4 ms·

Every Graphics at Once: Nintendo's Popeye

197 points by zdw 4y ago

danjoredd 4y ago
I used to play that online via emulators. I loved it! Being a child of the 2000s, I never noticed how much more graphically intense it was compared to other 8-bit offerings
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
I played the Atari version of Popeye and always wanted to play the arcade version but they never had it around. Funny because Al Copeland was a friend of a family friend and Popeye and Popeye's was huge business around town. Most of my childhood friends managed to be on TV for "Popeye and Pals," a studio show where they'd show Popeye cartoons in between interview segments with the kids in the audience who were all busy munching down on 2 piece boxes of fried chicken.
- egypturnash 4y ago
  I recall it being at either Space Port or Tilt in the Lake Forest Plaza. I bet it was around Fun Arcade too but I wasn't allowed to bicycle all the way out to Metarie at that age.
  - bartchamdo 4y ago
    It was not at either fun arcade any time that I visited which was quite a bit. I do remember it being at a showbiz pizza though. I think the one by the Kmart and the sporting goods store off Vets.
JohnBooty 4y ago
She's one of, and maybe the best explainer of vintage hardware I've ever encountered. Her entire site is so, so worth reading if you're into this kind of thing.
- steponlego 4y ago
  I'm really impressed, you don't usually see women who are this obsessed with vintage video games. Extremely rare in my experience. EDIT: Why the downvotes? I am lauding her.
  - xedrac 4y ago
    Because it's taboo to suggest that men and women tend to have different interests.
    - brnt 4y ago
      Rather, it seems taboo for a certain group to suggest there might not be any difference.
      - JohnBooty 4y ago
        Rather than talking about "taboos," which sound sort of mysterious and arbitrary, let's take a look at why commenting on her gender wasn't the best thing. First I have no doubt that the original comment up there, commenting how it's odd to see a woman involved in such a hobby, was made completely innocently! But even if something is both correct and innocent, it's not always like... the best choice. It was off topic for sure and more to the point, it winds up simply reinforcing the stereotype. Imagine a comment along the lines of, "oh -- a black valedictorian! don't see that often!" Awkward at best, and the fact that you're pointing out the perceived exception to a perceived stereotype is evidence that you're kinda bought into the stereotype.
    - 3np 4y ago
      No, but the general sentiment here seems to be that it's at best off-topic here.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - esperent 4y ago
    Just treat her as a human being, there's no reason whatsoever to bring up gender here. I can assure you, as a guy who enjoys many traditionally feminine activities: when you're doing something contrary to gender norms and people constantly bring that up, even in a positive way, it feels extremely limiting and frustrating. Just let people enjoy stuff, especially when the result is awesome and fascinating articles like this.
jonstewart 4y ago
I had Popeye as a cartridge for our Colecovision computer (the ADAM). Gotta love ROM.
shove 4y ago
We were lucky enough to have one of these at my (now defunct) arcade bar a few years ago. Absolutely gorgeous on a CRT. I never noticed the pixels feeling particularly large — I’ll have to remember to check that out the next time I (hopefully) see one in the wild.
- rnitchy 4y ago
  my uncle bought one an it stayed at my grandmothers house for years. i played with my brothers and cousins a ton. when she passed it went to my aunts house. they may move soon and i said i would come pick it up and keep it in my basement to play with my son. screen is very dark and has a ton of burn in. it might be a nice project to repair and restore. residual crt voltage scares me to this day. gotta get some rubber gloves or something.
  - Stratoscope 4y ago
    It may be as much as 25,000 volts, which could punch right through many rubber gloves. You need to discharge the CRT. It's easy and fun! https://www.wikihow.com/Discharge-a-CRT-Monitor https://www.wikihow.com/Discharge-a-CRT-Monitor (The photo for step 9 is a bit confusing, as it doesn't show the alligator clip attached to the screwdriver shaft.) I grew up in the era of tube TVs (not just the CRT, the entire circuit was tubes). One of my earliest memories was being the family TV repairman, which meant pulling out all the tubes, going to the corner grocery with my dad to test them, bringing home the replacement for the bad tube, plugging them back in and the TV worked! Dad showed me how to discharge the CRT, and we used the same tools and technique described in the WikiHow article. The loud "pop" it makes is really cool.
    - raldi 4y ago
      Video (and audio) of a discharge: https://youtu.be/-jbnFuVWTdk?t=136 https://youtu.be/-jbnFuVWTdk?t=136
- waltbosz 4y ago
  I had a chance to trade a 2001 multigame cabinet that I got out of a dumpster for a Popeye cabinet. I regret not making that trade, the old Nintendo cabinets were beautiful, plus Popeye is a great game.
AbusiveHNAdmin 4y ago
Cool article. I didn't like this game, but I was always impressed by the smooth scrolling when the screen bounced in response to Bluto jumping around. It gave the game a "big-budget" or arcade-quality feel, which frequently distinguished arcade games from home adaptations. This despite my having an Atari 800, whose hardware provided silky-smooth fine scrolling and sprites. The glow of multicolor game characters on a CRT just brings back the excitement of arcades. I wonder if anything has that kind of entertainment value for kids today.
Mistletoe 4y ago
My gf is obsessed with this game at our arcade bar now. It’s a great game. I played it on my Commodire 64. It didn’t look quite as good but I never noticed. :) https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Popeye#Level_1 https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Popeye#Level_1
nla 4y ago
She's a genius. Read all of her posts. Follow her on Twitter. She should be at Sony working with Mark Cerny. I hope she finds her way to one of the first party hardware companies.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  Agreed in all except one, don't follow her, or anyone, on Twitter. She's on Mastodon: @nicole@bitbang.social
  - Graziano_M 4y ago
    She's still tweeting. https://twitter.com/nicole_express https://twitter.com/nicole_express
rob74 4y ago
> The very first arcade game with a CPU was Midway’s 1975 port of Gun Fight. Cool, I used to have a portable clone of that game: https://www.cnet.com/culture/80s-handheld-game-still-hits-the-mark/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/80s-handheld-game-still-hits-th... The glowing VFD had a certain mistique that the by then more common LCDs lacked, and the game itself was really fun, either against the CPU or against another player. And it played the iconic "funeral march melody" when your gunslinger died, which has been stuck in my head ever since...
A_Venom_Roll 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this. This month there was a interesting Retronauts podcast episode [0] about Popeye in which not only this version, but also Don Priestley spectrum version was discussed [0] https://retronauts.com/article/2013/retronauts-episode-513-popeye https://retronauts.com/article/2013/retronauts-episode-513-p...

