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DoctorSpuds
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1 hour ago, EricBall said:https://www.youtube.com/c/Techmoan occasionally does repair videos. He has similar issues replacing belts.
I blame him directly for this recent surge in interest in vintage HiFi!
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On 8/3/2021 at 4:03 PM, EricBall said:
When I was shopping for a new stereo I stopped in to a Hi-Fi store and used this track to test out a bunch of amps and speakers. I concluded the amp didn't make much difference (at the price point I was shopping at), while the speakers were much more important. Of course, the one thing I couldn't easily change was the room.
Sadly I had to replace my JVC Stereo due to some unfortunate technical issues, mainly the left audio track cutting out completely at random, and from the way the power supply was buzzing I didn't want to use it much longer anyways. Swapped it for a Pioneer SX-201 and even though there isn't a difference in sound there is a major one in peace of mind.
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43 minutes ago, 5-11under said:
That's some wild EQ settings you've got there, but if it works well, and nothing is jumping out or being lost, then I guess it's all good.
It's mainly to boost what I feel is a bit weak from the speakers, a few songs will distort but they're mainly lower bitrate files and oddly enough a few songs from Gotye's Making Mirrors. My JVC also has the 4KHZ and 16KHZ sliders all the way up with the rest sitting in the middle. I boost the crap out of the treble because I like my music to sound crispy and sparkly, slowly distancing myself from overwhelming bass that tends to eat up the high end stuff.
46 minutes ago, 5-11under said:With a cassette deck (as opposed to a CD player), obviously you need something at least half-decent and in good working condition.
I own more cassettes than CD's funnily enough, I enjoy the process of dropping them in the player more than clicking in a CD. And you're right, the deck literally is only 'half decent'. I'm still amazed that a deck that's clearly been in a garage for a decade sounds better than well maintained/cared for units.
If you want to see a crazy EQ take a good look at this guy.
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No it does not sound good, I only use it as a weapon to make audiophiles cringe until their teeth shatter.
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Hmmm, the acoustic void. Indeed, there isn't much you can do with that. Unless of course you lack both taste and an aversion to curtains.
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Whoo, for a price like that those speakers better make the room shake. I can't even imagine a reality where I'd be able to both afford and have a place to put a setup that massive.
49 minutes ago, EricBall said:The one variable I couldn't change and would make a big difference is the room.
Acoustics are really tricky. My setup is in my bedroom, hooked up to my PC with the two speakers pointed directly down my dirty disgusting ears, so I have the luxury of all my crap soaking up the noise and a really directed stream of sound. If you're in a big echoing family room or just a room with really bad acoustics I can see how much of that research can go down the toilet when everything gets hooked up (If bad acoustics are your problem that is).
I know they're making sound absorbing/proof stuff a bit less ugly these days so that's always an option. Or you can go my route, which is to get as much clutter as possible into your space so that any form of echo is impossible.
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10 hours ago, GoldLeader said:
But I think it was only when shipped to your house as opposed to seeing it in the store, and sometimes the full color box was inside that, too.
That's what the guy I bought it from thought, hooray I have the only example of a Tournament 2000 in a Mail-Order only box! Now if only people actually cared about Pong consoles.
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2 hours ago, Keatah said:
Several companies did that - as well as use huge printed stick-on stickers. My Interton-based Indy 500 console came in a box like that.
I know a guy who has a Magnavox Odyssey II box with the big 'ol sticker on the front. Either way, it's a neat old thing. It's still a departure from the norm for this company, as every Tournament 2000 has the professionally printed box, I haven't been able to find another one like it on google images. (I know that's a low bar but still.)
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3 hours ago, DamonicFury said:
Seriously, good luck! What I've read so far is quite interesting, and I hope to read more as it gets closer to it's 'final' form.
Thanks, that means quite a bit.
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3 hours ago, carlsson said:
If the Studio II had been pushed out by early 1976 with the Channel F shortly following, who knows how much longer Atari could've waited.
So it wound up being the 7800 of the first/second generation then, Pretty good when it was developed but by the time it was released it was overshadowed by pretty much everything else, and the new consoles on the horizon were so far superior that it wasn't even funny.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
To be honest, if you need more than two input sources you probably should invest in a KVM switch, which also lets you save desk space as you only need one setup of keyboard and mouse. Even if those other inputs are consoles with no keyboards attached, the switch would work.
Whoa! you're getting too fancy for me, and besides, I'd honestly hate to see what a 2600 looks like on a 1200x1930 screen.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
Well, it takes about 5 seconds to switch channels on my modern TV...
Actually the Operating Instructions seems to suggest that you can have two sources per input (one DVI, one HD15) and through the menu can select which one should have priority which would mean you can have up to 4 devices connected to the same monitor, but only switch between two of them without reconfiguring the input priotities. Or I'm simply misreading the text.
You're right, you can swap the active inputs with the press of a button, but navigating the menu to swap one of the active inputs with another takes a little while. The controls on the monitor are a bit hard to read.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
The manual and pics I found says 2 HD15 + 2 DVI connectors, where each pair of HD15 and DVI are linked as one input source, for a total of two sources which is impressive but not quite what I just imagined...
Yeah, It's kind of hard to get to the back of this thing, I just guessed the numbers. It has a large plastic shield covering the back which is a pain to take off. Switching the inputs is a bit of a hassle as you can only have two active at a time, and swapping input sources takes longer than would be expected.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
Eh, one monitor with 5-6 video inputs? Sounds like something from a surveillance system, using the monitor itself to switch input source instead of external mixer.
It did have a fairly beefy lock on it, though I was assured that it wasn't stolen.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
The other port would be a HD15, classic VGA yes? Or do you mean HDMI on an "ancient" monitor?
