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Nebulon

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Posts posted by Nebulon

  2. Posted

    Weren't a lot of CBS carts including extra ram? Of course the supercharger had extra ram. Of course any cart that was bigger than 4k had to have extra programming to make the 2600 read bigger. Added hardware in carts isn't new to Nintendo. Its just a neat way to get a system to do extra stuff it might not can do, or have trouble with stock. Coleco Had expansions, if it ran another year or two it could have had more.

     

    I'm pretty sure that was extra ROM.

     

    Personally, I make a distinction between adding ROM space and adding RAM (especially with the RAM is working in tandem with additional processing hardware).

  3. Posted

    Doesn’t matter.

    Actually it does matter.

     

    Comparing systems with games that make use of additional CPU power or RAM in their cartridges is effectively cheating. It's a bit like a steroid user at the Olympics.

     

    Typically, these 'enhancements' take advantage of the falling costs of production over time as well as the lessons learned from hardware designs that followed the release of the systems concerned.

     

    "If you're going to compare, keep it fair."

  4. Posted

    The NES owes little if anything to the ColecoVision. The Famicom was in development prior to the CV's launch, and was first tested just after the CV's launch (in October of 1982). Nintendo was making electronic games before the CV and even if you want to argue that the CV had influence on the NES, they would have just been influenced by some other machine if the CV hadn't existed. But I would argue that they could have taken almost nothing from the CV simply due to the timeline. They were developed more or less in parallel.

     

    Of course no system exists in a vacuum and every system is in some ways a reaction to the other systems it's competing against. That's no more or less true of the ColecoVision and its competitors at the time. But it also doesn't make it any more influential than any other major system. It's most notable as the last major new American home console until the Xbox. (Of course, discounting the delayed entry of the 7800, which was originally supposed to come out shortly after the CV.)

     

    Well, except maybe for this: "Just before Nintendo started work on the Famicom, Coleco employees visited Nintendo with a prototype ColecoVision in tow. R&D2’s engineers were shocked at seeing smoothly animated graphics for the first time."

     

     

    http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/how-the-famicom-was-born/deciding-on-the-specs/

    • Like 1

  5. Posted

    There definitely will come a day when it's going to be a rare thing to be able to experience a disc-based console the way it really was. Eventually we'll all be using something like the Dreamcast's flash loader and bypassing the drives on every system, and the drives will all die without us even knowing in a lot of cases. I'll bet at least one or two of the CD-based systems I have boxed up right now don't work anymore, unbeknownst to me. That's what happened with my Dreamcast; I babied that thing, kept it boxed up for a while, took it out again and it didn't work.

     

    From my own experience, the only two optical disc systems I've definitely had go bad are my Dreamcast and my launch PS3. But in the PS3's case, it's not the drive that died; I had the common issue with the CPU coming unsoldered or whatever. (I probably could have fixed it now but didn't have the skills at the time.) The Dreamcast, though, would no longer read discs.

     

    I do know from searching around to buy one that PSX's seem to have a horrendous laser failure rate; it's actually hard to find a fully working one already. (Some seem to read one kind of disc but not another, so you can find partially working ones more easily.) Ditto for original Sega CD's, although mine was working when I sold it (I should have kept it; I regret that whenever I think about it).

     

    I know that original PS2's and Xbox's have a bad reputation, but all of mine still work (1 JP and 1 US PS2, 1 Xbox), as far as I know.

     

    My second revision PS1 (still has serial port but no RCA ports) still worked last time I fired it up, but it's been a while.

     

    Apparently the fix for Dreamcast disc readers is pretty simple (in most cases). YouTube has quite a bit on that subject.

  10. Posted

    Don't worry, I didn't take it as criticism. I'm honestly sympathetic to anyone who uses the audio interface. Once you get past the "wow, I can't believe this works at all!" it wears thin pretty quickly. :-)

     

    Hi - happy to be of service.

     

    The audio transfer may be slow, but it's also awesome.

     

    Thanks so much for making this great utility!

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    Well, I still recall being blown away when I saw the big-screen launch version of Virtua Fighter in Las Vegas.

