MaximRecoil

In any event, if you can get a good deal on a used Metcal then that's the way to go. In my case I didn't spend any more for it than a new hobbyist-grade station of average performance would have cost (take away shipping cost and it was even less money; about $25). A Metcal makes soldering easier and more enjoyable than cheap irons. For one thing, it is ready to go in 7 seconds which is nice. With all that heating power on tap (yet still being tightly regulated at the correct temperature), you can use the same small and precise tip that you use for small joints on larger jobs (like soldering in a new flyback transformer on a CRT monitor with ease). You'll quickly see the limitations of a 15 Watt iron if you try that; especially with a small tip like you'd use for more typical PCB soldering. Probably my favorite aspect of the Metcal is the ergonomics of the handpiece and the short grip-to-tip distance. This allows more comfort and better control when you are soldering. Here is a comparison picture showing the Metcal RM3E handpiece next to a more conventional soldering iron: You can demonstrate to yourself the difference in the level of control that a short grip-to-tip distance makes by trying to sign your name with neat penmanship (neat penmanship indicates a high level of control over the pen's tip) while gripping the pen in the middle (if you can wrap a bunch of tape around the pen to make it as fat as a typical soldering iron grip, that will demonstrate it even better). It is a lot easier when gripping down near the tip of course; and the same principle applies to a soldering iron. So you're right; it is unlikely that anyone here needs to keep up with an assembly line; but high levels of comfort, control, and versatility are things that anyone can appreciate. Another quote from an electronics newsgroup:

You aren't going to get better quality by increasing the display resolution over the source's native resolution. Sure, you can line double, pixel replicate, and filter and process to your heart's content, but the source is still 256 x 192, and the truest representation of that source is on a monitor that can display that resolution unaltered. If I'm not mistaken, the ColecoVision's VDP outputs a color difference signal (Y [b-Y] [R-Y]), so the best signal you can get from that would be YPbPr ("component video"). Feed that to a standard resolution CRT TV with component inputs and that is as good as you are going to get (and it will be very good). The only thing better would be if the CV's VDP could output RGB, and then you could feed it to a standard resolution (15 kHz) arcade monitor (or other form of standard resolution or multisync RGB CRT monitor), and that would be perfect; as well as being viewed on the intended display device (15 kHz CRT). The course dot-pitch and course triad shadow mask, along with the general characteristics of the phosphor in a standard resolution CRT all combine to create certain effects that the original developers of these games counted on. These effects include softening and blending of color transition points. The softening effect also helps blend stair-stepping. For example, in the arcade game Pac-Man when viewed in its original intended form, Pac-Man appears round, as do the power-up pellets in the corners, as do the dots you eat. The Ghosts appear to have a rounded and smooth shape as well. The text in the game does not look like a series of jagged, stair-stepping lines; but rather; smooth, curvy lines. These old standard-resolution video games look horrible on high-resolution displays. Anyone can see this for themselves by firing up an emulator and playing the game in full-screen mode to see how the games look on their high resolution PC monitors. You'll see one of two things; either razor sharp edges to every object, full of ugly jagged stair-stepping (this is done with basic pixel replication resizing), or an artificial looking, pasty, hazy smoothing effect, which is done via filters/processing. Neither effect is pretty. Here is an example of one can expect with "upscaling" an old standard resolution video game to display on a high resolution monitor: Pixel Replication (unfiltered): Upscaled with bilinear filtering: Native resolution on 15 kHz RGB CRT monitor: I used SPO as an example because I happened to already have a picture of it displaying on an arcade monitor. Also keep in mind that the picture was taken with a cheap digital camera and the arcade monitor is well worn; i.e., losing its ability to have good focus; has weak reds, and some significant screen burn; but it still illustrates the general idea.

The reviewer did not like the controllers as well as conventional controllers in general: He vaguely referred to "bugs", and it is quite possible that the lack of self-centering was one of the bugs that he was referring to.

