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aw poo poo Very happy with this thing, thanks EBM!
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Oct 16, 2014 18:52
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d0s posted:aw poo poo No problem. I still have the MT-32, for those interested. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3671091&perpage=40
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Oct 16, 2014 20:43
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Captain Rufus posted:Also Atarimania and Atari Age will become your best friends now. Not related to the Atari, but what is the advantage of MIDI modules like the SC-55? I have a MT-32 and the advantage of that is obvious since games were programmed specifically for it, but other MIDI modules seem like they'd be useful only for General MIDI, which doesn't seem too useful for gaming, yet Roland's MIDI modules seem to always be in high demand.
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Oct 16, 2014 22:13
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Not my sale, but someone in SA-Mart is selling a VIC-20, and I figured it might be of interest to someone here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3669441
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Oct 16, 2014 22:36
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raifield posted:Not related to the Atari, but what is the advantage of MIDI modules like the SC-55? I have a MT-32 and the advantage of that is obvious since games were programmed specifically for it, but other MIDI modules seem like they'd be useful only for General MIDI, which doesn't seem too useful for gaming, yet Roland's MIDI modules seem to always be in high demand. The advantage of the the SC-55 is that a lot of the music written for general midi games were actually written for the SC-55. Duke Nukem 3D, Decent, Gabriel Knight, Doom, later sierra titles etc. Another reason is that Roland midis sound quite good and the General Midi standard is something that actually came primarily from Roland. The SC-55 also is GS or General Sound compatible which is an expansion of the General Midi standard. I can't really remember if some games are specifically written for GS or not but it is a good unit, not as good as my SC-88 but it has higher quality sound and sound a bit different than my Yamaha TG100 (Which is GM and Extended General midi compliant).
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Oct 17, 2014 21:01
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raifield posted:Not related to the Atari, but what is the advantage of MIDI modules like the SC-55? I have a MT-32 and the advantage of that is obvious since games were programmed specifically for it, but other MIDI modules seem like they'd be useful only for General MIDI, which doesn't seem too useful for gaming, yet Roland's MIDI modules seem to always be in high demand. Many X68000 games support the SC-55, I used to use a CM-500 which is a SC-55 and MT-32 in one unit but I sold it a while back because I needed money to move and those are pretty rare and sell for more than a SC-55 and MT-32 combined, now I'm rebuilding my MIDI setup.
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Oct 18, 2014 03:00
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Kthulhu5000 posted:Not my sale, but someone in SA-Mart is selling a VIC-20, and I figured it might be of interest to someone here: Outside of the Realms of Quest RPGs there isn't much to the Vic honestly. Now a good TI 99 setup? I'd have to find the scratch. Course my new stupid project is already sucking up my funny money: http://masterratings.blogspot.com Because I just don't have enough stupid projects nobody cares about and I inevitably lose enthusiasm for. But the SMS has some definitive computer game ports that will be reviewed. Ghostbusters is my next game to cover.
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Oct 18, 2014 09:59
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Captain Rufus posted:Outside of the Realms of Quest RPGs there isn't much to the Vic honestly. Jeff Minter launched Llamasoft on the Vic-20. Andes Attack, Gridrunner, Blitzkrieg, etc. That's neat from a historical perspective at least.
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Oct 18, 2014 19:01
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Here are some better shots of the Amiga 600 that I scored yesterday: http://imgur.com/a/T4M7m I can't see any obvious signs of capacitor leakage, which makes me happy. Also included was a CF adapter and an RGB-SCART cable. Now i gotta sort out my power supply situation. I'm also wondering what's the best way to get this across the Atlantic. I can either stick it on my checked baggage since its not that big, or lug it onto the plane as a carry on. The first situation risks some damage to the machine, in the second case I'm worried that some airport security person will look weirdly at the 20 year old piece of electronics that I can't power on. What do you guys think?
