rockman_x_2002

No doubt. 23 pounds, I believe. It's "portable" only in the academic sense: It's self-contained and it has a handle. Doubt you'd want to do any long-distance carrying for any length of time, though. Though that raises another point: the folks that had these and used them regularly for business and had to carry them around must've been built like a linebacker.

Well, I finally managed to get some time last night to sit down and hammer out the rest of the Mission 1 BGM for the POKEY. It's not 100% accurate to the NES version, but it's the best I'm able to do. It's still fairly close and recognizable, and a nice replacement from the music that's already present. Anyways, the MP3 is attached and if anyone is interested in the .RMT file itself, I can supply that but it won't let me upload it here directly. At any rate, enjoy! DoubleDragonStage1.mp3

At the time these were sold, Commodore had announced an SX-100, which was basically this machine with a monochrome monitor. They also announced a DX-64, which was supposed to have a second floppy drive where this thing's storage bay is located. Neither of those machines made it to market because the SX-64 was a commercial flop compared to the original C64 model.

Well, I finally got around to taking a few pics of the SX-64, as promised (even though I'm a day late). But here they are all the same. In addition to the machine itself, I got in close to take a few screenshots as well so you could see how the screen is. As you can see, it's actually quite plain for a 4" CRT, and everything's perfectly legible on the screen. Only when you have programs with thin, tiny text would you really have any issues.

That sounds fine. I'm all for that if someone wants to do that, and would be glad to share the actual .rmt files with anyone interested. For what it's worth, I'm also intending on doing other tracks from the game (basically conversions of the NES soundtrack to the POKEY), but I haven't been able to get back to that project due to work and other things going on. But I have made some small progress on the music for Mission 1.

I just checked my phone to see if I had any still and I don't, but I will take a few tomorrow of it if I have the chance to.

A little of both. It's mostly for collector's purposes, and I keep that one out in my shop primarily. My main one that sees the most use I keep in the house, and it's an older breadbin C64 that I've had for a while. A bit handier to hook up as I don't really have a place to set the SX-64 and hook it up to the TV and all that. As for gaming on it, the screen is actually surprisingly clear. The only time you get text that you can't see is when you have games or demos that use tiny tiny text (i.e., something like an 80-column mode size text). But for most other stuff, everything's just fine. One project that I have for the SX-64 is using it as decoration. I want to come up with a sort of Pip-Boy type program that runs, shows Pip-Boy on the screen, and does little random things and animations. Just a fun little app that doesn't really do anything except be something to enjoy looking at. This idea stemmed from a joke from work. Not long after I got the thing, I mentioned something about it to the guys I work with, and they said they wanted to see it. So one day I brought it in and set it up so they could have a look. One of them commented that it looked like something straight out of Fallout, and that's when the idea for Pip-Boy 64 came about.

It was when I was on a family vacation down in Orange Beach, AL. We'd already went to several flea markets in the area, and I'd found a few odds and ends things, but this one was in an old shopping center. Looked like at one time it might've been an old Walmart or some similar type store. As far as retro stuff goes, it really didn't have a ton. There was a booth up front that had a few Intellivision, Colecovision and 2600 carts, and I bought a few of the more reasonably-priced ones (most were way more expensive than they ought to be). The other booth was in back, and it had the SX-64 that I picked up, along with a few early 2600 titles boxed and complete (we're talking Breakout, Casino, Combat, and the like, as well as a boxed and complete Star Raiders with the touchpad). I didn't buy the games because I already have all those things, and figured I would leave those for some other lucky person to pick up and have a good find.

One thing I notice is that, while there are three 2600 systems in the picture, there's also a copy of Pole Position II for the 7800 in the lot as well.

The blaster sound effect from Star Raiders. I'd recognize that in any noisy, crowded room right off.

