jamon1567
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Posts posted by jamon1567
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I wouldn’t take it personally when they are likely dealing with hundreds of small issues during a new product launch including many who really do just need to do something simple, like clean their games or update their system. It makes sense to put out that stuff first to knock down their workload before they give personal one-on-one assistance.
There’s a big hump to get over before things normalize here. It’s unfortunate that you have to deal with being treated like anything less than an informed, experienced, and capable enthusiast in the mean time but, knowing the circumstances, I would not take it personally.
I’m someone who waited years for the Wii only to get mine DOA at launch (crashed when you launched any channel... including Disc Channel). To add insult to injury, it was Thanksgiving and even a “Rush” replacement was delayed by the holiday. I watched the post-launch buzz/excitement as everyone else praised Nintendo and boldly claimed that Nintendo didn’t have any of the DOA issues like Sony and Microsoft. Even my replacement had a common issue that I dealt with later (video artifacting). I had just got finished getting replacements for two DS lite handhelds purchased at-launch that summer.
Point is, my personal experience was an isolated example that was hard to draw more broad conclusions from. In the long run, Nintendo proved themselves to me as they did with everyone else. It sounds like Analogue will too if you give them the chance.
I hear you and I can't really argue with what you're saying. I think the thing that just has me in an especially foul mood is that I was really looking forward to FINALLY (see a few posts back of mine) playing Wonder Boy III with FM sound, and then boom, no SMS....it just figures right?
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The specs are likely leftover flux. Especially if they are using a lead free solder, going by what I see on my adapter. In the connector that you plug the MS cart into, all pins are present. The card edge connector for the Mega SG is clean and in good condition there too.
If you have a missing pin, that’s likely your problem.
I get what you are saying, but at the same time, I very much wanted the JPN buttons. I had a hard time picking what color I wanted for the Super NT, but not the SG.
It’s not bad, but I just really like the red/blue mix. But I’m going to take the discount and make the EUR one a spare, or resell it for a small loss once I get the right one...
Random question for you though, since you have the Everdrive X5 and the Sega CD. Do you have any problems using the Everdrive as a RAM cart on the SG? I can’t get it to work.
Well, I went ahead and took some pics but I can't figure out how to post them here. I uploaded to google drive and drop box and I keep getting an error when I try to either load the image via URL or just add a URL. Anyone have advice on how I can upload images?
Edit: I guess in the meantime I can just paste the URL to the pics here even if they won't be a clickable link.
Edit 2: I guess I don't need to actually use the link feature and can just paste the link in here....alrighty then
Edit 3: Forgot to point out what I'm seeing. In the first pic 7 from the left is the pin that isn't there anymore, or 90% of it anyway. Pic 2, 4 from the left is the one with what looks to be a not so great solder job.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T8grcXRNcf42hXlX6hpuvPsMOdx6myZh
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cLanJFS0pVUo2aThd573WOgraf0hDG1-
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I’d be willing to compare photos of the problem areas with my adapter if it might help demonstrate your point to support.
Let's see what they say, but just looking at it, on some of the pins there is black specs of stuff, and then there's that one pin that doesn't appear to be there. Again though, that may be by design, I don't know. But then there is another pin where it doesn't look like there's much if any solder on it either.
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On a side note regarding the shipping. I actually ordered an EUR version and received what I should have, so happy there. But I was not impressed with the packaging. I can't recall how the Super Nt was packaged, but I know the Nt Mini had a nice box with foam inserts that the second box fit into. The Mega Sg came in a box with a bunch of paper and the actual system box poorly wrapped with crappy bubble wrap. One of the corners on that box is smashed in a little bit because of this poor pack job. Now, while I wasn't happy to see that knowing how they've packaged things in the past, it isn't a game changer or anything, but they really should have their shipping settled by now. It's embarrassing frankly, and I'm embarrassed for them.
