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Underball

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Posts posted by Underball

  1. Posted · Edited by Underball

     

    Well they have value to me, and the better the shape they are the move value they have to me. I guess that make me a "OCD impulse buyers" and "obsessive with no self control", and there is more to preservation then the ability to play the game. By your logic music would be perfectly preserved as long as someone remebered the lyrics to the songs. It doesn't matter the its not Elvis singing so long as some one still sings Hound Dog? Thats just silly.

     

    Analog and later digital recording mediums that preserve recorded music properly have existed for nearly a Century now. The music is the Art. The medium it is stored on is a transient delivery device.

     

     

    I have a hard time seeing how anyone that is a part of Atari Age could say they don't care if the prices are getting to high on classic games. That means one of two things. 1)You aren't a collector, and so being part of a community that is almost completely based on collecting is odd 2)You have enough money that you don't care about what anything cost.

     

     

    I never said I don't care. Just the opposite. The prices are already too high, and have been for years. Collectors are only partly to blame. It's the price gouging sellers and fee-happy services like ePay I take issue with.

     

    In short I would expect the vast majority of this forum to disagree with you. These are art, they have a place in history. Often these things represent the kind of inovation that advanced everything about our life. Its long been known that entertainment is often the first reason electronics advance. We are a world defined by games, we all play them in one way or another, and we all learn things from games. They matter.

    I'm not worried about whether people disagree with me or not. I'm here to talk about and enjoy the games themselves. I care not for the competitive rat race that is the collector one-upsmanship employed by many here. Often times, it's a far too elitist, old boy mentality that leads to favoritism and poor moderation of conversations because of someone's perceived "value to the community", simply because they happen to own a large collection of overpriced, outdated toys. I would argue that most people came here out of a nostalgic love for these games as a kid or young adult; and for some - it morphed into an obsessive need to collect all this stuff and ferret it away in hermetically sealed storage to preserve it for - what exactly? all of these games and their code and hardware layout/schematics are safely preserved for future generations, in 1,000 places on the internet - for free.

     

    The game code contained in these games is art, absolutely. The mass produced, plastic and paper packaging they came delivered in are no more artistic than the flower outline on Dixie brand paper plates, or a bulk-made, sweatshop generated generic American Flag lapel pin that has a "Made in China" sticker on the back of it, that you could buy at any postcard stand in NYC.

     

    Somebody asked the question "Are classic video game prices getting too high?" and I answered, and explained on why I believe they are. If someone takes offense to what I've said - that's on them. I made no direct or even indirect accusations at any one person on here.

  2. Posted

    Sure. But when you look at ZinC, Nebula, Modeller you do wonder if someone could build a software bridge to take advantage of a standard, say Direct X? That way hardware itself is less relevant but you get rendering benefits for those games where the GPU has the processing power to make a better job than CPU emulation. I'm thinking Voodoo emulation here with games like Gauntlet Legends/Cruisn USA here.

     

    I cannot program at all and it was just a comment more than anything. As I said ... it's the greatest software ever created. Doesn't mean it shouldn't move with the times though.Emulating the software is great but MAME programmers have been doing very little lately with lots going silent/MIA. Maybe going with hardware abstraction might bring some new programmers in?

    The problem with MAME is that it's goal is to most accurately catalog proper hardware emulation, as opposed to maximizing the efficiency of the current hardware to make games run faster or smoother. They don't care about making games run faster on different hardware. They just want a means to preserve the original game's hardware accurately.

  3. Posted

    The "shape" metric really should only be:

     

    Does it still work in a console? Yes? No? Done.

     

    Anything beyond that is superficial nuttiness. To a huge majority of the population they are trash. The only people who get all picky about the labels, or the condition of the case, or whether it has the box and manual, and the condition of those as well, etc. are people who've let their OCD and nostalgia compulsions create a self perceived "value".

     

    I don't care how rare a video game is to find in the wild. These are NOT art pieces. There's no intrinsic value in their uniqueness, or creative output. They're cheaply mass produced consumer products that have been mostly destroyed or trashed by uninterested people who've moved on in their lives to other, newer forms of entertainment. They're only rare to find because they're disposable to most people.

     

    This is why I love things like the Harmony cart, emulations software, and the Flashback consoles. Preserve the games of the past, without forcing normal consumers to have to compete with eBay addicts and rich nutballs with too much time and disposable cash on their hands.

    Wow, you really have an ax to grind against collectors.

    Nah.

     

    More like I have a problem with price gougers who prey on the addicitons of people with compulsive disorders, which in turn ruins the market for the average, non-obsessed consumer.

  5. Posted · Edited by Underball

    The cartridges shouldn't get stuck. Some will be tighter than others, but they should not stick like that. You should check the cartridge guide cup around the connector to see if it's cracked and maybe grabbing on a corner of the carts or something. You can probably just file it down a bit.

     

    Video out options:

     

    1 - the regular coaxial cable to switchbox the 7800 came with.

     

    2 - a direct RCA to COAX adapter from Radio shack:

    RCACOAXMF.Blarge.jpg

     

    3 -Mod it and never look back.

     

    As far as opening the cart - there should be a screw hole under the label in the center of the cart. It's a Phillips head screw. You will have to ruin the label to remove it.

     

    The Expansion port was never used. There are rumors that at one point a LaserDisc adapter for Dragon's Lair type games would be made for it, but it never materialized. Currently, you can use some of the contacts of the expansion port in building a composite video mod on the cheap.

  6. Posted · Edited by Underball

    I have never, and will never pay more than the original retail asking price for any video game, regardless of age or rarity. I've played most of the "very rare" games people laud about here and elsewhere through emulation or multicart/roms. Ona pure enjoyment/gaming value, not a single one of them was worth the inflated ePay values they can fetch on occasion. None of them.