Damp sponges are what most people use and they work fine with a fast-recovery station. It boggles my mind that people try to do any serious work with a low-power pencil. It would seem that he was basing his "Especially if you want to solder more than one point every 2 minutes" statement on personal experience with his own iron. If so, he pointed out the weakness of his own iron without anyone else having to do so. Also, any iron which takes two minutes to recover after cleaning the tip with a damp sponge is going to take a significant amount of time just to recover from the heat it dumps into the pad, component, and solder while soldering a single joint. It is odd that he would expect a commercial-grade soldering iron retailing for several hundred dollars to have the same deficiencies as his own 15-Watter. Metcal's handpiece stands include a built-in tray in front for a sponge. They also sell sponges with a hole in the center sized to fit in that tray. The hole in the center is so you can clean the iron tip on the inner edge of the hole and the solder pieces will fall down into the tray rather than remain on top of the sponge getting in the way. Cleaning the tip of the iron in this manner is standard practice on soldering assembly lines, and has been for ages. It doesn't even remotely slow anyone down; assuming they are using an iron that actually has some berries; as pretty much anyone on an assembly line is. A PCB factory doesn't skimp on its equipment, because it would end up costing them far more than they'd initially saved, in the form of lowered productivity.

I'll bet that Jrok could do it (apparently he's not the same guy who posts here under the name "jrok"; he posts on KLOV though under the name "jrok"). Reading his page about his Multi-Williams arcade board leads me to suspect he could properly recreate the NES hardware. He used a combination of an FPGA with the CPU from the original hardware. So maybe the key to a perfect NES clone is to use a real 2A03 CPU and do the rest in an FPGA. It would probably be too expensive though, especially when real NESs are still so easy to find.

Cartridge-based systems seem to be more dependable than optical disc-based systems (no moving parts as mentioned above). They also have very fast load times. Some form of flash memory cartridge would be ideal I think in this day and age, rather than traditional ROM chips; that way storage capacity could equal or exceed any optical disc out there; though the overall cost would still be more for a cartridge than for a disc. I like the look, feel, and "substance" of cartridges better than discs too.

Are the best NES emulators better than the best NOACs? If so, you'd think someone would embed an emulator in some firmware and make a NES console that way. Also, couldn't the NES hardware logic be implemented in an FPGA? Or would that present the same hurdles as the NOAC manufacturers face? What part or parts of the NES hardware still remains a mystery to the point that perfect replication of it is not yet possible?

Nope, not even a mention about anywhere strangely enough. That's strange. I see plenty of "WR" (world record) announcement threads over there, even on obscure games for obscure systems (like the Vectrex). You'd think that beating a Todd Rogers score on a 2600 game would be an obvious thing to mention, given that he's the most well-known 2600 player out there, as well as one of the best known classic gamers in general. Maybe you have to beat Mr. Activision himself at an Activision game to get noticed; particularly Dragster.

I have no doubt that Capcom was capable of producing a brilliant, arcade-perfect port of Street Fighter for the Atari 2600. It may seem impossible, but after all, if they were capable of time traveling to grab the Street Fighter Alpha poster for their cartridge label, then surely such a task would be child's play.

Some concepts and gameplay elements require a certain level of hardware capability to render satisfactorily. Plus nice graphics are satisfying to look at in and of themselves. For example, I'd rather watch a cartoon or read a comic book with good drawings, rather than poorly done drawings. Video games, like comic books and cartoons, are a visual medium; the images play a significant part in relaying the experience. Now, I prefer a game with good gameplay and bad graphics to a game with good graphics and bad gameplay, but that doesn't mean graphics are not important. I'd much rather have both good graphics and good gameplay, than solely one or the other. You don't even need terribly powerful hardware for eye pleasing graphics. You just need enough power to give your sprites several colors and some curves (rather than blocks). For example, the lowly (by today's standards) Nintendo Radar Scope hardware from 1980 was capable of making Donkey Kong look good. Nintendo's Popeye and Punch-Out looked awesome, and still do IMO. Bally Midway's MCR-3 hardware (e.g., Tapper, Timber, Demolition Derby, Discs of Tron) was capable of beautiful graphics in 1983. The Atari 2600 had horrible graphics; there are no two ways about it. Its hardware design dates from the mid-1970s and it was primarily designed to play Pong-type games. Yes, the programmers eventually squeezed more out of it than was originally thought possible, but even the best graphics on the 2600 don't even approach the level of a simple low-budget cartoon. The Intellivision wasn't much better, and the ColecoVision and Atari 5200 were big improvements but still had a ways to go just to reach arcade Donkey Kong-level graphics (which I consider to be the minimum for eye-pleasing graphics that feature human and/or animal characters). The NES was the first console in the U.S. to have nice looking graphics IMO, and that was 1983 technology. Unfortunately; in 1983 we still didn't have anything like that in the U.S. in console form; what with the video game crash going on and all. It was the difference between what could have been, and what was, that irritated me back then.

