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monitron 5 hours ago

If you want to appreciate his work today, consider reading these lovely articles about the systems he helped design:

https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/master-system/

https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/mega-drive-genesis...

https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/sega-saturn/

https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/dreamcast/

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trzy 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Cool articles :) I got into emulation in the late 90s and eventually wrote both an NES and Genesis emulator. I always appreciated how cleanly organized Sega’s systems were, at least superficially considering the memory and register layouts.

You should take a look at Sega’s arcade systems, which were very cool, especially the Model 1, 2, and 3. Supermodel, an open source Model 3 emulator I co-wrote, and MAME have good emulation of Model 3 and 2, respectively, these days. Absolutely fascinating rendering architecture. It was early modern 3D when things were still weird and custom, before the industry standardized on OpenGL and Direct3D.

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kilpikaarna 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Thank you for you work!

It's easy to forget today, but the Sega home consoles were always secondary to their arcade business. The main reason the Saturn sold even as well as it did was because it was the only way to play versions of the heavy hitters: Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Daytona USA and Sega Rally in the home, in any fashion approaching the arcade (though still quite cut down). Those Sega 3D arcade games were absolutely mind blowing back in the early-mid 90s, and the pace of technical progress and new ideas was unlike anything since.

And the Dreamcast was conceived from day one to make it easy to port games from the Sega Naomi arcade system, and those arcade ports are probably the main reason people still play the Dreamcast to this day.

	▲	trzy 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yup. Although sometime in the mid-90's, the home console business became more lucrative and Sega really missed the wave. Games at home were their own distinct art form: longer, more complex, far more replay value. Arcade games rarely have more than 15-20 minutes of content and this was true of Model 3 and Naomi games. Sega's arcade focus became a major liability by the time Dreamcast rolled around.

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alexjplant 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Saturn is my favorite Sega system. I remember seeing it on the GameFAQs header in the late 90s when looking up strategy guides for Game Boy games and thinking "wow, that's a cool name for a system!" It wasn't until a few years ago that I finally got one. The next time I'm convalescent or snowed in I plan on finishing Powerslave and Panzer Dragoon Saga - I've only made it about halfway through both and they're fantastic.

RIP.

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throwanem an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Worthy of the HN black bar, I feel.

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ranger_danger an hour ago | parent [-]

black bar?

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frogulis 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

This site will often have a thin black bar along the top of the page as a mark of commemoration for someone noteworthy who has recently died.

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ranger_danger 33 minutes ago | parent [-]

Interesting... I wonder why I have never seen it then.

	▲	frogulis 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		At least for me on mobile with a dark mode address bar, it's usually quite hard to see it.