JB0

You all know that if I get time travel I'm going to go back in time and make myself filthy stinking rich, right? And then I will buy Macross rights. TV series and movie and sequels. I'll negotiate a clear franchise mandate for myself, and get it in writing. Verbal contracts are for wusses. They may wonder why I'm being so nitpicky and lawyer-ese about a children's show, but.... we'll see who's laughing 20 years later!

Well, I'd say that the Valk's software should be coded so you aren't ALLOWED to point your gun at your own mech, but.... DYRL.

I was actually thinking of starting one. You snooze, you lose, I guess. Put me down for Sheryl. Aside from liking her singing, she was just an awesome character. Couldn't stand her at the beginning of Frontier, but she wound up being one of my favorites in the franchise.

I've only seen the SRWAlpha Dreamcast version of the ARMD attack, which was a simple mechaslap. It has it's own moments of hilarity, though. The DC version's camera had some issues with horrible size mismatches. So you'd get a closeup of the Macross' "foot" before the attack began. Then you'd see the ARMD come down and slap some poor fool silly.

Kakizaki Steak: Can only be ordered 5 minutes before closing. Seriously, Kakizaki never got to EAT his steak. That's the greatest tragedy. As I recall, he was about to take his first bite when the alarm sounded.

The VF-19 may've wound up like the VF-4. Just too expensive for most of the colony fleets. And the VF-171 is the VF-5, 5000, 6, 7, and 9. It's the cheaper "good enough" plane(actually, the 9 is supposed to be better). http://macross.anime.net/wiki/Category:Variable_vehicles It's kinda funny how the 5, 6, and 7 are all basically the same thing from a text perspective. Clearly we need a story about a colony world flying VF-5 through 7s.

TI is short for Texas Instruments. In the early 80s, they had a computer called the 99/4a. Units in this case means the computer. Was possibly not the best choice of words. The "p-box" is a fairly odd accessory, and was a retrofit intended to replace the original expansion scheme. The original expansion plan for the 99/4 and 4a(which replaced the 99/4 very rapidly) was dubbed the "choo-choo train" approach. There was an expansion port on the side of the system, and add-ons were standalone boxes. You plugged one into the side of the system, and it had a passthrough, so successive boxes could plug into each other. There were no clips or screws to anchor boxes to each other, or to the base computer itself. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm.../Ti994_long.jpg is what a 99/4 looked like fully loaded with speech synthesizer, thermal rrinter, RAM expansion, RS-232 expansion, and disk controller expansion. (I feel obliged to note that the modem and disk drive are not actually part of the chain, and are connected to the back of the RS-232 and floppy disk controller modules by cables). ... It was as unreliable as you think it was. The Peripheral Expansion Box was the solution. It was a big metal box with a power supply, one floppy disk bay, and 8 card slots in it. It plugged into the 99/4a through a REALLY THICK ribbon cable, and the expansion boxes were replaced by accessory cards that went into the "p-box." With the sole exception of the Speech Synthesizer, which was a really tiny expansion box in the first place. http://www.ardenwebsales.com/general_store.../ticomputer.JPG is what a fully-loaded 99/4a looks like with a P-Box Sans thermal printer, because really, who used that? TI had a very active military business at the time, and it really shows here. The P-box weighs 50 pounds when empty. Literally. It's made almost entirely of thick steel. The individual cards were contained in aluminum shells. CAST aluminum, not sheet metal. Probably an eighth of an inch of metal on all sides of the card. If nuclear war were to break out today, and all life on Earth died except cockroaches, the roaches would take up residence in old p-boxes, and rent the expansion cards out to other roaches. Sadly, the P-Box came out late in the system's life, and was expensive, so they don't exist in huge numbers. It was never a hugely successful computer, but it's what I grew up playing with. And it's WAY sexier than any Commodore!

"Published by Microsoft and developed by Tozai Games and SouthEnd Interactive, “R-Type Dimensions” will be available for 1200 Microsoft Points worldwide on February 4. The game is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. " MS' own page says Tozai is the publisher. And it seems odd to not see irem mentioned ANYWHERE. Have I mentioned I love gaming blogs? Ooooh, Tozai's got a 360 version of Lode Runner going...

