game.

52:07SPEAKERBut just be aware of that stuff when you're doing it,

52:09SPEAKER'cause you can use that to haggle your price down

52:11SPEAKERand get what you feel is probably more fair

52:13SPEAKERfor that kind of game.

52:14SPEAKERAnd Craigslist, honestly, is one of the best places to look,

52:16SPEAKERbecause there's usually a lot of people

52:18SPEAKERwho don't know what to do with these machines.

52:19SPEAKERAnd usually when it's posted,

52:20SPEAKERit's because somebody's exhausted

52:21SPEAKERabout lugging this thing around

52:22SPEAKERand maybe in the middle of a move.

52:24SPEAKERWhatever, they don't wanna deal with it.

52:26SPEAKERSo they're giving it for a really good price

52:27SPEAKERor to a good home, you'll see.

52:29SPEAKER- The Sunday afternoon California Extreme discount

52:32SPEAKERis what I like to think of that one as.

52:34SPEAKER- Oh yeah, that's the best.

52:37SPEAKER- Do you worry about phosphor burning and stuff like that?

52:40SPEAKERI mean, I assume if you're playing,

52:41SPEAKERif you're gonna be playing Donkey Kong

52:42SPEAKERon a Donkey Kong cabinet and Donkey Kong's burned into it,

52:45SPEAKERit's probably not that big a deal, right?

52:46SPEAKER- Yeah, at this point, beggars can't be choosers.

52:48SPEAKERI have a bunch of monitors

52:49SPEAKERthat have Ms. Pac-Man burned into it.

52:51SPEAKERThat's the one that you usually find.

52:53SPEAKERAnd in a dark room with an arcade monitor on,

52:56SPEAKERyou don't see that anyway.

52:58SPEAKERIt's only when the lights are on and the machine's off

53:00SPEAKERthat you really notice it.

53:01SPEAKERSo if you're really picky and that sort of thing,

53:04SPEAKERspend the extra money and get the CRT you want.

53:06SPEAKERBut if it looks good in the dark, like all of us,

53:10SPEAKERthen go for it.

53:11SPEAKER(laughing)

53:13SPEAKER- Cool.

53:14SPEAKERSo before we wrap up here,

53:15SPEAKERI think we wanted to kind of move things

53:16SPEAKERinto the modern day a little bit in a couple of ways.

53:20SPEAKERLet's start with,

53:22SPEAKERpreservation is a thing that, you know,

53:24SPEAKERpeople who are passionate about the medium

53:26SPEAKERtalk about more and more.

53:27SPEAKERAnd obviously you're heavily involved

53:28SPEAKERin the Video Game History Foundation

53:30SPEAKERand there are a couple other organizations out there.

53:33SPEAKERHow do you feel about where we're at right now?

53:35SPEAKERLike, do you think that we're getting to a point

53:37SPEAKERwhere we're doing a good job of archiving a lot of this stuff

53:40SPEAKERand saving it?

53:41SPEAKEROr do you think there's still a lot left to do

53:43SPEAKERto really cover our bases?

53:45SPEAKER- If there was a chart that would say,

53:49SPEAKERyou know what, we're nowhere right now.

53:50SPEAKERWe're below zero at the moment,

53:53SPEAKERbecause even at this day and age,

53:56SPEAKERa game that came out last year,

53:57SPEAKERI've had so many conversations,

53:59SPEAKER'cause we do a lot of port work,

54:00SPEAKERwe do a lot of sequelization

54:02SPEAKERand all that sort of stuff for games.

54:04SPEAKERThat source code goes away too.

54:06SPEAKERAnd it's mind blowing to me that there is no process

54:10SPEAKERwhen a game is completed that should be understood

54:13SPEAKERin every organization to take the source code

54:15SPEAKERand put it somewhere safe.

54:17SPEAKERNow every organization, there's the whole problem

54:19SPEAKERof like they own it and that sort of thing,

54:20SPEAKERbut that's also the problem as to why these things fail

54:24SPEAKERso many times, because they're so worried

54:26SPEAKERabout proprietary information getting out there

54:28SPEAKERthat they'd rather have it go away forever

54:30SPEAKERthan to use it to build on for another product.

