LocalH

Yeah, I was talking about the first one to surface.

As far as I know, the C64 is still the all-time best-selling single model of computer, ever. It will probably never be surpassed, either.

The final price was $2500. If I'd had the cash to blow, I'd have paid well more than that, as I'm a huge Sonic fan. Of course, I'd have also released it to the internet at large, as I wouldn't be worried about protecting an "investment" or selling it later for profit.

We almost had that, too. We had a group bid of $2365, if I remember correctly, and by virtue of it being a group bid, copies would get out.

Well, as those are both illegals, it stands to reason that things may happen that you don't expect, depending on which pieces of the processor the illegal opcode happens to make use of. Here's a site detailing the 6502 illegals, but it's based on the C64, so other machines may or may not exhibit some or all of the same instabilities.

Some people also prefer attaching a fastloader cart image, as you would with the real hardware. Epyx Fastload, Super Snapshot V5, and Action Replay are some of the more popular carts. Related to the above, if you decide to go the route I mentioned above and use a fastload cart, then you'll most likely have a "DOS wedge" available (all three carts I mentioned offer one). This allows you to use shorter "wedge" commands to access the most used disk functions. For example, with either "$" or "/$", you can display the directory, and in most cases doing so is nondestructive to RAM, unlike the standard method. Typing /filename is the same as doing LOAD"filename",8, while %filename does the equivalent of adding ,1 to the previous LOAD statement. This information is for people who want to aim more for an experience similar to that of using a real C64. Also, the shifted versions of those were F2, F4, F6, and F8. For the most part, VICE supports using the separate F keys found on a modern PC keyboard. However, if a game treats the even F keys the same as as the normal ones, then you'll have to do like you did on a real C64 and press Shift-F1 for F2, for example. The cracking scene also begat the demoscene, which at first was basically people taking the intros and producing them in their own right. This is another big draw to the C64, for some people even a bigger draw than games. If you want to check out some of the best demos, check out The Demo Dungeon. Know that this site only holds a small fraction of the demos that exist for the C64 - but they're still some of the best. Also, unless a demo is explicitly listed as NTSC, you should always run it in PAL mode. This is less true for games, but if you're playing on an LCD monitor or TV set, then NTSC mode may provide you with a better experience if the game is compatible (but you will also suffer the same potential compatibility that you would by running PAL games on a real NTSC 64), and of course this is only true in NTSC land as TV sets are concerned (PAL people should have no problems running in PAL on a TV set). If you try NTSC mode and have weird problems with either a crack intro not letting you by, or the game flickering horribly, slowing down, or otherwise being unplayable, then the first thing to do is switch back to PAL. This also applies to many newer demos. As many two-disk demos were actually distributed as two sides of the same disk, the terminology used in demos usually refers to "flipping" or "turning" the disk. This is handled like games - you load from disk 1, and then you "flip" to disk 2. Some demos have you flip to disk 2 immediately after you start, and may or may not have you flip back to disk 1.

Here's the ending that I'm familiar with. And that's definitely Lode Runner, not Milon, although I could easily see how it could be mistaken for Milon. I can't really tell from your GBA screenshot, but you can compare yourself (being able to more easily see the GBA screen) and know if they're identical sprites or not. For comparison purposes, here are screenshots of Lode Runner (almost near the very bottom). As an added point, notice that the enemy sprites in Lode Runner are actually Bomberman sprites, which add credence to the Lode Runner hypothesis. I just looked inside both the U and J ROMs with Tile Molester. Neither of them contain Milon sprites, and both contain identical Lode Runner sprites. We might have just debunked yet another one of the early "video game myths".

Double fixed 1027523[/snapback] Are you absolutely sure? I've never seen screenshots of the former, unless it uses the exact same human sprite as the US release, which is definitely Lode Runner. I've got both ROMs, but I don't have time to sit down and play through the whole game. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not calling you a liar or anything, I'm just going based on what I've seen, and I've never seen the Bomberman ending with Milon in it.

Fixed.

If that's a BNC, it sure as hell doesn't look like it to me, especially since he says something about "3 connectors on the bottom and one on the side", which makes me think it's a multi-conductor cable. Allan: Could you perhaps try to take a picture of the pins in the connector? Sometimes it's easier to tell what type of connector is being used by looking at the pin layout.