     

    Today when I look at that game, it looks really really primitive (especially compared to Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast).

     

    I also have a tough time looking at games on the N64. Again, they don't seem to have aged well at all.

     

    Yet when I look at a 2D game like Strider or R-Type, I still find that they look pretty awesome.

  13. Posted

    I stroll into our local retro game shop on the way home from shopping on most weekends, just to see what's up. I'll tell you, at least in these places: PRICES. Holy shit. The stuff is so expensive these days that I don't see who's buying to really OLD stuff anymore. The only reasonable prices are on the later systems. Hell, even PS1 games are hard to find under ten bucks! I did happen to discover a Time Crisis game for PS1 though, that strangely I wasn't aware of (Project Titan)...but wasn't going to pay 20 bucks for the copy they had, in the condition it was in. So I had to head to ebay.

     

    That said, these stores obviously don't rely on income from actual retro titles. Since everyone and their dog now use ebay sales to determine their pricing (and up it a few ticks, even then) there is no more 'deal' to be found...outside of some of the gaming conventions, where they drop their prices if only to compete with the people who actually price their stuff for what people (normal people) are willing to PAY...not 'what it costs on ebay'.

     

    If you can't find a good NES game for ten bucks, don't pay it. I realize there's a lot of stinkers out there, but man, very few carts are really worth more than 20 bucks. And if they are, they better be in nice shape.

     

    It wasn't actually that long ago that the shops who sold retro (in addition to the new stuff) priced their gear to move. Now, they price it to sit on the shelf until somebody on ebay takes the bait. Pat the NES Punk did a pretty good video as to why that is, however...and how difficult it is getting for these retro shops to keep any kind of actual retro product on the shelves. It's very risky to put all your eggs in the retro market...they all have to cater to the new systems, or the recently new-old. But even those systems aren't dropping in price: look at the Wii U. It's hard to find a nice unit for less than 200 bucks in my area...and that's a 'dead' system! You could find fantastic deals on Wii systems day and night a few years back when it was dropped by Nintendo, but the Wii U? Never such a thing did happen. If you want one, you're paying damn near close to what you'd have paid for these things new. And that's the way I guess people are handling it. I was drooling in anticipation for them blowing out like the Wii's final days, but it just never happened.

     

    With the newest systems all going to downloads and such, so goes the physical media, so goes the resale business. Oh well, I guess. I like visiting these shops, but when everything basically begins to cost similar to what you'd pay to play modern systems, it takes a lot of the fun out of it.

     

    Agreed.

     

    I was dabbling with the idea of picking up a used Wii U when they dropped in price. But as you've mentioned, they really didn't drop in price much at all. I guess my plan backfired.

     

    So yes, things certainly are changing out there in retro bargain world.

     

    I too also wonder how some of these stores manage to pay their bills when stuff is priced too high to really sell in any significant volume.

     

    I think one major difference between us and some of the buyers out there is that a lot of us buy in order to actually play these games and not just to put them under glass. So in our minds, it shouldn't just look good -- it should play well too.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    Maybe we need to get an AA group meet up there?

    As long as people don't go overboard with the beer.

     

    If so, then we might be having the other kind of AA meeting. :D

     

     

     

    Going back to Ready Player One though, I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone on AtariAge. I think this group will appreciate the references.

  15. Posted

    Info from one of the designers of the Texas Instruments video chip that was famously used in the TI-99. ColecoVision, SEGA SG-1000, MSX, and many other game consoles and computers:
    "We were about the cancel the whole 9918 program when Coleco came in
    with Colecovision and the TI Home Computer took off while at the same
    time the MSX computer in Japan (the “MS” standing for Microsoft which
    had a short lived joint venture in Japan) started selling big time
    using the 9918."

     

    "there is a color burst at ~3.58MHz. The 9918’s input clock was ~10.74MHz
    or exactly 3 times the color burst reference."
    • Like 3

  16. Posted

    This site has some interesting tidbits about Williams arcade machines, including a multi-game cabinet that runs real (not emulated) versions of Joust, Sinistar, Robotron, Splat, and Bubbles.

