gdement

like whos? common name some names now there has only been a handfull over the many years here that i wanted a feature like that but for the most part avatars have been pretty tame, and thats the way i like it, and the no pictures in the sigs are an awesome feature i hate reading forums where the posters signiture is 5 times larger then the post itself I agree. In fact I don't like sigs at all, so I have them turned off. I'm sure everybody has different opinions about which avatars annoy them. I'd just like to be able to handle that on my end, rather than trying to convince everyone else to agree with my opinions. I hate politics, and don't like to pick fights. It's not a big deal, but it would be a nice feature in some cases. I agree that the avatars here are usually tame compared to most other sites. Many DigitalPress users seem to think the rest of us want to look at their anime porn collection. When I signed up for an account there, I was amused to see they have a "no images of a sexual nature" policy. And then there's those hyperactive emoticons that almost every site uses, I *really* hate those. Glad this site doesn't use them.

"I have an old Apple, and this IIGS game didn't work on my computer." A friend of mine used that line on Babbage's a few times. Alas, then he began moving sale tags at the music store, and then started outright shoplifting. Around that time he drifted into a bad crowd and we grew apart. Another friend of mine once sat down at the demo PC in that store, pulled out a floppy disk, and copied a game he liked right in front of the checkout counter. That one was pretty funny, and he only did it once. I haven't been victimized by label switching, but I did end up with a used copy of Final Fantasy II that was sold to me as new from that same Babbage's store. Somebody played 10 hours into the game before returning it, and the manual was worn.

I was in need of a 5 Volt power supply, and was intending to convert an ATX computer supply for that purpose. Looks like that won't be necessary: Goodwill had a HeathKit IP-20, an adjustable DC power supply from the 60's. I researched it online, and found the kit schematics which might be handy someday. I also found a manual for a somewhat newer model. I went through all the testing procedures in that manual and this unit seems to be working perfectly. The coarse voltage range knob is messed up though - I think it's supposed to click from one position to the next, but mine just drags and you have to use all your strength to turn it.

What about an "Ignore this user's avatar" function? There are some avatars I'd prefer not to have to look at, but I don't want to turn them all off.

Civilization 475.01 ==== Before uploading that, I cleared out my corrupt hall of fame, but the only way I know to do that is by entering a new record. So there's one game in there. I encountered some more bugs in the course of doing this: This game lets you play up to a certain year, then you are told that the game is over, and if you keep playing it won't keep your score any longer. Fair enough. My old game was saved after that point. 1) When I tried to click "civilization score", the game just hung, no longer responding to the mouse. I had to kill DOSBox to get out. That problem doesn't occur if you ask for your score on a game that hasn't yet expired. 2) I reloaded and tried to retire that game. When you retire from an expired game, it doesn't even enter your established score - it just exits without discussing the hall of fame. To enter a score but keep playing, you'd have to save 1 year prior to the end, then Retire when it prompts you. So apparently, when the game says it won't keep your score, they don't just mean it will be frozen. They mean it won't keep ANY score at all. It doesn't even remember your established score from when the game ended. It just forgets the score completely and breaks.

Ah, I tried it again and it does work. You have to click the mouse view around after entering the code before you can see anything. The first time I clicked the view, I began seeing nearby cities but otherwise the map was still dark. The 2nd time I saw everything.

Something I noticed from playing earlier: There's 1 room near the end of level 4 which has only 1 small red button to shoot, and it's right in the middle where it's easy to hit. Hold back until you see the red guy show up, and you can get a spread weapon from him which will help on that level's very difficult boss. Also, you can shoot the red square shield things from the prone position - you don't have to stand up until the shields are gone. ==== [edit: nevermind - I could have sworn this wasn't stickied earlier, but I guess it got fixed already]

I love this game, it's probably the most played cartridge I own. I seem to have a lot of trouble on levels 3-4. I played about 5 times before getting past level 4, but then it was smooth sailing to the end. 2nd time through I fell apart for some reason in level 5, and my game ended in level 6. This game apparently gives a huge bonus when you beat it. I thought my score would be around 200k at that point, but when it restarted me on the 1st level my score was in the 700's. 907,500 ======= I noticed something odd about the level 2 boss. In one of my games I got to him with a rapid fire spread. The boss that time fired unusually fast - the difficulty was apparently ramped because of my weapon. I think the rapid fire does make the machine gun fire faster. At least it seems that way to me.