54:33SPEAKERAnd so many companies have such rich and wonderful IP,

54:37SPEAKERthat stuff's gone, the original source is gone forever

54:40SPEAKERbecause they decided that they didn't want to spend

54:42SPEAKEReither the time to have somebody archive it properly

54:44SPEAKERor put it in somebody else's hands

54:46SPEAKERbecause they didn't trust that they would keep it safe,

54:49SPEAKERwhich blows my mind.

54:50SPEAKERThere's other reasons too and I think that,

54:51SPEAKERbut like I remember I was working on this port

54:53SPEAKERfor a really popular survival horror game,

54:56SPEAKERI'll just leave it at that,

54:57SPEAKERand we're gonna bring it to a computer.

55:02SPEAKERAnd so we asked for the source and we got it

55:04SPEAKERand they sent us tapes, they were tape backups.

55:07SPEAKERWe're like okay, we'll work with this

55:08SPEAKERand they didn't know what drive they used,

55:09SPEAKERbut we figured it all out.

55:11SPEAKERThen we go through the tape backups and we found out

55:12SPEAKERthat half of the source code was overwritten

55:14SPEAKERwith the current project they're working on there

55:16SPEAKERbecause somebody decided to try to back that up

55:18SPEAKERover the wrong things and then bailed on it.

55:20SPEAKERAnd so only half of the source for this now

55:23SPEAKERconsidered one of the most iconic games ever,

55:27SPEAKERonly half of the source survived and barely usable

55:29SPEAKERand it was the wrong half by the way.

55:30SPEAKERSo it was like all right, that sucks.

55:34SPEAKER- Have you ever gotten source code,

55:36SPEAKERlike straight up hard copy of source code?

55:38SPEAKERHave you ever had the OCR, a bunch of reams of paper

55:40SPEAKERor anything like that?

55:41SPEAKER- Yes, so a few times.

55:44SPEAKERThere were games that were in development,

55:47SPEAKERWilliams, Atari, and those companies back then,

55:51SPEAKERin some ways a lot of those older companies

55:52SPEAKERwere better at archiving than modern companies.

55:54SPEAKERThey would always print hard copies

55:56SPEAKERand they would also send hard copies

55:57SPEAKERto the Library of Congress.

55:59SPEAKERAnd so I think everybody should send source code,

56:03SPEAKERanything hard copy, and then final releases

56:04SPEAKERto the Library of Congress

56:05SPEAKER'cause up until about the late '80s,

56:08SPEAKERNintendo and everybody did that.

56:09SPEAKERSo if you go to the Library of Congress right now,

56:11SPEAKERyou'll find brand new boxed versions

56:13SPEAKERof every single Nintendo game,

56:14SPEAKEReverything that ever came out in the U.S.

56:15SPEAKERare all in the Library of Congress.

56:16SPEAKERThey're in that hillside in the Library of Congress

56:19SPEAKERand it's an amazing facility.

56:21SPEAKERAnd they keep it all perfect.

56:23SPEAKERSaw PC software and everything all over there,

56:24SPEAKERbut it all stopped around the late '80s, like '88.

56:27SPEAKERAnd then everybody stopped doing it

56:28SPEAKER'cause they felt like they didn't need it.

56:29SPEAKERThey're also getting worried about proprietary stuff.

56:32SPEAKERBut we had to go and find some of these things,

56:34SPEAKERwhether it was at the Library of Congress

56:35SPEAKERor just old archives from the Atari days,

56:38SPEAKERand we were able to reassemble games

56:40SPEAKERbased off of the source code printouts.

56:43SPEAKERAnd so we didn't even have to do OCI.

56:45SPEAKERThey're so small that we were just able to just hand them,

56:48SPEAKERand type them all back in.

56:48SPEAKERIt's like the old days with Compute Magazine,

56:50SPEAKERtyping them all back in. - Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, sure.

56:52SPEAKERBack to your roots.

