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I also find the old hardware and using it more interesting. I do use some "serious" apps for not so serious things on the Amiga and appreciate the simplicity of it all sometimes but if it really was all about the software, I'd probably not use an Amiga anymore. In the years I was amiga-less I did use WinUAE quite a bit, though. Couldn't be bothered to deal with the A2000. I'm going to show a hardware expansion card that falls more into the entertainment sector and is not really for serious usage - The Peggy Plus. Now this is an interesting, and quite rare one. Remember how I often mentioned in my posts that the old computers weren't really usable for modern multimedia stuff like watching movies? Well they weren't. Even the fastest 68k CPU you could buy was not good enough to decode something like mpeg video with a sound track. The raw processing power simply wasn't there, but people still weren't uninterested in watching stuff on their Amigas. The year is 1993, Whitney Huston and Duran Duran are in the charts, CPUs are still slow as gently caress and while mp3 was finalized in theory, it was not ready for prime time yet. Then VCD-Players came out. Remember those kids? Yeah, nobody had them, but they'd pave the way for later digital video formats. VCD was spankin' new in 1993. 352x288 (in PAL) MPEG-1 Video at 24 bit true color and a framerate of 25. The standard audio codec accompanying the video was MP2 at 44 khz with a bitrate of about ~220 kbps. That's already CD quality. MP2 is actually still often encountered with internet radio streams and stuff. In my knowledge VCD really took off in eastern countries like india and china and remained the standard there for a pretty long time. So some engineer (and a really nice guy, I might add, I conversed with him a while ago) in germany came up with the idea to put the decoding circuity from VCD players on an Amiga Zorro II card, the Peggy+:    This card did it all in onboard hardware. Decoding of the MP2s in the little LSI chip you can see on the second picture, which outputs a digital audio stream which goes into the DAC on the third picture far to the left (the first small chip on the top) and then into an opamp (right below it) and to the audio output. Below that you can see some honest-to-god relays which switch between the audio output of the Amiga and the Peggy+ on an as-needed basis when some video starts. Left of the LSI chip is a little bit of memory the chip needs to work. On the back you can see the VGA output. This card both has connectors for Zorro II and the Video slot as you can see and they line exactly up, as this card was more intended for later BigBox Amigas like the 3000 or 4000 where these slots lined up, but with some work you can easily make an adapter that it will work correctly with an A2000, too. The big, lengthy chip at the top is actually an video mixer so you can overlay the Amiga signal on top of what the Peggy+ puts out. The big quadratic chip is the programmable MACH chip and basically the Brain of the entire card, the large SMD chip to the right of it is this:  The MPEG-Decoder itself. Now this is a very nice model for 1993 with all the pizzaz you would want from an VCD player. It has a 512 kb display buffer (the long memory chip to the right side of it) and is upgradeable to 1 MB with a bit of soldering. (I already did so) This chip found it's way into several "multimedia" expansions (I think mainly Mac) for other computer models up to about 1995. There's also this daughterboard:  Which activates the S-Video connector on the back and allows the card to output either NTSC or PAL (depending on the jumper settings) to a normal television without RGB-SCART. Even though the software of this card is kinda cobbled together, it is a very nice card. The decoding chips were high-end for 1993 and as the Amiga only had to bother to shove the compressed video/audio data over the Zorro bus, it didn't really tax the CPU or the Bus. The playback program even works directly with Video CDs and Phillips CDIs or files from the HD, provided the HD was big and fast enough. (which was not a given in 1993) You can also only utilize the audio chip and just directly listen to MP2s. Well, this card didn't sell very well, as the Amiga was basically already dead at that time. The company that made them was also only very small and there were only few cards made. The pictured card has a Problem with the Socket for the MACH chip (you can kind of see it in the picture, it's damaged) which causes the card to randomly fail when the chip gets hot. I already have removed the socket by now and it's waiting for an replacement socket. I also contacted the maker of this card in hopes to get technical schematics or the contents of the programmable chips, but sadly he told me that everything was destroyed a few years after he went out of the Amiga business. An interesting&rare piece of Amiga hardware I don't think many have ever heard about. EDIT: Also yes, it's somewhat compatible to the mpeg video expansion of the CD32. Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 04:32
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Police Automaton posted:VCD card stuff As someone who owns a dedicated VCD player, I love seeing stuff like this. I was huge into VCDs back in the day 
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Jul 13, 2014 04:52
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Captain Rufus posted:(Or pretty much most of the books here: http://www.atarimania.com/documents-atari-400-800-xl-xe-books_1_8.html ) Now I know there may be another who wants it instead! Starhawk64 posted:Yeah, I wanted to put together a Win9X era gaming PC but I realized tracking down the right parts would be a huge pain in the rear end. I'm glad Gog and Dosbox are around to make playing old games a breeze.
