gdement
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Joined
Posts posted by gdement
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Well I'm annoyed now. A long time ago I downloaded a .pdf technical doc that was something like 200 pages long. Now I can't find it, and I can't find anything on google either. All I know is there is a detailed Genesis doc out there somewhere...
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Would it be possible to devise a non-standard button that would be detectable by the RIOT? The 7800 could use an extra button (or 2) and homebrew games could be programmed to support them.
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Here's a good auction I just found on eBay for getting a more reasonable number of resistors.
You can buy 10 680ohm resistors for $1.50 shipped, and another $0.30 for each additional set of 10. 620ohm isn't offered in this auction but as I understand it 680 will work fine.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWA:IT
Something I'm not sure of is how many watts they need to handle. These are 1/2 watt resistors.
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I have yet to get past the school thing in FF8. I think I did the first dungeon a few years ago. That lady tried to explain how magic works, but I couldn't figure out what the hell she was talking about.
I got stuck in FF7, and haven't played it in years either.
The last FF I really enjoyed was FF2.
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Back when my 7800 was new, a friend and I discovered an Ikari Warriors arcade game at a convenience store. Afterwards, we thought it would be perfect for the 7800 - but no such version existed then. We naturally assumed that the rotating knob on the joystick could be used to aim. Too bad that doesn't work in reality.
At least they let you strafe by holding the button down. The NES version doesn't even let you do that much.
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Unfortunately the KLOV web site was down when I voted, but I still stand by my vote of Puzzle Bobble.
Your Mr. Driller link is pointing at Frenzy.
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Is the red light coming on? If not, it might have a broken power switch. I believe that's a common failure. If it has this problem, you can likely hear it rattling around when you shake the unit.
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Goonies II was one of the first adventure platform games I ever played, so I was pretty fascinated with it. It's still one of my favorites, but I'm generally fond of ~1987 NES games anyway. 1987-88 was the peak of my obsession with video games.
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I think the short answer is "Because Microsoft Says So".
I'm not a retail manager, but it seems apparent that the console manufacturers impose price controls on the retail chains. Anytime you have 30 people lined up before the store opens to buy 8 units, the price is obviously too low. Yet all the chains keep the same price tag accompanied by an empty shelf. If they were to raise the price, the store probably loses its standing with Microsoft. So we have a weird situation where the retail store is selling way below market value (depending on the store's location), and ebay is selling 360's for what they're currently worth on an overall nationwide basis.
It seems that all game consoles have had this kind of rigged pricing. I guess it's a PR issue. They don't want to lose people's interest by announcing an initial price of $800. They also want to create as much hype as possible, and having a rush on the systems helps create that. They aren't as concerned about how much money they get from the consoles - the money is in the games.
It's not much good for the retailer, but they have no choice if they want to be a 360 dealer. Even if they have nothing in stock, just having a 360 demo unit makes the store look more "with it". The store might hardly even care if they get any new units in, since they aren't allowed to make much money from them. In the long run they can make money selling games.
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Right now I'm mostly interested in homebrewing for the 7800. That system has a lot to prove and a lot of firsts lying ahead of it. The NES doesn't feel like much of a frontier as it's already had a huge number of games and plenty of industry support during its lifetime.
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Unused pack-in memory cards from Animal Crossing, perhaps. People will be interested to have the original, new-game experience and acquire the first couple NES games it gives you when you first use the card.
Can those unused cards be duplicated using the system BIOS?
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Any game that needed a keyboard would have come from the computer world anyhow, where text and bitmap graphics were the norm, so the 7800's sprite abilities (which were a pain to use anyhow) wouldn't have been useful. Those games would have worked just fine on (and were already out for) an XE/XL/C64, which usually had a floppy drive available, and therefore was much cheaper to publish for, even with software piracy.I would contend that the console and computer game markets were largely separate from each other. Lots of kids didn't have computers back then, or if they did, they didn't play games on them. I agree cartridge games are more expensive to produce, but they're still worth producing if they will reach a wider market.
And the 7800's lack of internal memory would have made it about as useful as an Aquarius where computer game ports were concerned. Every keyboard game cart would have needed RAM, increasing the price difference over floppy disk even more. For instance, you've mentioned Infocom. Well, even assuming someone would want to play a text game on their 7800, all their Zork-based games required 16K of RAM for working space.That may be true about Zork, I wouldn't know. But in general, disk based systems need more RAM than cartridge systems do. 4KB isn't as bad as it sounds if you have a ROM cartridge from which you can directly access static data. But yeah, depending on the game, you might need an extra 8KB.
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Sure he's helping. Somebody who desperately wants an XBox 360, and is willing to pay what it's actually worth, will now be able to get one. This is the economy at work. Shortages are caused by prices artificially forced below free market value.
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After Nintendo locked up so many developers, Atari in 1986-87 should have turned to the domestic computer game companies, like Broderbund, Infocom, Origin, Electronic Arts, etc. A keyboard peripheral might have been helpful in recruiting those kinds of developers. The computer market had a wealth of games that console gamers never saw, and many of them would be awkward without a keyboard.
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I know what you mean. I have an interest in programming video games, but one area of weakness is I have no ability to compose music. But I have on rare occasion had dreams with original, not too bad music in them. Of course, I can't remember it later.
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Killing Ganon.
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You should at least be able to figure out the power connections by putting a multimeter on the laptop side while it's turned on. But I don't know how you'd figure out the rest of the signalling.