56:53SPEAKERWell, hold on, so how big is,

56:55SPEAKERso if we're talking about an NES or an Atari 2600 game,

56:59SPEAKERhow many lines of code are we talking about

57:01SPEAKERfor something that we all know?

57:03SPEAKERI don't know, Pitfall or something like that?

57:05SPEAKERIt's not, it's gotta be thousands, right?

57:08SPEAKER- You know, it's like half a binder full

57:11SPEAKERwhen you disassemble it, fully tokenized, or maybe a binder.

57:15SPEAKERBut it's, all the instructions are so small

57:17SPEAKERthat it's not like, if you were to put them

57:19SPEAKERin paragraph format, it's not very big.

57:21SPEAKER- Okay, okay.

57:23SPEAKER- Yeah, 'cause you're talking like what,

57:24SPEAKERlike a handful of characters per line, probably, right?

57:26SPEAKER- Yeah, like a common one on an old 8-bit processor

57:28SPEAKERis like load accumulator, which is LDA, comma,

57:30SPEAKERLDA, comma, or 20, or whatever,

57:33SPEAKERwhatever you wanna load it with.

57:35SPEAKER- What's something cool going on in preservation right now

57:39SPEAKERthat is a little more unconventional,

57:41SPEAKERlike either at your foundation

57:42SPEAKERor any of these other organizations?

57:44SPEAKERLike, you know, source code is a big one, obviously.

57:47SPEAKERArchiving not just retail releases, but like beta,

57:50SPEAKERyou know, dumps of like beta versions of games

57:51SPEAKERis pretty big, but I guess to give an example

57:55SPEAKERof the kind of thing I'm talking about,

57:56SPEAKERlike I see Frank Zafaldi will post like,

57:59SPEAKERhe's been getting his hands on like press kits from games

58:02SPEAKERfrom back in the '80s, '90s, you know,

58:03SPEAKERlike the press releases and like press materials.

58:06SPEAKERAnd, you know, as someone who works in the press

58:08SPEAKERand has for years, like that stuff's really fascinating

58:10SPEAKERto me to see like, what was Nintendo PR saying

58:13SPEAKERabout their games to members of the press back in the '80s?

58:16SPEAKERLike, what are some other examples

58:17SPEAKERof like interesting peripheral materials like that

58:20SPEAKERthat are being archived in this effort?

58:22SPEAKER- I mean, that's really, that's kind of it, right?

58:24SPEAKERSo like, Frank has, he's incredible.

58:27SPEAKERAnd like, he runs a foundation in such an incredible way.

58:30SPEAKERAnd like, he learned early on

58:32SPEAKERthat to really understand the game industry,

58:34SPEAKERyou have to see what the game industry wanted people

58:35SPEAKERto know about it.

58:37SPEAKERBut like, in those early days, it was really hard.

58:40SPEAKERThey didn't really have any outlets

58:41SPEAKERto get people to know about it.

58:41SPEAKERSo they tried everything.

58:43SPEAKERAnd so one of his first like kind of big stories

58:45SPEAKERhe put out there to help people wake up to preservation was,

58:48SPEAKEReven Nintendo didn't know when they launched the NES.

58:51SPEAKERThey didn't have a date.

58:53SPEAKER(laughing)

58:54SPEAKERAnd they still don't.

58:55SPEAKERAnd they didn't know when Super Mario came out.

58:57SPEAKERAnd like, it's just been this long going

58:59SPEAKERand ongoing kind of like debate

59:01SPEAKERon trying to figure out when the first game was sold.

59:03SPEAKERThere's been receipts sent to us.

59:05SPEAKER- Yeah, now that you mentioned that,

59:06SPEAKERI've looked that up at some point in the last few years

59:08SPEAKERand like the whole thing did feel really apocryphal

59:10SPEAKERwhen I was reading about it.

59:11SPEAKER'Cause it was like, oh, like they put it on test in New York

59:14SPEAKERand sold a few hundred units then maybe.

59:17SPEAKERAnd you know, like it all seemed very uncertain

59:20SPEAKERin the documentation, so.

59:22SPEAKER- It's really tough to figure that stuff out.

59:24SPEAKERAnd had we had a good record of that stuff, we might know.

