bluejay

Indeed.

At that cost, why not mount it on a Ferrari or something?  A bloody Prius?  Really?  Would look cool on a Tesla Cybertruck.

No, ferraris are lame. Prius is the most perfectest car in the history of cars.

WD40 attacks plastics. Best is to use a contact cleaner degreaser. It'll have the same lubricating properties without degrading plastics. And on vintage stuff you don't want to do even the slightest harm.

 

DeOxit is in every professional's toolkit.

 

Why not post a pic. Maybe it will inspire a new solution.

I did WD40 and it made no difference to anything. The thing's still stuck in there. I'll post a pic tomorrow.

Could be worse.

Oww...

Good job Kid. 

Is that my nickname now? "Kid"?

Make mine a REPU, please

aerodynamics go brrrr

Yes.

I hope it didn’t hurt. 

 

I rejoice in getting to ‘water’ ancient woods...

 

🤪

Yosemite...my favorite spot on the earth so far, and I've travelled much of it. 

From what I gather from your other postings, I'm sure mommy & daddy will pay this off for you like everything else with another "loan".

Yeah @Shawn, and keep in mind that I have to pay it back. I don't want to go into the very specific details how I afford stuff I get, but with birthdays and Christmases and Children's Day (Korean thing; but now it's irrelevant as I'm not considered a "child" anymore) being a thing plus relatives giving me a bunch of pocket money about once a year I can afford to buy a bunch of stuff.

Oh, and I'm given like $80 to spend every semester as long as none of my grades ever dip below A-.

As someone who loves the PS1 but hates RPG games due to the addiction to fake achievement, I can recommend the following PS1 games so you can play more than GT 1 and 2 on the system:

 

- Abe's Oddysee, Abe's Exodus and Heart of Darkness: These 3 "Prince of Persia" style 2D games are beautiful, hard and generally awesome and fun.

 

- Driver: Very impressive for the PS1, great car handling and classic police series feel.

 

- Silent Hill: Fun gameplay, outstanding sound design and a story that you can't take seriously but with an amazing town to explore and huge immersion.

 

- GTA2: Hilarious radio stations with fake songs and fake DJs (including a parody Christian radio), fun gameplay. Saving a game is not simple, though: you have to save $50K and go to a church with a "Jesus Saves" sign. Antennas on TV vans, that you can steal, point to these churches.

 

- Goal Storm 97 and International Superstar Soccer Pro 98: I know you're American and you probably don't care about soccer. I also know FIFA 98 and International Superstar Soccer Pro Evolution were the 2 most acclaimed soccer titles for the PS1. But these 2 prequels of ISS Pro Evolution were actually better games: passing works better and the matches feel more like real matches. The controls are more responsive and less complicated.

 

- Croc, Jumping Flash! and Gex 3D: Everyone talks about Spyro and Crash, but these 3D platform games are very fun. Croc has tank controls and was described as "Tomb Raider for kids"!

 

- Tomb Raider: Everyone should play this game. It's the best on the series by far. The enemies are 99% crazy, wild animals and myhological creatures, the sceneries are gorgeous and mysterious and the exploration and 3D platforming is top notch. Later entries lost the magic adding more human enemies and using more boring stages with less exploration. (I recommend the MS DOS version because you can save anytime, PS1 has crystals)

 

- Destruction Derby 2: Crazy car game with only one downfall: you gotta drive perfectly or the IA will destroy you. Otherwise, fun gameplay with crazy metal music from the creators of Driver. Try to survive more than 1 minute in The Pit!

 

- Bust a Groove, Beatmania, Parappa the Rapper, UmJammer Lammy: The PS1 has a great arsenal of musical games. Beatmania is more serious and challenging, but the other 3 are really fun. You can also create your own songs with Music 2000.

 

You can also try Metal Gear Solid, Disruptor, Silent Bomber... and even Alundra, the PS1 version of Zelda! But I guess that's enough for today. I just wanted to point out that the PS1 has more than GT!

^Hell Yeah!  Plus Twisted Metal series and LUNAR games.

By the way @GoldLeader I tried Deadly Towers, and I can see why someone might like the game but I can also see why someone might call it the worst NES game.

I mostly earn my money from gifts from relatives, and other times I'm getting stuff for Christmas or my Birthday or something. Anytime else I'm broke.

I got the switch for Christmas 2017, the 3ds I found at a garage sale.

$5 a week is probably more than I get, keeping inflation in mind. How much was $5 worth in 1967? $12 or something?

 I still get an allowance.

I'm currently playing through ALBW, and I'm about halfway through. Having played a bit of LttP before (nowhere near a lot though) I found it very interesting how the world was nearly identical to each other, but then again it had to be. So far it's the best Zelda game I properly played, but that's not saying much as the only Zelda game I got very far is the original. I'm playing the Minish Cap, LttP, and Link's Awakening (DX) as well on my 3ds via emulation, and all of them failed to hook me in just yet. Looking forward to trying out OoT and SS though, if only shipping wasn't slower than a VIC-20 trying to run Quake.