197 points by zdw 4y ago

I used to play that online via emulators. I loved it! Being a child of the 2000s, I never noticed how much more graphically intense it was compared to other 8-bit offerings

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

I played the Atari version of Popeye and always wanted to play the arcade version but they never had it around. Funny because Al Copeland was a friend of a family friend and Popeye and Popeye's was huge business around town. Most of my childhood friends managed to be on TV for "Popeye and Pals," a studio show where they'd show Popeye cartoons in between interview segments with the kids in the audience who were all busy munching down on 2 piece boxes of fried chicken.

egypturnash 4y ago
I recall it being at either Space Port or Tilt in the Lake Forest Plaza. I bet it was around Fun Arcade too but I wasn't allowed to bicycle all the way out to Metarie at that age.
- bartchamdo 4y ago
  It was not at either fun arcade any time that I visited which was quite a bit. I do remember it being at a showbiz pizza though. I think the one by the Kmart and the sporting goods store off Vets.

JohnBooty 4y ago

She's one of, and maybe the best explainer of vintage hardware I've ever encountered. Her entire site is so, so worth reading if you're into this kind of thing.

steponlego 4y ago
I'm really impressed, you don't usually see women who are this obsessed with vintage video games. Extremely rare in my experience. EDIT: Why the downvotes? I am lauding her.
- xedrac 4y ago
  Because it's taboo to suggest that men and women tend to have different interests.
  - brnt 4y ago
    Rather, it seems taboo for a certain group to suggest there might not be any difference.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      Rather than talking about "taboos," which sound sort of mysterious and arbitrary, let's take a look at why commenting on her gender wasn't the best thing. First I have no doubt that the original comment up there, commenting how it's odd to see a woman involved in such a hobby, was made completely innocently! But even if something is both correct and innocent, it's not always like... the best choice. It was off topic for sure and more to the point, it winds up simply reinforcing the stereotype. Imagine a comment along the lines of, "oh -- a black valedictorian! don't see that often!" Awkward at best, and the fact that you're pointing out the perceived exception to a perceived stereotype is evidence that you're kinda bought into the stereotype.
  - 3np 4y ago
    No, but the general sentiment here seems to be that it's at best off-topic here.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- esperent 4y ago
  Just treat her as a human being, there's no reason whatsoever to bring up gender here. I can assure you, as a guy who enjoys many traditionally feminine activities: when you're doing something contrary to gender norms and people constantly bring that up, even in a positive way, it feels extremely limiting and frustrating. Just let people enjoy stuff, especially when the result is awesome and fascinating articles like this.