59:27SPEAKERSo like he set out to go and gather every periodical.

59:30SPEAKERThere were magazines that were doing coverage of video games

59:33SPEAKERthat weren't video game magazines

59:35SPEAKERand all this sort of stuff.

59:35SPEAKERAnd he's been tracking everything down

59:37SPEAKERand it's painting this incredible picture of stuff.

59:40SPEAKERAnd I can't think of there's something recently

59:44SPEAKERwhere a lot of the conventional wisdom we have,

59:46SPEAKERyou start to realize is really just interpreted history

59:50SPEAKERfrom people's hearsay over and over again

59:52SPEAKERand that sort of thing.

59:53SPEAKERSo when you start seeing stuff that debunks a lot of things,

59:56SPEAKERwhether it's like when the NES launched

59:58SPEAKERor what different games, why they were canceled or whatever,

1:00:03SPEAKERyou start finding the real stuff back in the day,

1:00:05SPEAKERyou start to see a very different version of history

1:00:07SPEAKERthat we're not used to.

1:00:08SPEAKERBecause at the time, if you think about it,

1:00:10SPEAKERthere were very few books that talked about the inside,

1:00:15SPEAKERany inside knowledge of video games,

1:00:16SPEAKERnot until Steve Kent and other people

1:00:19SPEAKERpretty like game over and all that stuff,

1:00:21SPEAKERmany, many years after the fact.

1:00:23SPEAKERBut during that time, there was hardly any insight

1:00:25SPEAKERin what was going on behind the scenes.

1:00:27SPEAKERAnd so when there is, and we would go back to the stuff

1:00:29SPEAKERand you'd actually find those little bits,

1:00:31SPEAKERyou realize that some of these books,

1:00:32SPEAKERlike all the knowledge we have is built on just

1:00:34SPEAKERlike three books that were kind of from that time.

1:00:37SPEAKERAnd those three books, you can really tell

1:00:38SPEAKERthat they kind of just made stuff up and connect the dots.

1:00:40SPEAKER(laughing)

1:00:42SPEAKERSo what Frank's doing is like correcting all that,

1:00:45SPEAKERit's recalibrating a lot of that history.

1:00:46SPEAKERAnd we're finding out things that we never knew existed

1:00:49SPEAKERbefore games, technology companies, all stuff

1:00:52SPEAKERthat's all painting the picture for why people made

1:00:54SPEAKERdecisions and when they did and how all these companies

1:00:57SPEAKERthat we know and love today kind of dodged many bullets

1:01:00SPEAKERto get here and we know where those bullets

1:01:01SPEAKERand bodies are now for all that.

1:01:03SPEAKER- Do you feel like are there a lot of tell alls out there

1:01:05SPEAKERstill waiting to be written?

1:01:06SPEAKERLike, are we gonna see a lot more of that stuff?

1:01:08SPEAKERLike, there's been a little bit here and there.

1:01:09SPEAKER- Oh, there's so many.

1:01:10SPEAKEROh, so many.

1:01:12SPEAKERSo there's the book I wanna write, like the deathbed book,

1:01:15SPEAKERbecause I've been told so many stories.

1:01:18SPEAKERSo many things that would like, I'll read news stories today

1:01:21SPEAKERabout somebody or some company.

1:01:23SPEAKERAnd like, I know, like again, I know where the body buried

1:01:26SPEAKERand I know how it got there.

1:01:28SPEAKERAnd it's just like, it's such an uncomfortable feeling

1:01:30SPEAKERbecause I just want people to know, not out of spite

1:01:32SPEAKERor anything, I just want people to know like,

1:01:34SPEAKERthere's a real weird reason why these people

1:01:35SPEAKERare still around or why this happens

1:01:37SPEAKERor why they're even doing something.

1:01:39SPEAKERAnd like that stuff doesn't get discussed

1:01:41SPEAKERand I can't wait to see when those tell all books

1:01:43SPEAKERstart to finally come around.

1:01:44SPEAKERThere's a certain amount of time I think everybody needs.

