Like a lot of geeks, I have a collection of old and obsolete PCs in the basement. A few were my primary PCs, but many I rescued. And like any pack rat, I had plans for them - like being used in a MAME cabinet. Some of the plans have even panned out - like a MythTV backend or a TiVo guide server.
But the basement cleanup & purge brought to light the number of PCs which were lurking in the corner. The two 486s were declared surplus after removing the hard drives (for a final backup &am
I have an external drive (5TB in your pocket for US$120 - the mind boggles) to which I've ripped DVDs, including Game of Thrones. Now that my son is off to college, it might be easier for my wife and I to find the time to watch them. They play back fine on my wife's MacBook - but its USB ports died so we have to use a DisplayPort adapter, which then precludes connecting it to the big screen TV. However, the new router has a USB port and can share the drive over the network. However, it's st
Thanks to vdub_bobby, I'm making progress.
Okay, I've fixed the problem with the leprechauns getting stuck. (I had a BPL in the en_stop routine where I shoulda had a BMI. So hunt mode wasn't working right. There may have also been an error in the "rotate joystick" lookup tables.) I'll update the Leprechaun Level Editor shortly (check the date).
The problem with the ladders is a little trickier. It has more to do with the lookahead routines and that I'm using the same one for both th
Last night I posted my sprite video driver to the Prop forum, complete with demo (a bouncing beanie which explodes into individual sprites). Screen capture in MPEG2 of first 20 seconds: ntsc240h.zip
So far, I've had two comments - one attaboy & one not-very-useful. (The latter obviously can't see the videogame potential.) But like the circus bugs in "A Bug's Life" I crave applause. I want that feedback!
Sigh... other Prop projects I'm considering:
PWM based waveform generator
Thanks to Ben Langberg, Leprechaun now has sprites.Thanks to Manuel & Thomas, I've managed to trim 13 whole lines of CPU time off the blit routine. I still need to work on their suggestion of changing the playfield to reflected. That will take some more effort. I also have plans to squeeze in REFP0/1 logic, which will reduce the ROM space needed to store the sprites (since right now I have to store both right & left versions).Other major to-dos (not necessarily in this order):1. Add t
Well, I haven't touched Leprechaun in over a month. I thought I might find the time over the holidays, but the drive simply wasn't there. Sigh
Big news on the home front is my mother in law is in town 'cause my wife had jaw surgery to fix her overbite. She's not wired shut, but she is swollen and on a liquid diet. I don't think either of us were prepared for the full impact. Ah, well; it's a temporary thing.
My son is having fun playing New Super Mario Bros on his DS, although I thi
The Acer Aspire One netbook we bought after the fire has turned out to be a decent computer (especially with a RAM & SSD upgrade). It came loaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition and (bonus) MS Office Starter Edition. The free upgrade to Windows 10 sounded like a good idea. Not only would I get all of the ongoing security updates etc., but it wouldn't have the 2GB limit of Win7SE. Unfortunately, I just ran the Win10 upgrade check and learned the Intel GMA 3600 graphics adapter isn't supp
Although I bought my Acer netbook as a temporary stopgap I've really grown to enjoy it (especially with the RAM & SSD upgrades). Sure it's not as fast as a Core based desktop and the screen can be a little small, but it's dang portable and seems to run forever on a full charge. Surprisingly, it's the keyboard layout which trips me up more than the reduced size.
Anyway... I had the thought of giving Chromium OS a try. So I downloaded the current Hexxeh Vanilla build, borrowed my wife's
I've been reading & listening to Ben Heckendorn's (of VSCp fame) disenting opinions of the Wii, and I think he has some good points on why it may be doomed to failure. It comes down to two major design decisions: #1 no HDTV support & #2 unique controller which lead to three reasons why the Wii is doomed.
Currently I don't have an HDTV, nor any plans on buying one in the near future; and I suspect the same could be said for the majority of people. (Although with prices of HDTVs fall
Poor Nintendo, their idea for a home video game console which can also be used as a portable video game console became a portable console with removable controllers which can be plugged into the TV. From my perspective, Nintendo has two overwhelming challenges when creating a new console: 1. Not understanding their historical successes. 2. Competition First, I don't think anyone at Nintendo understands the reason the Wii succeeded was because it was often purchased as a fitness accessory. P
My six year-old son's Christmas wishlist has GameBoy on it. After some thought I realized we have enough ways to play video games around the house that adding another won't be encouraging him to play more. Plus the battery connector on the portable DVD player died (really bad design IMHO - two very small spring steel "fingers" just waiting to get bent out of shape) and we have a 5+ hour plane flight coming up.
Although the DS doesn't have GB/GBC compatibility, it's the current platform so
My son got a DS lite as an early Christmas present (to play with on the plane). We also gave him "Super Mario 64 DS" and "New Super Mario Bros.", along with the GBA version of Activision Anthology which I happen to have...
I have to say I'm amazed that the DS is able to do justice to SM64 from a graphics perspective. It really says what kind of 3D power it has under the hood. NSMB also has 3D graphics, but more in the Donkey Kong Country style - but rendered in real time instead of pre-re
http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/new/
I guess Nintendo realized that most people play 3DS games with the 3D turned off, so they could sell a cheaper system without the 3D screen.
