DeathAdderSF

Back in grade school, Plok! was one of the half-dozen SNES games my best friend owned. We played it quite a bit, but never could get very far. It's a tough'n! Years later, I asked the Pickford Bros. if Super Fighter Team could borrow Plok for a surprise appearance in PenguiNet's Zaku for the Atari Lynx -- and they agreed! ^ He appears as one of the bosses of Level Stage Zone.

"Best" is subjective. This is how I do it: https://adtpro.com/

Five. Thousand. Dollars. Also why the hell's the thread called "Miss"? (I wish I'd missed it).

Today I've finally finished & released Trackstar games pack #1, which is a hard drive image containing 180 unique games: each of which has been compatibility tested. If you're tired of mucking about with floppy disk images, this is your chance to go gonzo! Simply load up this pack on your Trackstar E or Plus, and have a great time! www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/hd1.htm I've also added a pinout for the Trackstar Plus VGA cable to the scans page, courtesy of Korrey Moore. If you need to build a custom cable, look no further! www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/scans.htm

But in all seriousness, it's fun to read about these kinds of things, and interesting to boot. The N-Gage was my first ever cell phone, and I was really into it in spite of all its flaws. So! Please continue to share infos if / when you make new discoveries.

I second this, as I've encountered it in many pieces of '90s equipment. It's a rampant problem, a serious concern. If you value your equipment from this particular time period, I'd def recommend replacing the caps. When I was having my Super A'can upgraded to s-video output, the machine worked fine but its capacitors had already begun to give way. You wouldn't want a "collectible" machine like that getting damaged, but really, you should protect every machine that you use, or care about using in the future. And why not? The parts and labor are affordable. It's a good but cheap investment into the longevity of your equipment.

*raises hand* I prefer to rest easy knowing my gear is all in top shape. I'd rather do it now than risk having ancient parts go "pop!", or leak, and have to pony up add'l dough for more complex repairs down the road. The guy who does the work for me uses high-quality capacitors, and stands by his work. The result is always a professional, clean job, resulting in me having peace of mind. But that's just my view.

I'd strongly recommend getting a Trackstar E instead, and trying that out. The Quadlink was specifically designed to work with the IBM XT; compatibility with other 8088-based machines isn't guaranteed, especially an exotic one like the Bridgeboard. If you get a Trackstar E, not only will you have access to superior features and software, you'll also not have to worry about making floppy drive and PC Speaker connections, as the E can use virtual disk images and sends its sound output directly to the PC Speaker.

It's a 1:1 clone of my own Quadlink board, so the functionality is identical. Do keep in mind it requires a PC using exactly a 4.77 MHz 8088 CPU, because that's what it was engineered for. Anything faster will crash it. That's a limitation of the original design. I used my Quadlink in an IBM 5160, and it worked great: I just flipped the OFF switch on my 286 accelerator board before starting it up.

A bunch of really neat scans were just added to my Trackstar website, mostly relating to the Trackstar 128. There's a full color leaflet, a question and answer flyer, keyboard overlays, and a flyer with some absolutely smashing chariot artwork on it. There's also a Trackstar Plus new product release flyer. Check 'em out! www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/scans.htm

YM3812 and MOS SID FTW. I think the SID needs no introduction, owing to the countless amazing C=64 game & demoscene tunes. But for the YM3812, I have a website which shares high-quality game soundtrack recordings I've made directly from the Ad Lib sound card using special hardware: Ad Lib music archive I recommend listening to any (or all!) of the following sets first: Gobliins 2, Goblins 3, KGB, Olmang Jolmang Paradise, Princess Maker 2, Risky Woods. The KGB soundtrack in particular is one of my all-time favorites. If you're too lazy to visit my website, check out this video and skip to the 4:36 mark to hear my favorite track. And / or, skip to the 9:04 mark to hear my second favorite, in which the brilliant composer was able to make the FM synthesis seem like it was speaking the name Gorbachev! I agree with you about the Game Boy, BTW: When musicians brought their A-game, that machine could really sing! The Game Boy rendition of the boss music in Parasol Stars (itself plagiarized from "Lambada") is especially rockin'.

An ePay auction for an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly recently caught my eye, as the seller claimed it mentioned the Supervision. Consulting a scan of the issue, I quickly realized said seller was full of snot. BUT!! This made me wonder: Had EGM sullied their mag at some point, by including the Supervision amongst its pages? Wasting even more time, consulting scans of later issues, I soon found the answer: Yes. Yes, they had. Thankfully it was only a quick mention, nestled within the reader Q&A section. Hopefully, it didn't inspire any of their readers to actually buy the damned thing. So anyway, I bought the mag just so I could make a higher quality scan of the (hopefully) innocuous announcement, which I've now added to the website. www.diskman.com/presents/supervision/scans.htm

Installed MS-DOS 5, added some utilities, tested some CGA games (inc. the new Wolf3D CGA version). Learned that when relying on the Apple II keyboard, many games are unplayable due to input issues. When connecting a real PC keyboard directly to the PC Transporter via 5-pin DIN cable, however, said issues aren't present. Interesting discovery for sure. So! I was able to enjoy a quick play of Commander Keen 4 - 6, Wolf3D CGA, etc., etc., on my IIgs. Whoopee!! More testing "fun" will happen tonite.