1:01:46SPEAKERAnd I thought it would be by now,

1:01:47SPEAKERbut no, there's stuff that like,

1:01:50SPEAKERlet's let their career end first

1:01:51SPEAKERbefore some things are spoken.

1:01:52SPEAKER- Right, right.

1:01:53SPEAKERYeah, we need some equation to describe this,

1:01:55SPEAKERlike retirement plus 10 years or something like that.

1:01:58SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

1:01:59SPEAKER- So let's see here.

1:02:02SPEAKERWhere do you stand on in terms of preservation?

1:02:04SPEAKERLike, I guess the public release of materials.

1:02:08SPEAKERI'm guessing the way you guys have run things,

1:02:10SPEAKERyou lean much more toward democratizing this stuff,

1:02:13SPEAKERbut like you find like super obscure games

1:02:15SPEAKERlike SimCity for the NES or, you know,

1:02:18SPEAKERthings that never saw the light of day.

1:02:19SPEAKERLike, do you feel pretty strongly

1:02:20SPEAKERthat that stuff should always be made like fully public

1:02:22SPEAKERand like available for everybody to enjoy?

1:02:25SPEAKER- This is stuff we continue to debate all the time

1:02:27SPEAKERand there's partnerships we have with all these companies.

1:02:30SPEAKERSo you don't want to blindside anybody

1:02:32SPEAKERwith any sort of like thing that's gonna hurt them

1:02:35SPEAKERor their business or anything like that.

1:02:36SPEAKERSo there's usually just a, like almost per item basis,

1:02:39SPEAKERwe have to do a lot of research

1:02:42SPEAKERand a lot of discussing what the possibilities are

1:02:44SPEAKERand why we're doing it and whether or not

1:02:47SPEAKERit has any impact on people who own

1:02:49SPEAKERany potential rights for the thing.

1:02:51SPEAKERAnd so that's why like myself and others

1:02:53SPEAKERthat are on the board usually get together

1:02:54SPEAKERis 'cause we discuss these kind of topics all the time.

1:02:57SPEAKERAnd more often than not, we want to reach out

1:02:58SPEAKERto these companies and let them know

1:02:59SPEAKERthat this is something we want to do,

1:03:01SPEAKERor if there's any benefit of this stuff,

1:03:03SPEAKERwe want to coordinate with them

1:03:04SPEAKERto make sure they get what they have,

1:03:05SPEAKERthey don't have it anymore and that they get that back

1:03:07SPEAKERand that sort of thing.

1:03:08SPEAKERSo it's just a per game thing we have to decide how to,

1:03:12SPEAKERin many cases, stuff's debunked

1:03:14SPEAKERor, you know, it's no longer around anymore

1:03:16SPEAKERand that sort of stuff.

1:03:17SPEAKERAnd we can kind of get that out there.

1:03:19SPEAKER'Cause like at the end of the day,

1:03:21SPEAKERthe reason it even came into our hands

1:03:22SPEAKERis because somebody saved it.

1:03:24SPEAKERAnd so a lot of this older stuff

1:03:26SPEAKERthat would have been gone forever only exists

1:03:28SPEAKERbecause people were able to get in other people's hands

1:03:30SPEAKERand those copies are out there.

1:03:32SPEAKERLike honestly, the games that get delisted

1:03:34SPEAKERon like the Xbox 360 and all those older machines,

1:03:36SPEAKERthe only reason we even have any copies of those anymore

1:03:39SPEAKERis because people pirated them

1:03:41SPEAKERand nobody else backed them up.

1:03:43SPEAKERSo it's a weird line you have to walk all the time

1:03:46SPEAKERbecause like you don't want to endorse piracy

1:03:48SPEAKERbut at the same time,

1:03:49SPEAKERthat saved a lot of games from obscurity.

1:03:53SPEAKER- Sure.

1:03:55SPEAKERSpeaking of which--

1:03:55SPEAKER- Mr. Crips was proud of me right now.

1:03:57SPEAKERThat old lady would be so proud.

1:03:58SPEAKER(laughing)

1:04:00SPEAKER- Mrs. Crips just wants people to play games.