My son has a 3DS XL (currently playing through Mario & Luigi: Dream Team) and I admit we generally play with the 3D off. I'll turn it on and IMHO it does add to the games. But in most cases the "wow" doesn't offset the annoyance of having to keep everything steady and I'll turn it off again. However, I wonder
from http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/20/xbox-durango-requires-all-games-to-be-installed
"Every Durango console will have a hard drive, although its exact capacity has not been chosen," reads help documentation in the Durango XDK. "It will be large enough, however, to hold a large number of games. All games will be installed on the hard drive. Play from the optical disc will not be supported."
My question is why. I can't think of anything (anti-piracy or anti-resale) which would requ
While working at IBM (1993-2008) I acquired several classic Model M keyboards. Unfortunately, they have PS/2 connectors which isn't supported even by many current desktops. I have bought one of the "blue cube" adapters so I can use one at work, but I'm thinking I'd rather "roll my own" - open up the keyboard and replace the 6805 based controller with something that will output USB.
This has been done before by others, so I'm not breaking new ground. I even have a keyboard which is missing
Since the PS3's security structure has fallen, I'm left to wonder whether it's even possible to create a secure console. Secure in the sense that it prevents piracy. And if I was Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft I'd be talking to fail0verflow to contract them to help design it.
Copy protection basically comes down to making something which can be read (by the console) but not written (by anyone other than the creator). The PS1 used some sectors with zero'd ECC. So the PS1 drive could read the dat
I played Wolf3D when it first came out. I played DOOM and DOOM II when they first came out. But when Quake came out my home PC no longer had the necessary horsepower. Thus I was pushed off the FPS bandwagon (except for Goldeneye). I also no longer had the time and desire to dedicate to playing games. And online has little appeal to me. But then I saw Half Life athology in the bargain bin at the grocery store. I resisted for a long while, but I finally couldn't say no to $10. At one time I played
I have too many unfinished projects. I think of a project and I can think of nothing else. It rattles inside my head, making it difficult to think of anything else. But as I actually start the project the noise quiets down and life returns to normal. But then I get another idea and I can never quite get back to finishing off the project.
Currently rattling around in my head is an idea for an MPEG Transport Stream separator. This relates back to my idea of using my PS3 as a MythTV front
This past Christmas I bought an N64 for my son (and me) to enjoy my collection of games. (Although the problem turned out to be dirty cartridges rather than a dead N64.) He's been having a blast playing Super Mario 64 and the Mario Party games. This nostalgia rekindled my interest in what is under the hood of both it and the original PlayStation. It turns out there's a lot of similarities between the two, more than I would have expected. Both used a MIPS CPU (PSX: 32bit R3051 @ 33.8688 MH
If I'm not careful, my wife is going to kill me. My original idea was to create some favorite eBay searches for the top-rated kid-friendly N64 & GCN games which I didn't already have. My price point is C$10, including shipping (which typically doesn't leave much for the game). I've picked up: Blast Corps, Rayman 2, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (not kid friendly, but one I've wanted since I rented it a long, long time ago).
Unfortunately, it looks lik
Well, I just bought two ATI HDTV Wonders on eBay, so I guess it's gone beyond plotting.
I've read as much as I can without taking the plunge. In theory it should be fairly simple.
1. Acquire PC to use as a back-end server. This server contains the capture cards and the hard drives to store the recordings. Since I'm dealing with ATSC the CPU specs don't matter.
2. Acquire compatible capture card(s). Sure, there may be cheaper cards out there which you might be able to get working, but i
Both my new Dell (very fast and near silent) and the two ATI HDTV Wonder cards arrived this week. So after backing up the old system last night I tried to install Mythbuntu today.
The install itself went okay. I think most of the problems I had were self-inflicted. Unfortunately, my capture cards weren't automatically recognized, but I expected that because I had the digital-only VE version. However, even if I had the normal cards, I would have had to jump through hoops to get the cards
Yesterday I tidied up the corner of the basement where I store all my computer (and other tech) junk. I have no idea how I ended up with a dozen (or more) IEC power cords. I should keep enough of the best looking ones for the working PCs and monitors I currently have and toss the rest. Or figure out how to make them into a modern art exhibit and sell 'em to some gallery.
I also have a whack of serial cables which I'm trying to justify keeping. I don't think I have an external modem hidin
This weekend my wife spotted Civilization Revolution for the PS3 at Walmart. She (and I) loved playing Civ (1,2&3) so she was immediately interested. I thought I remembered seeing a downloadable demo, but I couldn't find it. Silly me it's "Sid Meier's Civilization" so it's under S. Anyway, I downloaded it and starting playing Monday morning.
They are cruel. This ain't no demo, it's the first third of the game in all it's glory. More than enough to make me remember why I spent so ma
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slide-tilt-roll/id1366633420?mt=8 I took a day off so I could finally put on my "round-tuit" and get my iOS game into the App Store.
100% free to play. No in-app purchases. No subscriptions. No advertising. WiFi not required.
30 levels to complete (so far)
Built-in level creator with the option to submit levels for inclusion in future updates.
Requres iOS 9 or better, compatible with all devices
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