Apollo 13 was the same way. Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are both big NASA fans, if I recall. Get them together, and who in Hollywood could possibly say no? Even when they started filming in the Vomit Comet.

I dispute Kaifun. Yot-chan is CLEARLY the worse pilot. I mean, c'mon... he can't even reach the pedals!

Actually, if I recall, there's a few different blocks of Valkyrie in the original. It's the excuse for different cockpit designs in different episodes. They're just all pre-block 6.

My dad got the Vectrex when they went on clearance. And he worked at TI, so there was no question who's side he was taking in the home computer wars. We've got multiple 99/4a units. And a pair of "p-boxes." Anyoen that owns multiple p-boxes is hardcore almost by definition. Even a 3.5" disk controller, which is pretty neat. (As I understand the story, it was a planned product that was scrapped when TI exited the home computer business, and the circuit boards wound up being populated with chips and sold by the user group).

That they were short on manpower. The show takes great pains to point out that people are being promoted far faster than they should be. Hikaru may well have been the most-experienced pilot IN Skull Squadron after Focker died. It wasn't a choice. Js are what was available. The Macross had limited supplies, they couldn't pop new planes out at will. That the Jeniuses were ASSIGNED 1Js shows that someone felt they needed better than a 1A. Post-war, there's STILL limited resources, and cranking out VF-1Ses for everybody is secondary to, you know, rebuilding the planet. After that? Max and Millia weren't flying VF-1s for their entire career. She's flying an 11 in the 7+ episode where she's teaching Gamlin to be awesome in flight school, and there's a small collection of available planes to fly in M3(including the couple's trademark 1Js, of course., as well as the much-loved VF-4. and the VF-14). Millia flew her 1J again in Macross 7, but... she was retired. She no longer had need of a top-end fighter plane. It was a large, but awesome, memento from her younger days.

My first game machine, along with a TI 99/4a. Rockin' it oldschool with Mine Storm and Parsec! Yeah!

Hell yeah! Sometimes they fall a little flat, though. Their vector display simulation is far short of what CAN be done. If you aren't playing Asteroids with real hardware, you should be playing it with AsteroidsGL. http://caesar.logiqx.com/php/emulator.php?id=asteroidsgl The guy made an effort to model features like the point flare a real vector display has. He also has fun options to emulate the noise you get from imperfect power supplies and flyback transformers interfering with the audio circuit, so you can tune it to sound like the imperfect Asteroids machine you may or may not have seen as a kid. I admit to turning the flyback noise up. It gives me a warm fuzzy sensation, since my Vectrex has suffered the same malady since time immemorial.

*sigh* Loading a game, and my 360 crashed. Reach and double-tap the power button while thinking. Went something like ... "Huh. *clickclick* Never crashed loading a game beF-WORD!" The Crimson PacMan has finally shown it's unsightly visage in my house.

Plow all the way through to the end of the war, just like Macross did! Robotech: We Can Win. Coming soon(er or later)to a theater(or Blockbuster) near you

It's not the first time they've done this. As I recall, the first hints of the Haruhi license came out in a similar manner.

Only after she fights Bombshell. ... I feel vaguely nerdier for making that comment.

I was playing RE4 on me 'Cube just last night. 'S aged rather well. 'S also the only RE I've spent a significant amount of time with. Hell of a lot more fun than that loaner copy of Code Veronica I played, though.

The 3-light red-ring is a free repair. They extended teh warranty, but ONLY for the ring of death.

As stated, because it sounds cool. See also: Starscream, Omega Supreme, Shockwave, Fortress Maximus, Optimus Prime, Megat-oh, you get the picture. I hadn't thought about it, but... it's not unique to the movie. Thrust, Skywarp, Soundwave, Blaster, Rumble, Mixmaster, Ratchet, Sixshot, Astrotra-oh, you get the picture.

To be fair, in my experience a lot of the anime community thinks Gundam Wing was a thoughtful masterpiece. I LIKED Macross 7, but I wouldn't say it's top-tier or required viewing. Actually, I wouldn't say that about ANY Macross except for the original TV series and DYRL(order depends on if they're more focused on eye-candy or writing).

Sounds good to me.

Them and everyone else.