Space Invaders is thirty years old this month. 1Up has done an article on ten things you didn’t know about it.

(via Vintage Computing and Gaming).

But have you heard the song/seen the video clip?

I was amused to see this Donkey Kong reference in a cartoon by Andrew Dyson in last Friday’s Age, commenting on the current Australian political stoush over petrol prices. It features opposition leader Brendan Nelson as Donkey Kong, and PM Kevin Rudd as Mario.

Video game themes arranged for orchestra

I’ve switched my ringtone. I wanted something distinctive but not crass and loud. I ended up deciding on the intro theme from Galaga. The text alert tone is the sound from Galaga when you put a coin in.

• galaga-ring.mp3 (117 Kb)
• galaga-sms.mp3 (12 Kb)

And it turns out it’s quite easy to do — provided your phone is newer than Josh’s and supports music files (eg MP3, WAV or AAC)… which most from the last couple of years do.

If you run Mame32, it’s got an option to record the sound as you play the game (on the File menu). This saves to a WAV file. Load it up into Sound Recorder and snip away (using Edit / Delete before or after current position). Some other MAME variants may have this feature too.

Some phones will support WAV, but if not (or you want to minimise the file size), convert to MP3 or your preferred format using Bladeenc or any other encoder. Transfer it onto the phone using a cable or IR link, then customise the ringtone and alert sound (on my Nokia it’s via Profile / General / Personalise). Easy!

If you know me in person, please find something else to use, so I know it’s mine going off when I hear it

Some other classic video game sounds that spring to mind as suitable are the Pacman theme (and dying sound for alerts) and Donkey Kong’s “How high can you jump?” theme (with the jumping barrel sound for the alert).

Obviously if you’re playing in MAME you can just press P to pause, but on a real Pacman arcade game, what do you do if you’re playing a mammoth game and you want to rest? Go just to the right and up from the starting position.

The ghosts won’t find you, you can rest for a while.

That’s certainly something I wish I’d known 20 years ago…

Game nostalgia strategy quiz:

In Donkey Kong, did you bother getting the hammer to smash the barrels, or just head for the top?

In Galaga, did you try to get the double fighter?

Gyruss: double bullets? Or not bother?

Did you keep feeding in coins in Moon Patrol, to try and get to the end?

Pacman: save the power pills for when you can get multiple ghosts, or just clean up the board ASAP?

Who was your favourite character to play in Gauntlet?

In Popeye did you favour the top, or bottom of the screen waiting for the hearts?

Space Invaders: start shooting the sides, the middle, or in rows starting from the bottom?

Scramble: Try and shoot the fuel tanks ahead, or bomb them from above? Make it to the end?

If you’re looking for maps of your favourite video games, check out the Online Video Game Atlas. There are some very large and detailed maps for download.

Be careful, though. This quote may act as a warning:

Weellll… I just learned how big a PNG has to be before Opera rolls over and plays dead.