Bruce Tomlin
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Posts posted by Bruce Tomlin
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The simplest method to installing Free McBoot is to find the Action Replay Max Evo disc with Media Player. Sadly, this is even more impossible to find these days.
The next simplest method is to find a Codebreaker disc Version 8 and above (the versions you may find these days are at least Version 10 which work fine). I understand you are having trouble finding Codebreaker discs but hopefully this info will help you find the right one.
Note the Max Evo part. I ended up getting a plain version of AR before realizing that wouldn't work. I got lucky and found a copy of Codebreaker at a Gamestop, but that was a couple of years ago. So I never had to figure out the Independence hack.
You could also get someone to hack a memory card for you, then I'm pretty sure you can use that to install it on other cards.
You will also need to find a USB flash drive that will work with a PS2. Some won't and there doesn't seem to be a full comprehensive list on those that will work. Luckily for me I happen to have one that came with my Action Replay disc.
Annoying, but if you have a handful of assorted sticks, at least one should work. It's probably best if you can find a bunch of assorted 64M-256M sticks cheap.
You will also need to get at least a 40GB drive since I don't think that the PS2 will recognize anything less than that. Most IDE drives are cheap these days so you should be able to get a nice sized one without spending too much.
The only thing special about the PS2 hard drive is that Sony added MagicGate IDE commands. So it is the only one that will work for officially-supported stuff, in particular FFXI. The main compatiblity problem is the layout of the IDE and power connector. It's a pain in the butt to move that connector. I think Maxtor drives all work. And if you're going to use it for HD Loader, you don't want less than 40GB anyhow. 250-500GB is about right. I'm pretty sure the later versions of HD Loader have been patched for ATA-6 so that they can be used with drives >128G.
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I just did mine while looking at the wiring diagram of a 7800 controller. I avoided the cable problem by putting a D9F conector on the back of the joystick and using a Sega extension cable, but then I found that it would fall off with use.
The main thing to keep in mind is that it has a very nice DPDT switch which can be used to swap the two buttons. You really should wire this in.
(I still need to do a Coleco version with a D9M connector on the back for an keypad.)
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If they had created custom glue logic chips the system could have been much smaller, cheaper, and probably more reliable.
I would say that it's basically an off-the-shelf design built around the VDP and PSG chips. This combination was also used by Sega for the SG-1000, but the I/O was wired differently. (And someone at Coleco had their brain screwed on backward when they hooked up the VDP interrupt to the NMI.) There was even a 6502 system (Homevision?) built around the chipset.
"Custom glue logic chips" are very much not a low-cost option back in 1982. PAL chips were around as early as 1978, but didn't get much use in consumer equipment until the Macintosh. But since many of the CV chips were for specific functions, not shared decode logic, there wasn't much that you could use a PAL chip for. Certainly not enough to replace a few 25 cent chips with a two dollar chip.
The biggest problem with the CV chip count was the DRAM. 4-bit DRAM chips really hadn't caught on by then, and even if they had, the TMS9918/9928 requires separate data input and output lines, which the 4-bit chips didn't have because most things just tied the lines together anyhow. So the video alone takes up nine chips and eight square inches, before you even reach the analog side.
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I should probably mention here that despite its girly exterior, Girl's Garden is really a pretty good game. And it gets hard fast, too. It's hard to make it past level 8 or so, partly because extra lives and honey are so hard to get.
It also pushes the limits of the TMS9918 by using "background sprites", which is just my way of saying that the bears are background tiles because of the limited sprites and sprite colors.
As the box says: This game was originally designed and programmed by Yuji Naka, the main guy behind Sonic the Hedgehog! More specifically, this was his first commercially released game.
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In this, a Christmas without a riot-worthy merch, we should remember Coleco's other blockbuster product.
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This is funny because back in the '90s, SMS guns were much more common, at least for me. I modded one with a second wire so that it would work for both Atari and Sega pinouts, and to invert the trigger I just used the other contact from the SPDT microswitch.
I can't remember whether the microswitch was originally SPDT or not, but it was a standard switch, so there would have been no problem replacing it since the SPDT was the same size and just didn't have one of the pins removed.
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The CX-40 is okay. It's the 7800 Proline sticks that I don't like because the fire buttons are on the side, which requires you to use your thumb to both grip the controller and fire. Ditto for the 5200 controllers.
But it's far from the best. Depending on what kind of feel you like, the best are either the Wico Command Control sticks with leaf switches, or the Slik Stik/Tac 2.
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I'm not sure I would call it a "bug", but the "Crazy" mode of Gurumin for PSP is probably impossible because the buttons are too close together to play it well enough. (I was able to get through all the other stages, but I don't think I even finished the first level on Crazy.)
With the buttons brought out to an arcade-style control panel so that each button gets its own finger, it could probably be done, but the PSP doesn't support external controls.
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How much did that set you back? It seems to go for big bucks whenever I see it, and I've never been quite sure why. Is the SNES version as sought-after, or is there something special about the Genesis version?
I haven't played the SNES version, but I think the SNES version would be slightly better because the game really needs four buttons. It's one of my favorite Genesis games, and I've made maps up to level eight by stitching emulator screen shots with Photoshop.
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If your prices are high enough that nobody will buy anything, it not only won't pay for mall overhead, it will take up space for something that would actually sell. Otherwise you're just running a museum with free admission.
So what are their buy-back prices like for 2600 games? Most common and uncommon 2600 games shouldn't have a store buy-back price of more than 25-50 cents, but that's when you're selling them for $1-$5. And by "selling", I don't mean collecting dust on the shelves because of overpricing.
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You didn't post a picture of the pink casings! (Note: the pinker ones are going to be used.)
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My preferred way is to take the power switch apart, clean the contacts thoroughly with isopropyl, and repack with "dielectric grease" from an auto store.