That's incredible. You should join the KLOV forums as well; you'd be quite an asset in the "Videogames - Technical - General Repair And Help" section; assuming you have any extra time for that sort of thing, that is. So Area 51: Site 4 was on the "MediaGX" hardware which was PC-based. Wasn't this the first Atari arcade hardware to be PC-based rather than completely custom? I think that's an interesting point in history, when arcade hardware shifted from custom to existing PC and console-based designs.

Homer, is there a thread about your record on the Twin Galaxies forum?

Just as a reference point, I've soldered about 250,000 boards. These were not gaming boards; they were boards for commercial fire alarm systems (we built the fire alarm systems for Disney World for example) and were categorized as "life saving equipment", meaning there was additional mandated red tape that had to be complied with in the area of quality control. Used Metcals can be had for under $100 quite often on eBay. I got mine for under $40 shipped. You are obviously unfamiliar with Metcals. They have the fastest recovery time of anything out there. They heat from dead cold to operating temperature in 7 seconds. This is why they are so popular for assembly lines. For example, we spent less than 1 second per fillet (about 100 fillets every 90 seconds). You can not outrun a Metcal with normal PCB soldering; it is not humanly possible. Cleaning the tip with a damp sponge does not even put a dent in its tip temperature (it may cool it off for like 1/100th of a second before it is back to operating temperature). Here is a technical explanation of how Metcals work: It is not a matter of a hobbyist "needing" a Metcal (you are right; they don't; I've soldered with a screw driver heated with a torch before); but rather a matter of; if you can get a used one (which, as long as it works at all, works like new given a new tip cartridge) for under a hundred dollars, or possibly under $50, why bother with anything else?

I worked in a PCB factory for two years soldering and inspecting boards; about 1,000 a night. This is what we used: Iron: Metcal MX-500 and STSS stations. Metcals are in their own league. You can't do better no matter how much you spend. They cost several hundred dollars new, but I got a used one including the handpiece, stand, and a tip for under $40 shipped on eBay a few years ago. For some detailed information about Metcals, see this thread (reply #5 has information specifically for people looking to buy a Metcal). Solder: Alphametals 63/37 "no clean" flux-core solder in .025" diameter for most jobs, .015" diameter for fine-pitch soldering. Kester is also a good brand. 63/37 solder is intended for soldering on PCBs as it has a lower melting point than 60/40 which is for more general purpose electrical soldering (you definitely don't want to use 50/50). Desoldering tool (AKA: "solder sucker): A full size Edsyn Soldapullt. We used the DS017 (about $20), along with the "ESD safe" variants (DS017LS, and AS196) interchangeably. Beware of cheap solder suckers like you may find at Radio Shack or wherever. They are not worth it. Edsyn Soldapullt = the real thing. Also, proper use is important with a solder sucker, else you could lift a pad.

http://www.hobbyroms.com/ I've had him burn a ROM for my Super Punch-Out machine a few years ago. I'm pretty sure there are people on this forum that have burners too. Another place to check is the KLOV forum; their entire forum is geared toward arcade machines. What did you do at Atari?

All of my NES's are genuine, and it is very noticeable. It is not there when you first turn on the machine and it is in attract mode. Once you press the start button to bring up the 1 or 2 player game selection option, the bar instantly appears. If you don't press anything else and let it go back into attract mode, the bar goes away. It is always there when playing the game.

A TV would have to be severely overscanning for that left blue bar to be hidden. I have a normal 4:3 standard resolution CRT TV. The NES is a normal front-loader hooked to the TV with a composite video connection.

