So why no more new FB2's ?

[So why no more new FB2's ?]

Definitely check local Target stores. Our local Target has two FB2 consoles on the shelf, $29.99 each.

[Two-Player Pac-Man]

Wasnt that Gamecube Pacman 2 player as well? Or was that only with one player controlling the ghosts and the other, Pacman.

Pac-Man Vs. for Nintendo Gamecube. One player plays as Pac-man on a connected Gameboy Advance, while the other three use controllers and play as the ghosts (who get a limited view of the playfield around them). If Pac-man eats the fruit he gets to move much faster. Whichever ghost gets Pac-man swaps the GBA with him and tries to complete the round. Whoever gets the most points wins.

 

It's fun for a while, but the ghosts are at a huge disadvantage since Pac-man can see the whole level and the ghosts just wander around aimlessly hoping they can find him.

 

This game came out as a free promo along with Pac-man World 2 (I think). I imagine most people probably had more fun with this tie-in than with the regular game!

[FB2 S-Video Output?]

I'd rather mod the FB2 if possible, since I think video signal is already degraded when converting internally from S-Video to composite. (Many devices have separate choma/luminance on board and then mix them into the composite signal later).

 

I haven't gotten a chance to look at the innards of my FB2 yet, but if anyone has taken a good peek at the board, I have a good idea of what we're trying to do. Take a look at this page (about adding S-Video to the C64DTV): http://galaxy22.dyndns.org/dtv/common/svideo/index.html

 

So if the FB2 really mixes those two signals together, we can separate them before it happens. Anyone who's opened your FB2 up, can you tell if there is a capacitor merging two signals together? Or does the chip output already-mixed composite signal?

[FB2 S-Video Output?]

I'm buying a new TV with an S-Video input and I'm wondering if it's possible to mod the FB2 to output Y/C signals. There's really nothing quite like extra-crisp giant pixels, and I'm looking for new cables for all my systems (or soldering new cables for the ones that aren't available already!).

[Joystick ports as output on VCS]

Here's a design for a "joystick router" that sends joystick presses over the Internet. You'd need some kind of hardware interface from PC to console, but this system and software could be generalized to any console game system. It works with existing games and does not require any changes to the console. In fact, since the joystick goes through the PC first, you could use any PC-connectable joystick as a control method for the console game.

 

software init: Synchronize timestamps with remote machine

loop: record a local buttonpress to the buffer with "received timestamp"

log incoming buttonpress packets to buffer with "remote received timestamp"

if the time is right send both buttonpresses at the same time.

goto loop

 

I can already think of a number of situations where this design won't work - console switches aren't emulated, you can't start both machines at the same time, there is no way to ensure the machines are synchronized, latency will always delay buttonpresses so players have to learn to lead their actions, random number generation differs per-console, tradeoff between TCP (slower) and UDP (have to handle dropped packets) etc. But it may be useful for strategy games or slow-paced gaming.

 

I may build it if I get some free time. You could then set up that matchmaking service (I already have a working server browser design) to find available gamers.