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Bill's Quick Video Look at the Official Frogger and Zaxxon for the TRS-80
As requested, here's Chatty Cathy's (aka, Bill Loguidice's) casual, single take look at the official TRS-80 versions of Frogger and Zaxxon, shown on a 128K TRS-80 Model 4 with a black and white monitor. Of course I talked too long yet again, so yet again it won't fit on Youtube. I also need to get new video software to work with the HD MOV files, so this is raw footage and another reason why I can't knock it down to a Youtube-friendly 10 minutes (I'm experimenting with Adobe Premiere Elements trial in the background right now to see if that's something I should pick up, since that supports the formats my video camera uses).
Watch Quick, Casual Look at the Official TRS-80 Versions of Frogger and Zaxxon in Tech & Gaming | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
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Well only if you want to cater for a world wide audience....
Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl
Video
Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl
I also picked up Cucusoft's Ultimate DVD + Video Converter Suite, which works very well (I needed it for something unrelated). I wasn't planning on converting the video, but rather moving on, but if you can't see it, then I probably should reconsider and put it up on Youtube in an edited form.
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
VLC can export just about any format to MPEG2
Premiere Elements is a good choice. I hope it works for you cause I still haven't seen any Frogger footage! ;-)
Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl
Great information, Mark, but...
I don't like converting one format to the other. It adds to an already long process and may degrade quality. Adobe Premiere Elements, which should arrive tomorrow, can handle it natively.
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
There is many freeware movie converter software out there.....
There are many freeware movie converter software programs out there that would easily convert .MOV files into .AVI or other formats. Editing with Microsoft Movie Maker is possible when the appropriate codecs are loaded by the way.
For example this free tool for converting quicktime MOV to AVI. It is called Rad Video Tools:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Rad_Video_Tools
And here's a link to a tutorial converting .MOV to .AVI using this utility
http://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/mov2avi
With videoproblems it is always good to check out the http://www.videohelp.com website - especially for free utilities.
Virtualdub is also another tool capable of converting quite a few formats - there are a lot of 'specialized' versions out there. When the appropriate codecs are loaded this program takes just about anything. I often use this tool to transcode stuff or to convert an interlaced video source to a blended or progressive destination format. Great tool.
Xbox 360: Lactobacillus P | Wii: 8151 3435 8469 3138
Armchair arcade Editor | Pixellator | www.markvergeer.nl
Just to respond to Chris for
Just to respond to Chris for a moment, yes, I have all the pro lighting stuff and everything, as well as backdrops. I'll see if I can do a "Matt Chat" level of quality once the video editing software comes in a day or two. I've been looking for a good excuse to experiment with green screen work, so this will be as good of a reason as any. Honestly though, I'll likely do it at that level once or twice, then go back to casual stuff.
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Yep, like with most
Yep, like with most computers, any cassette player will do, even a PC's sound card paired with a WAV file or good quality MP3. Not a lot of systems utilized proprietary tape drives. Top of my head, Atari 8-bits and Commodore 8-bits were the two biggest proprietary offenders when it came to cassette drives (some, like the APF Imagination Machine's, were obviously built in).
I doubt the Tandy engineers conceived of sound output, just like Commodore's engineers with the PET didn't. Heck, they didn't even bother with color. That's what makes the original Apple II such a progressive design--color AND sound. No matter how limited, that's what probably helped with the platform's longevity above all else, through the TRS-80 line did have a heck of a run, with Model x stuff in Radio Shack stores into at least 1990 (albeit mostly on clearance by then).
Sadly, I can't recall the first time I heard speech on a computer or videogame system. I certainly have vivid memories of the speech in Impossible Mission, which I believe was the first game I bought along with my 1541 disk drive (it was between IM and Bruce Lee if I recall), though I'm nearly 100% positive I heard computerized speech well before that.
I agree, it's much, much harder to be "wowed" these days. Back then, we were "wowed" all the time (sounds dirty). As I've stated many times, I still have a fondness for synthesized speech.
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
TRS-80 Sounds
If I recall correctly, the TRS-80 didn't even need a "Tandy/RS" cassette drive. Any old cassette player would do, as long as it had standard connectors for phono/mic. This is unlike the Atari 8-bits (and probably others) which required a dedicated cassette "drive" to load programs. This makes the "audio amplifier" you possess for the TRS-80 seem very easily plausible in concept. And as you clearly demonstrated, it was more than plausible, it was a reality.
I can't help but wonder if the engineers of the TRS-80 even conceived of the computer outputting sound, due to the fact that it had no speaker, and there were no obvious sound capabilities of the system. I do recall that there was a way to send "clicks" to the tape recorder's speaker via Tandy/RS Basic's "OUT" command, but only my later experiences with the TRS-80 (which was my first PC experience) had sound. My first personal computer gaming experiences were dead silent. When I first heard the first TRS-80 sound, my jaw dropped!!!!! I thought "Holy crap, the computer made a sound!!!"
I can't swear it was the first, but the first time I heard digitized speech was in the TRS-80 game "Robot Attack" by Big Five Software. It was an excellent knock-off of the arcade game "Berzerk." It said "Player One," "Player Two, " and "Chicken." I thought "Holy crap, the computer spoke!!!"
The awe is gone now. 3d, FPS shooters with licenced MP3 music, voiced actors, cinemas, and whatever. There's little or nothing that drops my jaw anymore, but the humble TRS-80 rocked my world.
Keep in mind that while I heard simple sound effects, I NEVER heard music on the TRS-80, nor did I see such cool graphics such as Zaxxon. Those seemed so cool that I have trouble believing that they were done on the same TRS-80 platform that I experienced!
(P.S. the first time I heard digitized speech on the Apple II was in the game "Dung Beetles/Tumble Bugs.")
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Cool
I love seeing the "real stuff" in a video such as this. That was entertaining, Bill. I am familiar with Frogger and Zaxxon, however I had not experienced them on the TRS-80 until now. Very nice.
Best of luck with your video editing software upgrades. I've used Adobe Premiere, myself & loved it. That said, I am fresh out of kidneys to ebay. Therefore, I cannot buy the latest version of the software.
If I may give my two cents, I recommend picking up a good tripod to use with the camera. As previously mentioned, lighting is also important. You can always mess with settings on your camera to help with that sort of thing (you probably already have), but good lighting always beats camera compensation/adjustments.
Also remember that using light to fill the room is quite helpful, and that a single light simply placed behind the camera will most likely reflect off the CRT display of whatever it is you are shooting.
Look forward to the next one.
- Chris
Here is good info on
Here is good info on Frogger: http://www.trs-80.org/frogger/
And here's some limited info on Zaxxon, including the maestros who programmed it: http://www.trs-80.org/games-by-wayne-westmoreland-and-terry-gilman/
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
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