Hey, who wants to pull their old-timey Trackstar v1 (from 1984!) out of mothballs and give it a go? *raises hand* I stumbled upon a complete kit last week, and made great haste in archiving the software and documentation. So! If you've got one of these majestic dinosaurs lying around, but no software to get it up and running... stop reading this and pop on over to the operating software and scans pages of my website! www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/software.htm www.diskman.com/presents/trackstar/scans.htm

Short answer: Because some people, myself included, prefer doing our retro PC gaming on period-specific hardware. The sales of these new products clearly shows demand for them. Anyway I'd think in a community like this, that question would answer itself. After all this place mostly caters to people obsessed with ancient hardware, does it not? 😉

Found a scrap of time to get my PC Transporter set up with a 32 MB hard drive partition, but have to come back to it later to FDISK and FORMAT it, and install good ol' MS-DOS. Then my IIgs can be a PC... too! Actually just getting a display out of this gizmo was a trial in itself. The RGB -> VGA adaptor I'm using doesn't support the Transporter's PC video feed, so the ColorSwitch device was out of the question. So instead, I had to have a custom CGA cable built, which I hafta feed through the CGA2RGBv2 device. Whew! So, a ridiculous solution, but it works quite well.

To quote the instruction sheet: "Your aim is to... eliminate all the FLASHING BALLs." Why? It doesn't say. But referring to the ending, I deduce your goal to be simple: Get rid of all the flashy competition, so your BALL can finally score. Boi-oi-oi-oi-oing!

OK. If you run across it again, please let me know.

Still a ripoff. 😄 But "tanked" is an apt word for any conversation about the Poopervision. ^ I can actually agree with you here. John Adventure is OK in my book, despite the stupid name. In fact: I have a not-so-fond memory of playing it by candlelight one evening as a teen during a power outage in my neighborhood. That was waaaaay back during my, "If I play this junker long enough, I'll convince myself it's a good machine!" phase. Ahh, to be young and dumb again.

Links, plz? Or contact info for the fellers behind these efforts? I'm a rather "get it done" kinda guy; when I'm interested in something I go the whole hog trying to make it happen. I would at least be interested to rap with these people, even if it doesn't lead to anything.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of newly engineered, professionally manufactured ISA cards, which are fully assembled with authentic, harvested ICs, available today. Refer to vogons.org for reference.

More Supervision scans?! To quote Charlie Brown, “AAUGH!” It's all the variations, damn it. If it weren't for all the different, seemingly endless versions of the packaging, instructions in a half-dozen languages, et Cetera, then I'd, very likely, have been done with all this stuff and nonsense by now. But, nope! No such luck. The Supervision will likely continue to haunt me – and waste countless amounts of my time – until my dying day. *sigh* OK!! So, buoyed by that cheery introduction [!], let me tell you what was added to the ol' website today: * New box scans: - Small boxes for Fatal Craft, Jaguar Bomber, Tasac 2010, Witty Cat. * New instructions scans: - Fatal Craft, Witty Cat (Chinese) - Jaguar Bomber (English, Italian) - Pacific Battle (English, Italian) - Tasac 2010 (English, Dutch, French, German) - Tasac 2010 (Italian, Spanish) * Improved insert scan: - TV-Link (PAL-B) instruction sheet (Italian) * New insert scan: - TV-Link (PAL-B) warranty information (Watary Italia) * New advertisement scan: - Watary Italia ad featuring a Watara-branded watch & a goofy looking fish (with an overbite?) And that's all. For now. www.diskman.com/presents/supervision/scans.htm

Well there are quite a few interesting new ISA cards appearing for sale in the supergeek communities these days, for those of us with ancient IBM PCs. Some of them are actually pretty cool, d00d. So while I don't believe "SNES-on-ISA" would sell like hotcakes, at least a few dozen people as weird as I am would certainly scoop 'em up. SO! Someone go find me an engineer who wants to produce a proper schematic, and I'll pay him (a reasonable fee, that is!) for the work + materials + prototype(s). (I won't hold my breath.) The only standalone console I own these days is the Super A'can. (Talk about weird!) Otherwise, it's "on a card" or bust!

Personally, I'm fine with what I have. And I don't care for modern-day classic gaming "solutions" since it's 99% emulation and FPGA nonsense anyway. Buuuuut if I had to suggest one thing, it'd be a SNES-on-a-card, i.e. an ISA card for the PC, kinda like what Amstrad did w/their Mega PC card (which I ripped out of the system, had modified & improved, and installed in my IBM 486). Using authentic SNES components, naturally. Of course this idea is unfeasible and wouldn't sell enough units to justify the engineering investment. But you did open this thread with the word "dreamers." Why SNES ISA? Because I'd like to play a few SNES games a couple times a year, but I don't want any consoles sitting around taking up space. A card installs in your PC, leaving just a controller dangling out. An elegant solution, which is illustrated by other cool gizmos like the 3DO Blaster, PC-FXGA, etc. *burp*