I had never heard about Limited RGB with fewer levels of greyscale. I'm so out of touch that I don't know the difference between classic 24 bit colour (16.7 million), 32 bit and whatever is used these days. If that still is 16.7 million mode, it would equal to 16 out of 256 levels of greyscale missing or replaced with neon green.
Yep, I just checked the monitor menu and it is HD15, I'm just lucky the monitor came with an HD15 to HDMI adaptor. This old thing has three or four VGA sockets and two HD15 sockets, it was clearly meant for office use.
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8 hours ago, carlsson said:
Stripped back palette, is that like 256 colour mode from the old days?
Almost, Limited RGB, which is what I was using, has 16 fewer colors in the black and grey spectrum, while Full RGB gives you those extra 16. I was using the DVI port on my monitor which would only allow for Limited RGB and so the extra colors that were being displayed while the computer was outputting Full RGB defaulted to neon green. Now that I'm using the other port, I can't even figure out what its called, I'm getting Full RGB and fixed the strange strobing in the blacks, greys, and pinks being displayed. The color difference is extremely underwhelming.
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2 hours ago, DamonicFury said:
Huh, looks like you removed your original post with the longer pdf and epub versions of the story. Nothing wrong with choosing to present it in a new way. ? I still think you're off to a fine start and look forward to more.
Yeah, it all felt a bit informal so I decided to make something a bit more special. And besides I feel people are more likely to read it in snippets versus one big chunk.
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7 hours ago, DamonicFury said:
It's not like all M Network games were inferior to the Intellivision versions after all, but you know that, having given glowing reviews to Lock n Chase, Astroblast, and Dark Cavern.
Very true! Kool-Aid Man and Air Raiders are also fantastic despite them not being on Intellivision.
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2 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:
One slight correction: the 5200 version of Qix was (unofficially) converted to the 8-bit computers later, but the official 1982 version of Qix that Atari shipped for the 8-bit computers was quite different. (See the screenshots of this version on Atarimania.) That's the one that I played the most growing up, and it's a passable enough version, but the game action—particularly the fill routines after closing off a section or being zapped by an enemy—are considerably slower, and it really drags down the momentum of the game.
Yes, I realized that soon after I posted the review and was closing my tabs. Oops, oh well, either way, its Qix, its still fun either way.
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2 hours ago, McCallister said:
Hello, good doctor,
Are you repairing those controllers using the foil trick? It's a little bit tedious, but it worked and held up for about 95 percent of the controllers I tried it on.
Nope, spit, polish, a shit ton of rubbing alcohol, tears, and luck
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8 hours ago, GoldLeader said:
I have no idea how Etsy handles returns, but did you try to contact the seller? Just curious.
It is a possibility but chances are that its been too long since I bought thing thing to return it, and besides I did cannibalize the cart to make my own X-Man repro cart with a proper Spectravision shell, so I doubt the guy would take it back. Nah I'll keep it around as a warning not to buy stupid shit on impulse and that 90$ is the cost of that particular lesson.
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On 8/22/2019 at 2:39 AM, Shannon said:
I'm not 100% sure but I think the shot and explosion sounds might have been played through the internal Atari speaker ( on Atari 400/800's and simulated through the TV speaker on the XL / XE series ).
2 hours ago, Shannon said:The fact that this game originated on the Apple II also makes me suspect that the Atari 8-bit computer version is using the internal speaker for the sounds. Because that is how the Apple II generated sounds as well.
Alright, so I just tested this with both Broderbund versions on my actual Atari 800 and the sounds do not come from the internal speaker, they come out of my TV speakers.
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5 hours ago, Keatah said:
The "monochrome version" you speak of is because you didn't turn on artifacting. If you do it will have some color. The other version needs an XE rig, or something an XE rig has.
And the game is all the better for it.
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2 hours ago, Psionic said:
Both Sierra's Threshold (which was originally an Apple II game) and Activision's MegaMania were clones of Sega/Gremlin's Astro Blaster, not Galaxian. Astro Blaster itself had been an attempt to replicate and improve upon Astro Fighter by Data East.
The VCS port of Threshold was done by the original programmer of the Apple II version but significantly simplified. The original featured a temperature gauge in addition to a timer/fuel gauge, and firing too many shots in too short of a time period would overheat your laser and prevent firing of additional shots until your laser cooled off. Without this element, pretty much all you're left with is the exact same game as MegaMania.Ah, I was completely unaware of the existence of Astro Blaster or Astro Fighter, and looking through my ROM folder they appear to be absent. All I really had to go on were the screenshots on MobyGames of the other releases.
If the programmer somehow managed to get all of the features of the other versions into the 2600 version I'd wager Threshold could have been a hidden gem, but think we can all agree that it just plain sucks.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
Is an 800XL, 65XE or 130XE + a SIO2SD really much more expensive than a 5200 + either an AtariMax cart or a bunch of original cartridges? In particular the latter sounds expensive to me. Also the fact that the 5200 only existed in NTSC version with its combined power and video output device would make it less of a choice for European users, though of course you'd want an NTSC 8-bit computer to fully enjoy those 5200 conversions anyway.
It's actually more expensive, way more expensive, but you get far more for your money than if you just bought a 5200 and all the extras. This workaround does work on all atari 8-bit computers though, you don't need anything XEX compatible since you can force compatibility in the SIO2SD drive. I only really came up with this because I already had an 8-bit and really didn't want to pay for a working 5200 controller. And there's the added benefit of using any controller you want as well.
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Wow, that's old...
in DoctorSpuds Reviews Things
A blog by DoctorSpuds in General
Posted
Almost certainly. I've had decent luck with rubber bands before but these are nothing but placeholders. The belts are in really easy to reach locations so I'm just being lazy and putting off replacing them.