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Jul 13, 2014 04:55
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d0s posted:As someone who owns a dedicated VCD player, I love seeing stuff like this. I was huge into VCDs back in the day Quite honestly, VCD is still fine nowadays and now I even read that it's still pretty widespread in some parts of the world, which really surprised me. For people who don't know (as it was basically non-existing in europe) it's about VHS just with none of the analog crap. Quality really really depends on how well encoded the source video was. You'll not get nice results if you take some youtube video and reencode it down into that format, for example. You can totally watch a movie/TV-Show in that format without getting eye cancer or something though. Also there's lots of strange VCD movies on youtube, although they all were a little bit slaughtered quality wise by youtube recompressing, as far as I can tell.
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Jul 13, 2014 06:05
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Okay, good news and bad news. Good news: Here's the list of games my friend's uncle has up. Bad news: The uncle requested it all go on ebay, but I *may* be able to get some of them for you guys if you have reasonable offers for them. He probably won't mind circumventing ebay fees. Alla this is DOS, except for A-Train, which is for Amiga Shrinkwrapped D/GENERATION AD&D: Eye of the Beholder Carriers at War II Times of Lore A-Train and A-Train Construction Set expansion (Amiga) Command HQ Not Shrinkwrapped (good condition though) Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 Call of Cthulhu Shadow of the Comet CD-ROM Microsoft Flight Simulator version 5, 1993 Transport Tycoon Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers AD&D Treasures of the Savage Frontier AD&D Gateway to the Savage Frontier Star Trek Judgment Rites Wing Commander Wing Commander Deluxe Edition Bram Stoker's Dracula Elvira Mistress of the Dark WaxWorks The Terminator 2029 Sid Meier's Civilization Star Control II Space Hulk Sid Meier's Colonization Manhunter New York Manhunter 2 San Francisco Strike Commander The Lost Treasures of InfoCom War in the Gulf Elite Plus Castles Top Gun Danger Zone Oil Barons Mantis Experimental Fighter XF5700 The Terminator: Rampage Aces of the Pacific Codename ICEMAN Empire Deluxe The Perfect General The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel The Residents Bad Day on the Midway Red Storm Rising Gold Rush! Wonderland Frederik Pohl's Gateway B.A.T. II The Koshan Conspiracy Tegel's Mercenaries F-19 Stealth Fighter Knights of Xentar Castles II Siege & Conquest Lightspeed Les Manley in Lost in LA Space 1889 SimLife Heroes of the 357th Railroad Tycoon Millennium Return to Earth The Dark Half Zool Ninja of the Nth Dimension A-10 Tank Killer Tahiti Scenery Upgrade for Microsoft Flight Simulator Links 386 Pro Evasive Action Duel for the Sky Beauty and the Beast Multimedia Storybook UFO This Planet's Most Complete Guide to Close Encounters Wolfenstein Spear of Destiny EArl Weaver Baseball Earl Weaver Baseball II Battle Chess National Lampoon's Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1 Rome Pathway to Power World War II: Battles of the South Pacific Edward Grabowski's: The Blue and the Gray Quest For Glory: Shadows of Darkness Front Page Sports: Football Pro '95 Mike Ditka Ultimate Football Reach for the Stars The Conquest of the Galaxy Third Edition Sporting News Baseball Ween The Prophecy Coktel Vision Reach for the Skies Knights of the Sky HardBall 5 JetFighter II: Advanced Tactical Fighter Hexen: Beyond Heretic Pacific Strike Buck Rogers Countdown to Doomsday Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball Strip Poker Data Disk by Artworx Joan of Arc Siege and the Sword Battledrome e: Pics of boxes at the ebay links below (had to split them up across two accounts): http://www.ebay.com/sch/rqhackenbacker/m.html?item=171374879559&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562 http://www.ebay.com/sch/steveabook/m.html?item=181464885959&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562 Dana Crysalis fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 02:36
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nice list. Elite Plus looks interesting...what included with it? Also what does your uncle consider to be "reasonable offers"?
