Latest news with #Atari2600
Geek Culture
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
Atari 2600+ Gets Pac-Man Themed Re-Release In Oct
Retro gamers are about to get a strikingly yellow blast from the past, as Atari and Bandai Namco have teamed up for the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition, a special re-release of the 2023 classic console refresh that celebrates the 45th anniversary of the iconic yellow puck. Originally launched in 2023, the Atari 2600+ served as a modern-day recreation of the classic '70s gaming console, retaining its retro feel while incorporating current-generation technologies like HDMI and USB-C ports, alongside the ability to run both 2600 and 7800 cartridges. The new Pac-Man Edition offers the same experience, this time decked out in the character's signature yellow hue, which engulfs almost its entire chassis, even featuring an appearance by the friendly puck alongside the four ghosts. 'The Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition is more than just a console,' manufacturer Plaion wrote in the console's announcement, 'it's a tribute to the moment home gaming truly began. By reimagining the iconic hardware in Pac-Man's unmistakable style, we're celebrating the legacy of two cultural giants who helped define a generation of play.' The Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition will also come with a matching yellow CX-40 wireless joystick, although different colour variations will also be sold separately, each themed after the four ghosts, including Red (Blinky), Cyan (Inky), Orange (Clyde) and Pink (Pinky). The console will also come with a Pac-Man Double Feature cartridge, which comprises the very first home console release of the original 1980s game, Pac-Man 2600 , alongside a new arcade-style version of the classic Pac-Man 7800 . Pre-orders for the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition will open on 23 July 2025, with the console releasing on 31 October 2025 priced at US$169.99. Individual wireless joysticks will cost US$39.99 each, alongside classic Bandai Namco games like Dig Dug 7800 or Galaga 7800 , each priced at US$34.99, with additional game and joystick console bundles also available. Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise 'duds' like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3 . He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying. atari atari 2600 Atari 2600+ Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition Bandai Namco
Stuff.tv
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Stuff.tv
The Atari 2600+ goes full Pac-Man – with a joystick for each ghost
If you're an Atari 2600 aficionado, hearing Pac-Man may make you wince. Such was the pain inflicted on the platform by a port so bad it's cited as a major reason for the US 1983 video game crash. Presumably in an effort to distract you from such memories in this Pac-Man-themed reissue of the Atari 2600+, Atari has painted the console bright yellow and bundled it with an Atari Pac-Man game that isn't terrible. And, do you know what? It might just work. For the uninitiated, the Atari 2600+ mimics the original console, right down to the DB9 ports and cart slot. That means you can plug in controllers from the 1980s and run vintage carts (assuming you can blow all the dust off). Or you can grab one of Atari's newly released titles. In either case, the experience all feels suitably authentic, but now – and I don't think I can emphasise this enough – the console happens to be bright yellow. Ghosts in the machine Play Even the joystick – a wireless take on the classic, cramp-inducing CX-40 – is banana-hued, and has a little Pac-Man atop the shaft. And because no Pac-Man experience is complete without ghosts, you can buy joysticks featuring every one of them too. Really. Each of the blue (Inky), red (Blinky), pink (Pinky) and orange (Clyde) joysticks will set you back $39.99/£29.99. And, no, they don't all turn dark blue if your Pac-Man joystick wolfs down a power pellet. Although you might when spending that much money on retro joysticks. So what of the games? As noted, Atari 2600 Pac-Man is included for maximum trauma. But Atari has also bundled a brand-new Atari 7800 version, which in the trailer looks impressively close to the arcade original. If that doesn't make you want to get your waka-waka on, nothing will. You can place a pre-order with Atari from 23 July. The pack with console, game and Pac-Man joystick will set you back $169.99/£129.99, and will land on 31 October. Which feels appropriate, given all the ghosts.