     

    http://www.seanriddle.com/willy2.html#pics

     

    Why do this? Well at the time (and possibly today as well) there were slight differences in blitter operations between the real machines and the emulated versions. Here's an excerpt:

     

    In older versions of MAME and in several xx-in-one boards, blits happen pretty much instantaneously, unlike the real games where the Special Chips have a maximum throughput of 1 MB/second (not counting the time it takes to write to the registers to start the blit). This results in games that appear normal at the beginning levels, but become much harder at the later levels. Robotron can have so many enemies on screen at once that all cannot be moved in one video frame. So the game moves as many as possible, then moves the rest in the next frame. With an "instantaneous blitter", all the enemies can be moved in one video frame, making the game play much faster.

     

    ...

     

    About 13% of the blits had different results in MAME than on the real game, and about 11% of the blits took a different amount of time in MAME than on the real game. I'm sure that these blits represent a very small proportion of blits done in actual game play, but they may still contribute to game play anomalies.

     

    http://seanriddle.com/blitter.html

    ​

     

    Defender and Stargate are included in the cabinet too, although those two don't actually implement blitter code.

  18. Posted

    Thanks for the feedback.

     

    It should be an okay platform once I get it working. I'm really only interested in using it for the stuff from around 1979 to 1984 (Zaxxon, The Glob, Subroc, MouseTrap, Q*Bert, Strategy X, Rolling Thunder, etc...).

     

    And details on how the actual setup works -- starting from the start?

     

    Someone just gave me one of these and it's still likely just a factory config. So I'm wondering how to get it prepped for running an emulator. And tips on what BIOS to use, how to get the BIOS running, how not to brick it, ...? I guess I'm looking for the total noob's guide to modding the PSP.

  22. Posted

    I'm usually the one giving people instructions on how to get MAME running. Looks like I've met my match with the PSP version of MAME.

     

    I am stuck and I've tried just about everything.

     

    I've tried both "PSP MAME 0.4" and "PSP MAME 4 ALL v 4.9 r1"

     

    The PSP I'm using is a fat model (i.e. PSP 1000). It's running a modded version of 6.39 (since the PSP I have came with 6.39 installed).

     

    ROMs are zipped and in 0.34 format.

     

    The EBOOT.PBP executable is in the GAME directory.

     

    I tried the GAME105 folder as well, but nothing that I put in that folder ever shows up on the PSP's file list.

     

    As for the GAME folder, I've tried EBOOT.PBP files for psp_mame4all_v4.9r1, psp_mame4all_v4.9r1-fat-noneogeo-nocps1, PSP MAME 0.4 KN, PSP MAME 0.4 NM, PSP MAME 0.4 SG, and PSP MAME 0.4 TT. All of the PSP MAME 0.4 executables start to load and then the screen goes blank and the PSP eventually goes to sleep.

     

    As for the mame4all_v4.9r1 executables, they issue the error: "The game could not be started. (8002013C)"

     

    I tried all the ISO modes available. No go.

     

    This PSP's stats are:

     

    Kernel version: 6.39 (0x006030910)

    Motherboard model: TA-081

    Motherboard type: Fat 1001 (01g)

    PSP version: Fat v2.0

  23. Posted

    Playing Pac Man with the D-Pad is so frustrating, that I always use a joystick instead. But I have always wondered... With enough practice, is it possible to have a great game and reaching the keys, for example with the D-Pad??

     

    If you are really good at NES Pac man with the D-Pad, PLEASE post any advice, hints, tips or tricks. THANK YOU!!

     

    You should try it on the D-Pad on the Sony PSP. That controller has the buttons separated instead of connected, so no way to rock the controller with your thumb. Now that's impossible.

  24. Posted

    I'm thinking about getting a DriveWire cable (as opposed to building one myself).

     

    Has anyone used one of these. If so, what's the process for transferring a file to the CoCo?

     

    Does anyone know how to use one with a CoCoFlash unit? (I see the CoCoFlash includes the DriveWire software).

     

     

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