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Guess I can’t blame them for going through the motions when even some of their early review partners who got specific instructions failed to update theirs and didn’t know why Master System games didn’t work.
Glad to hear that it’s probably the adapter because that’s a lot easier to rectify and you have a console with most other functionality in the mean time. Do you have an Everdrive, Power Base FM, or any other way to play Master System games on it? If not, I expect you’ll get the ability to play them from SD card soon enough.
I’d prefer to play the original when I have it on-hand but at least you’ll have some Master System functionality.If they would have just replied to my initial email with a list of things to try (and actually read my email to see what I had done), including making sure I clean my carts and insert the adapter the right way, it wouldn't be an issue and I'd expect that. Instead though, they've dicked around through multiple emails now asking me to do simple things I've already said I've done. This isn't the first time I've had a less than pleasant experience with their support either mind you.
As for other methods to test, unfortunately the only other thing I have is a power base converter, but that obviously won't fit unfortunately. Hopefully they get the picture and just send me a new adapter...
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Did you update your system yet? It was on a sticker on the shrink wrap. Supposedly you have to update first.
Yes, I've updated it. I'm going through the run around with support (and frankly it's starting to piss me off....they ignore what I tell them and treat me like I'm a 5 year old that has never played video games before, which is funny since they like to brag about how they sell to an "enthusiast market"....I guess us enthusiasts don't know to try to clean a cartridge if you're having problems, or the proper way to insert one) right now, but basically it appears to me that the adapter is junk. Looking at it, the soldering doesn't seem that great on a few of the pins, and one of them seems to have snapped off. Not sure if that's by design or not, but knowing how these consoles work, and that I'm not having issues with Genesis carts, I'm fairly certain it's the adapter. Also, to answer a previous posts question to me, it isn't any particular cart so far as I can tell, but the ones I've tried are Wonder Boy III, Golvelius, Zaxxon 3D and Blade Eagle 3D. Basically just grabbed a few after Wonder Boy didn't work.
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Gotcha. Well, MLiG mentioned issues with MS games with the CD attached and plugged in so I was hoping that was it.
If it’s power-related I wonder if it’s the same issue.
I was really looking forward to popping Wonder Boy III in and playing with FM sound. My damn SMS is one of the revisions that with the FM mod should work (it's just an issue with Wonder Boy III, other games work), but some don't, and of course mine doesn't. Had a couple people look at it every which way, but no dice. Then with the NT Mini I could never get it working, and I think that was the case for just about everyone if I recall. I wonder if whatever lessons learned here with FM sound can be applied back to the NT Mini to get it working there.....
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Unplug the Sega CD.
I don't have a Sega CD
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So, am I the only one who can't get SMS games to work? I've tried 4 cartridges, all freshly cleaned and known to work and none of them will boot. The Mega SG appears to be booting the SMS core though because when I got to core options all I see is the option to enable/disable FM sound. The one Genesis cartridge I've tried works fine, but none of the SMS carts. I'm on the 4.2 firmware.
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Not everything has to be a form of digital socialism when it comes to programming online, not everything has to be open source and free for anyone to stick their fingers into. And I agree it's very naive and highly immature to think that way
Couldn't agree more with this and it pains me that so many in the gaming community seem to think that commerce is evil.
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You mean it's okay for you and others to slag off MiSTer, but when they do that then it's a nasty inferiority complex? Strange logic
I do not really have a horse in this race, but this thread does sometimes "reek" of Analogue fanboyism, the last couple of pages or so regarding MiSTer show that quite well. Seems to me that some people who invested lots of dosh in its products would hate to see an open source, much cheaper solution to do well, hence some heavy rationalizing going on here and anti-MiSTer condescension/sniping too. That on top of the general hype train and the 1337 club feel, which also may or may not be quite "douchey". So, not saying of course that the other side should act nasty but there are definitely two sides to this story.