If an emulator doesn't lag but the real system does, then the emulator is inaccurate. That may not be such a bad thing for the average player, but it is a problem if you're developing (after all, you wouldn't want a ROM that runs fine on emulators but lagged like crazy on hardware). If you want to see the lag, you might try bsnes, which is an attempt at making a cycle-exact emulator (but right now it doesn't support SuperFX).

Here's a nice site for Genesis coding: http://www.sega-devega.net Except it's down right now. ;_; Especially nice is a hardware guide that aids you in getting your ROM to work on a real Genesis (emulators will let you get away with loads of shit that hardware won't). As far as the TMSS, that's most of it. You must check the hardware version first, as performing that write on an early model Genesis lacking TMSS (mostly the Genesis 1's with the 9-pin EXT port on the back) can/will cause it to crash.

He didn't completely discontinue emulator development, however - the GCN game Fight Night Round 2 includes a copy of Super Punch-Out!!, powered by SNESticle. He just discontinued public releases of his emulators.

Pretty much, yeah. I've never actually done any SMS code myself, so I don't know, but Charles MacDonald says that you can indeed access all Genesis buttons from SMS mode. You can even switch the VDP to mode 5 (Genesis mode) while still otherwise in SMS mode, so you can also write pseudo-SMS games that use some of the added graphics capabilities of the Genesis VDP.

As far as the hardware side, that's quite possible, as Phantasy Star I MD is really an SMS game. As for the controller setup, I'm not sure how you'd use the extra buttons from SMS mode (it may be the same as doing it in Genesis mode). Here's a thread that goes into a bit more detail about how the Genesis handles SMS mode. I will say that the pin functions are completely different depending on whether you're in Genesis or SMS mode, so it would be a pain to have a dual-mode cartridge, but other than that, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to do what you're talking about.

LCD displays don't suffer from burn-in. CRTs do, but the newer the CRT, the less likely you are to have burn-in.

It's still bad design. The C64's 6510 also couldn't refresh RAM, so the VIC-II handles the refresh, but the 6510 still has a full 64K of directly accessible RAM.

The only way that I know to write to Amiga floppies directly on a PC is the Catweasel MK4. Other than that, you somehow have to get the ADF to the A500 and write it from there, which can be problematic on a 512K Amiga.

All OCS Amigas, with the exception of the A1000, have monochrome composite video, stereo audio, and an analog RGB port. The A1000 has built-in color composite output. The cheapest way I know to get color composite is to get an A520 adapter, which offers both color composite and RF (you have to feed the stereo audio into the A520 adapter yourself if you want to use RF and include the audio in the RF signal). On a tangent, years ago I had a 1084 with the separated chroma/luma inputs, but the composite/separated switch on the back was flaky. I found that if I swapped the two cables on the monitor end, I got a perfectly sharp Y/C signal. For the longest time I didn't have an RGB cable, so I used the built-in mono video as the luma, and the A520's composte output as the chroma. It worked surprisingly well.

How far back does your stuff go? I'd be interested to see any stuff you have regarding any Sonic games, especially for the Genesis and Sega CD, and possibly arrange for high-quality scans to be made.

If your C64 has an 8-pin video port, here's the pinout. The C64s with 5-pin ports don't have Y/C.

That's the problem with protos - they can be hard to authenticate, depending on the system, where the proto came from, and even when the proto was used. In my opinion, protos are more for the gamer who has a passion for games. For example, I spent $100 and change on a Sonic 3 EPROM cart which I believe to be a magazine review copy. Despite the fact that the binary was 100% identical to a retail Sonic 3 (I dumped it and checked it myself), I still feel that it was a good purchase.

Just clip pin 4 on the chip labeled "CIC". Technically, the "proper" way to do it is to tie pin 4 to ground, but it's my understanding that just leaving it floating will suffice. This method won't fix an NES that won't boot at all, but it will fix an NES that constantly resets if you can see the game booting in between the resets.

Also, if you have an S-Video input on your TV, you can make or buy a cable that puts the separated Y/C signals onto a standard S-Video cable. I use one and the picture is just as good as it was on my old 1084 way back when, but on a much bigger screen (I use a 20-inch right now).

WHDLoad They currently have 257 demos and 1795 games listed, so I'd imagine that any semi-popular game would be supported.