Old School Gazette, Friday, September 24, 1982

September 24, 2022

Old-School Gazette: Your source for the "latest" in technology and entertainment.

Friday, August 24, 1982.

Technology

A new company called "Hi-Toro" has been founded by two men, David Morse and Jay Miner, after leaving Atari due to frustrations with management. They've begun creating a new console currently called "Lorraine" that uses the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. This new console is intended to be upgradeable to a normal computer. For the moment, the are creating peripherals for the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision consoles to raise money for the Lorraine project, and have recently changed their organization's name to "Amiga Corporation".

The Microfloppy Industry Committee has come to an agreement with Sony on the standard specifications for a planned new type of floppy disk. The new standard for a 3.5 inch disk dubbed the "Microfloppy" due to it being below 5.25 inches, and will have a hard case with an automatic shutter to protect the medium holding the data. These specifications have been submitted to ANSI and are likely to be accepted, as more than 30 companies have already begun supporting the new format. 5.25 inch drives are still increasing in sales, but it is expected that these new drives will outsell the old, as they are smaller, lighter, and cheaper.

Meanwhile, Iomega has started producing an entirely different type of floppy drive called the "Alpha 10", using an interesting piece of technology based on physics principles discovered two hundred years ago by Daniel Bernoulli, son of Johann Bernoulli of the famous Bernoulli Brothers. The Alpha 10 is therefore called a "Bernoulli drive". The drive is an 8-inch floppy and is said to be more stable in part due to the fact that the read/write head does not physically touch the disk. Jostling and contaminants, therefore, should have minimal effect on the medium.

Video Games

Today saw the release of Namco's "Pole Position", a racing game with a rear-view perspective that is the first to feature both stereo and surround sound as well as the first racing game to be based on a real racing circuit, being Fuji Racetrack. Its publisher, Atari, has described it as having "unbelievable driving realism".

Another recent release is Sega's "Pengo", a maze-action game wherein the player takes control of the titular Pengo, a red penguin with a purple bow tie. The object of the game is to crush the enemies, called "Sno-Bees", with sliding blocks of ice, while also avoiding touching those enemies. The game is well-received, being described by Computer and Video Games Magazine as "the cutest of coin-operated video games", praising the graphics, the music, and "that feeling of satisfaction you get when an ice-block picks up speed and knocks all the wind out of a surprised sno-bee!"

Film

Last Tuesday, three notable films were released.

The first is a film-noir movie produced by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Wim Wenders called "Hammet" was released. The main character is a detective-turned-mystery-writer that gets caught up in a real-life mystery. The film stars Frederic Forrest as the lead, with supporting roles from Marilu Henner and Peter Boyle.

The second film was "Inchon", a war movie about the Battle of Inchon in the Korean War. The film stars Lawrence Olivier as General Douglas MacArthur, leading the amphibious assault. Interestingly, this film was financed by Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

The third film was "Pink Floyd - The Wall", a musical that combines live-action and animation based on the music of Pink Floyd's album, also called "The Wall". The movie is highly esoteric and has been well-received thus far.

Today saw the release of "Amityville II: The Possession". While the previous movie was based on the Lutz family, this sequel is based, however loosely, on the DeFeo family that lived in the same house as the Lutzes, changing the name to "Montelli". The film has been panned by critics and is considered to be a cash-grab based on the success of the first film.

Television

A new reporter named Mary Hart joined "Entertainment Tonight" last Monday. The show covers news on the latest in movies, music, and television.

This past Wednesday, a new television show premiered on NBC called "Family Ties". This sitcom explores the relationship of a conservative son, played by Michael J Fox, to his ex-hippie liberal parents, played by Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney.

Ending recently, the show "Lou Grant", starring Ed Asner, aired its final episode last Monday. This particular series was unusual in that it was a drama spinoff of a comedy show, being Mary Tyler Moore, both of which were very successful. Ed Asner is the first person to receive an Emmy Award for both Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for playing the same character.

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