     

    There's a reason why most of these games weren't as heavily mass produced as more popular and well received titles, and mostly destroyed or thrown out. They suck.

  7. Posted

    There may have been tons and tons of copies produced, but when you are talking about the 2600 the question isn't how many were made but how many are still around in good shape. The fact that we collect them is the only reason they have value at all. If no one wanted them they would be trash.

    The "shape" metric really should only be:

     

    Does it still work in a console? Yes? No? Done.

     

    Anything beyond that is superficial nuttiness. To a huge majority of the population they are trash. The only people who get all picky about the labels, or the condition of the case, or whether it has the box and manual, and the condition of those as well, etc. are people who've let their OCD and nostalgia compulsions create a self perceived "value".

     

    I don't care how rare a video game is to find in the wild. These are NOT art pieces. There's no intrinsic value in their uniqueness, or creative output. They're cheaply mass produced consumer products that have been mostly destroyed or trashed by uninterested people who've moved on in their lives to other, newer forms of entertainment. They're only rare to find because they're disposable to most people.

     

    This is why I love things like the Harmony cart, emulations software, and the Flashback consoles. Preserve the games of the past, without forcing normal consumers to have to compete with eBay addicts and rich nutballs with too much time and disposable cash on their hands.

  8. Posted

    True. And then at the same time, there's plenty who want everything for nothing.

    Old, outdated, obsolete games that were mass produced to the tune of millions of copies should be worth next to nothing.

     

    The only people who disagree are those who have come to rely on the OCD impulse buyers to provide them income for nothing but reselling someone elses garbage to obsessive with no self control.

    • Like 2

  9. Posted

    My link

     

    To be fair, stories like this are prone to misinterperitation. It could be that Sony isn't anticipating the need for as much new stock once the PSP2 is released, so they're merely slowing down production. However, it really does sound like the Go is a loser for everyone involved. I really did like the form factor, but it seems like Sony's plan of "Sell a lesser machine at a higher price tag" just came back to bite them.

    Leaving out the entire existing library of UMD games was a huge mistake.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    Tip: Forget about the standard 7800 controllers (the Pro-Line sticks). IF you find one that works, it sucks anyways.

     

    Ok. Recommendations?

    My recommendation: Don't listen people who tell you the standard 7800 prolines suck. For two reasons:

     

    1. They really aren't that bad, in fact they're pretty good. But people love to be overly dramatical about this subject.

     

    2. All of the 7800's two button games require genuine 7800 controllers, or the ability to modify another controller with two buttons to work properly with the 7800. You can get teh 7800 euro pads, but they are more expensive, harder to find, and just as sucky as the Proline sticks in a different way.

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    The common misconception is that a burned disc will wear out the laser. Thats not really the case. The problem is that poorly burned inaccurately written discs will cause the drive to have to work harder to read the data, putting more strain on the drive gears and motors. Also the prolonged time required to read the bad discs will eventually shorten the life of the laser, but it needs to be a LONG time.

     

    The short answer - burned discs are fine provided you use good quality media, and the slowest (and most accurate) burning speed.

     

    Just because the drive can burn at 48x doesn't mean your 3DO can read a disc burned at 48x. It will be better off with a slower burn.

    • Like 5

  16. Posted

    His lawyers probably billed him for whatever money was donated.

    Exactly. He stopped accepting donations a while ago when he had enough to cover what the lawyers asked for.

     

    Also - in BIGGER Sony news - Mathieulh and a few others have added a shit ton of information to the PS3 Dev wiki, including the long sought after PRIVATE NPDRM keys.

     

    This essentially opens up every nook and cranny on the PS3, and should allow for effortless Homebrew development.

     

    http://ps3devwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

     

    http://ps3devwiki.com/index.php?title=Keys#Modules

  17. Posted

    So instead of giving the kid a job to find ways to make their console more secure (and being under NDAs and whatnot as an employee, which would give them more control over his actions), they just tell him never to tinker with their hardware again. Missed opportunity. Idiots.

    This was Sony pulling back to save face. They got him to agree to not hack the PS3 anymore, and in turn, he doesn't have to pay them millions in losses he doesn't have.

     

    Two things are pretty clear here:

     

    Sony realized this wasn't good for PR and would ultimately cost them way more than they could ever hope to recoup from a penniless college student, and Anonymous rendering their PSN utterly useless was the final nail in the coffin.

     

    Sony didn't win. They called a truce.

  18. Posted

    7800walter.jpg

    1988 called. It wants it's terrible fashion ideas back.

     

     

    Sorry, I thought it was act like you're 12 years old day!

     

    :D :D :D :D :D

     

    AX

    for the benefit of those whom my sarcasm eludes:

     

    the legs, I pull them. Jokingly.

     

    Still though - pink paint spatter? ewww. It's like a Valley Girl puked Strawberry Pop Rocks on them.

  19. Posted · Edited by Underball

    7800walter.jpg

    1988 called. It wants it's terrible fashion ideas back.

    Not only do I get to make funnies on the internet about poor color choices when repainting controllers, but apparently the mods think nothing of editing people's posts to makes larfs.

     

    AWESOME.

  21. Posted

    My God, those are positively hideous looking.

     

    It's bad enough you're raping an Atari console by plugging a Nintendouche controller into it, but you painted it 80's nightmare Neon Pink and put wrinkly, poorly cut foil tape on it too?

     

    Yeeeuuuccck.

    Wonders never cease with you, do they? :roll:

     

    Perhaps the novelty of dumping on the 7800 Expansion Module has worn off, so dump on this thread.

     

    One of these days, one of you guys will stumble upon the word hyperbole in the dictionary, and some of my posts might take on an entirely different context. :D

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