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Oct 18, 2014 22:09
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shodanjr_gr posted:Here are some better shots of the Amiga 600 that I scored yesterday: http://imgur.com/a/T4M7m Capacitor on the top row in the middle has a funky looking solder pad. The two capacitors behind the keyboard connector probably are leaking too. It doesn't necessarily need to be easily visible if a capacitor is leaking, it depends on the stage of the leakage. The point where it has left soldering joints green is basically already pretty advanced. So that I don't sound like a broken record repeating what I always write without reasoning, I am going to give a bit of an explanation what most of the capacitors in this case even do. What they are involved in is filtering of the main voltage for most components. (+5V here) I'm going to try my hand at an non-technical example. Imagine the capacitors as water towers and the big custom ICs as cities. The cities don't need their water to flow at a set rate, but it actually varies wildly depending on how the climate (what the chip is currently doing) in the city is. Some time there's more water needed, some times there's less water needed. An absolute minimum of water is always required for the city to function. The power cord and traces leading to the various Chips are the pipelines, the power supply is the water pump at the big sea where all water comes from, and that sea is quite a bit way. (this last part gets important) Now the water requirement in the cities is not really something of a constant, but changes quite wildly. This causes two problems for the pipelines, first of all the pressure fluctuates wildly depending on what is happening in the cities (voltage drops, ripple[noise]) second of all sometimes the pipelines can't keep up with the amount of water required sometimes quite suddenly, getting them all the way from the pump to the IC is not an instant process after all. In the worst case, this can even lead to situations where the city doesn't have enough water for the season. (the chip experiences "brownouts" and is not able to fulfill it's function correctly, which leads to internal malfunction and sometimes something fun we call an "undefined state" which you can imagine will often bring the computer to a point where only a reset helps) The capacitors (which really, are sort of tiny batteries) act as reservoirs to compensate for the dips in pressure and to also make sure the required water reaches the city in a timely manner. Some people already know all this and there are also many who will point out the inaccuracies in what I just wrote, but I am sure some other people might find this interesting. Old capacitors like we have here are not that great to begin with, technology came a long way to make caps more effective in what they do. It's nice that they do that, it does not hurt such an old computer, but it is not as important, because these old chips do not have very strict or high power requirements. They were designed around the same time as these old caps after all. On the other hand, the strict requirements on something modern like a latest-gen i7 for example are mind-boggling in comparison, and they need some in comparison very advanced tech to even remain stable. What is important is that leaking, aging and sometimes failing capacitors lose their capacitance. (the amount of water they can store, to go back to our old example) while their ESR raises. (You might have heard of ESR, short explanation - no capacitor is perfect, every capacitor has an amount of electrical resistance. Because you want the capacitor to act as tiny battery, the lower this resistance is, the better it works) In some cases this increase of ESR can make the electrolytic caps heat up internally and in a vicious cycle making more electrolyte dissipate further reducing capacitance while increasing ESR. If the ripple is very high, the electrolyte will heat up enough to turn into a gas. Many of you will have seen this, that's what the vent on the big caps is for, they blow then to relieve pressure inside the cap, so that the cap at least doesn't explode in the worst case (which is a huge mess when it happens let me tell you). These old SMD caps here don't even have vents. They'll start to leak at the weakest point instead, which is around their legs. Now there's another problem specific to our old computers, the old power supplies that are used with them often have relatively high ripple current, which basically stresses the capacitor in the smoothing action they're supposed to do and make them age faster. (A lot of power supply instabilities are also in turn caused by aging caps in the power supply not doing their job of catching that ripple properly anymore, stressing the caps on the mainboard beyond of what they were meant for) I've seen quite a few exploded tantalum capacitors on various computer components, as they can't deal with ripple well. All these effects can actively damage electrical components like that rare custom IC you can only get from a weird European dude on eBay who'll want a lot of money. Happens all the time. That's why "well they haven't started leaking yet (I think..)" is really not a good indicator for capacitor health and can be very bad for hardware in the long run. You can really cause active damage to components by operating systems that way. Electrolytic capacitors especially age because of their "wet nature" so to say, it's not a question if they fail, it's more of a question of when. Does it mean you have to rip out all the capacitors from your old systems and replace them? Generally, no. I've seen lots of electrolytics from the 70s who are still doing fine. But these SMD capacitors are just known to fail and do not age as well as their usually physically larger THT counterparts, who also might have seen a lot of less stress in their lifetime depending on the operating conditions. (For example operating with a "good" power supply vs. a power supply with excess ripple on their voltage rails) The 90s SMD Amigas it's just well known that the capacitors are subject to failure and there's really no good reason not replacing them. Every "lowly" TV repair tech can do this in a few