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Jul 14, 2014 04:28
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tuluk posted:nice list. Game looks like a remake of Elite, basically. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Classic-Retro-PC-Game-Elite-Plus-Original-Complete-Boxed-/181464960208?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item2a40278cd0 It'd be case by case basis on the offers, I am sure he wants what it's worth, but he doesn't want to screw people over either.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:31
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Dana Crysalis posted:Game looks like a remake of Elite, basically. Right. I can't make a correct offer until I know whats in the box for elite plus. I just know "not shrinkwrapped, in good condition".
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Jul 14, 2014 04:41
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tuluk posted:Right. No problem, I'll see if I can get that checked for you. My assumption is it has everything that's supposed to be there, but ya know. Dunno if it has fancy stuff or not, so I'll get back to you.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:51
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Dana Crysalis posted:Okay, good news and bad news. Good news: Here's the list of games my friend's uncle has up. Bad news: The uncle requested it all go on ebay, but I *may* be able to get some of them for you guys if you have reasonable offers for them. He probably won't mind circumventing ebay fees. I'm kinda interested in Elivra, Empire Deluxe, Space 1889, Hexen, and Buck Rogers. I'm not really willing to go 20 a game for them though. (Of the 5 I listed Elivra I want the least, Space 1889 the most.) What kind of deal is he willing to cut? Plus you know, what would shipping be to Connecticut? VVVVV Fair enough. I'd honestly prefer to not spend any money on fun stuff this week actually. So it works for me. (And more power to him if he gets extra money of course.) Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 05:38
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Captain Rufus posted:I'm kinda interested in Elivra, Empire Deluxe, Space 1889, Hexen, and Buck Rogers. I'm not really willing to go 20 a game for them though. He's putting a blanket policy that if someone wants it for under the 20 bucks, they have to wait til after the auction closes, if there were no bids, he'll be more willing to let them go for cheaper. And probably can worm out some package discount out of him. Shipping shouldn't be too bad (we're in Alabama)
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Jul 14, 2014 05:57
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This is an awesome article for anyone who grew up with P* https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/where-online-services-go-when-they-die/374099/ So many memories here
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Jul 14, 2014 08:23
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d0s posted:This is an awesome article for anyone who grew up with P* I still have my prodigy email address. It uses Yahoomail now. 
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Jul 14, 2014 09:43
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We here in germany had BTX, which needed special modems to connect to. It was started by the deutsche Bundespost ([west]german federal post office) which at that time, still was a government-owned and run institution, so BTX was basically owned by the government. It worked a lot like teletext, just interactive. All the content was stored in one Mainframe where the local nodes would get their data from, with data being sorted and stored in the local nodes in order of how much it was accessed, data being rarely accessed overwritten by data that was more commonly accessed. Exceptions were some external servers that were connected to this network and would generate their pages on request dynamically and feed it into the system, this was used for example for online banking, or by companies to offer the booking of flights etc. or even online shopping. Using it you basically paid on a "per-page" basis, while the content providers could decide how much their page would cost individually. Setting a price by-minutes was also possible AFAIK, please don't quote my on that though. There were also chats which were crazy expensive where sending individual messages would cost money on a per-message basis. The graphic capabilities were quite primitive (not nearly as nice as Prodigy). Software downloads were also possible (given the right hardware was existant), and there were even public terminals where you could use BTX with a card. The whole thing started in the early 80s. You could set up pages but that was crazy expensive, so the content was usually by government organizations like the police or big corporations like Quelle (very popular german mail order business like sears, now defunct) or airlines like Lufthansa. As the government had a monopoly on BTX it was only possible to connect to it via their "certified" hardware which was very expensive, really the whole service was which was why it never got that popular and was sort of a rich people internet. You could use "non-certified" hardware (for example from the french equivalent "Minitel" which contrary to BTX, was WILDLY successful and utilized in France and has sort of a cult status there, or some homebrew solutions for which schematics were spread in the local hacker scenes) to connect to it but that was  highly illegal and could carry very hefty fines. So in short, the Bundespost basically choked the entire thing to death before it even started, out of greed. (for example, the french telecom gave the hardware to connect to Minitel away for free) In the 90s, where the federal mail was split up into several organizations which in turn were privatized and the monopoly on the hardware finally fell, the whole thing also got a lot cheaper but there were already much better commercial equivalents (and the internet) and the whole thing was basically forgotten about or mainly used for specific business things like online banking. The service got officially shut off in 2001, besides some banking things which were run until 2007 for legacy purposes.E: Oh almost forgot the infamous "BTX-hack" by the CCC which caused quite some waves here, but I think that should be for another thread. Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 11:56
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Wow, I always thought the way France did it with Minitel was great, because the whole point was that it was treated as a public service, for everyone. Having something like that run by the government and then pricing it out of reach for normal people seems like a dick move.
