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Fozaldo
Apr 18, 2004

Serenity Now. Serenity Now.
:respek::respek::respek::respek::respek:

mrkillboy posted:

Back in the early-1990s I used to read a lot of imported British console magazines like Super Play and CVG (I live in Australia) and one thing that really really stuck out for me in the letters sections was that they'd always harp about how you couldn't rent out games in the UK and that it was illegal or forbidden or something. Also Nintendo apparently had something to do with it as well?

Anyone who remembers care to shed some light on this? A quick Google search seems to indicate that renting games in Britain is all kosher now but I'm just curious about the different situation back then, since adolescent me going to the video store and renting out Street Fighter II for the umpteenth time was a pretty regular thing I did back in the day.

My dad used to own a general store and rented out SNES and Megadrive games all the time. Never had any problems.

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Lowen SoDium
Jun 5, 2003

Highen Fiber
Clapping Larry

KozmoNaut posted:

Butt Mode in Shovel Knight is a thing of beauty.



Holy poo poo, my dad had one of these when I was a kid.

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

KozmoNaut posted:

Butt Mode in Shovel Knight is a thing of beauty.


Is that... A double tape cassette deck? :aaa::fh:

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

mrkillboy posted:

Back in the early-1990s I used to read a lot of imported British console magazines like Super Play and CVG (I live in Australia) and one thing that really really stuck out for me in the letters sections was that they'd always harp about how you couldn't rent out games in the UK and that it was illegal or forbidden or something. Also Nintendo apparently had something to do with it as well?

Anyone who remembers care to shed some light on this? A quick Google search seems to indicate that renting games in Britain is all kosher now but I'm just curious about the different situation back then, since adolescent me going to the video store and renting out Street Fighter II for the umpteenth time was a pretty regular thing I did back in the day.

Not quite a UK thing, but from my recollections this was also a sort of big deal in the US but nothing ever came of it. Nintendo fought pretty hard to get rid of video store game rentals in the early 90s, took the case to court, etc.

They thankfully lost that war in the US but they did win a war on instruction manuals being photocopied by stores, which lead to a small industry of third-party instruction sheets for games explaining how to play them being pasted onto rental cases.

gleep gloop
Aug 16, 2005

GROSS SHIT

Cage posted:

This is terrible. GTA:SA has a shitload of cheats, probably over 60. Stuff like turning on riot mode, changing wanted stars, flying cars, making all the cars pink, any car your car touches will explode. GTA:IV had maybe 10 and they're just car spawning or weapons/armor.

GTA:V has a couple. Spawn weapons, cars, flying, and a few others.

WIFEY WATCHDOG
Jun 25, 2012

Yeah, well I don't trust this guy. I think he regifted, he degifted, and now he's using an upstairs invite as a springboard to a Super Bowl sex romp.

gleep gloop posted:

GTA:V has a couple. Spawn weapons, cars, flying, and a few others.

Saints Row has classic style cheats, it's p cool.

Full Battle Rattle
Aug 29, 2009

As long as the times refuse to change, we're going to make a hell of a racket.
There's a handful in the original Dead Space. Pretty awesome.

peter gabriel
Nov 8, 2011

Hello Commandos

mrkillboy posted:

Back in the early-1990s I used to read a lot of imported British console magazines like Super Play and CVG (I live in Australia) and one thing that really really stuck out for me in the letters sections was that they'd always harp about how you couldn't rent out games in the UK and that it was illegal or forbidden or something. Also Nintendo apparently had something to do with it as well?

Anyone who remembers care to shed some light on this? A quick Google search seems to indicate that renting games in Britain is all kosher now but I'm just curious about the different situation back then, since adolescent me going to the video store and renting out Street Fighter II for the umpteenth time was a pretty regular thing I did back in the day.

This isn't true in my experience, I used to rent Megadrive games all the time, Sonic 1, John Madden, PGA Golf, loads of stuff from various shops.

I used to hatch plans in my young mind to remove the guts from Sonic 1 and replace them with Altered Beast and return that to the shop (keeping Sonic), but I never went through with it.

strangemusic
Aug 7, 2008

I shield you because I need charge
Is not because I like you or anything!


