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CatPix

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CatPix last won the day on November 26 2022

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About CatPix

  • Birthday 12/03/1988

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  1. This cable has some sync issues with some TVs, also, if you use a TV with two or more SCART input, try using AV1 only as usually only the first AV will have RGB. Some older TV may only have composite in on the SCART input, in this case sadly there's no solution outside of modding the console to add composite back in (or use another TV)
  2. Does the consoles feature a RF outpu or not? It's the fastest way to tell a French SMS from any other, this and the sticker saying "Power base RGB) If it is, you need a specific cable with a video amplifier, and you need to know that those console only have RGB output, but not composite output. If it's not, they you may have simply a problem with broken solder pads, a VERY common issue on SMS.
  3. Really. ANd I ran some searches on this forum and didn't found any mention on the forums either. Also, that it was showcased here doesn't mean it could have any connection with the Louvre - does the Grand Palais use Switches for anything?
  4. Not much else to add to the title https://www.louvre.fr/en/visit/visitor-amenities It's not exactly new but I had never heard of it until now. Apparently, they use a modified firmware to block connections and unused features, the cart port is blocked, they feature, as you can see, specific buttons and Nintendo-branded headphones. And yes, the 3D stereoscopic function is used : That is quite amazing. Apparently nobody was able to get one... but certainly some may eventually slip by as Nintendo retired the console. Quick edit : a home version is available for free for N3DS owners : https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-3DS-games/Nintendo-3DS-Guide-Louvre-822301.html
  5. It depends, but I would say the vast majority of VCR are passthrough machines when it come to composite : PAL 50 goes in, PAL50 goes out. For reading tapes, it works because it changes the spinning side of the tape to work with NTSC tapes, and it includes a NTSC to PAL converter. It output PAL 60 because it owuld be too complex back then to do a proper 60 to 50 conversion. Now it may be possible that the composite input goes through that converter, but I doubt it.
  6. Yeah, I was amazed and horrified seeing Maniac Mansion on the NES Day of the tentacle and other PnC games of the era boasted gorgeous visuals. I'm sure homebrew today, especially with some of the later NES chips, could do wonders, but back then? naah And yes, the idea that they could make any kind of beef on a 2 pounds tape is wild... On the other hand, it was cheaper to buy crusty recording of classical music in clearance sales than buying blank tapes, sooo... I do remember seeing pictures of published game tapes that had markings, so Mastertronic and others definitively bought tapes from unsold stocks or maybe illegally exported tapes to put games on them.
  7. Monkey Island is a complex point'n'click game with all kind of sitution and humour that wouldn't pass Nintendo censorship and would looks like hot mess on the Nes. As for the ease of releasing games and prices : See the logo on the bottom? It's literally the price. 1.99 and 2.99£. And no, those weren't (all) old releases or clearances sales. Games were sold for 2£ brand new. As for the ease of publishing games? 8 bits computers have their own Action 52, it's called Cassette 50. And how it was made and published is a textbook example. "In an interview, Matthew Lewis, the author of Galaxy Defence, said he wrote the game when he was 14 and submitted it in response to a small, anonymous ad in a local newspaper" The market was that wild. Literally anyone could release a game.
  8. Robotron was a brand name for various incompatible computers, rather than "one computer" (the concept of "brand" was a bit fuzzy in Communist regimes). The most famous (and easily available) Robotron computers were the KC (KleinComputer, AKA Small computer) 85 and 87 To my understanding, it was mostly distributed to companies and institutions, but it mean that after the reunification, they were replaced and several found their way in hobbyists homes. Of note is the KC Compact : Unlike the other KC, it was an all-in-one unit (KC 85 and 87 were usable out of the box but it was almost always expected to have RAM and drive attachement added) and more importantly, so to say, it was an Amstrad CPC clone, the only CPC clone (that we know of). Released in 1989, very few were sold and it's today an extremely rare machine that had zero impact whatsoever.
  9. I have had the SD version back when I think it was either the only option or micro-SD was new. I have used a Kingston 256Mo SD card since then, (probably from an early digital camera :D) and it's plenty enough unless you are really adamant in having the whole library of the 2600 in PAL and NTSC versions + all homebrews. I don't think the Harmony is really picky like Everdrive can be, but the amount of data to read is so small.