The 475.01 version I have here does. I can't get that to work. Never heard of this before, so maybe I'm doing it wrong. Do I hold shift while pushing 5, 6 in order? All at once? I couldn't find a way to make anything happen. I'd be happy to upload it somewhere, but it seems this might not be the same as remo's version. Odd since the numbers are the same. My CIV.EXE modified date is December 03, 1991, 6:17:08 Size is 304,512 bytes.

Is that a beta version or something? I know the DOS version of Civ had 5 or so versions: 1.0, 2.01, 3.x, 4.x, and 5.0. What does it say that on the startup screen when it asks you to pick your graphics mode? Tempest The startup screen says 475.01. I tried starting up a game, but I don't see anywhere else where it gives a version number. Is there a menu item that would give a different number? I don't think it's a beta, I copied it from my uncle's computer about 15 years ago when it was new and I had no money. I know he had the original manual so it must have been a retail version. (I did buy Civ 2 a couple years later, so I don't feel quite so guilty). It's possible my copy has been modified, I really don't remember. Other than the trivia questions, is there any other copy protection in this game? Mine just runs, so if you can answer the questions then you're in business. If there's supposed to be some other disk based copy protection then mine doesn't have that. It did come with a B-52 mod he downloaded from CompuServe, but I didn't install that so I don't think it should have any effect. One last guess - my hall of fame is corrupted, maybe the game's version number got whacked along with it. I doubt that though. As far as bugs, I've noticed maybe 2 or 3 bugs in the Civilopedia, but nothing else comes to mind.

I have version 475.01. I'm not sure how that fits in - is that it?

Apple IIc. I saw the II+'s at school and started asking for an Apple, and one day my dad come home with the IIc. It came with a couple programming manuals which were obviously written for older models. They had chapters about how to use the tape drives and such. I started out just copying any program I could find, but eventually started writing my own. Unfortunately, my IIc isn't compatible with 3.5" drives and the keyboard is pretty beaten up. My old programming disks still haven't been backed up. Everything still works though - low density floppies are much more reliable than the modern ones. Mine always had a silly way of occasionally responding "SYNTAX ERROR" when I'd type a perfectly good statement, then the next time I retype the exact same thing it would work. I think it's always been like that. I always used to drool over the IIGS machines. I really wished I had one of those.

How about running 2 games at once for 2 weeks each? They could have staggered start weeks, or not, whatever people like. That way we still get the same turnover of new games to play, but more opportunity to set aside time for them.

You're right - I looked mine over and it's pretty easy to match up the pattern of solder holes with the pictures on Dan Boris' web site. That's much better than what I was trying to do. I also discovered why one of my Food Fight carts wasn't working - the previous owner apparently took it apart and turned the PCB upside down.

There are many 7800 games which are known to have used a few different internal PCB's. Homebrewers will want to know what PCB's are inside the games they consider modifying, but you can't open an Atari cart without damaging the label. There could be a way around that - if we can establish the weight of different types of Atari carts, we could identify PCB's quickly and harmlessly using a scale. I weighed all my cartridges, but I haven't opened them so this information isn't as useful as it could be by itself. But with more contributions we could find what weights are typical and what isn't. The only cartridge I've opened has already been heavily modified, so the weight of that cart is no longer original. I might be able to reverse calculate it sometime. I've left the board types blank even for Ballblazer, because on principle I don't want to record unverified assumptions. Game Weight(oz) Board Type --------- -------- ---------------- Ballblazer 2-5/8 Centipede 2-1/8 Choplifter 2-1/4 Dig Dug 2-1/8 Donkey Kong 2-1/2 Donkey Kong Jr 2-3/8 Food Fight 2-1/8 Food Fight(#2) 2-1/8 Galaga 2-1/4 Joust 2-1/8 Ms Pac-Man 2-1/8 PolePositionII 2-0 Robotron:2084 2-0 Tomcat 2-0 Winter Games(#1) <??> C100339 w/ RAM Winter Games(#2) 2-5/8 Xevious 2-1/8 Boxed Games Weight(oz) ------------------------------------- ---------- Ballblazer (boxed+shrinkwrap+hangtab) 5-1/4 Centipede (boxed+shrinkwrap+hangtab) 4-0