Phone Arena
15-07-2025
- Phone Arena
You won't believe what the Atari 2600 from 1977 did to ChatGPT, and Copilot while scaring Gemini
If you could place a bet on a chess match-up between the Atari 2600 and ChatGPT, which technology would you put your money on? The Atari 2600 is a game console released in 1977, 48 years ago. It features an 8-bit processor running at a clock speed of 1.19MHz. That's megahertz, folks, not gigahertz. The Atari machine carries 128 bytes of RAM. According to infrastructure architect Robert Caruso, who posted the results back in June, had you bet on ChatGPT, you would have lost. Caruso wrote that "ChatGPT got absolutely wrecked on the beginner level." He also explained how this apparent upset could take place. "Despite being given a baseline board layout to identify pieces, ChatGPT confused rooks for bishops, missed pawn forks, and repeatedly lost track of where pieces were," he stated. ChatGPT recognized that its loss was an upset and blamed it on the abstract icons used by Atari to represent chess pieces. However, even after changing to standard chess notation, the chatbot "made enough blunders to get laughed out of a 3rd grade chess club." The underpowered Atari 2600 is a chess master when playing AI opponents. | Image credit-Amazon Caruso said that during an hour and a half, he had to stop ChatGPT from making bad moves and help it understand where the pieces belonging to both sides were located. Several times per turn ChatGPT had to have its awareness of the board reset. The AI chatbot promised multiple times that its playing would improve if the game started over from the beginning. Finally, ChatGPT conceded the match. Interestingly, it was ChatGPT that suggested the contest. During a conversation about chess, ChatGPT said that it was a strong player and could easily beat Atari Video Chess, which thinks only 1-2 moves ahead. ChatGPT was curious about how fast it could win. Instead, we know it lost. At the start of this month, the Atari 2600 game console took on another modern AI powerhouse in a game of chess. Microsoft's Copilot thought that the Atari 2600 was no match for it. Even though it said that it could think 10-15 moves ahead of the Atari, Copilot said that it would stick to thinking 3-5 moves ahead because the Atari console makes "suboptimal moves. Copilot also said that, unlike ChatGPT, "I make a strong effort to remember previous moves and maintain continuity in gameplay, so our match should be much smoother." As it turned out, Caruso had to send Copilot a screenshot of the board after every move the Atari 2600 made. The Microsoft AI chatbot admitted that it had the same spatial memory gaps as ChatGPT. Despite this shortcoming, Copilot said that it could still analyze the board and make good moves. Well, apparently it couldn't as the Atari 2600 made it two straight victories against an AI opponent. Caruso then spoke with Gemini to set up a match. The Google-developed AI, like ChatGPT and Copilot, thought it had an easy victory in the bag. However, Gemini then admitted that it had hallucinated its chess-playing abilities. That left Gemini to make the only correct decision it could in light of its admission. "Canceling the match is likely the most time-efficient and sensible decision," said Gemini. While Gemini never did get a chance to take on the Atari 2600, Caruso was impressed with how the chatbot had the insight to know its own limitations. It seems incredible that a game console 48 years old using woefully underpowered technology, could beat two AI chatbots with cutting-edge tech and scare a third one into cancelling a match. But this is not really the upset that you might think it is. Senior Software Engineer Kyle Witeck wrote, " comparing language models to a chess bot that was designed to play is not intelligent and not AI. It patterns and guesses from a system designed on language. Token-driven guesses." Secure your connection now at a bargain price! We may earn a commission if you make a purchase This offer is not available in your area.
Indian Express
17-06-2025
- Indian Express
AI versus Atari: ChatGPT gets ‘wrecked' in chess match against vintage gaming console
OpenAI's ChatGPT has been pitted against other major AI chatbots in the market such as Google's Gemini or Anthropic's Claude. But what happens when ChatGPT goes head-to-head with a 46-year-old video game console in a game of chess. That is exactly what an engineer recently set out to do. Robert Caruso, who works at cloud computing company Citrix, said that he designed an experiment in which ChatGPT squared off against Atari 2600, which was first released back in 1977. Caruso said that he used a software emulator to set up run the 1979 Atari video game called Video Chess. The match between ChatGPT and the gaming system surprisingly did not go well for the AI chatbot, according to Caruso. 'ChatGPT got absolutely wrecked at the beginner level. It made enough blunders to get laughed out of a 3rd-grade chess club,' Caruso wrote in a LinkedIn post. 'Despite being given a baseline board layout to identify pieces, ChatGPT confused rooks for bishops, missed pawn forks and repeatedly lost track of where pieces were — first blaming the Atari icons as too abstract, then faring no better even after switching to standard chess notations,' he added. He also said that the AI chatbot repeatedly requested to start the match over during the 90-minute contest. While the experiment does not definitively indicate that ChatGPT lacks the intelligence to play chess, it seems to suggest that the AI chatbot cannot be used for that specific purpose as it is a chatbot that may be better suited to analyse or discuss chess moves. It is also unclear whether Caruso conducted the experiment with GPT-4o as the default large language model (LLM) or chose one of OpenAI's reasoning models such as o1, o3, or o4-mini which are supposedly trained to solve complex problems by breaking them down into steps. Experiments assessing AI systems based on their ability to defeat humans at chess is not entirely new. In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue technology grabbed headlines by defeating chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in several matches. In 2016, Google DeepMind's AlphaGo made history by becoming the first computer programme to defeat a world champion at the ancient Chinese game of Go. Following the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, a developer created a plugin called ChessGPT so that users could play chess with the chatbot. However, a recent study by Palisade Research found that AI reasoning models such as OpenAI's o1-preview and DeepSeek R1 don't always concede when sensing defeat in a match against a skilled chess bot. Instead, the models that were tested opted to cheat by hacking its opponent so that the bot automatically forfeits the game.
CNET
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
How Did ChatGPT Get 'Absolutely Wrecked' at Chess by an 1970s-Era Atari 2600?
How Did ChatGPT Get 'Absolutely Wrecked' at Chess by an 1970s-Era Atari 2600? The console Gen Xers used to play Pac-Man and Pitfall on apparently was better than anyone knew.
