TIB: Fritter and waste the hours...

To: ti-basic@lists.ticalc.org
Subject: TIB: Fritter and waste the hours...
From: tapeworm7337@juno.com (Chris Roddy)
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 16:19:37 -0800
Reply-To: ti-basic@lists.ticalc.org

Rapala wrote:
>Is it just me or does anyone else feel that games on the TI are an utter
>waste of time. I mean, i dont know who is more pathetic, the programmer
who
>creates the game or the user who plays it. I mean cmon, games suck on
that
>little crappy ti-screen... 

Games express something archetypal about a culture.  Look at pachesi, for
example, and compare it to something like backgammon.  Backgammon came
out of a Judeo-Christian culture where one has one shot to get to heaven
(bear off all of his stones). And compare that to pachesi, where, like in
Hinduism, one "goes around" a few times.  It's a simplistic analogy, but
it holds true. [1]  Yes, games are a waste of time.  But so is
everything, including the educational math that you use your calculator
for.  We're all going to die anyway, right?  So why worry about cosecants
and absolute extremas?

>The only thing that the games might do is give a programmer some
practice
>with their ti-8x, but why bother, just use qbasic or some other similar
>language that might be of use some day. 

Programming has more benefits than preparing a person for more
programming.  It teaches people to think logically and to prepare
instructions that make sense.  And when someone programs a game, it adds
an element of amusement and competition to something that would otherwise
be totally nerdy.  I personaly think it's more of a challenge to program
on a 6MHz Z80 with 30k of RAM and a 96x64x2 display.  I guess that's
because I think programming is an art and a science though.... (another
can of worms for another thread)

>I know this post will be flamed, but im kinda sick of hearing about
>everyone's crappy little games that arent worth jack.

You must not be as old as most of us on this list.  We can remember the
days of the Atari 2600 and (gasp!) even the original monochrome Pong. 
Sure, the games were simple [2], but they laid the foundation for a
gaming world based on gameplay.  No flashy graphics can EVER make up for
solid creative gameplay.  That's why I think that Penguins is more fun
than Spaze Invaders (sorry, Movax, but, hey, take consolation in the fact
that it IS your sprite routine ;-) <G> ).  That's what sucks about most
of the N64 games I've seen.  Their graphics are awesome, but that's
nearly all they've got going for them.

No, your post won't be flamed.  It will receive responses.  Please don't
try to discredit others with differing opinions by labeling their posts
as flames.  And BTW, in the strictest sense of the term, _your_ post is
inflammatory. ;-)

[1] yes I realize that chess came from India ;-)
[2] and rather crappy too

My rant is complete... now to them minutiae:

Some others wrote:
>I don't have a functional computer at the moment. If I want to play,

Uhh... forgive me if I'm the only one confused.  How are you posting
this? <G>

>>The z80 processor litterally runs as fast as a gameboy.
>The Z80 is what is used in the GB.  THe calcs processor is 3MHz faster.

I thought the GB used an 8mhz Z80 near-clone... with some
GB-hardware-specific routines for the display...

Chris Roddy - tapeworm7337@juno.com / chris.roddy@mustang.com
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