1:04:02SPEAKERGames are for the people.

1:04:02SPEAKER- That's all she wanted.

1:04:03SPEAKERUltimate Wizard, everybody should play Ultimate Wizard.

1:04:05SPEAKER- That's right.

1:04:06SPEAKER- That's so cool.

1:04:07SPEAKER- Speaking of kind of resurrecting old games,

1:04:09SPEAKERbreathing new life back into old stuff,

1:04:13SPEAKERhow do you feel about,

1:04:13SPEAKERI feel like FPGAs are kind of all anybody's talking about

1:04:17SPEAKERin the playing old games scene at the moment.

1:04:19SPEAKERLike how do you feel about that stuff?

1:04:21SPEAKERDoes it pique your interest or?

1:04:23SPEAKER- Oh, I mean, I have a Mr. FPGA platform

1:04:26SPEAKERimmediately to the right of this screen I'm looking at.

1:04:28SPEAKER- Sure.

1:04:29SPEAKER- And I have a game up there right now that I'm working on.

1:04:31SPEAKERIn fact, I'm using it to work on that project today.

1:04:34SPEAKERBut the analog systems, analog NT, the mega,

1:04:39SPEAKER- Mega SG.

1:04:40SPEAKER- SG and all those like incredible,

1:04:42SPEAKERthe handheld coming up I'm sure is gonna be incredible.

1:04:45SPEAKERBut the Mr, the M-I capital S-T-E-R platform

1:04:49SPEAKERis the open source version of all that.

1:04:52SPEAKERIt's incredible.

1:04:53SPEAKERIt has arcade platforms simulated on that.

1:04:55SPEAKERIt has all your old open computers that matter.

1:04:58SPEAKERAnd every day it seems to be more and more features

1:05:00SPEAKERthat stuff.

1:05:01SPEAKERAnd they add in hardware,

1:05:02SPEAKERsay like the Super FX chip for Super Nintendo.

1:05:05SPEAKERThat's cool that you have that,

1:05:06SPEAKERbut then they put in extra tweaks on there

1:05:08SPEAKERwhere you can overclock it

1:05:09SPEAKERor you can do all these different things with that hardware.

1:05:11SPEAKERAnd then there's a lot of other things you can do

1:05:12SPEAKERto help debug and all that stuff with this.

1:05:14SPEAKERSo to me, FPGA is kind of,

1:05:16SPEAKERif you're into older games or the future

1:05:19SPEAKERof like classic game playing and all that stuff,

1:05:21SPEAKERI think FPGA platforms are the way to go.

1:05:23SPEAKERThey're gonna be the ones that are gonna support

1:05:24SPEAKERthe visual output that we were talking about earlier

1:05:26SPEAKERand all these other extra features.

1:05:28SPEAKERSo if you're gonna play a classic game

1:05:29SPEAKERon modern televisions, that's the way to go.

1:05:34SPEAKER- Given the open source nature of that stuff

1:05:36SPEAKERwith the Mister, do you have any urge

1:05:39SPEAKERto get involved in terms of contributing work

1:05:41SPEAKERor do you know do enough of this stuff

1:05:42SPEAKERas your day job already?

1:05:45SPEAKER- Oh, I would love to.

1:05:46SPEAKERRight now I'm at that point where I felt

1:05:49SPEAKERbefore I learned machine language,

1:05:50SPEAKERI look at it, I'm like, what?

1:05:52SPEAKERHow does this work?

1:05:53SPEAKER'Cause it's very different from software emulation.

1:05:55SPEAKERVery different.

1:05:57SPEAKERBut at the end of the day,

1:05:59SPEAKERa lot of the same process goes into play.

1:06:01SPEAKERSo basically what these things are doing

1:06:02SPEAKERis just, to me, I always like, in my mind,

1:06:04SPEAKERI think of them as like the liquid metal terminator.

1:06:07SPEAKERYou say like, I want you to be a C64

1:06:10SPEAKERand it just like morphs into a C64

1:06:11SPEAKERand it sounds and looks exactly like one

1:06:13SPEAKERand its timings and everything are all just accurate.