Full Battle Rattle posted:

There's a handful in the original Dead Space. Pretty awesome.

I remember you could do something to give yourself more Stasis... What else?

Cat Hatter
Oct 24, 2006

Hatters gonna hat.

Collateral Damage posted:

Is that... A double tape cassette deck? :aaa::fh:

Don't most boomboxes have two cassette decks for dubbing? Or are you just excited that they freed up more room up front for extra buttons/sliders at the expense of having to stop the tape you're listening to so a second can be loaded?

Sir_Substance
Dec 13, 2013

Cat Hatter posted:

Don't most boomboxes have two cassette decks for dubbing? Or are you just excited that they freed up more room up front for extra buttons/sliders at the expense of having to stop the tape you're listening to so a second can be loaded?

I was impressed by how they have the casettes in the same drawer. I've seen two-drawer models, but that one is new. Are the tapes both driven by one wheelspike? (is there a technical term for these?) What happens if the tapes are different lengths, does it stop early or does it murder one tape to continue playing the other?

I must know!

Lowen SoDium
Jun 5, 2003

Highen Fiber
Clapping Larry
If I remember right, the "wheelspike" gear peg thing was able to rotate the outer and inner tape slots independently. The inner tape peg was sleaved and the outer tap peg stuck out of it.

At least that is how I think it worked.

Chocolate Teapot
May 8, 2009

mrkillboy posted:

Back in the early-1990s I used to read a lot of imported British console magazines like Super Play and CVG (I live in Australia) and one thing that really really stuck out for me in the letters sections was that they'd always harp about how you couldn't rent out games in the UK and that it was illegal or forbidden or something. Also Nintendo apparently had something to do with it as well?

Anyone who remembers care to shed some light on this? A quick Google search seems to indicate that renting games in Britain is all kosher now but I'm just curious about the different situation back then, since adolescent me going to the video store and renting out Street Fighter II for the umpteenth time was a pretty regular thing I did back in the day.

I'm probably remembering incorrectly, but I seem to remember that some kind of annual fee was introduced (something like £1,000) for rental stores to rent out video games, which inevitably led to many smaller stores stopping it due to prohibitive costs. The fee was universal, so the size of the business wasn't considered.

Geoj
May 28, 2008

BITTER POOR PERSON

Sir_Substance posted:

Are the tapes both driven by one wheelspike? (is there a technical term for these?)

:science:

Capstan.

Croccers
Jun 15, 2012

Cage posted:

This is terrible. GTA:SA has a shitload of cheats, probably over 60. Stuff like turning on riot mode, changing wanted stars, flying cars, making all the cars pink, any car your car touches will explode. GTA:IV had maybe 10 and they're just car spawning or weapons/armor.
GTA5 has an Invincibility cheat.
It only works for 5 minutes then you have to enter it again.

Collateral Damage
Jun 13, 2009

Cat Hatter posted:

Don't most boomboxes have two cassette decks for dubbing? Or are you just excited that they freed up more room up front for extra buttons/sliders at the expense of having to stop the tape you're listening to so a second can be loaded?
Of course, I've just never seen two tapes loaded into the same slot.

Goldskull
Feb 20, 2011

Fozaldo posted:

My dad used to own a general store and rented out SNES and Megadrive games all the time. Never had any problems.

Yeah the Blockbusters I worked in ~15 years ago rented PS1/Saturn games, and even a Saturn Console for 5 days at a time. Good luck trying to rent that out though, seeing as the staff took turns in perma-owning it.

Shyrka
Feb 10, 2005

Small Boss likes to spin!

mrkillboy posted:

Back in the early-1990s I used to read a lot of imported British console magazines like Super Play and CVG (I live in Australia) and one thing that really really stuck out for me in the letters sections was that they'd always harp about how you couldn't rent out games in the UK and that it was illegal or forbidden or something. Also Nintendo apparently had something to do with it as well?

Anyone who remembers care to shed some light on this? A quick Google search seems to indicate that renting games in Britain is all kosher now but I'm just curious about the different situation back then, since adolescent me going to the video store and renting out Street Fighter II for the umpteenth time was a pretty regular thing I did back in the day.