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Jul 14, 2014 13:41
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d0s posted:Wow, I always thought the way France did it with Minitel was great, because the whole point was that it was treated as a public service, for everyone. Having something like that run by the government and then pricing it out of reach for normal people seems like a dick move. I make it seem like this was specific to BTX, but really it wasn't. Modems in the 80s were basically forbidden here besides these devices which you usually could only rent from the Bundespost. Renting one around the late 80s would set you back probably a cool 60$ in todays money a month (buying one would probably put you in the thousand dollar range), this would be on top of monthly charges for a service like BTX, land line charges and call-unit charges (which were also very expensive here). There was little going on here too, so if you wanted to get to the interesting BBS systems, you'd have to make international calls. A night of that could easily end you up in mid-range three-figure realms. (Although to be fair, BBS was more of a 90s thing, still telephone stuff wasn't much cheaper although the hardware was) The homebrew solutions were quite popular. I think it really hampered progress but I wouldn't even call it a dick move out of greed, just the results of lots of red tape and government bloat causing increased prices and nonsensical laws. Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 13:53
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Captain Rufus posted:I'm kinda interested in Elivra, Empire Deluxe, Space 1889, Hexen, and Buck Rogers. I'm not really willing to go 20 a game for them though. I feel the same way as Captain Rufus regarding price. If the games are still there when the ebay auctions end, cool.
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Jul 14, 2014 15:46
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What the hell is SimIsle Seeing that he owned a software store makes this "runs the whole gamut of genres" thing make more sense. At first I thought I did not really want anything, but then I looked at the second link. drat. Also good lord I get nostalgic hearing ANYTHING about 1980s/early 1990s computer connectivity, despite having only been part of such a relatively small part of it. At least I will always have my memories of being banned from WWIVLink for allowing my users to use obscenities. 
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Jul 15, 2014 01:50
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I can highly recommend SimIsle! Like all Sim titles, really. (except maybe SimHealth. A simulation of the american healthcare system Maxis? Wtf.) Maxis was very, very good. It's a shame what EA did to them and videogaming in general. First SimCity and now I've read the new Sims is also ramping up to be a disaster. Shameful, especially considering what would be possible with a modern computer. Generally I like all games that are a bit weird and experimental, like somebody (don't remember who) already said in the thread and those are the games I seek out mostly nowadays in retro and even modern gaming. Sadly they are very rare nowadays, It's either the fast-food gaming you get from the big companies were everything was focus-grouped and market researched to perfection, leaving a completely soulless but technically good game that's completely forgettable, or "pre-pre-pre alpha fund-us-via-kickstarter techdemos that never go anywhere and often get cloned a million times in the hopes to be the new overnight sensation. I mean there were lots of unplayable poo poo games back then too but usually at least they got finished mostly. On the other hand, replaying Doom or Quake etc. for the nth time doesn't really interest me. It's been done better by now. I also like how big the differences between different platforms could be with some games. For example there was B.A.T. II, an RPG game where you are some kind of futuristic agent on an urban alien planet (I won't say much more about it, really do look into it) it was made by Ubisoft in the early 90s. Remarkable about that game was also that you had a little computer implanted in your wrist you could write small symbolic-like BASIC programs for, like for example it lowering your blood pressure when you got shot, meaning you'd bleed out much slower. Or it notifying you via beeping when the NPC approaching you seems aggressive etc.. A pretty cool concept I've seen in a few games of that time (like in "Gravity") and then never again. In the PC-VGA version of that game they had a Pallete of 256 colors available so the whole drawn environment was really colorful and furturistic-looking. The Amiga OCS version was limited to 32 colors because of the chipset but instead of just reducing the palette so that it fits, they adapted the game graphics somewhat to it, making the planet look much drab, dirtier and darker, like something out of Blade Runner, giving