  10. You can deposit it for use in a different domain. That is, as mentionned before, if you claim the name Cougar for an automobile, you can try to sue anyone using the same name on the same market. Heck, imagine that in 1964, Peugeot got in cahoots with Porsche for the upcoming 901 car, that was renamed 911. Yes, we almost got a Porsche 901. Note : the Peugeot claim was only for the French market, but apparently Porsche decided to change the name everywhere anyway. Same as in Canada mentionned in other messages, law in France (and probable the UE) is that the same word can be used by different products, as long as they are in different domains. There is also the case of family names as brands : did you know there is two Ferrari ? There's the manufacturer of supercars and a small tractor manufacturer, Ferrari Agri (and there was also a 3rd, unrelated Ferrari Trattori - short-lived in the 50's) : and unlike Lamborghini, which was originally a tractor manufacturer and a supercar manufacturer, those Ferrari are totally unrelated both as companies but also as family. (if you aren't aware, Lamborghini still manufacture tractors) to this day )
  11. Neat! I guess the issue is just that pressing 11 buttons at once is not easy by hand. I should have used a small piece of wood I guess
  12. Remember that prior to 83 the beard and butter of Sega and Nintendo were arcade games, not consoles. Licencing BITD was very different (and very, very complex). Licencing for the MSX and Apple II make sense since it's an open market, there was simply no way for Nintendo to sign a deal with Apple or Amstrad or any computer company to force Sega games out, as computer makers had no way to lock out games from their platforms (and no reason to do so). In addition, it was their interest to port their games on several platforms : the Apple II was king in the US, the MSX was a success in Japan, the Spectrum and Amstrad were huge sellers in Europe. In fact if you read how games were published back then, it was rarely an Arcade game publisher that got their game published, it was the developper who came asking to port the game, and it was dealt with by region and by platform, which is why, especially on the Commodore 64, you had European and US port of the same game made by different studios and that were clearly different.
  13. Being that I grew up with consoles that natively had RGB, I have little affection for composite and RF. Note that I am content with consumer level RGB from SCART. All the effort to get supernaturally scaled and stuff signals... Heck, why not buying a 36 cm LCD TV instead so the signal isn't stretched over a cinema-wide display? RGB modded yes... but nothing more.
  14. Something more simple : these products had reached their end of life. What were they gonna do? Industries are not charities. Selling products like those to consumer mean that you have to create a new financial entry, hire or put someone to manage it. If the company was created to RENT to hotel, selling to private customers mean they may even need to change their comemrcial status. And to what end? Squeezing 4 000$ out of aging electronics? It is more sensible for companies to just send those to the shredder. Not out of an evil need to make it vanish, but because selling them used would be alot of trouble for a neglictible gain, and brokers wouldn't care about some aging devices with such a specific purpose. As for why there weren't 2600 versions of those, it's probably because it was cheap. The point of those machines are to allow companies to get the games and machine cheaper if they rent them than buying them and havint to maintain them, with the benefit of a game changer integrated. The Atari 2600 sales really took off in 1980. By then Atari already had the Atari 8 bits and was probably planning a console version (future 5200) and given the low price point of the 2600, turning it into a rented machine wouldn't fetch much money, and probably more trouble than anything.
  15. Did Nintendo did that? I do know Steepler did an agreement with Sega tho. And I think with Bobmark in Poland who sold a Megadrive clone. I don't think Nintendo ever sanctionned the sales of the Dendy, but more tried to replace the Dendy with official NES/SNES products. But this is always a bit muddy, and sources are scarce (and all in Russian obvs). Also for the topic, Valve has the habit of turning game modes into games. It's not "bootleg to official" since I don't remember the mods being sold, but it is "unofficial to official". It's also very common for indie games to integrate mods (and even hire the modders!) in their games. Project Zomboid and Workers & Ressources :Soviet Republic did it : https://www.sovietrepublic.net/post/report-for-the-community-82 "Next up, we’ve handpicked some impressive mods to include in the basic game. A special thanks to dlseis, the brilliant creator of these new western cars, which you'll soon find in your game environments." https://projectzomboid.com/blog/news/2023/05/the-skillful-huntzman/ "The Indie Stone would like to extend an excited hello to two new fine folks this week – Egor who will be joining the MP team as they move ahead with their upgrades, and community fan favourite DaddyDirkieDirk. Dirk has joined our art team to pump out ever more delectable tiles to give our map more life, and its deepest parts some more intriguing objects to perceive in the darkness – and if you are interested in his fantastic work as a modder then we ran a Mod Spotlight on him only last week." OFC those are recent examples, but saying that unofficial stuff becoming legit was only done by Nintendo is maaaybe just a bit short of the thruth, and may not even be that uncommon. Copyright laws and their application, especially in the 70's and 80's for video games were a bit muddy, and things happened that may today seen as bootleg, that were back then falling in the cracks of the law, that companies regulated later to avoid issues.
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