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Sir Guntz

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Posts posted by Sir Guntz

  2. Posted

    1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

    The 3DO is a thicket of brambles I’ve steered far clear of. Some of the games look great, but most of those got ported to Playstation or Saturn or PC. Someday I will check them out, but I don’t think I’m ever going to start a collection.

    The 3DO had over 3 times as many games as either the Jaguar or 32X, it definitely had more than both of those consoles combined. There's lots of great 3DO games, it doesn't deserved to get overlooked so hard.

     

    As for the topic question, my pick is the 32X but that's more because the 32X is massively more common than the Jaguar, you can actually still find 32X consoles and games even today. The Jaguar? It's extremely rare now and extremely expensive for what it is. You can't find a Jaguar console under $300. Even if the Jaguar has some good games, it has an extremely high barrier for entry, which makes it a huge turnoff.

    • Like 2

  3. Posted

    11 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

    Saturn was cheaper in the USA than it was in France.

    Were French people really importing USA systems? Last I checked that would be a massive pain to adapt a 120v 60hz system to a PAL country.

     

    If not, then what's the point of making a comparison like that? What does it matter if Saturns were more expensive in France? In the exact same country, the Saturn was more expensive than the PS1 and 32X. Even the N64 a year later was cheaper.

  4. Posted · Edited by Sir Guntz

    7 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

    No, but that's not what I was trying to say. I meant that since the Saturn was a lot cheaper in the USA, the 32X felt more redundant there, even if it was released several months before.

    A lot cheaper? Cheaper than what? The Saturn launched in the USA at $399. Are you aware of Sony's 1995 PlayStation E3 presentation? Steve Race stepped up to the podium and said simply "$299" and walked off.

     

    The 32X launched in November 1994 at $160. How is $399 for a Saturn in May a lot cheaper?

  5. Posted · Edited by Sir Guntz

    On 4/5/2021 at 6:35 AM, sn8k said:

    Or how a new disc format is born. Yet the fucking goofs couldnt implement the security system that was planned from the beginning.

     

    That's actually not true. The GD-ROM was in fact very secure, it had security and encryption checks. Even for CD-ROM bootable media, there were security checks in place. The problem is the Karaoke MIL-CD bootable format had a flaw in how the executable binary "1st_read.bin" was normally supposed to be scrambled, hackers figured out how that scrambling worked. Once the Utopia boot disc was released, the floodgates opened for hacking Dreamcast games to boot using the MIL-CD format instead. The Dreamcast was very well secured for its day, even using a custom disc format, but had a fatal flaw in supporting a bootable CD format that ended up being exploitable.

     

    People are quick to forget how tough the security was on the Saturn. Sure, modchips eventually became available, but they were far more complicated than PS1 modchips and it took over 20 years before someone finally cracked the security of the Saturn disc drive. The Saturn did not support anything like MIL-CD, the only boot option was regular old CD-ROM which was very well secured. The DC went a step further by utilizing a custom disc format that you couldn't even writable discs for. The DC was an evolution of the Saturn in security, but only for the GD-ROM format it seems.

     

    This video explains it better.

     

     

     

    22 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

    It's ironic the 32X was mostly supported by SEGA of America since the Saturn was sold at a loss in the United States - well, mostly because of Sony's price war -, so it was confusing indeed to have the 32X competing with the Saturn.

     

    But in Europe (at least in France), the Saturn was incredibly expensive at launch (around $500), so my brother and I got it later, with Panzer Dragon Zwei and Alien Trilogy. The 32X could seem expensive as well for what it was, but it's easier to see that in retrospect; at the time, for a SEGA fan, it made sense because it cost as much as most new consoles until then (around $200). And being able to play games like Virtua Fighter and Star Wars Arcade on a Genesis was incredible.

     

    The 32X launched several months before the Saturn in the USA. The 32X being mostly supported by SOA had nothing to do with the Saturn being sold at a loss. By the time the Saturn launched, SOA was in the process of dumping the 32X.

     

  7. Posted · Edited by Sir Guntz

    On 3/25/2021 at 5:42 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

    ...and now I remembered The King of Fighters '94. Obviously, the ' means that it's the one released in 1994, so it's definitely not the 94th game in the series, but it's interesting to see that they titled the first one that way for some reason. I think normally you'd release a game called The King of Fighters and then use the year for sequels, but they decided to not do it that way. The thing is that the title for the international version of Garou Densetsu is Fatal Fury: King of Fighters, so I was kind of hesitant to mention it since maybe that means it doesn't count, but close enough.

     

    Then after KOF 2003, they switched to a slightly more boring naming scheme: XI, XII, XIII, XIV, and now XV.

    This has nothing to do with sequels missing an earlier entry but I still find it amusing that the first 7 Mario Party games were released once a year, for USA and Canada at least, meaning you can name them like this:

     

    Mario Party 99 (N64)

    Mario Party 2000 (N64)

    Mario Party 2001 (N64)

    Mario Party 2002 (GC)

    Mario Party 2003 (GC)

    Mario Party 2004 (GC)

    Mario Party 2005 (GC)

     

    As for King of Fighters, given Fatal Fury Special includes Ryo from Art of Fighting as a hidden guest character and KOF 94 includes many Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting characters, one could make the argument that Fatal Fury Special could be called King of Fighters '93.