Yeah, Deadly Towers...

I played through it good and proper and I think it falls victim to similar shortcomings that the NES Zelda's fell to. Mainly the difficulty and it being very cryptic in how you progress. But both of those are entirely understandable due to the fact they're NES games, cryptic and difficult were just the norm for games of that type so the player can feel more rewarded when they figured it out and so that they got their moneys worth.

 

I've played both Deadly Towers and LOZ both with and without guides (After a good cooldown in between) and they're both incredibly frustrating and riddled with cryptic BS that would be good fun if that's all that you had, but I'm biased and couldn't see the merit in either of them. Though, I prefer LOZ just because it's more fun to run around and kill stuff in the different environments. 

 

In today's context Deadly Towers is a bit of a stinker, and the same goes for the original LOZ, the only reason LOZ gets a pass is because it's just that. If it was Deadly Towers that sprouted a massive saga of beloved games then I'm sure it would be fondly remembered as well.

 

I do actually own a copy of Deadly Towers and hold it in high regard, right next to my copy of Hydlide.

Good vid on Deadly Towers: Why Deadly Towers is actually a Good Game - YouTube

 

https://youtu.be/OAtHmAnGMtI

But how can you play a game without arms & legs?

@pacman000 That's the problem...

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/05/the-disabled-friendly-nes-controller-from-the-1980s/

 

(I wanted to post NESWord's article on this, but he's rearranged his site again, & I can't find it.)

I always have problems with CV expansion slot.  I can never get the Atari converter to work, it's an unreliable piss-poor design

 

My door always gets stuck. I don't want to spray wd40 on the thing, and whenever i want to play Atari I need to fiddle with a sticky door.

Heh, when I think about the Wii it seems like a really modern console, yet it's still older than I am.

Prepare for about 15-20 years of being called and 'old soul'

The Wii has a ton of great games, especially light gun-style games (RE: Chronicles, Deadspace: Extraction, House of the Dead 2&3 / Overkill, etc).

Well, you set the BBS to the dimensions of the computer you're using, so it just pauses the texts a lot more than those with the 40x 24 or 80x 24 screens.   Not the best, but I remember connecting to StarText (the online Ft. Worth Star Telegram newspaper) and feeling like I really had the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my hands.

Yeah, but nonetheless you need 25 rows or more for proper BBSing.

    

 

 

If you ever feel like a taste of Korea now that you are back, << CLICK HERE >>

Well, you could've been on a month long visit to Chick Corea. I had to look him up to verify he's still among us, 79 years old.

For what it's worth,  I like this Status Update.  It's short and to the point and not too rambly...Not that the others are terrible, as long as they don't appear too often.

Now how are ya gonna do 10 updates tomorrow? 

It's useful for just two things: machine language programming and documentation.

In the 70s it was too expensive and complicated.

By the 80s it had outdated graphics and sound.

It's big and heavy and bulky and doesn't have much useful software compared to other systems of the early-mid 80s. I'd rather play games on a Commodore computer and run business software on a CP/M machine.

I'm really trying to love Apple, I really am. And I love Woz too. Great bloke. But his brilliant ways to exploit the limited hardware as much as possible also makes things a hell lot more complicated to deal with.

It's also expensive as hell.

I know there are aftermarket add ons that you can buy to make your Apple II better, but I'd much rather spend my money souping up a PC than an Apple II. A PC can be expanded to a much greater computer while still retaining software support. Tons of games support the Soundblaster, but how many games support the Mockingboard? Also there's no upgrade that I know of that would improves upon the Apple II's horrible graphics, and even if there was I don't imagine there would be tons of software that supports it at all.

All in all, I think it sucks because there's next no practical appeal to it, especially compared to other machines of the era. I would totally understand if someone loves Apple II computers. Emotional appeal is a huge factor when it comes to these computers, since you seem to be highly nostalgic for the Apple II computers, and many other people are as well. However, I have no nostalgia for any computer, so I'm given a chance to look at all computers in a fair manner. The only impractical computer so far that I've fallen in love with is the VIC-20, and I hope that's understandable since it was my first vintage computer that taught me how to program in BASIC and whatnot.

TL;DR There are just too many computers that are better than the Apple II.

The magic of the Apple II happened because the system was such a blank slate. Programmers had to make their own environment with sound and graphics routines, very little or nothing was provided. No hardware assist was available anywhere. And results were directly proportional to a developers abilities. A reflection on who they were.

 

There were 3 graphics boards available at the time. The Arcade Board, The Sprite Board, and SecondSight. The first 2 used a Texas Instruments graphics chip. SecondSight used a real PC VGA chip and output in PC resolutions.

