Herbarius

I was just thinking, with a lot of those 90's CD-ROM games, the game IS the soundtrack

Says you! Why does everyone always say he forgot the power supply when talking about that pic? Peek-a-boo?!

I think the selections available are a little strange. I chose "Collecting games and playing them ocansionaly." because it came closest, but... well... I'm not very happy with it. Also "Buying homebrews and use it as a modern console" strikes me as weird. I would have read it as "use it like a modern console" and chosen that, if it weren't coupled with homebrews. As the second questions asks for the choice of original games vs. homebrews (and is missing a "both" option, as someone else already stated) I don't see why this first question should say something about homebrews at all.

So, I've got the following problem: I've begun making disks with games on it, to play them on my real C64. I started with Remember releases, because that seemed a good place to start for playing C64 games today. So far every game I tried to play worked fine. The only one that refuses to work is "Beach-Head" (release #61). It loads, then the title screen appears, and that's it. I tried every button and key, no reaction. Also the demo doesn't run. I checked it in WinVICE, first by mounting the disk image, then by using my actual 1541 with VICE, and it worked fine in either case. Also after mere seconds on the title screen, the demo starts to play. I've also read back the disk image to the PC, no errors encounters, compared the files using the FC command, no differences, so that rules out a problem with the disk (the fact that it runs fine in VICE while loading from the 1541 should already rule that out, but I checked anyway, you can never be too sure.) So, I looked on gamebase64and there downloaded another release (there are two versions in the disk image they provide there, the second appears to be the Remember release, but I tried the other one), tried that, but it's the same. Well, the border color on the title screen is different for some reason, but apart from that, it doesn't work. That really puzzles me. As I already stated, so far every other game I tried (most of them being Remember releases) worked perfectly fine. Of course I only could try a relatively small set ot the games available yet, but I think I've tried a well rounded "selection", games from different years and different companys. Oh, and by the way, I've replaced my defective CIA chips with ones I got from ebay which appear to be working properly as far as I can tell. Maybe there's another defective component which just happens to affect this game, but none of the others? Any ideas on what could be wrong or suggestions on what I could try to get it to work after all?

Impossible, because the word "Men-A-Vision" is not on the cartridge. What he saw had to be a box with "Men-A-Vision" on it. I also don't think he would say something as distinct as "opens like a book" because where would that come from? I make no claims of being any kind of expert on clues, but I was a PI for a while and that letter looks like what he described was recent and correct. However, "Men-A-Vision" appears on screen when the cartridge is plugged in...

It had user input. I don't recall really how the input actually worked, I guess it was some kind of dials. However, after a while someone even built a dedicated controller for it. At least that's what I've seen in a documentary. The documentary was in German, but I believe it was translated from an English language one, so it's propably known to people around here. The same documentary also told the story of (Atari) Pong, and then elaborated into Ralph Baers Brown Box; they also had a bit about CodeMasters in there.

He didn't say that he just saw it. we have all assumed he just saw it and wrote in, but if you read what he wrote, he is not clear. Maybe he remembered back to seeing the box 10 years earlier (remember the article was published 10 years after air raids release). If he had remembered seeing the cart earlier and wrote in to get an idea for how rare it was, then maybe after 10 years he had forgotten the precise nature of the box. Th letter, at first, sounds like he saw the game a long time ago: "there was a cartridge from a company called..." As he's describing it though, the wording sounds like it could have been fairly recent (would those game still be in stores in 1992?). The response, though, sounds like it was recent. He writes "snatch it up if you can" and to send a photocopy. Obviously, if he saw the game 10 years earlier, that would probably not be possible. I'm wondering if the letter was edited for print. Maybe there was more to the letter that stated where and when he saw the cartridge--information that was used in the response. Or maybe he DID see it in 1992 and the story just put it into some different box because all they had was a loose cartridge and they didn't want to sell it like this, but they had some, neutral, box lying around which the cart happened to fit in Of course that's pure speculation. Human memory is an unreliable thing (in fact, much more unreliable than widely believed, look around for some studies on the subject), so I'd favor the "he didn't remember it properly" theory over this. But this is just to show you there are so many possibilities to explain the story in that letter, and it's quite impossible to ever find out the truth.

By the way, isn't Infogrames/Atari in financial trouble these days and may go down soon?

Well I relayed a story here once a friend told me about an obscure game he allegedly had not one but two copies of ("Jungle Adventure II")... and because he didn't come up with any evidence despite repeated requests I now am (99.9%) convinced he was making it up. I didn't get very nice responses but yes it was way more civilized than this here... Primarily I got ignored more than ridiculed. But it makes me wonder... How comes there's so many people making up B.S. about Atari games?

I didn't know there are "classic game-related" geo-caches. I know of Geo-Caching but never really "played" it nor am I planning to play it anytime soon. However I've once looked for and found one geo-cache in my area after a hint from a friend, just for fun.

Sometimes information like this is passed on from one person to the other, until the origin of the information is unclear and so the accuracy of that information becomes doubtful - but that doesn't mean it can't be accurate afterall. The appearance of the box now finally confirmed the title. As Dino already said, yeah the name "MEN-A-VISION" appears on screen. Yeah, some people still doubt the box is authentic; just like some people doubt the 1969 moon landing was real.