    • Like 2

  9. Posted · Edited by Sir Guntz

    3 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

    I’m with @Stephen on this: if a cap is objectively damaged, swollen or leaking, or if it has failed short as determined by measurement then sure, replace it. But if a machine has no problems, leave stuff alone. Or worse, some n00b to Atari collecting buys a busted system and the first thing they do is recap the thing and is then surprised when it still doesn’t work? Drives me freaking crazy. These folks come to retro stuff after growing up with crap consumer electronics from the late 90’s trough early Aughts when cap plague was a thing; it doesn’t even occur to them that it was an era-specific problem. So their first post here is, “I bought this system and recapped it. It still doesn’t work. HELP!” Well, shit dude. You spent 60 minutes and ham-fistedly replaced a bunch of through-hole stuff you barely know how to work on for no reason.

     

    Do a little research BEFORE you do the surgery! Get the Field Service Manual and multimeter and start working through the possibilities. “Just recap it!” is NEVER the right approach unless you can already see some damage. Capacitors aren’t magic and they serve specific electronic purposes. On a system like an Atari, especially, there are very few parts of the machine where a bad-but-not-dead cap could stop the machine from running.  

    Some game consoles and home computers are known to have bad capacitors though. As in, ALL units of a particular make and model have bad caps and will stop working.

     

    Some examples:

     

    PC Engine Duo / TurboDuo (not R or RX versions)

    Sega Game Gear

    LaserActive PAC modules (NEC and Sega)

    Most 68k Macintosh computers (Compacts, LCs, etc)

    eMac G4

    iMac G5

    (probably many other G3, G4 and G5 systems too)

     

    In those cases, the failure and inevitable damage is practically guaranteed. Every single PC Engine Duo has bad capacitors. The leakage from those caps damages the board and always results in weak or missing audio. This isn't just a few units, it's all of them.

     

    So, yes there are some computers/consoles that aren't known for bad caps, but there are certainly lots that do.

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    I'm stunned that there are seriously people who think it's okay to just leave leaky electrolytic capacitors on a board just because it's "original" and "authentic".

     

    They are bog standard parts, they go bad, they have to be replaced when that happens. Either that or you can kiss the functionality of your console or computer goodbye.

     

    Take the PC Engine Duo or the much more expensive TurboDuo (both the black looking model), or any Sega Game Gear even. Those systems have really bad capacitors. It's not a matter of if they will leak, it's when. Bad caps in these systems will leak and damage the circuit board they're attached to. On the PC Engine Duo, the most common symptom is weak or no audio, as most of the capacitors are for audio. On the Game Gear, it will just stop working when the caps get bad enough.

     

    Computer hardware is no different from other machines we use every day that need servicing. Do you also think it's a smart idea to keep the original oil in your car and only use that because it's "original" and "authentic"? No, you replace the oil when it gets bad. Electrolytic capacitors are exactly the same. A standard part that will go bad eventually and they must be replaced, or your computer will stop working and likely deteriorate beyond repair.

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    Although it is tragic that a rare IBM computer was damaged - really the best thing to have done was just try disks and then stop - but I fail to see why this was really so bad. It literally looks like a POS (point of sale) computer, even some people in here have pointed that out. Even if it's rare, it's a really boring computer and they may very well have been sent there because they didn't work. I don't think most people really care about POS systems that much.

  20. Posted · Edited by Sir Guntz

    I only ship to USA and Canada, nowhere else. Prices are in USD. Paypal only.

     

    Neo Geo CMVS System, model MV-1FS

     

    Includes power supply. This CMVS System features composite, S-Video and RGB output through a Jamma-Nation-X Stryder encoder board, stereo sound and the usual power input and switch. It also has a battery holder and CR2032 battery mod.

    PCB is in good shape, fully tested and working. It has a few patch wires in the Z80 section. Picture here https://i.imgur.com/pw6RPUZ.jpg

    Out of respect to Razoola who isn’t personally selling UniBIOS chips anymore, I’m not including a UniBIOS 4.0 free version. You can get one from Jamma-nation-x.com, JMKurtz or other approved distributor.

     

    Game not included.

     

    $270 $260 $240 USD shipped to USA and canada

     

     

    dgKVcrG.jpg
    PVs1Aeq.jpg
    nbuaeBB.jpg
    EiilykM.jpg

     

    Composite test
    8I5aUlo.jpg

     

    RGB converted to component test
    dhhFvTj.jpg

    .

    • Like 4

  22. Posted

    I have an issue with two games on my //e, Maniac Mansion and Prince of Persia. They flat out don't work, no matter that disk images I try. I've ruled out bad disks by copying known good games to those same disks and they work fine.

     

    I've heard that Maniac and POP require 128K RAM to run, I don't know if I have that. I have a //e with a 65c02 marker on the keyboard, I don't know what exact model of //e it is. Inside it has just a 64K RAM card in the AUX slot, maybe a double hi-res card. Do I need to get a 128K card for one of the expansion slots? I've also had some conflicting information that the //e has 64K on-board and using a 64K AUX card should work, but these games don't work. I think I should just get a 128K RAM card and be done with this.

  25. Posted · Edited by Sir Guntz

    14 hours ago, Tanooki said:

    You sir really tempt me.  I just stare at the optical prices on stuff I used to have and cringe.  I know things can be burned but it's harder to find such things anymore let alone the ability to burn them correctly.  I used to have those 2 CDs on the top row there in your images, they're solid games.

     

    I'm not firm on the price. toss me an offer?

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