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      ZAP! Atari acquires beloved retro homebrew vendor AtariAge

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 7 September, 2023 - 19:19

    An Atari logo on top of Atari arcade cabinet graphics

    Enlarge (credit: Atari / Benj Edwards)

    On Thursday, Atari announced that it will acquire AtariAge , a popular online community for the Atari enthusiasts over two decades. AtariAge is best-known for selling Atari 2600, 5200, and 7800 console homebrews in high-quality cartridge form, as well as games, for the Atari line of computers and other retro systems.

    "Atari is now taking its retro-related IP seriously and is creating a wide array of hardware and software based on that IP, while also creating new, original content," wrote AtariAge founder Albert Yarusso in a statement posted on the AtariAge forums.

    Yarusso says he will take on a full-time role with Atari and continue to run AtariAge as usual but will have more time to focus on fixing up the site's games database, which he feels needs updating. Still, AtariAge is showing no signs of slowing down on the homebrew front, planning to publish 20 new games on a variety of retro platforms in time for the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo in October.

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      Atari launches replica 2600 console to go with all its replica 2600 cartridges

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 22 August, 2023 - 21:02

    • The Atari 2600+ and joystick. [credit: Atari ]

    If you read about Atari issuing a new cartridge of a new Atari 2600 game and your first thought was, "What am I supposed to play this on?" there's an answer for you. Today, the company announced the Atari 2600+ , a $130 retro console with a cartridge slot that can accept vintage and modern Atari 2600 and 7800 cartridges, plus a $25 CX40+ joystick and $40 CX30+ paddle controller bundle that appear to more-or-less faithfully re-create the originals.

    All items are currently available for pre-order and will ship in November 2023. The console includes a 10-in-1 game cartridge with Adventure , Combat , Missile Command , Haunted House , Yars' Revenge , and a few other 2600 games.

    The Atari 2600+ takes its design cues from the early-1980s revision of the original console, with fake wood grain on the front and four control switches. But Atari says the console is only 80 percent as large as the original console, "making it easier to fit into modern living spaces." The console also has an HDMI output and uses USB-C for power.

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      Google develops an AI that can learn both chess and Pac-Man

      John Timmer · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 24 December, 2020 - 13:00

    The first major conquest of artificial intelligence was chess. The game has a dizzying number of possible combinations, but it was relatively tractable because it was structured by a set of clear rules. An algorithm could always have perfect knowledge of the state of the game and know every possible move that both it and its opponent could make. The state of the game could be evaluated just by looking at the board.

    But many other games aren't that simple. If you take something like Pac-Man , then figuring out the ideal move would involve considering the shape of the maze, the location of the ghosts, the location of any additional areas to clear, the availability of power-ups, etc., and the best plan can end up in disaster if Blinky or Clyde makes an unexpected move. We've developed AIs that can tackle these games, too, but they have had to take a very different approach to the ones that conquered chess and Go.

    At least until now. Today, however, Google's DeepMind division published a paper describing the structure of an AI that can tackle both chess and Atari classics.

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