the game an entirely different feel. Very nice attention to design and very good graphics in that game. I love these old 2D graphics and I find it very sad that it's kind of a lost art. I mean, of course with all the indie developers "retro graphics" is all the rage but most of the graphics in those games are more in the direction of 8-bit C64/NES (because of course, they are a lot easier to do) and in the end something that would've already looked primitive on the Amiga. (A color palette of 32/64 colors can be huge, if you utilize the colors right) Quarex posted:Also good lord I get nostalgic hearing ANYTHING about 1980s/early 1990s computer connectivity, despite having only been part of such a relatively small part of it. At least I will always have my memories of being banned from WWIVLink for allowing my users to use obscenities. It was kind of magical. The internet seemed a lot bigger back then, with you not knowing what's around the next corner. Todays internet feels more "tamed" and smaller, even though it really is not. I always wanted to set-up a second A2000 and run a BBS system on it people can telnet into via the internet, but ehhh. I don't think I could find people using it. E: Just remembered that Ubisoft already was crazy about copy protection schemes back then. B.A.T. II at least for the Amiga had a hardware dongle you had to put into the parallel port to start the game. I still have it here somewhere. Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 03:17
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Incase anyone wants a new IRC channel to idle, we finally have #oldgames on irc.synirc.net. Any sort of retro gaming chat is kosher, but there seems to be an emphasis on older PC gaming. It's also probably going to be used as a platform for organizing retro multiplayer gaming. So if you're a user of IRC, add it to your autojoin list and rant about any old computer related thing you want to.
Jehde fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 04:51
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Jehde posted:Incase anyone wants a new IRC channel to idle, we finally have #oldgames on irc.synirc.net. Any sort of retro gaming chat is kosher, but there seems to be an emphasis on older PC gaming. It's also probably going to be used as a platform for organizing retro multiplayer gaming. So if you're a user of IRC, add it to your autojoin list and rant about any old computer related thing you want to. There's already #retrochat though?
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Jul 15, 2014 06:10
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#oldgames has an emphasis on old computer gaming, rather than console gaming. Note it's no way officially affaliated with this thread. I just posted because I figured there would be a decently large correlation of lurkers of this thread and goons that would like to lurk a channel about old computer gaming.
Jehde fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 06:18
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Police Automaton posted:Generally I like all games that are a bit weird and experimental, like somebody (don't remember who) already said in the thread and those are the games I seek out mostly nowadays in retro and even modern gaming. Sadly they are very rare nowadays, It's either the fast-food gaming you get from the big companies were everything was focus-grouped and market researched to perfection, leaving a completely soulless but technically good game that's completely forgettable, or "pre-pre-pre alpha fund-us-via-kickstarter techdemos that never go anywhere and often get cloned a million times in the hopes to be the new overnight sensation. I mean there were lots of unplayable poo poo games back then too but usually at least they got finished mostly. I'm with you on this. AAA Games kinda bore me now and I find myself playing the classics, indie titles, or Nintendo games. I can't be the only one tried of all these bland grey and brown games the big publishers keep crapping out?
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Jul 15, 2014 20:11
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Starhawk64 posted:I'm with you on this. AAA Games kinda bore me now and I find myself playing the classics, indie titles, or Nintendo games. I can't be the only one tried of all these bland grey and brown games the big publishers keep crapping out? I just stopped keeping up with games a couple years ago and now focus exclusively on old stuff, I don't regret it. If there's something new I really should not be missing I have friends whose tastes I trust who put me up on it. Some people think there's some shame in saying you think games suck now as if they're an important part of culture or something, but I just see them as toys and if I'm going to play with toys at all as a 30 year old I'd rather play with ones like the ones I grew up with rather than being the weird old man at the Toys R Us who knows all about the latest GI Joes and poo poo.