Look here for more information on the subject: The X1541-series interfaces I don't know if that "hook the C64 up to your PC and emulate the 1541 in software"-approach has ever been done. However I've read the argument, that it's propably impossible to implement using a multi-tasking environment (on the PC) because of timing issues. So it maybe could be done using DOS, but not Windows or another modern, multi-tasking OS.

The graphs in tho ads, when they say "Nintendo", I guess they mean NES? (i.e. when the ad came out the SNES wasn't out yet?)

Of course we all know that 90% of everything is crap - videogames are no exception. Ask RomHunter So, I guess you're looking for tiny variations of that 90%-figure, which of course should be treated as an average. Therefore (if you follow me) you would expect this: The smaller a console's library, the more likely is it to stray from the 90% - to either the good or the bad side. So my hint would be: Look at those consoles which an exceptionally small library for the best as well as the worst "ratios". (So Austin seems to be doing it right )

I might be mistaken, but as far as I recall they all were Mitsumi anyway (those that weren't by the actual company Mitsumi were 100% compatible to their models).

Huh?

read: veeeeeeeeeeery old CRT TV And as potatohead already wrote, you won't get color with those. But even with newer ones which support PAL you (almost certainly) will get wrong colors.

Yeah, I understand that... ^^ in another thread somebody said about something "great value at $60!" and I thought "Huh?"

No it's not. In fact, such a thing wouldn't have even been possible for the Atari 2600. The reason the NES toploader played everything is they just removed the Lockout-Chip. Atari 2600 games have to be changed themselves to account for PAL/NTSC differences, while in the NES the console did (most of) that work. That being said, if you can play a PAL Atari 2600 game in an NTSC country or vice versa, it depends more on the TV you use than it does on the console. It's quite common among PAL TVs, especially newer ones, to accept NTSC as well. For NTSC TVs to accept PAL is less common. Often the only way to find out if it will work by trying it.

I suppose it's "The Final Countdown"... as obviously the video is much shorter than that song I think it's really not right to block the video for "copyright infringement"... I'd file it under fair use. Unfortunately, in my country, "fair use" in that form doesn't exist. There are a couple of other laws which are in a similar vein and can be applicable for some stuff which would be "fair use" in US law, but from what I can tell - please don't think I am an expert in the field or trying to pose as one, because my knowledge is rather pedestrian (i.e. Wikipedia ^^) - those can't apply to that video. Maybe if you'd made an artsy caleidoscope effect with the visual, you seeing the current bid and the time ticking down like from a mosquito's perspective, then perhaps... But I guess the people (and computer programs) responsible for blocking videos like this don't even really consider all this and propably act rather blindly on this stuff. I'd always try putting in only a middle section of the song, never the beginning (sucks when the intro is the best part ). That might prevent getting blocked by bots... If that doesn't work, maybe putting some fake "hick-ups" (think CD scratches, or mangled mp3 files) in there might help. Man, I believe I'm thinking about this too much...

Where I live I can't watch the (new-uploaded) video because of a copyright claim by Sony Music Entertainment.

Be aware that most of these switches are far from "perfect"... For one thing, you may get a worse picture, just like when using the TV/Game-switchbox which comes with consoles. And also, say you connect your normal TV cable ("1"), Atari 800 ("2") and VCS ("3") to a 3-way switch and then to the TV, even if you say, switch it to 3, if there's signal on 1 and/or 2, it will still get through - faintly.

I thought about the same thing. Also, those games which had been ported, should have GOOD ports. Look at the SNES port of Wing Commander, thats crappy. Gameplay mechanics altered because the console couldn't handle the battles in their original form (or maybe the programmers were just lazy). No, we have to have a QUALITY PORT of Wing Commander, even with (optional!) support for analog joysticks (sold seperately as accessory - or get the adapter for PC joysticks). And if only because Wing Commander is my favourite game (of that year). Generally, I'd say look out for quality titles on the PC market that others are reluctant to port or made crappy ports of it and ensure quality port. Try to maintain good relations with PC game companies, maybe get some exclusives that way. Did I already tell you that my console will come with an internal 3.5" disk drive? (However it uses cartridges for the games, the disks are for save games and user generated content (like maps/levels)).

Well things haven't gone very well for me in the campaign, I ended up in a mission with 2 Gladii and 2 Stilettos (of which I flew one), against an overwhelming pirate force, it was just not possible to succeed. Even when I managed to survive the initial attack, the mission gets aborted because we lost too many fighters (as in: I'm the only one still flying, and my ship barely holds together ). It appears they really mastered that semi-dynamic and branching campaign thing. I'm now backtracking to the previous mission, and trying harder not to lose the valuable fighters. It will be hard, too, as - again - the enemy numbers are overwhelming. If this fails, I'll start over, and maybe I'll lower the difficulty level. Until then I'll play the Simulator to better familiarize myself with the game and the fighters I have to fly in the initial missions (Stilettos and Gladii). One little hint if you try to get high scores in Simulator missions 1 and 2: During the first wave (consisting of only one enemy ship), fly into the asteroid field. (Although the "playing field" is randomized, there should be always asteroids there, and you should be able to spot them from you starting position.) Then stay between the asteroids for the rest of the mission. This will come in handy especially in the later waves, when you face greater numbers of enemy fighters at once, as the asteroids can provide you with partial cover and also the AI isn't too great maneouvering the asteroids, so you'll get some "free kills" that way

I've watched both videos (Pong and Super Space Invaders). It's not the kind of music I would usually like, but both songs sound "well done". The videos are nice too, I liked the Space Invaders video better, but they're both good.