gdement

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.

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.

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.

Killing Ganon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Perhaps each cart could have a unique ID in the ROM code. Then the leaked file can be traced to its origin.

... 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.

Remember, over there it's "arse," so it's okay. 985741[/snapback] And What about Christmas trees? "TaninBOMB" Thats how it sounds out anyhow!! 985777[/snapback] "Oh Time Bomb, Oh Time Bomb! ... " I used to think that song was hilarious before I learned about the translation.

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.

So if I understand correctly, he doesn't know anything about it, but he assures you it was a long time ago and it wasn't a copy unit? Sounds like he just knows better than to talk about it. As yuppicide mentioned, maybe he's planning to resell it.

The maria has an alternate rendering mode to draw 12 color sprites. You can interchangeably draw 3 color and 12 color objects as needed. 12 color objects are normally not used because they require twice as much storage space and take longer to render.

Here is a theory I had on this... If you have looked at the 7800 PCB it's pretty crowded, so adding a pokey to the design probably would have increased the size of the PCB, the size of the system, and the overall cost of the system. A lot of the 7800 carts had one of three "added features", extra RAM, extra ROM, or a POKEY, so the Pokey cart would not have been much more expensive then the other carts to make. Even if you had to tack on a few dollars to the price of the cartridge, this may have actually been more palatable to the consumer then increasing the price of the console by say $10.00. Dan 955276[/snapback] I don't think the Pokey cart situation was the original plan, because it really doesn't make any fiscal sense. If they were concerned about pricing, they could just as easily have swallowed the cost of integrating a POKEY in the console, and jacked up the price of some "Supercarts" that use it. The consumer wouldn't know the difference, and it would save Atari money. They didn't have to charge the Pokey-tax on the component where it actually was located. I think it's more likely that they either didn't think the sound upgrade was needed, or GCC just didn't realize they were short of board room until it was too late. They thought they were in a hurry to ship, so they punted. It seems to me that integrating sound in the MARIA would have been too much complexity for one new chip, but I don't know much about such things. I wonder if they could have instead designed a downward compatible version of Stella or RIOT that had some enhanced sound features integrated. But I suppose the RIOT might have been problematic to imitate since it's not an Atari chip to begin with.

Showbiz Pizza, which we had in Wichita, KS when I was little. That was the first arcade I had ever seen and I still have hazy memories of it. They had a dual screen Donkey Kong with lots of people crowded around, I remember eventually getting in a game but I died quickly. There was also a Dragon's Lair, which I was amazed to look at but never played it. I spent most of my time in the back room because almost nobody was in there. I realize now those were the old games, probably stuff from the 70's and some BB gun type games. I had at least a couple birthday parties there - they had this crazy on-stage audio-animatronic band of animal characters that played music and jabbered to each other. I think one of them was named "Billy Bob". Very loud and exciting for us kids. Annoying as hell for the parents I'm sure. Chuck E Cheese bought the place out well before my family moved. I resented that - who is Chucke Cheese and why did that stupid mouse steal Showbiz? That was the first time I learned the concept of businesses being bought and sold. We had another Chuck E Cheese in Pensacola, and it was very weak. I don't know if it was typical of the chain, but if so, I must conclude that Showbiz was way better.

I still like Nesticle. The trend nowadays is for very slow and accurate emulation, and certainly that has it's place, but I appreciate an emulator that was written when classic Pentiums were the norm, and processor speed couldn't be taken for granted. My sister still has a P133 laptop, and Nesticle is the only option for playing NES games on that machine. It's just too bad it won't run under NT. I prefer Nester and FCE Ultra though, and use those emulators on everything else. I don't keep up with the latest computers anymore, so the high-CPU emulators don't appeal to me. There are several 400-550MHz machines in my family, including my own desktop.

This was one of the first games I rented on the NES, and I really was fascinated by it. But I absolutely couldn't stand the jump-back-into-a-pit-when-hit play mechanic. It was so frustrating I made the conscious decision not to get the game, despite how much I otherwise liked it. Ninja Gaiden had the same problem. That jumping-back stuff was a dealbreaker for me, I just had no patience for it. I still played Castlevania on several different occasions though, and I eventually got pretty far in it. I definitely didn't finish it though, and I doubt I ever will unless I use savestate cheats on an emulator.

The story I heard at the time was that Mario would spin around the top of the flagpole like 3 times or whatever. That game was such a phenomenon for a while, its funny how many legends started going around about it, some true, some not. I'm generally pretty fond of the early NES years.

ENIAC is better because it's 10-bit.

I haven't been able to open the CD drawer on my model 1 yet, and i'm hoping there's going to be a disc inside. It'll probably be a sports game, since every used game console I've ever bought with a game CD inside has traditionally had a sports game in it. 886557[/snapback] You don't need a controller or screen, all you have to do is push Reset and it will eject.

I'll have to try hooking it up to my older Genesis and see if that helps. I agree. I ended up pretty disgusted with Sega that they kept treating the CD as a novelty, rather than a platform for real games.

A couple days ago my niece wanted to try playing the Sega CD game "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective" (volume 1). This disc originally was included with my front-loading Sega CD console. However, I no longer have that unit. Therefore I set up the game on a newer model Genesis with top-loading CD unit. Other games work fine, but Sherlock Holmes does not. The game boots to the licensing screen as expected, but then the game just stops loading. After waiting a very long time, I opened the disc tray and found that the disc wasn't even spinning. I tried again and had the same result. Does this game have an incompatibility issue with the newer hardware?

I just tried Altered Beast on a Model 1631 Genesis (2nd generation style), and it works fine. I agree though that early EA games won't work on the non 1601 Genesis models. I just wish I still had an early EA game to test, unfortunately I lost one of them and sold the other. From what I've read of the story, I think there was some unexplained piece of code in the Sega games that EA couldn't determine the purpose of, so they didn't duplicate it. It turned out to be relevant to licensing. As a result, early Sega games are recognized by the later consoles, but early unlicensed EA games are not. I don't have an intimate knowledge of the system though, that's just something I remember reading.

I must have been 7 at the time, but this was such an exciting event for me that I remember it pretty well. I was at a friend's house and he bragged to me about all the games he had gotten that day at Target for $5 each (I still remember this because I wanted to tell my mom later). I remember playing Night Driver and Pitfall. He wanted to play Pitfall, but I was bored by it because we already had that game. I thought Night Driver was the coolest thing ever. By the time my mom came over to pick me up that evening, I had also seen the Target commercial on their TV. I was excited to tell her about the sale, and I think my friend's mom helped explain what I was talking about. My family went that same evening to Target and we all picked out some games. I got Night Driver, one of the worst games I own. Of course I didn't realize the significance of the event at the time, but I realize now it must have been the 84 crash.