rec.autos.simulators

I needed to cut back on collecting anyway, and am now concentrating more
on those rare-gem finds and old accessories like cartridges and ROM
cards etc (anybody got one of those Apple II emulation cards for the LC
Macintosh? Or a Commodore Max? Totally rare in Europe, dudes...)

Regards, Rudy
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GPLRank: -22

PS. As a side note, the finest portables in the early age came from
Epson, like the HX-20 (first 'laptop' ever in 1982) and most notably the
PX-8 (do look this up on Google Images - it's the FINEST laptop of the
era, excellent design and manufacturing... and Epson STILL provides
support for these little 8-bitters on its website, believe it or not.)
Forgot to mention I have a couple of these too and feel almost ashamed
since they be truly great. Probably the only CP/M machines where CP/M
was actually in ROM. To run Wordstar you put a second (EP)ROM in and
voila. Not to mention that the HX-20 even had a little printer built-in (!).

One of the things GP4 does really well is the clean up after a big wreck.
The cars stay where they landed until the marshalls have time to run out and
flag the wreck, then start to clean up. It's quite immersive to come around
the corner and see the little polygon marshalls running to the wrecked cars
and pushing them to the side.  The only thing not modelled is the actual
cranes in motion to pluck the cars into the air from the sidelines, although
they do magically levitate once the marshalls have pushed them to the side.

Actually, you should be using the numpad keys. The control layout is shown
when in the pits.

PC version supports only two-axis, two button joystick, I think.

X-axis is steering, button 1 accellerator, button 2 brake and, when stopped,
Y- (pulling back on the stick) engages reverse.

Via dosbox it even recognises my wheel in "combined axis" mode, though it's
not very comfortable to use the paddles for gas/brake either, I have to say.
Definately easier to make the turns, though.

Jan.
=---

The finest DOS word processor ever, IMO, was the Leading Edge of the
mid-80s.  Blisteringly fast, even w/o a cursor.  And relentlessly logical.
I wrote 2 books on it.  Unfortunately, it couldn't convert/output text into
any other format, so the ***y manuscripts had to be re-keyed.

I guess you can appreciate that if one is to blame Papy/Sierra/Vivendi
management it would be because one thinks they either messed up & lost
the NASCAR license, or decided it wasn't financially worth*** on
to.

The flip side of this is that EA may well have believed that in losing
their F1 license to Sony they needed another 'big brand' license and so
'poached' the NASCAR license from Papy by simply throwing money at
NASCAR until they sold out. In this way EA would not only gain a
potentially valuable license, they would also damage the only other
serious competitor in that area, which it certainly did.

Whether the NASCAR license is an adequate replacement for the F1 one is
debatable, but it's got to be better for EA than no license at all for
any major form of motorsport, hence the justification for believing
Papy's demise to be 'EA's fault'.

Malc.

Darf

The hilarious irony isn't about blame, it's that:

If EA didn't exist, papyrus may never have got properly started.

and

If EA didn't exist, papyrus may still be going today.

It's just funny, there's no need to be such a fanboy about it.

cheers
John

  Thats their problem, not EA's.

You want some gravy for that chip on your shoulder?

I don't speak for "this ng", and I have about as many EA titles as I do
Sierra ones.

Have fun whatever you're driving
cheers
John

Of course, but that's not what we're talking about ;-)

You didn't see how EA could be 'blamed' for Papy's demise, now you do.
You don't have to agree with it, and you can argue the toss forever if
you want, we'll never know for sure ;-)

Best to focus on what we do know. Papy is gone & it's the end of an era
in motorsport simulation. Whether they were the best in their field or
not they were ***y good & deserve respect.

On the other hand we now have two things to look forward to. You have
the potential to see EA make something worthwhile out of their NASCAR
license, and the future looks fairly promising for the ex-Papy crew at
the moment.

Not sure the F1 crowd have much to look forward to for the next couple
of years though ;-)

Malc.

Then again, one might wonder if it's worthwhile to simulate a series that
needs historically significant racetracks torn up in order to create an
overtaking opportunity (cfr. Hockenheim).

Jan.
=---