I'm not convinced yet about PCI-express. To this day, when you go to a real life store to buy expansion cards, they're all PCI. I haven't seen anything in Express except for video cards. Motherboard makers continue to hedge and include PCI slots. Creative Labs apparently has even stated that they find PCI express to be problematic for sound cards. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but it's starting to look about as interesting as Rambus.

I used to play DVD's in PowerDVD on a P2-450. It was technically a dual Xeon, but I don't think that made any difference in DVD playback. It certainly didn't utilize both CPU's, and the only other difference from a normal P2 was the cache speed. I'm not sure why you should be having trouble at 800MHz. ??

The first time I played DOOM - late at night with headphones on. 2nd level especially got me nervous and very jumpy.

The closest answer I can think of was our WANG 386SX/16. The CPU, motherboard, PSU, and case were all trashed together. Still have the keyboard though, if only the damn spacebar wasn't broken I'd still be using it. The RAM is now plugged in to a Sound Blaster AWE32. The 40MB Conner hard drive still works but I'll probably never use it again unless I'm in a strange retro-PC mood. That thing only works with a classic IDE controller. Years ago I found a page on Seagate's web site which explained the revised jumper settings for EIDE controllers - but I lost it and it's long gone now. Much more recently, I tossed the LPX case from a Packard Bell "Multimedia" I found at a junkyard. I kept all the components though - that P133 turns out to be the best overclocker I own. Kinda like having a hot-rod Geo.

I wouldn't worry much about it. I never knew there even were any incompatibilities until reading it on the web a few years ago. Most people seem to report the same experience as myself - everything works. My first 7800 was from 1987, the one I have now is from about 1989 I believe. I haven't had any issues with either of them, other than the physical tight fit for Activision and IMagic carts. Admittedly, I also haven't gone out of my way to find carts that don't work, all I know is everything I've ever tried to play works fine. The incompatibility issues are overstated in my opinion, and new 7800 buyers end up worrying about it too much.

This was Apollo Creed's downfall.

+75 I'm so bad at this game it's just funny. I had to play though since I own the cart. 1 par, 3 bogeys, 3 double bogeys, and the rest was much worse. I may have set a record for out-of-bounds violations.

They're not hard to find at all. Actually, I never knew the orange ones existed until I saw one in a picture about 1 year ago. The gray ones are very common. I don't think I've even seen an orange one in person, but plenty of gray. My guess is the new model is orange for the same reason newer toy guns have orange on the barrel. It's probably a law.

31680 I wish I had this on a cartridge. My PS2 style gamepad is clumsy with precise games like this. I had a finer touch 15 years ago on a NES pad... or maybe I just suck now. I used to love this game, but now it's making me angry. I'm slowly improving, but not much. Better stop before the gamepad lands inside my monitor.

The printer uses IRQ7, doesn't it? That's also the default IRQ for older Sound Blasters. So it seems that maybe they can coexist, or they never would have used that setting to begin with. I don't know if I was just lucky, but I always ran my SBPro on IRQ7 and didn't have any apparent issues, even in Windows where the printer was also functional. Maybe the 4 player adapter will work - wouldn't hurt to try. As far as the DMA issue... I don't have a clue about GUS cards, but for what it's worth: it sounds like maybe the GUS card you have isn't plug-n-play, since you have to assign the IRQ with a jumper. If so, I'd expect that there's also a jumper for the DMA channel somewhere. Maybe it isn't configured? Also, if the card has jumpered settings, then you probably need to set them as "reserved for legacy ISA" in the BIOS. I'm not sure if that applies to DMA channels though, I just remember seeing that for IRQ's. Sometimes the plug-n-play allocations will conflict between certain slots on the motherboard. If you move the cards around they might get different assignments from the BIOS, which might resolve any conflicts (if there is one). I'd try pausing the POST screen when it shows the assignments for each card. Maybe it will reveal a problem.