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Jul 16, 2014 00:05
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Jehde posted:#oldgames has an emphasis on old computer gaming, rather than console gaming. Note it's no way officially affaliated with this thread. I just posted because I figured there would be a decently large correlation of lurkers of this thread and goons that would like to lurk a channel about old computer gaming. Sounds nice but honestly I don't think we need two or three goon retrogaming IRC channels. #retrochat is fine. I think I may have found my next game to play. So far nothing has really been grabbing me over the last month or two. I'll play something for a couple hours and stop caring. (Doom 64 source port is maybe the only thing that I made it all the way through. And Costume Quest on iOS. But its short as hell anyhow.)  Best looking or second best looking version of the game depending on how you feel about the SNES graphics. Came with a great rulebook with stuff like weapon stats and maps and stuff (at least my Genesis port did). Since I bought that M&M collection that seems to not want to work right lately from GOG I have the PC port manuals and cluebook scans to help out. (This is nice because the big Might and Magic Compendium by Caroline Spector claims to be the authorized guide to all the DOS M&Ms but it is really just a guide to 3 and the Xeen duo. The first two games are story summarized in a page and a half of fluff text.) I've printed out a couple maps from Gamefaqs to move me swiftly along and my party up there (pic from my Facebook upload so quality off) hit level 2 though I did have to use some savestating to make it a touch less tough going as the first two games do NOT love you. Plus it actually has an economy. Money is TIGHT early on! My party is a Knight, Paladin, Ninja, Archer, Cleric, and Mage. I put my glasses on, lean back in my desk chair that has seen better days, prop my feet on the cheap ottoman, listen to some podcasts, and use a Genesis Arcade Power Stick with a USB dongle. (I got the stick from the infamously slow to do anything Acid Police. Along with some more goodies I need to photo blog on soon speaking of turning procrastination into performance art. And do that Defender of the Crown review...)
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Jul 16, 2014 09:40
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Captain Rufus posted:Best looking or second best looking version of the game depending on how you feel about the SNES graphics. Wait a second here, there's SNES port? I thought SNES only got III?
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Jul 16, 2014 10:44
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EgillSkallagrimsson posted:Wait a second here, there's SNES port? I thought SNES only got III? One released in Europe by Iguana Entertainment that resembles the PC version...  ...and one released in Japan by Star Craft (no relation) that tries to JRPG things up a tad. It also has a few other changes, like no Guardian Pegasus.  (One of the developers of M&M X wrote a little thing about Japanese M&M adaptions here if you're curious.)
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Jul 16, 2014 11:04
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The Kins posted:There are TWO SNES ports of M&MII! Welp, I guess I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend via emulator.
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Jul 16, 2014 11:33
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Captain Rufus posted:Sounds nice but honestly I don't think we need two or three goon retrogaming IRC channels. #retrochat is fine. Yeah I honestly didn't know #retrochat was a thing when I first found out about #oldgames. As such I checked #retrochat out to see how unnecessary #oldgames really was, because yeah, on the surface it does sound redundent as hell, and #retrochat already has an established userbase. But all anyone ever talked about on #retrochat was anime and consoles, which doesn't really relate too much to this thread. It's great that there's a place for that sort of thing, but that's not what #oldgames is for. I'll reiterate that that the purpose of #oldgames is to have an emphasis on old computer gaming, rather than retro discussion in general. This means goons at #oldgames tend to talk more about games from GOG, or source ports, or organizing multiplayer games, etc. If there's actually another channel I'm not aware of (this third retrogaming channel?) that fills this purpose, then yeah I agree it's completely unnecessary, but #retrochat doesn't fill that purpose. Jehde fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 20:15
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I didn't really like #retrochat either because they spent a lot of time talking about Dungeons and Dragons (or some similar tabletop game) and a whole bunch of other offtopic stuff, there is another channel that was started kinda to get away from that and focus specifically on old consoles and computers but it died after like a week because it turns out people don't want to spend all their time talking about one thing, and there was more idling than talking. I'm not really sure why an IRC channel for just one topic is needed anyway when the thread is right here, the only IRC channels I'm in that are consistently active and cool are groups of people who've known each other for years and have no specific topic (but share similar general interests), which is exactly what #retrochat really is. They just weren't "my kind" of people and were into a bunch of poo poo I wasn't so I left.