I used to rent megadrive and snes games from the local video store in the UK, though I remember at one point it emerged they weren't licensed for it and for a couple of days you could borrow games for free until they got it sorted out. Good times.

DONT TOUCH THE PC
Jul 15, 2001

You should try it, it's a real buzz.

Phanatic posted:

No, because Congress is retarded.

http://www.copyright.gov/reports/software_ren.html

Because, see, First Sale shouldn't apply to computer software because those are Different, somehow.

Or anything electronic for that matter, Libraries are having huge problems with this.
In 2006 we pretty much got told not to buy games for the collection unless we had explicit permission from the publisher and the less said about the publishers and ebooks, the better.

Although, i am pretty sure that if the printing press was invented today, publishers would try and stop libraries from getting books too.

Full Battle Rattle
Aug 29, 2009

As long as the times refuse to change, we're going to make a hell of a racket.

strangemusic posted:

I remember you could do something to give yourself more Stasis... What else?


http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/943339-dead-space/cheats

Most of them are 'only once' uses but you can still get 7 nodes and 18,000 credits. Makes the early game a lot more manageable, though less scary.

Astrobastard
Dec 31, 2008



Winky Face

mrkillboy posted:

Back in the early-1990s I used to read a lot of imported British console magazines like Super Play and CVG (I live in Australia) and one thing that really really stuck out for me in the letters sections was that they'd always harp about how you couldn't rent out games in the UK and that it was illegal or forbidden or something. Also Nintendo apparently had something to do with it as well?

Anyone who remembers care to shed some light on this? A quick Google search seems to indicate that renting games in Britain is all kosher now but I'm just curious about the different situation back then, since adolescent me going to the video store and renting out Street Fighter II for the umpteenth time was a pretty regular thing I did back in the day.

Where I lived in Gosport UK some dude literally converted his Kitchen into a game rental store, you'd actually have to walk down the side of his house to his back garden and enter though the Kitchen door. Even had relatively professional membership cards and rented out *Amiga* games. We used to rent out 5 at a time, bring them home and Xcopy all the disks/copy protection. The guy made an absolute shed load of cash, opened up a bigger rental store with the newly released console games, made a poo poo load more cash, bought the shop next to that place and converted that one into his PC business, made more cash then sold the business and retired in Spain if I remember correctly.

Im pretty sure the Amiga rentals were completely illegal and would probably explain why he stopped doing it after moving into the store. He also had one of each console setup in store including rarer stuff like the Neo Geo, each with 2 old coach/bus seats just sat on the ground angled up to the TV's that were mounted at a 45degree angle. Place was called Novatec (dont think they have anything to do with Novatech). Basically if it was illegal they didn't seem to be too bothered about stopping it because using retail games in a "pay for 10 minutes playtime" arcade environment doesn't seem to kosher either

Shugojin
Sep 6, 2007

THE TAIL THAT BURNS TWICE AS BRIGHT...


I guess it fell into the broad range of things that are technically illegal but never get into a court unless the copyright owner gets wind of it. Probably would have ended badly if he'd tried to expand into a chain but he stayed local, made a bunch of cash, then quit so no one who cared to enforce the law ever found out.

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax
I imagine that a large part of being able to rent Sega games back in the 90's was due to the fact that Nintendo was always resistant to the idea of people renting games. So to get a lead in the market Sega of America did the opposite, make it easy for stores to rent out Genesis games, which got them a ton of brownie points from retailers that Nintendo didn't. I assume that Sega of Europe followed suit so that they could gain some market-share from game rentals.

moller
Jan 10, 2007

Swan stole my music and framed me!



I feel like the most impressively weird part is that instead of simply swinging shut on a hinge, the cassette deck swivels into a diagonal position like any other cassette deck after sliding out like a drawer to present the space for two tapes. It's totally gross over-engineering for no benefit I can fathom other than looking cool. I wonder if it's manual or if it has a drive like a cd tray.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



moller posted:

I feel like the most impressively weird part is that instead of simply swinging shut on a hinge, the cassette deck swivels into a diagonal position like any other cassette deck after sliding out like a drawer to present the space for two tapes. It's totally gross over-engineering for no benefit I can fathom other than looking cool. I wonder if it's manual or if it has a drive like a cd tray.