The last time I did it (about two months ago), I noticed that it could probably be done without desoldering the switch if you were careful. I plan to try that the next time I have one open.
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Where did he hide the power brick?
And it's going to be hard to use without a monitor.
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I still don't see the point. It's the same problem as the Dreamcast, you still have to burn discs and wait for the emulator to load. If the point is to play them on a regular TV with real controllers, then a hacked Xbox with a large hard drive works best. (You can even upgrade its memory if you have surface mount soldering skills or know someone who does.)
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The DLI would make reading the keypads a bit easier, because that would handle the timing to change rows.
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The current state is that I gave up on 68000 assembler as too unmaintainable, and I am partway through converting it to C. About three months ago I ported over most of the code that hadn't already been ported to C. The main thing right now is that I need something to replace the ad-hoc programming language that used assembler macros. The other things I still haven't ported over are sound, game save memory, and text compression. And of course, once I finish porting stuff, I still need to finish the game engine (minor things like combat, etc.)
In the end, most of the game data will be in one or more text files that get converted to a .C file so that it will be much easier to work on it without having to tinker with the game engine code. Also, the data compiler will do the text compression for me. (I had added it as a feature in my assembler, which made it a lot easier to use and made the Sega port easier, but I'm not going to hack gcc for it.)
And for those who are thinking the question, the chance of this ever making it to the Colecovision is pretty low. It's not zero, since a lot of the engine code has already been written, and I'm not really using any Sega-specific stuff like scrolling support. (I'm still sending a complete name table to scroll the screen, and I still need delay frames to keep it from going too fast.) But it would require me to squeeze it into a cartridge whose slot never saw bank switching back in the day, and the only reason to do it is "because it's there". There are very good reasons why I picked the Sega Genesis as my homebrew platform of choice, and linear addressing is one of them.
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I had the same problem with my Model 2 Sega CD. I was told that the battery on board was bad. I replaced it (after a very difficult time because it's soldered in, but I couldn't get it to work. I placed it in a bag and gently laid it in the dumpster.
The battery is only for game save RAM. So whoever told you that didn't know what they were talking about.
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I seem to recall that the main difference in G7400 games was that they added a background graphics layer. So the games would play on a regular O^2, but without the nice background graphics.
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I wonder what would have happened in the Motorola vs. Intel battle if PCs weren't really around. Seeing how the Mac, Amiga and STs all used 68k processors the world might be very different if those machines dominated the computer market.
You should read the DTACK Grounded newsletter archive sometime. The main problem with the 68K was that when it was new, Motorola's marketing people only wanted to sell it for $10,000+ Unix workstations. Not (sniff!) TOY computers, and not even high-performance embedded applications. They refused to give support to anyone who wasn't in an "approved" market. Never mind that these markets could sell many orders of magnitude more chips. This is one of the reasons that IBM ended up with the 8088.
It was only around the time of the Mac that Moto was even beginning to soften up. They were also beating Intel in getting higher-speed chips out on time.
If IBM hadn't decided to make the PC at the when they did, thus creating something that not only was easy to clone, but being made by a company big enough that people would WANT to clone it, maybe things would have gone different. However, the ST still would have come from Atari, and Atari's business sense wouldn't have been any better, and it's hard to say if Commodore's would have been any better with the lack of a clone industry.
The Mac was a lot less clonable than the PC, having 64K and later 128K of hand-optimized code including a file system and graphics, so in that sense it wouldn't become the "next PC". And the (very readable) black & white display was too boring.
But IBM did make the PC, Microsoft did only license the OS to IBM and to the cloners too, and the PC did kill off the "home computer" market.
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Reset circuit--hmmm, that's an interesting tidbit. Initial powerup gives black screen that seems similar to what is seen if reset button is held down--I gotta go back to the machine and look at that. Got any ideas what a guy would do if that circuit is screwy? Eliminate the reset button from signal path? Replace the reset button with whatever cheesy switch I can find? Pour gasoline all over it and light a match?
The button with the word "RESET" on it has nothing to do with the CPU reset, which seems to be your problem.
EDIT: the reset circuit seems to be C53 (.1uf), R46 (2.2M), and U10 (4013). I doubt it's the chip, but it is CMOS, so who knows.
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Seems every time I put in a cart and turn it on, the first powerup never works. Turn it off and back on and it always works the second time. If I quickly power cycle it more it works every time, but if I turn it off and wait a few seconds it requires two powerups to work again.
In which way does it "never work"? Does it not stay on the first time? Does it not seem to start running? (The latter might indicate that the reset circuit isn't working right.)
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I found two different versions of it over the past 10-15 years or so, but never got either one to work.
Then I got a Catweasel and was able to image all my old TRS-80 floppies easily.
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Guess your all set, now how do you get digital ATSC out to work in real time for the next version?
Why are you so obsessed with this? It was never meant to be used for anything but non-interactive broadcast TV. It is not simply modulating a signal like NTSC RF. If all you want is one cable, that's what HDMI is for.
Even if you do put it in, ATSC will have lag (because you're compressing to MPEG then uncompressing again), and you do not want to play any video game like that. Modern LCD TV sets can be bad enough with lag on their own from video reprocessing.
Trust me, it will suck, and it will suck mightly. And it will not suck cheaply.
And it will suck.
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All fat PS2s will work. Only the first version of the slim had the connections for IDE (if you were surface-mount god and were able to get the right connectors). The rest only had USB 1.x, which is limited to 10 megabits, about the max speed of a DVD player except that USB has overhead to slow it down. Because of this, it's not really worth the trouble to use a slim and a USB drive.
Really, the important part is the media player, because that's what will run the launcher off your USB stick. If your version of AR doesn't have the media player, it won't work.