v38.8: Hold Reset, Press Power

Howdy folks,

-slurp-

As most of you know, I'm a gamer.  I'm someone who enjoys many different types of games and play as many different types of games as I can get my hands on.  I've always been a gamer going back to my early years and the family's first computer; a Commodore Vic20.

-slurp-

I recall spending countless hours at the old Commodore Vic20 writing basic programs from the back of a computer magazine.  You may be old enough to remember doing this yourself.  It was a long, tiresome and sometimes unrewarding task but it sure felt good when you executed the program and it worked.  Watching my first pixel ball float across the screen brought great joy, and it only required a thousand lines of code.  Of course this doesn't have much to do with gaming, but may explain why I enjoy doing development work at my job.  My primary position is a team lead, but I would much rather do development full-time.  Back in those days, if you were lucky enough to own an Atari, you may have enjoyed games like Asteroids or Space Invaders.  Arcades were also a hot spot for me and whenever I would walk by an arcade at the mall, I would beg for coins to go in and play.

-slurp-

I remember the day we first got an NES at home.  We had been begging my parents for months and months to have an NES.  We rented one from the video store a few times and all my friends owned one but nothing could have prepared me for the surprise of getting our very own NES.  I don't remember the exact year, but it was during my birthday that my parents decided to spring the surprise.  I'll never forget it.  I had finished opening all my gifts on my birthday and my father surprised me with one extra gift he must have been hiding.  It was small and rectangular in shape.  I looked at it, turned it over in my hands trying to figure out what it was.  I opened the gift and low and behold there was an NES controller wrapped inside.  Immediately my eyes went wide and the excitement was starting to build.  Of course my father couldn't let me have the NES.  No, I was given the NES controller for my birthday.  I was told the other controller would be given to my oldest sister for her birthday and then the console would be given to my youngest sister for her birthday.  My dreams shattered and the excitement of having my very own NES was gone, replaced by sadness and anger at my parents for giving me a teasing gift like this.  I pleaded for them to give me the NES but my parents were trying to make a point.  This NES was for the family, not for me, and they wanted to make sure I understood.  Of course I understood, my parents bought me an NES for my birthday!

-slurp-

That NES has seen many years of play.  It's received a few beatings as well but we won't get into that.  I still have that console today, it sits in a box waiting for the day that I have the room I need to setup all my old consoles and hook them up to a dedicated television for the kids.  For now it waits.  Of course this is the 21st century and gaming has gotten a lot more accessible.  For example, I have a PSP (slightly hacked) with an NES and SNES emulator installed on it.  In addition, I have approximately 700 NES and SNES games on a memory card that I can access and play at anytime I want.  It's great.  Imagine being able to hold the entire Nintendo library in the palm of your hands; that is the kind of technology a gamer like myself can appreciate.

-slurp-

While I'm on the subject of NES games, remember how you used to have to hold the Reset button down before pressing the Power off?  I always wondered why this was necessary.  I was playing some SNES games on my PSP today and for whatever reason while I was saving my progress in one of the games I thought about the old NES and having to hold Reset before turning the unit off.  I decided to do a little digging because that was a question I've always had but never actually thought to look it up.  Apparently, according to various sources I looked up, the reason for holding down the Reset button was to avoid a potentially dangerous power surge to the game cartridges by just cutting the power.  Some of the cartridges had battery powered memory chips in them that would allow you to save the progress in your games.  By simply shutting down the unit by hitting the power button, you were at a risk of wiping the memory and having all your saved data erased.  Apparently, by holding down the Reset button first, you sent a signal to the chip to finish it's instructions thereby allowing you to turn off the power.  This was something Nintendo fixed with their SNES consoles and the need to hold the Reset before powering off was gone.

-slurp-

Well folks, it's time to bid you all farewell for another day.  I hope everyone has a great day and hopefully we'll see you here again tomorrow.

Cheers,

Al