Well, if it's got the extra-long spindles to drive both tapes, it couldn't just tilt in and get them through both. I'm not sure why it didn't just slide straight out then, but hey.

peter gabriel
Nov 8, 2011

Hello Commandos

moller posted:

I feel like the most impressively weird part is that instead of simply swinging shut on a hinge, the cassette deck swivels into a diagonal position like any other cassette deck after sliding out like a drawer to present the space for two tapes. It's totally gross over-engineering for no benefit I can fathom other than looking cool. I wonder if it's manual or if it has a drive like a cd tray.

I used to have one, the doors were manual but had some kind of resistive grease on the cogs so that the door action felt really smooth.
They did look cool and you could record tape to tape (even using high speed dubbing!) on them, the little spiggots in the holes in the tapes were in 2 halves, the back half controlled the rear tape the front half the front tape and they were independent of each other.

The main reason these existed was to save space, these 'ghetto blasters' were loving huge and this method of tape stacking meant they could make them smaller.

peter gabriel
Nov 8, 2011

Hello Commandos

Zereth posted:

Well, if it's got the extra-long spindles to drive both tapes, it couldn't just tilt in and get them through both. I'm not sure why it didn't just slide straight out then, but hey.

They couldn't just open like single tapes, the rear tape would have got caught on the tip of the spiggot so they slide out a little bit then open up, pretty cool in action.

SneezeOfTheDecade
Feb 6, 2011

gettin' covid all
over your posts

Zereth posted:

Well, if it's got the extra-long spindles to drive both tapes, it couldn't just tilt in and get them through both. I'm not sure why it didn't just slide straight out then, but hey.

Ease of use. The front panel is angled away from the user, so loading cassettes into the deck would have been more difficult if the deck hadn't swiveled out.

SybilVimes
Oct 29, 2011
There were a lot of 'weird' tape deck mechanisms near the end of cassette's golden era, for example, horizontal trays:





And pioneer even had tape changers, like so:



I think the general trend was to try and make cassettes seem as much like CD as possible, to try and make it look less 'antiquated' than it was.


OTOH, I just yesterday saw an ad for Type IV cassettes for 44p each, so I guess cassette isn't totally dead, yet.

Sir_Substance
Dec 13, 2013

SybilVimes posted:

I think the general trend was to try and make cassettes seem as much like CD as possible, to try and make it look less 'antiquated' than it was.

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. Lots of people had big tape collections, and there was demand for things like changers (modern convenience) and robust yet gentle mechanisms (to prolong the life of the tapes). It's not like it was a conspiracy to hide the format change from the public, people had invested money in tapes and were willing to pay to have high quality feature filled equipment.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


peter gabriel posted:

I used to have one, the doors were manual but had some kind of resistive grease on the cogs so that the door action felt really smooth.
They did look cool and you could record tape to tape (even using high speed dubbing!) on them, the little spiggots in the holes in the tapes were in 2 halves, the back half controlled the rear tape the front half the front tape and they were independent of each other.

The main reason these existed was to save space, these 'ghetto blasters' were loving huge and this method of tape stacking meant they could make them smaller.

But being absurdly huge was the whole point of old-school ghettoblastersboomboxes. With every control under the moon on the front and maybe even lights and stuff, they were built to show off.

Screw your iPods, this is portable music:



Sir_Substance posted:

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. Lots of people had big tape collections, and there was demand for things like changers (modern convenience) and robust yet gentle mechanisms (to prolong the life of the tapes). It's not like it was a conspiracy to hide the format change from the public, people had invested money in tapes and were willing to pay to have high quality feature filled equipment.

I remember some of the later Bang & Olufsen tape player could skip tracks with reasonable accuracy and stop fast-forwarding by themselves once the hit the next track. I always thought that was pretty neat.