 

Today there is another VGA/RGB output board, but much more appropriately priced.

 

A stealth graphics board in the form of the Video Overlay Card was also available from Apple Co themselves. IMHO it came way too late in the system's timeline to have any beneficial effect. It was FPGA based and could do crazy wild stuff not even an Amiga could think about.

 

Of course nothing tops a PC, especially once you get into the 486 and Pentium eras.

@bluejay: I think you should consider starting a blog for your long-form writing.  The status updates are more ephemeral, and they disappear off the front page after a short time, while a blog is better suited for extended conversations.  (Plus, as I've said previously, long updates like this add a lot of clutter.)

Yeah, since there are no (relatively) cheap PETs for sale at the moment I'll most likely make 5 of each of my projects and see if they work, and if they do order 5-10 more depending on the demand for each item. I can sell them to make a profit even at lower prices than existing products unless I mess up multiple times.

Meanwhile I can spend my money on some small things that don't cost too much.

Just popping back in at the mention of Skyward Sword. I ponied of some cash and bought it all over again. Once you get past the tutorial it's still as delightful as I remember it. Something to think about on the spending end of your conundrum.

@DoctorSpuds Well I've just bought a copy of one and I don't have a Wii yet, so I hope it's as good as people say it is.

But really, half the reason I want SS is for the soundtrack CD.

@thanatos Well most of my video game/computer collection is more than twice as old as I am 😁

@CPUWIZ I'm 13, by the way.

Doesn't look all that different to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@CPUWIZ The hotel I'm staying in. Happy?

No.

Well then I dunno what to tell you.

Sounds like a plan. There was a time in the ZipDrive era when I was looking for something bigger. One can never have too much storage space. And I took a bet on CD-R/W tech. It more or less works if you write the whole disc at once. But if you start using it "random-access style" like a hard drive, like the manufacturers advertised you could, the discs started losing data rather quickly. Within weeks or months.

 

I thought the tech was so cool. I went out and bought MORE of them. A CD-R/W's proper use seems to be for like Hiren'sBoot CD or utility CDs. Things you may update every year or so. But nowadays JumpDrives have all but replaced anything "CD".

 

Anyway I stuck it out with ZipDrive's small 100MB capacity till 3.5" USB HDD came out. Mechanical 3.5" USB HDD lasts 7-10 years of light duty daily usage. Longer if you're only occasionally using it.

 

My original ZipDisks from the 1990's still work fine today. And they are important accessories for my vintage 486. Period correct and all that, you know..

If that's the case, I think CD-RWs would work fine with me. What I plan on doing is writing the data from my modern computer and reading only with my Compaq, then erase the disk to prepare for more data. Rinse and repeat. Not that it matters anyways though.

Apparently random-access HDD style is killer for them. Not killer for the media or mechanics. But for the reflectivity of the data surface. FYI, it's a temperature change mirror more or less. It works by the laser heating the surface, And letting it cool. Now it reflects one way. If you heat it again at lower temperature or heat it and let it cool at a different rate than which it was erased, it takes on yet a different reflective property. And that happens for each data bit.

 

The rate at which things cool affects how big the crystals can grow. Just like heat treating metal. Here we're heat treating a plastic polymer. Chemistry is amazing but certainly not a strong suit of mine.

 

A CD-R/W disc can be blanked to zero by the laser heating it to a set point. Across the whole disc. Now it's blank. Any subsequent heating will change the reflectivity. And you have a one. That's a very basic explanation. I'm sure there's more to it.

 

You can blank a spot on the disc about 1,000 times. So imagine doing NTFS on it! Totally unsuitable. And yet those asses in marketing said it was ok! Fuck'em all!

Just plug in a usb keyboard. Ta-Da!!!

@Trinity Sucks that I don't have one of those either.

Then you go buy one! Or a usb numeric keypad.

But before that I can try a spare motherboard I have. It's got a problem though, it makes a really weird high pitched whining noise when I power it up. It's not the power supply, I tried swapping it around with my good machine and confirmed that it's the motherboard that's bad. I think it's a little capacitor that blew, so I'll have to replace that, but if I do I'll see if that one works.

I don't know, shipping the whole thing would be much too expensive. Shipping just a motherboard and a controller card and a power supply and a keyboard would be cheaper, and you could test it with your own CGA card and floppy drive.

If you think shipping it in bits is a bit overdoing it keep in mind that the whole computer weighs about 10kg, and it's about as big as a sewing machine.

Should I ever work on your rig I would want the whole thing. It's the best way to repair things like that. But, sure, try the motherboard.

 

And check for hot capacitors. A thermal camera helps, and they're becoming more standard in any technician's toolbox nowadays. Just 10 years ago they were still expensive.

 

I had a GF who had a Compaq Presario in 2001 for a few days,  Unfortunately the thing was such a junker, we had to take it back and get something that worked.