While I personally would much rather buy MiSTer, I do not have any sort of problem with the existence of Analogue's consoles and wish Kevtris himself well. But some opinions posted here really are cringeworthy. Is it really so hard to understand that some folk may prefer to spend ~200$ and have heaps of open source cores available, with very little tinkering involved, than buy Nt Mini for 3 (or 4) times the price? Comparing MiSTer to Super NT/Mega does not even make much sense since they're one-core offerings. And believe it or not, not everybody is forever locked in the SMS/SNES/NES/Megadrive world, there are people very much interested in microcomputers and less popular consoles too.
And the added bonus here is some really intense - 0-lag proselytizing. Now we all know that lag is bad for you, mmkay, but seriously...dismissing everything that is not "0" as straight up garbage is just heavy-eyeroll worthy. As someone who plays mostly on a RPi+CRT, with resulting 4-6 (?) frames of lag, does not feel it and yet manages to do quite well in assorted High Score clubs, I can attest to that. Sure, we all should strive to minimalise that unwelcome malady, but that "I'm sensitive and refuse to play on anything <0" humblebragging can get quite tiresome. Unless people like SS here start coming up with arcane equations which involve even the baked in lag, or dissing 2-day old cores, then it's quite hilarious actually.
tl;dr: live and let live, and don't turn this Analogue thing into a snobbish ivory tower. It'd be much better if we all just could get along, different markets for different people. Otherwise, don't be surprised if people sneer back at you too.
I don't know what the beef is between the two crowds, and frankly I don't care either, but I gotta admit I got a nice chuckle out of you "having no horse in the race", then proceeding to dump on Analogue and it's fans.
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Not sure what gave you that impression. They've always kept their distance from jailbreaks and it's never been officially supported.
Gizmodo did confirm that the Mega SG would be able to play roms:
"And for those of you who long ago lost your Sega cartridge collections to over-zealous garage sale parents, or who’ve amassed a healthy collection of ROMs over the years (for all the games you’ve already purchased, of course!), Analogue has confirmed that the $190 Mega Sg will also be upgradeable, via unofficial third-party firmware, allowing you to load ROMs via the console’s SD card slot. For some, that could be reason alone to make the upgrade."
(from: https://gizmodo.com/the-guys-behind-the-best-nes-and-snes-clones-have-built-1829633330)
That sounds like a lot of speculation on their part. Analogue had said that they wouldn't limit what people do with the SD slot before, but they have never confirmed any such thing at any point for any of their systems. On top of that, if this were actually a thing, surely they would have told any of the other publications that they spoke to.
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Just noticed that Analogue dropped the price of the Black Nt mini by $50 (still sold out, of course) to match the price of the newly labeled Classic silver version.
I too noticed that they referred to it as "classic" when I was pre-ordering my Mega Sg earlier. I hadn't noticed the price though. There may be hope for another batch yet....
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Do you know something the rest of us don't? The NT Mini shortage wasn't something announced or planned for as far as I know. The majority of units sold have been used consoles so I'm inclined to believe they are just people who had their fun and would rather have the money. The people selling new in the box consoles I'll give the benefit of a doubt to. Even my own NT Mini has a layer of dust on it from neglect. Super NT and others have been taking all my time.
Edit: To piggyback off my own post I am repeating my earlier post in hopes anyone has info.
Does anyone know if the Famicom Network controller works on the Nt Mini (ColecoVision core)?
How about the SNES NTT Data controller? Anyone know if that would function with a SNES to NES converter (Raphnet)? I've been searching through old posts but I can't find if the Network controller was fixed or not.
Would also appreciate suggestions for other useful NES controllers for various cores. A good joystick for Atari games maybe?
Kev added support for the Famicom Network controller and in my admittedly limited experience using it on the Mini's Coleco core, it works just fine. As for the NTT Data controller, I can't recall if Kev added support for it or not, but I wanna say he did because he said he used it in testing quite a bit himself. I think he may have even planned to release a dongle for it along with the cart adapters, but obviously those never happened. I'm sure you could make your own though, and given Kev is such a nice guy, he may even be able to provide some info on how to do it. As for the raphnet adapters, I want to say they won't work because you need the extra pins or whatever that the expansion port has (I seem to recall a past conversation here about that), but I really don't know and I'm sure some other guys on here that are more knowledgeable about that stuff could answer that.
