I think the author's main point is bemoaning the loss of human-crafted works (he mentions coding and the paintbrush). (Putting "slaves" in the title is IMHO a poorly worded distraction from that point.)
I get it (with coding at least), I too have spent decades hand-crafting code, and I take pride in the fruit of my labour, and it saddens me to think that I and my peers are perhaps like the blacksmiths of a century or so ago, ie the final generation doing what we do in significant numbers. But I have faith that there will always be a new kind of blacksmith.
When you think about it honestly, we really don't know anything about anything. We don't know how many planets there are in the galaxy (nor in the universe, nor in the multiverse, nor if there is a multiverse). We don't know what the chances are of a given planet being habitable (nor what "habitable (for all possible life)" means, nor what "all possible life" means). And we don't know what the chances are of life existing on a given habitable planet. So apart from the fact that all of the above probabilities may well be at or near zero, we're barely even capable of articulating the necessary questions, let alone searching for answers.
Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for save state), Sword of Vermilion) still functioning perfectly after all these years (just needed some vigorous dusting of bottom of cartridges). Got my kids on it, they love it: "dad, so cool, boots up instantly, no lag, no ads" (unlike the rubbish apps on their other devices!).
Awesome to hear that Linux has arrived on Mega Drive. Just need it to boot up (how Sonic 1 boots up saying "seee-gaah") and to drone out "liii-nuux", hahaha.
people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around now. You can even find small ones if transportation or space is an issue.
> I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever
We're there dude. I don't know where you live, but from where I'm at, CRTs are gone. Everybody wants hundreds if not thousands for them because the only ones left are those in the hands of retro gamers. All the cheap ones are in the dump at this point.
Just a week ago, I called up the local games store to ask if they wanted my 19" CRT (for free) and they said they didn't have room for any more CRTs, so I'm going to take it to e-waste.
Note that the footprint of the store is very small, and CRTs are very large, so "no room" doesn't mean they have a lot. Presumably if they were flying off the shelves though, they would make room.
I haven't seen any CRTs displays for sale at thrift stores near me (Ohio, USA) for a decade or so. They certainly were common at one point, but that point seems to be rather far in the past.
Anyway, scalers and such: We've got a decent-sized end-of-era flat CRT TV sitting on a high shelf in a closet at the shop that I could take home and use but I really don't want to dedicate space in my house to it.
It's possible that there will never be a time when scalers will be able to fully emulate the qualities of NTSC/PAL/SECAM/whatever as displayed on a CRT, but a scaler is a lot smaller and easier to deal with.
It wasn't to make my old games look good - it was just to make them work, period. I only have a flat-screen TV with digital inputs, I don't have a CRT. The HDMI adapter (which includes the converter / scaler) was about 50 bucks, a CRT could have easily cost more than that (and would quite possibly have taken longer to find, would have a shorter remaining lifespan, would require more maintenance, etc). Space is an issue, I live in a small-ish apartment. I guess the retro experience would be more authentic with a CRT, but it's authentic enough for me on a modern TV, and it's simple and it works.
Or people could buy an adapter to use the console with the large TV they already have than make drastic compromises on a large and heavy piece of single-use equipment
You're lucky, I search fairly often and never come across CRTs at thrift stores. The only option is to buy comically overpriced ones off marketplace, and I live in a large metro area.
yah but then you get dropped frames and intermittent audio popping and when the game glitches or even crashes where it would do the same on real hardware, you're left wondering if it's the emulator that's fucked up. I don't wanna have to think about any of that during my leisure hours. The game owes me a good time.
Honestly, it's worth trying the Sega app on Switch / Switch 2. The games look and play great, you can save at any time, and you can "rewind" if a game gets a little too hard. The wireless controllers are also great too. (Granted, it only has Sonic 2.)
I've been slowly working through games I never got around to playing when I was a kid.
I haven't tried Sega games on Switch (and I believe some were available on Wii before that?). But I have also played some of my old games on PC emulators. "Save state" / "load state" is indeed very handy. Keyboard mappings is an inferior experience to a real controller, but meh, you get used to it.
I rented it from my local Blockbuster-type store back in the 90s ("Civic Video", was one of the bigger chains here in Australia back then), they had maybe 50+ Mega Drive titles at the time, was just random chance that they had that one. Not the best ever adventure RPG, but I enjoyed it as a kid and I still enjoy it now. I managed to buy it recently from a retro gaming store without too much difficulty, and there appear to be several original copies available for sale online.
Agreed. We enjoyed a decade or more or cheap surplus hardware sitting in data centres, after the dot com crash. Rinse and repeat after the AI bubble bursts in x time from now (my forecast is x = 2-3 years).
Thanks for clarifying, I thought that sounded wrong - otherwise aeroplane engines would have to be "rebuilt", each and every time, after more than half of all international flights in and out of Australia (5000 miles, aka 8000km, is just down the road to grab a sausage roll for us!).
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