1:06:16SPEAKERNo latency.

1:06:17SPEAKERThat's kind of what it is.

1:06:18SPEAKERIt's this magic field programmable gate array

1:06:20SPEAKERthat just switches itself over

1:06:22SPEAKERto the layout of all these old systems with precise timing.

1:06:25SPEAKERLike one of the best ways to know

1:06:26SPEAKERhow good this platform is to play an Atari 2600 game

1:06:29SPEAKERon the MiSTer on an HDTV versus playing it

1:06:31SPEAKERon any of those flashbacks or any console.

1:06:34SPEAKERWhen you move left and right,

1:06:35SPEAKERit immediately moves left and right.

1:06:36SPEAKERPlay Pitfall and then it'll play it

1:06:37SPEAKERon those other machines.

1:06:39SPEAKERYou'll see that like the sound is behind

1:06:40SPEAKERby several frames on those other machines

1:06:42SPEAKERand the player, when you're pushing left and right

1:06:44SPEAKERreally fast, is going like an opposite direction

1:06:47SPEAKERfrom what you're pressing at a certain cadence.

1:06:49SPEAKERSo like when you do it on the MiSTer,

1:06:51SPEAKEReverything's just immediate, it feels great,

1:06:52SPEAKERthe arcade games feel the same way.

1:06:54SPEAKERIt's kind of what we're talking about before with the display

1:06:56SPEAKERthis stuff's all moving really fast and perfect.

1:06:59SPEAKER- Sure, so do you think we'll get to the point

1:07:01SPEAKERwith platforms like the MiSTer

1:07:02SPEAKERwhere we're able to do the emulation of the phosphor fade

1:07:05SPEAKERand all that kind of thing over time?

1:07:07SPEAKEROr you think that's next, further down the line?

1:07:10SPEAKER- I think that's a next generation version

1:07:12SPEAKERof something like this.

1:07:13SPEAKEROr it's an FPGA platform that's in concert with this.

1:07:16SPEAKER- Okay.

1:07:17SPEAKER- Because that's so much work involved in that,

1:07:20SPEAKERthat maybe one of these immediate like middle devices

1:07:23SPEAKERthat is potentially on the horizon here

1:07:26SPEAKERwould be something you would hook this into

1:07:27SPEAKERto go out to your output.

1:07:28SPEAKERThere's always gonna be some amount of latency

1:07:29SPEAKERbut that might be the best way.

1:07:32SPEAKER- Yeah, you know, as much as we prattle on

1:07:34SPEAKERabout the MiSTer here, it's kind of crazy

1:07:35SPEAKERall the other places that FPGAs are showing up

1:07:37SPEAKERin like Dreamcast and Gamecubes

1:07:39SPEAKERand like acting as like video processors, you know,

1:07:41SPEAKERlike enabling specific parts of the pipeline

1:07:44SPEAKERinstead of acting as the whole thing.

1:07:46SPEAKERSo it seems like- - Audio engineering, yeah.

1:07:48SPEAKER- Totally, it seems like maybe the sky's the limit

1:07:50SPEAKERfor those things showing up in places

1:07:52SPEAKERand doing different jobs.

1:07:54SPEAKER- And we're talking about monitors.

1:07:55SPEAKERThere's the holy grail of monitors

1:07:57SPEAKERthat I think everybody's aware of,

1:07:58SPEAKERwhich is the Sony PVM series.

1:07:59SPEAKER- Sure.

1:08:01SPEAKER- Those are the studio grade monitors.

1:08:02SPEAKERThose things are like gold in classic gaming circles.

1:08:05SPEAKERAnd I finally got my first Sony PVM last year

1:08:08SPEAKERand I hooked the MiSTer up to that.

1:08:10SPEAKERAnd boy, that's bliss.

1:08:12SPEAKER- You've arrived, you've reached Nirvana.

1:08:14SPEAKER- I have arrived.

1:08:15SPEAKERI feel like I've missed out for so many years.