All that said, the NTT Data controllers seem to be really hard to find, while the Famicom Network controllers are easier to find (at least they were a year or so ago when I bought mine) and provide the same functionality as far as the Mini is concerned. I still keep an eye out for the NTT Data controller in hopes that a core store hits the Super NT some day, but other than that it's not necessary IMO. On a side note, if you get the Famicom Network controller, the NeoGeo controller extensions will work for it.
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IMO, if I were 8bitdo:
1) Release a "dogbone" NES pad. Nintendo doesn't currently use that design, and it won't be confused for the top-loader NES. Yes, there is probably not that much market for 4 button (S/S/B/A) controller, but that's one less confusing thing to use with the NT Mini or RetroUSB AVS. This would be sufficient for such games, but...
2) Release a "dogbone" SNES pad keeping the button colors but taking a cue from the XBOX 360 controller and having the semi-transparent letters in the button. To further not stomp on the trademark remove the "background plate" around the ABXY button and stick it around the angled start and select. (You might say putting the button label in the button is a bit backwards, and I'll agree, but you need to have the button spacing/layout the way it is or it just doesn't work. Also note that the US controllers have concave X and Y buttons, which I think is a tactile improvement, and wish other controllers did that. The SFC controllers do not have this, and the fact that the XY and AB are the same colors required US games to always refer to the letter while JP/EURO games could refer to the color.
What 8bitdo missed out here was selling removable plates for the front of the controller. Remember removable faceplates from early nokia phones? Plus faceplates would allow people to get blank plates and just print stickers to go on them if they wanted to customize it.
Like my opinion really is that 8bitdo got a cease&desist for all products with NES, SNES in them and anything with the US trademarks, hence why the SN30 and SF30 are still available, these look like SNES pads but are XInput style controllers with the dual analog and dual shoulder buttons, plus additional wii/home button.
If they rerelease the Mini in some capacity, a pack in (or exclusive run) dogbone, with just the A and B buttons, would be awesome. I love me some dogbone and really don't want to play NES any other way.
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Save states.
Edit: Beaten by cacophony.
Edit: scratch that post. I was thinking saves, not save states which are different, so point taken.
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Woah. Calm down, Francis. I go out of my way to avoid the improper 3.3v products too, even if I doubt that led to any real-world failures for Krikzz’s products (he did take SOME precautions). I usually prefer the non-Everdrive alternative in most cases for that reason and it’s why I went with a Mega ED X5 instead of a Mega ED X7. Being concerned enough to let it influence my purchase decisions doesn’t mean I think the X7 will blow up my console with improper level translation.
You later established that it was a defective Everdrive but Tapatalk wouldn’t show me the replies until I finished my post and refreshed. I was only establishing that it wasn’t the 3.3v vs. 5v issue that we were discussing when you weighed in. Of course defective stuff can ruin things. Of course EDs can be defective. I know that. Why would I say otherwise?
Ever see KevBot’s NES Killer? [emoji6]
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=168385
Yes, I can't confirm that's what it was (and really I don't care what it was because the end result of a fried PPU is the same regardless) because A) I wouldn't have the knowledge to determine that, and B) neither SAG or Retrofixes quite had an answer. That said, I've no need for one anyway since I have a Mini, so I'll be staying away. However, the claim that an Everdrive has never blown anything up is not true from my experience.
On a side note, thinking back on this (it happened March of last year, so been a lil while) I don't think I actually used the N8 on my Mini. I had an old toaster laying around that I ended up setting the new one up on. Not that there would really be any need to use an Everdrive on a Mini, but just throwing that out there for the sake of accuracy.
