Recline of the machines: Terminator felled by dodgy battery

The baddest of AI bad guys, the Terminator, has confirmed what the vast majority of IT professionals already know. The machines are not about to rise, not until they can deal with that pesky battery voltage. Spotted by The Register's very own US editor in a New York arcade, an elderly Terminator Salvation arcade game is …

[Mishak]

I used to like

"Keyboard error - press F1 to continue".

Or is this a fake memory, and the BIOS was never that stupid?

[gv]

Re: I used to like

Old enough to have actually experienced this in real life.

[Flightmode]

Re: I used to like

I seem to recall it even saying "Keyboard missing - press F1 to continue"? Maybe that's a false memory, though. (Though as I recall, memory errors were just loud beeps in certain sequences?)

[Chloe Cresswell]

Re: I used to like

It wasn't that stupid really.

If set to halt on all errors, the press F1 was to indicate a keyboard was now attached and working.

My machines were normally defaulted to "halt on all errors except keyboard" from the makers (gigabyte 486/pentiums boards) and so would sail though regardless if you hadn't connected the keyboard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I used to like

I remember having that error. Unfortunately, on that machine. it was a PS/2 keyboard, which would only be recognized at boot - connecting one after the error wouldn't work, and you had to reboot anyway.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: I used to like

It would also frequently blow on onboard fuse if you did attempt to hot plug it, generally meaning a new mobo.

[Chloe Cresswell]

Re: I used to like

Seen that exactly: Once.

Toshiba laptop.

Must be a different value of frequently to my experience.

[richardcox13]

This is confusing

The Phoenix BIOS message on boot will be familiar to many, and the battery error suggests that whatever is keeping the BIOS settings alive is not long for this world.

But we know (as we see The T800's own view) that The Terminator runs on a 6502, and such BIOS's are not used by 6502 bases systems.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: This is confusing

As does Bender

[Chris Gray 1]

Re: This is confusing

Read a bit of the text there - interesting.

If I recall correctly, doing sloping lines without multiply/divide is called a DDA (Digital something something). I recall descriptions and comparisons in an early graphics textbook.

But, did you know you can do *circles* without mul/div? And no lookup tables. I did one for my "Explore" system on a CP/M S-100 graphics card. It's probably possible to modify that to do ellipses, but I didn't need that, so didn't try.

Fun times. Now I need the old geezer icon again!

[Stu Wilson]

Re: This is confusing

I think a lot of us of that age either worked out from first principles how to draw lines and curves (mine was using Z80 on an Amstrad CPC64), before finding out later in life that Jack Bresenham did it all way before many of us were born, or out of diapers.

[Chris Gray 1]

Re: This is confusing

Can I paste and have it readable? Probably not....

Here is the Draco source for drawing a circle (Intel 8080 CPU) on a (Godbout?) Spectrum graphics card:

proc nonrec circle(ushort yc, xc, r)void:

int xd, yd;

word negY;

ushort x, y;

xd := make(r, word) << 1;

yd := 0;

x := r;

y := 0;

negY := 0;

while y <= x do

while xd + yd >= 0 do

point(xc + x, yc + y);

point(xc + y, yc + x);

point(xc + x, yc - y);

point(xc - y, yc + x);

point(xc - x, yc + y);

point(xc + y, yc - x);

point(xc - x, yc - y);

point(xc - y, yc - x);

y := y + 1;

negY := negY - 1;

yd := yd + negY << 1;

od;

x := x - 1;

xd := xd + x << 1;

od;

corp;

[Gene Cash]

Re: This is confusing

Doing sloping lines without multiply/divide is called Breshenham's Algorithm IIRC. I wrote it in 6502 on my Atari to draw lines several pages long on my Epson MX-80

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: Digital something something

Digital Differential Analyser. Also known as Bresenhams line algorithm.

[Flat Phillip]

Re: This is confusing

Of course the T800 runs on Good assembler, none of that MOV nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

TIME CRISIS IS COOL

Trying to one up a DOLLY BIRD what is the point. Just the hired help.

Better to explore what was made available and the why. :)

MINNIE THE MINX :)

[Michael Strorm]

Generic PC in an arcade game case? Yawn...

I was never really an arcade fiend as a kid in the 80s. But I do remember being blown away by OutRun and that arcade game graphics in general were almost always so much better than anything domestic hardware or consoles were capable of back then.

From what I've read, the reason they went into serious decline from the mid-90s onwards is partly because the domestic consoles that were coming out then were dramatically narrowing the gap between themselves and dedicated arcade machine hardware.

I mean, I know it's common nowadays, but seeing an arcade machine that's obviously little more than lightly-modified (at best) generic PC hardware in a fancy case- and probably no better than what many people have at home- isn't really inspiring, is it?

[David Hicklin]

Re: Generic PC in an arcade game case? Yawn...

And for some of the early ones "colour" was coloured filters between the screen and the player !

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Generic PC in an arcade game case? Yawn...

Yes, as far as I'm aware both the original versions of Breakout and Space Invaders (and no doubt others from that era) used colour cellophane overlays over a black and white monitor display.

[John Miles]

An almost applicable SMBC - Rise of the Machines

[Tim Chuma]

There is a way to keep the "suicide" boards running

It does require losing another board while you connect another battery to it.

Talked to someone who ran a retro arcade, he said he had found a way to keep boards alive that required a battery of they would stop working.

Unfortunately this place is no longer running as they decided to close down and sold off all the machines!

[John Jennings]

Oddly enough

I had 2 lab machines report this very error on Monday, as they had been powered down over Christmas and new year. The machines are integrated into IOT lab machines (one a CT scanner for RMA/ASICS, one I have no idea what it does except that it goes 'Ping'.....

The test engineers didnt even want the batteries changed after we reset the bios - they worked and they didnt want to risk downing them again....

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Oddly enough

On the one hand you have the most advanced technology and the incalculable man-years of detailed engineering work that made it possible.

On the other you have the superstitions, magic rituals and cargo-cult behavior believed to keep any of it working

On the other-other hand (I work in nuclear) this is definitely necessary to make it work

[Toni the terrible]

Re: Oddly enough

Just give it a hit with a hammer - but you do have toknow where to hit it!