jonstewart 4y ago

I had Popeye as a cartridge for our Colecovision computer (the ADAM). Gotta love ROM.

shove 4y ago

We were lucky enough to have one of these at my (now defunct) arcade bar a few years ago. Absolutely gorgeous on a CRT. I never noticed the pixels feeling particularly large — I’ll have to remember to check that out the next time I (hopefully) see one in the wild.

rnitchy 4y ago
my uncle bought one an it stayed at my grandmothers house for years. i played with my brothers and cousins a ton. when she passed it went to my aunts house. they may move soon and i said i would come pick it up and keep it in my basement to play with my son. screen is very dark and has a ton of burn in. it might be a nice project to repair and restore. residual crt voltage scares me to this day. gotta get some rubber gloves or something.
- Stratoscope 4y ago
  It may be as much as 25,000 volts, which could punch right through many rubber gloves. You need to discharge the CRT. It's easy and fun! https://www.wikihow.com/Discharge-a-CRT-Monitor https://www.wikihow.com/Discharge-a-CRT-Monitor (The photo for step 9 is a bit confusing, as it doesn't show the alligator clip attached to the screwdriver shaft.) I grew up in the era of tube TVs (not just the CRT, the entire circuit was tubes). One of my earliest memories was being the family TV repairman, which meant pulling out all the tubes, going to the corner grocery with my dad to test them, bringing home the replacement for the bad tube, plugging them back in and the TV worked! Dad showed me how to discharge the CRT, and we used the same tools and technique described in the WikiHow article. The loud "pop" it makes is really cool.
  - raldi 4y ago
    Video (and audio) of a discharge: https://youtu.be/-jbnFuVWTdk?t=136 https://youtu.be/-jbnFuVWTdk?t=136
waltbosz 4y ago
I had a chance to trade a 2001 multigame cabinet that I got out of a dumpster for a Popeye cabinet. I regret not making that trade, the old Nintendo cabinets were beautiful, plus Popeye is a great game.

AbusiveHNAdmin 4y ago

Cool article. I didn't like this game, but I was always impressed by the smooth scrolling when the screen bounced in response to Bluto jumping around. It gave the game a "big-budget" or arcade-quality feel, which frequently distinguished arcade games from home adaptations. This despite my having an Atari 800, whose hardware provided silky-smooth fine scrolling and sprites. The glow of multicolor game characters on a CRT just brings back the excitement of arcades. I wonder if anything has that kind of entertainment value for kids today.

Mistletoe 4y ago

My gf is obsessed with this game at our arcade bar now. It’s a great game. I played it on my Commodire 64. It didn’t look quite as good but I never noticed. :) https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Popeye#Level_1 https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Popeye#Level_1

nla 4y ago

She's a genius. Read all of her posts. Follow her on Twitter. She should be at Sony working with Mark Cerny. I hope she finds her way to one of the first party hardware companies.

LeoPanthera 4y ago
Agreed in all except one, don't follow her, or anyone, on Twitter. She's on Mastodon: @nicole@bitbang.social
- Graziano_M 4y ago
  She's still tweeting. https://twitter.com/nicole_express https://twitter.com/nicole_express

rob74 4y ago

> The very first arcade game with a CPU was Midway’s 1975 port of Gun Fight. Cool, I used to have a portable clone of that game: https://www.cnet.com/culture/80s-handheld-game-still-hits-the-mark/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/80s-handheld-game-still-hits-th... The glowing VFD had a certain mistique that the by then more common LCDs lacked, and the game itself was really fun, either against the CPU or against another player. And it played the iconic "funeral march melody" when your gunslinger died, which has been stuck in my head ever since...

A_Venom_Roll 4y ago

Thanks for sharing this. This month there was a interesting Retronauts podcast episode [0] about Popeye in which not only this version, but also Don Priestley spectrum version was discussed [0] https://retronauts.com/article/2013/retronauts-episode-513-popeye https://retronauts.com/article/2013/retronauts-episode-513-p...