Over the weekend, I took a little overnight trip. Did a little retro shopping at a game store in the area, and came away with a Turbografx 16 and 10 games (5 of them in their case and 5 card only, but none boxed). Here's what I got: Bonk's Adventure (card) Bonk's Revenge (card) Dungeon Explorers (card) Final Lap Twin (case + card) Galaga '90 (card) Keith Courage in Alpha Zones (case + card) Takin' It To the Hoop (case + card) Tricky Kick (case + card) Vigilante (card) World Class Baseball (case + card) After having played it for a few days, I have a few initial thoughts on the system. First, I was surprised to learn that the Turbografx 16 has only one controller port on the base console, and that you have to buy a TurboTap to add players 2-5 to it. I can understand packing only one controller in the box, but one controller port on the machine period is a bit odd to say the very least. I like the graphical capability of the machine, and I can imagine in the very late 80s/early 90s, this thing would've looked great compared to the NES, and about on par with the Sega Genesis. I also find the sound and music coming out of it have a certain charm that none of the other 8-bit or 16-bit systems of the day had (and to me, most closely evoke the style of music that the Commodore Amiga had at the time). The box art is a bit hit or miss on the five games for which I have cases, with Final Lap Twin being about the best looking of the five. The HuCard labels themselves are a bit spartan, to put it charitably, but I suppose when you have such small label space, it's probably best to dedicate the space to the title of the game you're playing more than fancy artwork (although I understand that the Japanese PC Engine HuCards do have nice artwork, so that's a bit of a shame that we didn't get that). Overall, I'm enjoying the system, and I'm finding all the games ranging from very enjoyable to at least decently tolerable. Galaga '90 has by far seen the most playtime, along with Bonk's Adventure (I'm saving Revenge for after I've beaten that game). I've played a bit of Final Lap Twin, and was surprised that the "Quest Mode" in that game wasn't referring to the traditional career mode of most racing games, but was in fact a sort of pseudo-RPG, complete with maps to walk around in, people to talk to, shops to visit, and random battle encounters where you take the action to the track as opposed to physically attacking your opponent (and what would you attack them with anyways? An impact drill?) Special mention goes to Tricky Kick, which wins the gold medal for weirdest game I've seen on the platform. Something about puzzles where you kick animals around and join them together and... well, I'll figure it out someday. The graphics look good, though. I know that a majority of the very excellent games came out only in Japan on the PC Engine, and especially on the CD-ROM add-on. I further know that the HuCards are region locked, while the CD-ROMs generally are not (though I'm guessing that the system cards that allow the CD-ROM add-on to work are region-locked). Perusing through eBay, I'm finding that even if you're just wanting to collect US-released games, this is quite an expensive little machine to get games for. To that end, since I mostly just want the system for enjoyment and gaming, I'm looking into the possibility of some sort of multicart that can run games from all regions, and that may additionally enable the CD-ROM add-on to work if I should decide to pick up one of those a little later on. On my list to pick up next, though, are the two Crush pinball games, Blazing Lazers, and R-Type, for certain, since the only good shooter I have right now is Galaga '90, and I know this system's expertise is that genre. But if anyone else has recommendations, I'm happy to hear them.

Pretty awesome hack. I've always liked Galaga on the 7800, but somehow I always wanted it just a tad more faithful to the arcade game. Something else that would be awesome for Galaga? POKEY sound/music. (See attached zip for RMT tracker and sample MP3 files for the main theme on POKEY). galaga7800pokey.zip

I recall both what we called the "Sears arcade" in our old mall in Tupelo, MS, as well as the Aladdin's Castle in the newer Mall at Barnes Crossing (also in Tupelo). The Sears arcade was the quintessential mid-80s video arcade, with a pinball machine or two, and a number of classic arcade titles from the time, mostly Atari and Namco games with a few from Sega scattered here and there. When the new mall opened in the late 1980s, the Sears arcade shut down shortly afterward, of course. Aladdin's Castle also had a number of vintage games when it first opened. They moved Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, and Centipede over, and they added another pinball machine to the collection at the time, but they started getting in some more modern titles (for that time period). So in came Klax, TMNT, NARC, a Nintendo PlayChoice10, and a fair few other games like that. The Aladdin's Castle did keep the old skee-ball machines, a basketball redemption game, and a few others, however. As time went on, more modern games came to replace the older, vintage games. Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga stayed around the longest until they were eventually retired and replaced with a single Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 20 Year cab. The arcade is still open, today, but has been renamed to Time Out (same old logo, none of the old games). The only vintage game left is the aforementioned Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga cab. No pinball machines are left, and about 70% of the games are all simple redemption games that I find almost no interest in at all. To their credit, they do have a Terminator: Salvation game which, for a modern game, is quite nice. Time Crisis 2 and 3 are present, still, and a few racing titles are there. But that's just about all we have now. To end on a bright note, one of the old games that Aladdin's Castle had years ago has come into my possession. I've written about it on another thread, but they had a Bally/Sente SAC-1 cabinet (I think originally a Gimme-A-Break if the very light burn-in on the monitor is any clue). It was converted to a number of games over the years, first to a Sega Crackdown, and later after that, a Seibu Dead Angle, which is the game in it today in my shop. The Dead Angle game works fine and all, but for my purposes, since all the original boards in the machine are long since gone and probably would never be found again, my goal is to convert this guy into a MAME cab where it will see much more use. Still, it's nice to know I've got a little bit of arcade gaming history from my youth from the very arcade I frequented as a kid. These are the tokens I remember. I still have a few of those, too. But after the arcade was renamed Time Out, they started using Namco tokens with Pac-Man on them instead.

Pretty impressive stuff. The Genesis being able to push a fair number of polygons without breaking a sweat, while the SNES shows much less, although to the SNES's credit, the UI itself looks nicer. So I take it the decision on the Genesis version was to skimp a bit on the UI, and make the viewpoint a little smaller to give it a boost in speed and let it handle polygons. Can't argue with their decision, since it clearly adds more to the gameplay and does make it look like an overall better game.