d0s fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 20:50
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If you're dealing with emulators & want to get multiplayer working on older multiplayer enabled games, hamachiVPN is pretty useful. There's also a open-source program called PvPGN that actually supports multiplayer for older blizzard/westwood games. If anyone in here is interested in trying out hamachiVPN with older MP-enabled games like red baron, civilization 2, silent hunter 2, etc....let me know, and I'll re-post the details for the hamachiVPN open-mesh network I setup for retrogaming multiplayer purposes in GiP.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:19
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Jehde posted:Yeah I honestly didn't know #retrochat was a thing when I first found out about #oldgames. As such I checked #retrochat out to see how unnecessary #oldgames really was, because yeah, on the surface it does sound redundent as hell, and #retrochat already has an established userbase. But all anyone ever talked about on #retrochat was anime and consoles, which doesn't really relate too much to this thread. It's great that there's a place for that sort of thing, but that's not what #oldgames is for. I'll reiterate that that the purpose of #oldgames is to have an emphasis on old computer gaming, rather than retro discussion in general. This means goons at #oldgames tend to talk more about games from GOG, or source ports, or organizing multiplayer games, etc. If there's actually another channel I'm not aware of (this third retrogaming channel?) that fills this purpose, then yeah I agree it's completely unnecessary, but #retrochat doesn't fill that purpose. The thing is we talk about all sorts of things in there. You want more PC game chat? Bring it! Discussions are based on what people talk about. gently caress, this thread exists because of #retrochat! That's where I talk and that's only where I will talk. (And while I kind of understand your reasoning for making a more PC specific channel I won't be promoting it in the Introductory Posts of the thread. It just dilutes the community even more! gently caress, as far as I am concerned the retro PC RPGs and FPS threads ought to be merged into this one to provide more traffic and visibility.) As to Dos' reasonings: Well.. you kind of seem to have major issues getting along with anyone almost ever online dude. You post some good info and thoughts in here but the second anyone interacts with you in any way it turns into a shitstorm mostly because every thing ever gets you butthurt. Its why so many people have you on ignore in both IRC and on SA proper. (I have the former and a lot of people have the latter.) If you just want to be a single topic type that's totally fine but.. that aint the loving point of IRC at all. Its like hanging out with friends and acquaintances with a basic shared interest. You really have to learn to relax dude.
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Jul 17, 2014 01:57
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Hey why are you calling me out again? Did you read my post? I said they talk about plenty of things in there and that's cool, in fact I said it makes a good IRC channel, except that it wasn't my bag because I already have places to go for that where I know everyone (and where I'm more into the stuff being discussed). You seem to be the butthurt one here man. EDIT: Please feel free to become one of the "many" who have me on ignore here EDIT2: I'd like you to PM me with instances my posting has caused "a shitstorm", besides that thing that just happened with that dumb Nazi joke guy in the other thread, because I seriosly can't remember having a problem with anyone here but you. If people have problems with me that's fine, and I'm glad they put me on ignore if my posting bothers them. But I'm seriously trying to figure out what it is that I post that's so upsetting and controversial. Seriously, get at me in a PM or something and help me understand. d0s fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 02:20
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Captain Rufus posted:The thing is we talk about all sorts of things in there. C'mon man this isn't cool. I haven't seen anything in this thread at least from d0s that's really inflammatory, and not ever using IRC I have no clue what goes on there but there's no need to bring that sort of external drama here. I honestly think it's good that the threads and IRC channels remain separate since the audiences are separate. I follow this thread and the PC RPG thread but couldn't care less about FPS games don't want to read about them. None of the hardware chat in this thread is liable to be interesting to the majority of people that follow the PC RPG thread either. For that matter, it's good that this thread is separate from the main retrogaming thread since that's all consoles (and inane chatter about upscalers and OCDing about minute differences in picture quality on modern TVs) and not computers. Merging stuff like that just creates a giant mess of a thread that becomes a chore to wade through to get to the stuff you actually care about. IRC-wise I don't see why it can't be the same--if #retrochat is nothing but anime and consoles I'd never bother going in since I'm only moderately interested in consoles and generally can't stand anime, but I might be tempted to join an IRC channel that chats strictly about old-school computers. Different channels for different audiences, there's nothing wrong with that.
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Jul 17, 2014 02:59
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Jesus christ, I didn't mean to start this dumb drama, I just wanted a channel to complain about how they don't make computer games like they used to.  Captain Rufus, I totally understand that you're part of the #retrochat community and as such would much prefer it over some random new channel. #oldgames is in no way trying to replace or fragment the established community at #retrochat, just letting nerds know there's a new nerd outlet if they wanted one, since there apparently are a few goons that do. I don't expect #oldgames to get especially big, more so a case of fewer but more dedicated goons.
Jehde fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 03:24
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As someone in #retrochat. I'd like to say old computers are cool; but its just not most of our jams. The chat is far more likely to talk about rgb outputs from famicoms than c64s. We don't talk about D&D like ever and I'm the only one who talks animes. Really if you like all kinds of video gaming, old or new; #retrochat is pretty cool, check it out. p.s. rufus and d0s are just tsundere for each other, its pretty obvious imo d0s posted:the weird old man at the Toys R Us who knows all about the latest GI Joes and poo poo. Also this is me, I love a gi joe.