KozmoNaut has a new favorite as of 15:27 on Jul 13, 2014

Plinkey
Aug 4, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

umalt posted:

I imagine that a large part of being able to rent Sega games back in the 90's was due to the fact that Nintendo was always resistant to the idea of people renting games. So to get a lead in the market Sega of America did the opposite, make it easy for stores to rent out Genesis games, which got them a ton of brownie points from retailers that Nintendo didn't. I assume that Sega of Europe followed suit so that they could gain some market-share from game rentals.

Sega also did this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel which was awesome. I had sega channel for about a year or two before it got replaced by an N64. It did sometimes take up to 5-6 minutes to download the 500ish kb games though. Worth the wait.

This is how I discovered shinning force.

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

Plinkey posted:

Sega also did this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel which was awesome. I had sega channel for about a year or two before it got replaced by an N64. It did sometimes take up to 5-6 minutes to download the 500ish kb games though. Worth the wait.

This is how I discovered shinning force.

My babysitter had this from launch until it was discontinued, it was awesome and me and her son played the poo poo out of it.

Base Emitter
Apr 1, 2012

?

Sir_Substance posted:

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. Lots of people had big tape collections, and there was demand for things like changers (modern convenience) and robust yet gentle mechanisms (to prolong the life of the tapes). It's not like it was a conspiracy to hide the format change from the public, people had invested money in tapes and were willing to pay to have high quality feature filled equipment.

Although CD-R's made a dent, tapes didn't really become completely obsolete until MP3s, because they were an easily recordable format. CD-Rs were initially expensive, usually required a computer (and bad software) to record, and didn't play on a lot of audio CD players.

Last Chance
Dec 31, 2004

moller posted:

I feel like the most impressively weird part is that instead of simply swinging shut on a hinge, the cassette deck swivels into a diagonal position like any other cassette deck after sliding out like a drawer to present the space for two tapes. It's totally gross over-engineering for no benefit I can fathom other than looking cool. I wonder if it's manual or if it has a drive like a cd tray.

Actually, I think the most impressive part is how they were able to get the CDs and tapes to automatically load themselves into the player. I'd pay top dollar for that feature, even now!

peter gabriel
Nov 8, 2011

Hello Commandos

KozmoNaut posted:

But being absurdly huge was the whole point of old-school ghettoblastersboomboxes. With every control under the moon on the front and maybe even lights and stuff, they were built to show off.

Screw your iPods, this is portable music:


Oh I agree, but it wasn't always desirable :)

Towards the end of cassettes reign there was a shift towards 'small is best' which is why you got those odd clamshell Walkmans with external batteries etc, they were cool.

Remember tapes that spun around in the system to turn over?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf4eR3ZkvoY

Monday_
Feb 18, 2006

Worked-up silent dork without sex ability seeks oblivion and demise.
The Great Twist

Plinkey posted:

Sega also did this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel which was awesome. I had sega channel for about a year or two before it got replaced by an N64. It did sometimes take up to 5-6 minutes to download the 500ish kb games though. Worth the wait.

This is how I discovered shinning force.

I wish my Steam games would download in 5-6 minutes.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


Is it fair to call the CD an obsolete technology as well, in the age of downloads and streaming?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwrU8s-M-gc

3D Megadoodoo
Nov 25, 2010

KozmoNaut posted:

Is it fair to call the CD an obsolete technology as well, in the age of downloads and streaming?

No because most 'Western' people today who listen to (non-radio) music listen to it off CDs.

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KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


I actually thought to myself "Why doesn't mullet dude just order those European releases straight from Europe over the... Oh right, 1985 :doh:".

Jerry Cotton posted:

No because most 'Western' people today who listen to (non-radio) music listen to it off CDs.

Are you sure? Because just about everyone I know listens at their computers or MP3 players. Whenever I go visit friends and family, all of the CDs that used to be proudly displayed are gone, and no CD player-equipped stereos in sight. Instead they stream everything, either directly from a NAS or from a streaming provider. We've got three major providers here, and they all offer sizeable libraries and decent sound quality. Why have a giant CD collection taking up space, when you can store it all on a hard disk and/or stream it?

KozmoNaut has a new favorite as of 18:58 on Jul 13, 2014

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