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Another vote for Wizardry on PS2. I just got this game recently and I'm loving it. I haven't played an RPG like this in years. It's sad that the Japanese storybook genre has taken over RPG's completely. I read a comment somewhere that said there's been a sequel to PS2 Wizardry, but it won't be released in the US due to the existing game's poor sales. Too bad.
I think there's room in the market for old-style RPG's like this, but they need to advertise what makes them different/better than the Final Fantasy type games. The back of the Wizardry box, for example, gives no clear indication that this is an old-style RPG as opposed to yet another storybook game.
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The only place I ever saw this game was at some indoor soccer field in Wichita. A friend of mine had a birthday party there in gradeschool. Yeah - we played soccer for a birthday party... Never got to play the game but from a distance through a kid's eyes I thought it looked cool. Unfortunately it's not.
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Here's my shot in the dark:
It doesn't have to specifically be an XL or 800 or 5200 "clone". It's just another variation of the 8-bit line, and they can use an abstraction layer to make it compatible with whatever 5200 or 8-bit games they want to support.
Joysticks could be 5200 style sticks, but they would be digital, self-centering, and serial wired. Those could be significantly more reliable (and less expensive) than the original 5200 sticks, thus the improvement Curt hinted at for the system's original shortcomings. 5200 games would see only 3 possible "analog" positions on each axis.
A keymapper would map important keys to some buttons on the controller. The exact mapping would depend on which game you are playing. So 8-bit computer games could be built-in to the unit without need for a keyboard, and without modifying the original roms. Any new micro-carts produced for the system would contain a ROM header to indicate the appropriate keymapping, along with other compatibility information.
The serial controller interface could be USB. The system thereby might support a keyboard - but you'd have to provide it yourself. If you modify the system to accept 8-bit cartridges, you might need a full keyboard to run them properly, since the keymapper wouldn't know what keys to assign to the joystick controls. I'm most doubtful about this last paragraph, but if they actually support a keyboard, then doing it through USB seems as practical as anything else.
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Perhaps each cart could have a unique ID in the ROM code. Then the leaked file can be traced to its origin.
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As to memory working or not working on the Hat Trick board, apparentlly it works okay for the CPU, but not for Maria DMA. I know that in my initial tests, I was able to use my own monitor to write and read back RAM locations manually. But until I made the change, Summer Games and Winter Games showed a bunch of semi-identifiable junk on the screen, and so did the other games that used RAM. Impossible Mission even crashed soon after entering the first room. So it does work, but not really....
I must have missed this thread before. Assuming you still stand by these findings, then I should mention that I have a Winter Games cart which was produced on a C100339 board. It does not have any graphical glitches, but I have noticed that it has a lot of sounds missing which are present in the ROM file I downloaded from the internet. I mentioned that once in another thread and at least one other person also said they had the same "missing sounds" issue on this game. So while I can say my C100339 Winter Games does seem different from the popular ROM, it's not showing any apparent Maria related issues.
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And What about Christmas trees? "TaninBOMB" Thats how it sounds out anyhow!!
"Oh Time Bomb, Oh Time Bomb! ... "
I used to think that song was hilarious before I learned about the translation.
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I had experience with Sega, Atari, and Nintendo's customer service in early-mid 1990.
Sega:
I had saved my allowance money for a long time to buy the Genesis. At the time, they were running a promotion where you could send in your UPC code and get a free game and the power base converter (People before me even got TWO games). Mine was taking forever to show up. It had been longer than the advertised "6-8 weeks for delivery", so I called them up.
The guy on the phone was basically an asshole. He apparently hated talking to kids, and nobody ever pointed out to him that those were his customer base. He treated me like an idiot and made it pretty clear he didn't like me and thought I was trying to steal something. He took about 5 minutes to go look for my file (apparently Sega didn't have computers). He didn't find it, so he asked me to pick what game I had asked for. I asked if I could pick from the updated list that they were offering to more recent system buyers. He reprimanded me for attempting to double-dip, and told me to identify the game I had originally picked on my order form. By the end of the conversation, I was pretty upset with the people I had just given $200 of my allowance money to.
For some reason, I had been told to send in a photocopy of the hole in my Genesis box. I guess they were just trying to make it inconvenient for me to rip them off. Shortly after sending that in, a package was at my door, with the game and power base converter.
And about 3-4 months later, I got another package with the same contents.
Atari:
I called them regarding the possibility of getting my 7800 repaired, which popped and smoked the last time I had turned it on (must have blown a cap). They were businesslike and polite, nothing special. I don't know what the deal on repairs was, but it must not have been worth it because I never sent it in. Instead my parents just bought another one, making it our 3rd 7800. At least that last unit has had a decent lifespan, and is still working.
Nintendo:
My Game Boy was having LCD problems. Stung by the harsh attitude of the Sega people, I hesitantly called up Nintendo. The guy on the phone acted like I was his favorite nephew or something. The hold music was funny - they played looping soundtracks from NES games. He was quick to identify the issue, and without my asking, offered free out-of-warranty service since it was a production defect. He then took the time to explain why I shouldn't use UPS (they were threatening to strike). I got the feeling this guy enjoyed talking to me.
I sent the game boy in, and got it back in just a few days. That unit still works, but the screen cover fell off so I've had to apply Scotch tape to hold it on.
It took some doing before I could go back to being a Sega fanboy, but as a proud Genesis owner I did what I had to do.
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It was me. I need to finish my Space Invaders stick and then I'll finally be able to play Choplifter again. It was one of my favorite games on the system, I never knew it was so disliked before reading about it on this site.