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Nintendo did something like this in the NES Classics GBA series but they did it the easy way and ended up kind breaking some things. Rather than setting up the memory like a freshly powered-on NES, the emulator essentially loads a save state and then resets.
It works in the sense that Super Mario Bros will retain your hi-score but you might also notice a cool bonus: You can hold A and press start to resume the last world you played, exactly like you would after getting “Game Over” on the original NES game. I used it to jump straight to the Minus World any time I wanted to demonstrate, but there’s a nasty side-effect: Beating the game changes all the Goombas to Buzzy Beetles and speeds the enemies up, so saving a hi-score after finishing the game will leave it stuck in this state until you clear he save memory.
Finding the memory addresses for the hi-scores of each game would have been trivially easy but they probably didn’t want to customize the emulator for any of them. That’s why they all have 2p link support that downloads the entire game into another GBA’s memory even when it’s a 1p game. That’s also why some of the boxes in the series have a sticker covering the number of supported players on the back.
Because integer scaling is more important than scanlines and it’s possible to get integer scaling with scanlines using a 5x vertical scale or a windows 4x vertical scale.
Having scanlines at 720p is perfect for 720p displays and 4K displays but there are better options for 1080p displays.
The solution I saw him mention would still be a problem for displays that don’t support full sRGB, which is a lot.
4:3 has always been an approximation of the even less clearly defined “Academy aspect” in old time cinema. Tubes come in various shapes and sizes. Heck, many early black and white TVs were circular and they could tune the same analog broadcast signals as the last CRTs, so it definitely wasn’t a rigidly defined aspect ratio. Heck, few CRTs have 90° corners and a lot have user adjustments that distort the horizontal aspect ratio.
That said, I wouldn’t always judge by the appearance of circles and squares in-game. It’s very clear that the devs themselves usually didn’t get what they were going for even back in the day and it all depends on what they did on a case-by-case basis. Heck, most multi-platform ports had drastically different aspect ratios for the same pixel art. Compare Street Fighter II character bios across console platforms. Heck, the other day I saw a particularly egregious example with Street Racer on SNES versus Megadrive (game wasn’t released on Genesis):
Compare Biff’s headshot:
Yes, it’s theoretically possible, but I’ve had PPUs spontaneously fry on me with no Everdrive so we can’t assume that was the cause. Also, the NES Everdrive N8 is not on the naughty list. What Everdrive did you use? I’m unfamiliar with earlier revisions of the NES ED but if you were using an EDN8 then you did not encounter the theoretical problem with Everdrives that we were discussing.
Here is one of my fried NES PPUs that failed in a particularly interesting way:
Yes, the problem follows the PPU from console to console and putting a good PPU in that console fixes the issue. It also works fine with Hi-Def NES... and in full color.
I’ve also purchased NES consoles with “fried” PPUs and then had them suddenly work after socketing them (also never touched an NES ED). PPU failures happen and it there’s a good chance that the ED had nothing to do with it.
Yes. I’ve almost given up on telling people this, but it isn’t about specific settings for certain displays with certain native resolutions because those displays are almost never displaying signals with their native resolutions 1:1. It’s going to be a combination of setting between the Super Nt and the display device. The correct settings for the display are HIGHLY variable when they are even possible so any settings “for 1080p” or “for 720p/4K” will only work if the person sharing them and the person using them have managed to disable overscan simulation and other functions that would result in a non-integer scale.
IOW, It isn’t as simple as just having good settings for your Super Nt (as much as I wish it were). You also need good settings for your TV to support good settings for the Super Nt, and not nearly all TVs have those settings.
Sharing “good settings for scanlines on 720p” or whatever absolute requires that both users have achieved the correct TV settings for an integer scale.
It was an N8. And I don't care what you do with your systems and you can believe what you want to believe, but I won't be using them.
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Good customer service for SAG.
I'm curious, who modded your childhood top loader for RGB?