1:08:17SPEAKER- Actually, I'm just gonna keep thinking up questions here,

1:08:20SPEAKERbut I'm guessing like, I mean, I'm mostly talking

1:08:23SPEAKERabout myself here, but I'm guessing a lot of people

1:08:24SPEAKERstill have like old CRT monitors from the '90s,

1:08:27SPEAKERlike PC monitors.

1:08:28SPEAKERHow are those for hooking up to something like a MiSTer?

1:08:30SPEAKER'Cause they're not, you know, straight NTSC,

1:08:31SPEAKERthey're higher resolution than a TV would have been

1:08:34SPEAKERback then, but like, are those a good stand in?

1:08:36SPEAKERLike, are you gonna get most of the same effects there?

1:08:39SPEAKER- Honestly, the second best thing from like an RGB

1:08:41SPEAKERand like kind of display like that is probably VGA.

1:08:44SPEAKERPlaying arcade games on a VGA monitor

1:08:46SPEAKERstill looks really nice, but it's not super crisp

1:08:48SPEAKERlike an HD display.

1:08:50SPEAKERSo you get a little of that artifacting.

1:08:51SPEAKERIt's like a good midway between CRTs and an HD display.

1:08:57SPEAKERBut it's that instant refresh and the instant display

1:09:00SPEAKERof the data that's really, really good.

1:09:03SPEAKERSo I would say if you have an old '90s computer VGA

1:09:06SPEAKERfour by three screen, hook that up to a MiSTer

1:09:09SPEAKERor up to a PC with an emulator, the display latency

1:09:12SPEAKERis way less than what you get on an HDTV.

1:09:16SPEAKER- So it seems to me like game development these days

1:09:18SPEAKERhas become such a like high level abstracted process.

1:09:22SPEAKERLike there's, you know, the APIs on top of APIs

1:09:24SPEAKERand like billions of transistors.

1:09:25SPEAKERAnd like, it's just not the elemental like hands-on thing

1:09:29SPEAKERthat it was when you started, you know,

1:09:30SPEAKERwhere you're like, you talk about writing, you know,

1:09:31SPEAKERlike a game is a few thousand lines of machine code

1:09:33SPEAKERand you're writing it directly to, you know,

1:09:36SPEAKERaddressing a CPU directly.

1:09:38SPEAKERLike, do you feel like it's important to expose

1:09:41SPEAKERlike the next generation to the type of programming

1:09:43SPEAKERthat you did as a kid?

1:09:45SPEAKERBecause it seems like they don't have a lot of pathways

1:09:47SPEAKERinto that, like really up close, like intimate connection

1:09:51SPEAKERwith the hardware that they used to back then, you know,

1:09:53SPEAKERjust because of the nature of and complexity of things now.

1:09:57SPEAKER- I know, I think that's an incredible thing to do.

1:09:59SPEAKERMany years ago, before I had kids,

1:10:01SPEAKERI used to go to this place in Antioch, California

1:10:03SPEAKERcalled 4Js, which is this like destination of classic gaming

1:10:07SPEAKERthat you used to go to.

1:10:08SPEAKERThis guy had a warehouse of old game systems and computers

1:10:10SPEAKERand you could just buy things for dirt cheap.

1:10:12SPEAKERAnd I went there one day with a few friends

1:10:14SPEAKERand this guy came in with his son

1:10:16SPEAKERand his son was asking for an Atari 800 home computer.

1:10:18SPEAKERAnd this was like 2006, maybe, 2008.

1:10:22SPEAKER- That's wild.

1:10:24SPEAKER- And I remember going like,

1:10:26SPEAKERwhat do you need Atari 800 for?

1:10:27SPEAKERWhere are you gonna play on it?

1:10:28SPEAKERAnd he's like, the dad basically was answering the question

1:10:30SPEAKERsaying like, I never had a home computer when I was a kid.

1:10:33SPEAKERLike he just discovered this through emulation

1:10:35SPEAKERand now he wants to get a real one and he's programming them.

1:10:38SPEAKERI'm like, what?

1:10:39SPEAKERSo I was asking this kid all these questions,

1:10:40SPEAKERlike, how'd you find out?

1:10:41SPEAKERAnd like, he would go to all these different websites