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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Oct 10, 2016 11:01 am

Die-hard fans of the site may have noticed a bit of a drop-off of new games and posts recently. And, frankly, I think it deserves an explanation.

First, I needed to spend some time installing Kryoflux on my Amiga for the TOSEC people. Kryoflux is software (and there is a modern version for Amiga classic OSes, by the way, which is pretty cool).

Kryoflux.com
“KryoFlux is a USB-based device designed specifically for the reliability and precision needed to acquire reliable low-level reads suitable for software preservation. This is the official hardware developed by The Software Preservation Society, an authority in authentic floppy disk imaging and preservation.”

Sending a pristine ADF to TOSEC is all fine and dandy. But to guarantee a file or disk is 100% preserved for future generations, a very through scan is performed by the software and “dumped” to a new file type that the Kryoflux can use.

In order to run the software, you do need at least a 68020+ processor and 2MB of RAM. My 1200 can eat that for lunch, so no problem there. But after installing and running the software, it took me a few tries to figure out how to actually do what it wanted me to do, but I got there after a few hours. (The scan is quite slow, as is moving files back and forth between the Amiga and PC, as you all know.)

The good news is I was able to get everything going and AMFV now safely in the hands of the people who really do care quite strongly about this process.

Secondly, the Cubs. The Cubs are an American baseball team that I’ve been addicted to since 1984. I won’t go into all the gory details about how, when and why that occurred (the team is based in Chicago, Illinois, and I’ve never lived there). But I have been spending most nights watching my team enter the playoffs with one of the best teams they’ve ever assembled in history. And while this might seem odd to some, especially to those who don’t like this sport, it consumes me entirely.

And now for my rant, which has nothing to do with this site but I have to get this off my chest.
“[The] Cubs/Giants game on Saturday was the highest rated broadcast ever on MLB Network. The game peaked with 5.2 mil viewers.”
That's because many of us around the country grew up watching and rooting for the Cubs, back when you could actually watch baseball on a TV with rabbit ears. I started in 1984 in Dallas, TX. I am now in Seattle, WA, and you would not believe me if I told you how excruciatingly difficult it was for me to watch the games this weekend. But I'll try to give a taste.

I am a full-fledged MLB TV consumer so I can listen to nearly every game at work and sometimes pop a video window up in the corner of a screen. The whole point of buying the expensive package is to be able to “watch or listen to every game for every team all year round.” But for the Cubs, I also have a Sling TV account, which gives me ESPN for analysis for $20/mo, and TBS for some of the playoffs in the early rounds, right?. But wait, Game 1 is on some other crap channel called FS1. Well, shit, OK. I had to go to Sling TV and pay *more* money for FS1, yet this change also disabled ESPN. Wait wait! Game 2 is on MLB [cable] Network. . . Luckily a friend of mine had that channel so I had to go to his house Saturday night just to watch game 2. Game 3 is back on FS1…

The constant merry-go-round just to watch PLAYOFF baseball in the early rounds in the USA is disgraceful. MLB may be an expert in generating revenue, but they've completely destroyed future generations from ever falling in love with the sport the way I did as a kid - for free, on one channel. It takes real effort just to watch the most important games of the season. Their media model is broken.

When we 40 somethings fade away and our kids grow up, baseball will be a shadow of what it could have been and should still be. You can't have a "national pastime" only be for the folks who are able to afford it. And I can afford it. But damn, it's stupid.

/rant over (I think)

Soon this month we’ll be taking a look at Expeditions for the C64 alongside a new card game that launched under the more well-known title, The Oregon Trail. Also, we'll review California Games, Phantasie III, Enchanter, and Flashback. Potential games in the mix include Aladdin (AGA), Star Trek, a hacked DOS color palette fan-created AGA version of Eye of the Beholder I’ve heard of recently by chance (if I can find it), and Dragon’s Lair.

<3





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