I am 34 and I wasn't real pleased with the home console situation as a kid. All the games paled in comparison to what was available in the arcades and that irritated me. It was kind of depressing in 1984 to come home to this... ... after playing this... ... at the arcade. I'm most nostalgic about the arcades. I viewed home consoles of the time as being a "better than nothing" thing for when I was fresh out of quarters. I now own several arcade machines (including a Super Punch-Out/Punch-Out machine), and that covers a good deal of the nostalgia. If I could get Lawton Mann to come over and go head to head with me for high score on Super Punch-Out, just like we used to do in the '80s, that would cover even more nostalgia. The atmosphere of a real arcade (no, there were no music videos playing on the wall, and the only black lights were from Tron) was cool, but I'm not terribly nostalgic about it; mainly because I mostly played arcade games at the local laundromat and general store. The closest dedicated arcade (Space Port in the mall) was some 45 miles away so I didn't go there all that often until I got my driver's license in '92; just in time for the Street Fighter II craze.

I'm not talking about the pillar boxing in that video; which is just the result of displaying a 4:3 video in a 16:9 player. This screenshot from that video shows what I'm talking about: See how the graphics don't go all the way to the left, but stop short about 1/2"? Also look at the thin strip of of graphics that don't belong on the right edge of the screen. Those flash as the game scrolls to the side. You can see it in the video. It does the same thing on my console.

Okay, I just checked the game on an emulator, and it does the same thing, so I'm guessing it is just a design flaw of the game. In the attract mode, the game perfectly fills the screen, but in gameplay, it looks like a half inch or so is cut off on the left side of the screen. You can see it in gameplay video on YouTube as well. You can also see the same graphical oddities on the right edge of the screen as it scrolls that my cartridge has (those were the oddities that I don't know how to describe; just watch the right edge of the screen as it scrolls).

Yes, the card edge contacts are very clean and in good condition. I've taken the cartridge apart and cleaned it with a pencil eraser and then alcohol. Nothing changed. The cartridge was in a box of random cartridges so I don't know when exactly it started doing this (maybe it's done it since it was brand new). I'm thinking about reflowing all the solder joints on the PCB. If that doesn't fix it, then it has to be a defective chip or component, but I don't know which one. There are only 5 chips on the board, plus an electrolytic capacitor, a disc capacitor, and two resistors.

It doesn't fill the whole TV screen on the left side; there is about a half inch gap there. There are a few other minor graphic oddities as well that are hard to describe. Otherwise, the game plays fine. Other cartridges don't have these issues on this NES, and this cartridge does the same thing on my 3 other NESs (one of them being a top-loader). So if you have an SMB3 cartridge, does it completely fill your TV screen and is it free of graphical oddities?

No, he always has the same pattern. The only thing he mixes up is the direction; i.e., sometimes he makes his jumps around the ring in a counter clockwise pattern like in the video I linked to. Other times he does the same jumps but in a clockwise pattern. It is always 4 jumps plus the jumpkick; the first jump is directly to the left or right into a crouching stance on the mat. The second jump is to the turnbuckle directly behind him. The third jump is to the other rear turnbuckle. The fourth jump is back down to the crouching stance on the mat, on the opposite side of his first jump. At that point you want to duck, because his jumpkick is next. The second Dragon Chan and higher only does one jump, and it is the first jump from his earlier pattern. The difficulty here is that he waits in his crouching stance on the mat for a variable length of time before doing the jump kick, so it is not as easy to predict when the kick will arrive.

The first Dragon Chan? There is a big timing window for that. It gets more difficult with the 3rd and higher Dragon Chan. Now, I've actually talked to someone who asked me about avoiding Dragon Chan's kick; he said he could never do it. Well it turned out that he was unaware of the "duck" function in this game (which original Punch-Out does not have). So I'll go ahead and point out that you have to duck, just in case you didn't know. This video that I made for reporting a bug in MAME shows the correct time to duck Dragon Chan's kick - link.

There were two versions of the Space Invaders cabinet; Midway and Taito. Taito SI cabinets used a joystick for directional control while Midway used two buttons close together for directional control. The Midway cabinets were the more common of the two in the US. I have no idea why Asteroids didn't use a joystick. I don't know why you mentioned Defender though, given that it did use a joystick. However, they didn't implement the joystick very well IMO. They used a 2-way joystick which only went up or down and used buttons for thrust and changing direction. They should have used a 4-way joystick, with the left and right directions controlling thrust and the direction you want to fly in; the same way Atari did it for the 2600 port. In some versions of MAME you can configure the controls to work like the controls of the Atari 2600 version.