Retrofixes
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...but the Everdrive N8/Famicom runs on 3.3v correctly translated to 5v and was one of the devices verified by dbelectronics as being perfectly safe:
https://db-electronics.ca/2017/07/05/the-dangers-of-3-3v-flash-in-retro-consoles/#Everdrive_N8
You sure you weren't using a cheap chinese clone, many of which look just like the real thing on the outside? If it came from anywhere other than Krikzz's store direct/retrogate, retrotowers or stoneagegamer then it's a fake. Guaranteed dodgy if its from Ebay or Aliexpress. There's no chance a legit Everdrive N8 would have broken your NES.
Yes, it was legit, I purchased it from SAG. They don't know what caused it and paid for a replacement as well as the fee to have my NES shipped out to my modder to fix, so at least they took care of me. That said, I don't trust them. I ended up setting it up for my buddy using my Mini, but that'll be the last time I touch one.
Edit: for what it's worth, I was just looking back at my emails with them and whatever happened fried the Everdrive as well. So I guess I got a bad unit, but frying my childhood top loader that I just had RGB modded was too traumatic to bother trying again
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Probably zero. [emoji4] For those it’s more of a concern about good/proper engineering practices but for the multicarts that just pump 5v into a 3v chip without even using a resistor for VCC, it’s an eye-opener. Thankfully, Kevtris has openly stated that the Super Nt is fine with these 3.3v devices. *whew*
I recall a video where Kevtris and Jason (GameTechUS) were looking into why the Turbo ED didn’t work with Jason’s PCE/TG16 region mod and Kevin noticed the improper voltage levels. He did not have nice words for Krikzz! I’m pretty sure that’s why he hinted at disgust at the Super Everdrive in the RetroRGB interview regarding Super Nt as well.
INL sells the blank PCBs and the programmer on his site (Kazzo NES/FC dumper updates for NES/SNES burning) and you can get clear shells too. RetroStage and many others offer these parts but I know INL sells an affordable programmer. INL’s programmer is cheap enough that you probably won’t feel like you need the Super Nt or Nt Mini to flash it (IIRC, $30). Kevtris had a lot of negative things to say about the cat hairs he and Jason found in their INL order of cartridge shells but I don’t recall any engineering criticisms.
People claim an Everdrive has never fried a system, but that is untrue because one fried the PPU on my NES. I bought one for a friend and was setting it up and it destroyed it immediately. I won't put another one of those things (at least the NES one) in my systems.
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Alright thanks. I didn't see any topic's about this and this post has been going a bit fast after the super nt came out and not enough time to read it all.
I searched FX at least 6 or more pages didn't find anything.
Start from here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3961632
Edit: rereading your post, it sounds like maybe you just went back a few pages and did a ctrl-f. You can actually search the entire thread if you scroll to the top of the page and type in your search criteria in the search box.
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Can anyone confirm if the FX multicart is working on the super nt. I am wanting to order it, even thou it's back ordered. Don't want to get it if it's not working on the super nt.
I believe someone (perhaps a couple people) said it was working some pages back. Try doing a search on the thread.
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I've only tried clean carts, but it works perfectly for me. I purposely rocked the cart back and forth and couldn't get it to crash. But when I clean my carts, I take them apart and use alcohol and a pencil eraser. I make sure the carts are 100% clean.
I do the same, but I still have hiccups with original hardware and the Mini was just forget about it....
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FPGA Based Videogame System
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted · Edited by jamon1567
On that first pic, 7 from the left you can see a bunch of solder and what not, but the pin looks like it was snapped off. You can see how all of the other pins are raised up, thats the pin actually resting on the board. For that one though, it isn't there. The second pic is from the other side of the adapter and just looks like the one pin wasn't soldered as well.
Or maybe you're saying the spikes aren't the actual pin? I don't know....I haven't soldered something in 20 years and don't really claim to know what I'm talking about, but just looking at this thing, those are the two anomalies.