[HN Gopher] The Fairchild Channel F: First and Finest?
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The Fairchild Channel F: First and Finest?
Author : zdw
Score : 37 points
Date : 2021-10-16 21:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nicole.express)
(TXT) w3m dump (nicole.express)
| egypturnash wrote:
| First yes, finest no; I had one as a kid and I sure do not recall
| any games that looked even remotely as nice as her example at the
| top of demaking one of her own games at its resolution. It was an
| amusing toy to play with when my engineer father got it for me
| but I was covering my friend's VCS by the time next Christmas
| rolled around.
|
| A quick search for a list of all its games shows how visually
| underwhelming it was: https://voxodyssey.com/fairchild-channel-f
| (and confirms my feeling that Nicole's demake of her game looks
| tons better than any actual Fairchild games)
|
| The controllers were interesting, but quirky as hell: a shaft
| held in one hand with a triangular head poking out, to be held by
| the other hand. Push up/down/left/right to function as a digital
| joystick, rotate l/r as well, push it down into the shaft to act
| as a button.
| nicole_express wrote:
| I suspect my demake, while theoretically possible, wouldn't
| have been doable within the ROM limits of the time (at least
| when also needing to use that ROM space for gameplay, etc)
|
| As an NES game it's tiny, but 24kiB would be unfathomable for a
| Channel F game.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| Unsurprisingly, modern homebrew appears a bit more
| sophisticated than the offical releases:
|
| http://www.consolecity.com/games/action-
| game_info/game_id-29...
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| It was a wonderfully quirky machine. I had one as a kid because
| where my Mom worked they hired a former Fairchild engineer who
| told her it was the best game console you could buy.
|
| I did not know about the "command" bus stuff for memory, that was
| pretty wild. The first Fairchild microprocessor I looked
| seriously at was the PACE16 which I decided was too complicated
| and went with a Z80 for my first "computer."
|
| That said, one of the things I love about the Vintage Computer
| Festival/Faire events is that it is really easy to see the
| dividing line in time between "we're trying all sorts of ideas"
| and "we're following the leader to grab some market share."
| Consoles were not much different in this regard. The difference
| between the 2600, the Coleco, and the Odyssey seems huge compared
| to looking at the differences between the PS5 and the XBox. There
| is still room for variation though and the Switch is a good
| example of that.
| pinewurst wrote:
| How's the Switch a good example? The hardware (NVIDIA Tegra X1)
| is generic as can be - also used in NVIDIA Shield/Google Pixel
| C. If Switch didn't have Nintendo marketing behind it, it'd
| sink into obscurity as fast as other products on the same
| hardware platform. Sure it's different, but not in any creative
| way.
| mlyle wrote:
| What-- because it uses hardware you can find in other things,
| it's not unique?
|
| * It's packaged dramatically differently from its primary
| Sony and Microsoft competitors. It aims squarely between
| handheld gaming and the console space and finds success there
| rather than being a watered down version of btoh.
|
| * It supports a wide variety of use cases-- single player
| portable, multiple players around the small screen, TV.
|
| * The controllers support a greater degree of motion tracking
| and are reconfigurable (snap on the sides, use sideways, etc.
|
| * It chooses a different microarchitecture from everyone else
| in the console gaming space. (No, the Shield and Google Pixel
| don't count).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Nintendo has brand power, IP and software.
|
| Sony and Microsoft are giving up on exclusives, but
| Nintendo always is making strong games in some of the
| series such as Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokemon, Fire Emblem,
| etc.
|
| People frequently play the Switch in the same configuration
| as the PSP/PS Vita/Steam Deck so I think the trick hardware
| is overrated, but it is a solid platform that attracts
| various third party software, for instance almost all the
| JRPG that came out for PS 4 and the Vita now come out for
| the Switch.
| bri3d wrote:
| The default controllers, hardware problems aside, certainly
| represent a departure from the usual controllers of the
| PS/Xbox family. The Shield is actually a perfect example - it
| failed in the market as a weird gimmicky "normal console"
| controller with a screen glued to the top of it. On the flip
| side, with the Switch:
|
| * One handed motion controls are viable and used frequently.
|
| * Two-stick FPS games are possible but don't need to be the
| default, encouraging more innovative/interesting UIs.
|
| * IR camera enables Labo/Cardboard which is a very cool
| gimmick.
|
| * Easy docking, undocking, storage, and portability of the
| controllers.
|
| * The console includes two players by default. Most Switch
| games have a thought out, fun two-or-more players, in-person
| mode. Many have co-op. Split-screen games are an afterthought
| and don't even run correctly on most other modern consoles.
| bitwize wrote:
| This is called "lateral thinking with withered technology"
| -- Nintendo's core principle of taking mature, generic
| technologies and combining them in innovative ways to
| create something new and interesting.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| My very first game console which I look back on with fond
| memories, though that is mostly the nostalgia of an old man. To
| be honest, when I received it as some sort of present (Christmas
| or Birthday) from my parents.... I was very disappointed. As
| mentioned in other comments here: it wasn't the console to
| have... that was the Atari 2600. And using it only compounded
| that disappointment... the controllers which were part joystick,
| part paddle and wanted you to pump the joystick for a button
| press was just odd and a bit clumsy. The best game I had for it
| was the one that came with it (as I remember): you were a block
| of some size and other blocks would move across the screen an you
| had to dodge those and not run into the sides of the screen... no
| characters, no theming: just square blocks. There were other
| games, but no cool factor at all.
|
| In the end it wasn't terrible, just OK. It was entertaining
| enough that we chose to play it when could have just left it
| turned off. I wish I still had it. But eventually I did get the
| 2600, and not too long after having gotten it I traded it in for
| a deal on my first computer: the Commodore VIC-20.... I wish I
| still had it, but I eventually traded that in for a deal on a
| Commodore 64... I wish I still had that... but...
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