MY GOD! MY GOD! IT BURNS!! Actually I thought RealSports Football and Baseball had some redeeming qualities, especially Football. I mean it ain't Madden, but it ain't bad either. If it's the early 80s and the 2600 is what you've got (unless you also have an Intellivision), then it's pretty decent. In addition, though, I would have to add DataAge's Airlock, Bugs, and Sssnake. All games I could've comfortably done without (thankfully only picked these up later for a little of nothing). Also, I'll have to agree with Apollo's Raquetball and Skeet Shoot. Definitely everything Mythicon, pretty much everything that Froggo released as well (most especially Karate). Vidtec's Space Jockey gets really old, really quick. I also didn't really care much for Imagic's Fire Fighter. Looks like a good game from the label, and the graphics actually look good in-game, but there's just not a lot to do, and I feel like the rest of Imagic's library makes a much stronger showing. And I know Activision's Laser Blast was mentioned as well. While it's true Activision did put out much better games later on, it's not terrible. It's not one I choose to play often, but I do have to defend it in saying that it's better than some of these other games I've mentioned. As for Atari, usually E.T. and Pac-Man are the two most-prominent whipping boys, and they certainly are two games that are disappointing. But I think time has been much less kind to Starship. If you're going to play a first-person perspective space game from Atari, then you're much better served with Star Raiders or Solaris.

I'd go ahead and put Solaris on the list of games to pick up as well as the others that have been mentioned. It's an excellent game if you don't already have it, and really shows off what the system was capable of in the last days when it was sold in stores still.

You can order them from Ray Carlsen on his website here.

As a rule of thumb, I tend to always do that with my older computers and consoles. After all, these things do have a bit of age on them, and you never know when the original power supplies may decide to kick the bucket and take whatever they're plugged into with them (assuming you're using the original power supplies). It's my understanding that the original C64 brick power supplies are prone to failure, and can cause quite serious damage to the C64 if and when that does happen. I know there is a safety device that Ray Carlsen makes that you can plug in between the power supply and the C64 itself that, in the event of a condition that would be dangerous for the C64, it will kill the power from it and protect it. He also makes new power supplies for various Commodore computers and disk drives that use modern parts and are safer to operate than the older original ones.

This one I have has the original cable with it. Of course if I hook the SX-64 up to my TV, I was thinking it might actually be nice to come up with some sort of extension cable so I could move the keyboard around a little more. Something to plug in between the existing cable and the port on the keyboard so I could set up the SX-64 on a table near the TV, and use the keyboard a little further away than the original cable permits. One other thing, since I've gotten home from vacation, yesterday I decided to give the internal drive a little exercise (up to now, I've been using my 1541 Ultimate II) and it seems it has some issues. For one, the ejection mechanism doesn't quite work, as I had to manually fish a couple of disks out of the drive. Also, I'm getting read errors from the drive. They're partial read errors it seems. For example, when I instruct the drive to read the directory (using the 1541 Ultimate II's Action Replay cart functions), it will read part of the directory, then fail, give a few clicks to try to reset, and then give up with a read error. I assume these are issues that can likely be fixed, but given that I will use the 1541 U2 more than anything, I'm wondering if it would honestly me more trouble than it's worth, outside of just having the drive working for completeness sake. In the meantime, I've disconnected the drive entirely so my U2 can operate as device 8.

I'm fairly certain mine may be one of the older revisions, but not the very earliest version of the breadbin. It is a very peculiar problem. I've checked absolutely everything I know in the configuration, and have even adjusted the Phi2 settings to no avail. And yet on the EF3, everything is great. So I don't understand.

Yes, that is correct. And the JiffyDOS binary for the 1541 works fine (actually it's for the 1541-II, but I digress). It's only the C64 image that gives me issues.

I suppose that could be it. I've only ever seen the one ROM though (8k in size), and that's the image I've been using on both the U2 as well as the EasyFlash3. But, if that's the case, would I not have the same trouble with using JiffyDOS with my EasyFlash3 as well? If you have any suggestions of things that I might try, I'm certainly open to ideas. I'm on my way home from a family vacation and will be there tonight, so I could certainly give it a test to see.

Yeah, I remember that the going price for Commodore stuff was a bit lower than it is now, at least as far as I can tell. Of course I'm from the southeast US, and Commodore 64 seems to be even more scarce here, especially in places like flea markets and the like. When you do happen across them, they typically ask for extremely high prices. For example, a regular old breadbin C64 would run you nearly $70-80 on a good day.

They were originally asking $125 for it, and she knocked another 20% off that, so I got it for an even $100. She also knocked off a bit on some of those Atari and Intellivision carts that I picked up there as well.

I got mine a couple of weeks ago and I love the thing. Best device I ever bought for my C64 aside from my EasyFlash3 cart, which I also enjoy. The only thing I've had issues with is trying to get JiffyDOS to work as a kernel replacement on my original breadbin C64 (all I can get is garbage colored text on my screen). It works fine on my C64C model. It appears not to be a problem with either the 1541 Ultimate II, not the breadbin C64. JiffyDOS works fine on my C64C using the U2, and it also works fine on my breadbin C64 using the EasyFlash3 cart. Just a weird problem that I've not quite sorted out yet. I've also had problems trying to run 8k game cartridges as well, although from what I'm seeing posted on the 1541 forums, that appears to be a known bug that may/may not get fixed in the 3.0 firmware update. Hopefully it does.