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Jul 17, 2014 03:37
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Yeah I wasn't being literal when I said D&D it was some other tabletop game I'm not up on, there is seriously nothing wrong with that though and if it really upset you guys I am honestly sorry! e quote:p.s. rufus and d0s are just tsundere for each other, its pretty obvious imo Please keep me out of your something awful fanfic!! d0s fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 03:53
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Genpei Turtle posted:C'mon man this isn't cool. I haven't seen anything in this thread at least from d0s that's really inflammatory, and not ever using IRC I have no clue what goes on there but there's no need to bring that sort of external drama here. I really kind of don't like it when this thread gets TOO technical because I really want this thread to be more about GAMING as opposed to stuff that would more belong in the Serious Hardware subforum. But P. Automaton's info is so GOOD. Even if I don't personally care it IS good info. (And he really should maybe make the SH subforum retro computer hardware thread for it. I dunno if it would get traction there but his info is quality and it is clear it needs to be collated and shared. But honestly the technical chat in normal Retro thread should probably be slipped over into that subforum as well. It keeps the main threads more accessible. And I would happily link to a thread in that subforum for old computer hardware that wants to go deep and blue, like LL's hat.) And hey! I do bring up the retro computing in retrochat. But I kind of enjoy consoles and computers. I just enjoy computers that much more. I just won't push away a good console game either though. And for retro gaming there are many options and formats and versions of a game, in some cases giving us many choices to play our way. (Like Genesis M&M 2. Looks better than any microcomputer port and can be played quick and dirty with Kega Fusion. What's funny is sometimes it goes the OTHER way too, with console niche favorites having amazing PC remakes, albeit just in Japan. A lot of Falcom games have this issue and it irritates me.)
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Jul 17, 2014 05:07
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I think if the much more active retro console thread can get away with tons of technical and nontechnical posts this thread can too. Honestly, it comes with the territory with this sort of thing and splitting it up would do more harm than good.
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Jul 17, 2014 05:36
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| # ? May 9, 2024 17:04 |
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I'll make #oldhardware and everyone who's not going to talk about old hardware will get banned.  But seriously, in my experience, if you make dozens of different channels for sub-interests of an interest, what ends up happening is that the same people will be in all of those channels and all of them will be dead, or even worse the channel will start competing for the same user pool and you'll end up with a bunch of empty channels. It's usually better just to bunch everything into one place so at least there's some talk going on, it's in my opinion the same with forum threads really. Of course, I do like talking about old computer hardware (else I wouldn't have made these posts) but I also had sort of an agenda posting this here and not in a dedicated thread about hardware. That agenda/goal was mainly to reach people who are slightly interested in this old stuff but don't really have exposure on the hardware/serious application side of things and would not know what to even ask in an dedicated hardware thread/would not look for one. My hope with the little blurbs of information is just to get some people interested enough in learning more about the systems they have, and maybe even do more interesting stuff with them, besides playing games and this "gotta collect them all" thing that's going on and we talked about earlier in the thread. I see very much disinformation and lack of knowledge going on in many communities, and with the years it just seems to get worse. I also see many long-standing internet sources with a wealth of information about these topics basically disappear overnight. There are still many people around who grew up with all this and have the knowledge firsthand, but some people actually already start dying off and some are just very insular regarding people new to this entire thing. Lots of forums also have become very clique-y and circle-jerky. I have the feeling this is not going to get better in the next few years. So to make it short, my effort posts were mostly centered around chatting a little bit about old hardware/apps in order to maybe inspire one or the other person to look into it more and keep the knowledge and the systems alive. I do not know if this works or most people just want to play vidya with pixel graphics and scroll past my long posts, but I do hope for the best. I also thought about making a blog with more in-depth information as especially most blogs circling around the Amiga and similar systems seem to be about drilling holes into your cases and showing off how much expensive hardware and mint condition packaging you own, but then again, I am a lazy man and it's just easier to write a blurb of text here about something I was thinking about the other day. Of course this is your thread Rufus and if you (and others) think these posts detract from the topic at hand, (and I could see that being the case) I will keep it down in the future.
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Jul 17, 2014 06:35
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