minutes. It is not an art form. Repairing soldering pads that lifted due to damage and sourcing hard to get parts that were damaged by leaking caps is. Also, modern ATX power supplies are not necessarily the solution as supply of old computers as the +5V are not really used much in modern computers anymore and are often not well stabilized by themselves by design and also some power supplies also start doing dangerous nonsense when the load isn't high enough, as is the case with such low-power computers. This is not to be seen as blanket statement, as I am sure there are new power supplies who will do the job just fine and better than the original power supplies, but it really is a mixed bag. Maintenance of the original power supply is something I don't want to advise to an amateur either, so something like a PicoPSU is a good middle way, I know of the PicoPSU that the ripple on 3.3V and 5V (most important for these oldies and even quite a few rather newer oldies) is low and DC-DC Conversion (what the PicoPSU really does) is really not some arcane magic where a lot can go wrong. Also doing projects with them isn't dangerous to your health. A long effort post about technical crap from me again I was not sure of making as I don't want to rattle anybody or make them afraid to turn their oldputer on, but for the hobbyist I think maintenance is just a thing to keep in mind and I see this sort of denial all the time.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:56
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The problem is surface mount electrolyte capacitors at the time were poo poo and faulty. Best proof/example is the massive failure of motherboards in the early 2000s - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague Before that SMT caps were not very widespread and only used in applications mostly where normal electrolyte caps wouldn't fit such as the smaller portable CD players or thin consoles. These are all subject to the same phenomena and you can trace it back to the Game Gear as it was the first major example. Why they were used in an Amiga 600 is interesting/weird though considering the space available.
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Oct 19, 2014 05:43
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flyboi posted:such as the smaller portable CD players Jesus this is why every portable CD player I ever had just quit working in a couple years. EDIT: That or planned obsolescence 
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Oct 19, 2014 11:30
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flyboi posted:The problem is surface mount electrolyte capacitors at the time were poo poo and faulty. Best proof/example is the massive failure of motherboards in the early 2000s - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague No, the capacitor plague was ways later and not really the same problem here. The theory apparently is that the soldering process these things went through was too hot, damaging the seals around the legs and limiting the lifespan. As this really is not only a Commodore problem (really, as I said in an earlier post, all SMT Computers from that time have this problem) it is probably really more of an limitation of the materials used. But that the power supplies in many cases were less than great really did not help matters. Why they were used is easy to answer though, it's simply cheaper, even back then. Also with Commodore in particular you can bet that they took the lowest possible bidder for SMD caps, meaning the things were probably a lot less than the best technology available even back then. Electrolytic SMD capacitors nowadays are fine to use in this application and a lot more reliable than capacitors back then were (just use a big brand like Panasonic, Chemi-Con and the like and make sure you buy from a proper distributor and not some guy off eBay, because then chances are the Caps are counterfeit). Of course, when you do the soldering work once it makes more sense to use "dry" capacitors, as then this problem won't resurface (even though to be fair, it might not either with modern electrolytics in a time span you're going to live in and care about). Generally the absolutely correct way to do it would be to find out which properties the original Caps had and match them as closely as possible, putting capacitors with different properties (even positive properties like lower ESR) in an existing circuit is always a gamble. In this case here, you could probably get away with much lower capacities when using ceramic caps for example, but these computers are so "primitive" and the costs we are talking about are so low that it's not really going to matter or worth figuring out. Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 14:02
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I used to work in a computer build/repair shop during high school right around the time of the late 90's/early 2000s capacitor plague. There was this awful Taiwanese mainboard maker back then called PC CHIPS or PC 100 or something different every month that we ordered the majority of our boards (if it was a customer we liked we'd maybe give them a Biostar  ) from because the store owner was intensely cheap, I swear to god half of them came bad out of the box, and the other half came back dead a few weeks later. Looking back I think that board company was some kind of Triad scam to get rid of huge amounts of bad caps.
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Oct 19, 2014 18:21
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Police Automaton posted:No, the capacitor plague was ways later and not really the same problem here. The theory apparently is that the soldering process these things went through was too hot, damaging the seals around the legs and limiting the lifespan. As this really is not only a Commodore problem (really, as I said in an earlier post, all SMT Computers from that time have this problem) it is probably really more of an limitation of the materials used. But that the power supplies in many cases were less than great really did not help matters. I appreciate the warning and understand the need to recap the machine. However I'm still glad that it's not an obvious case of "this capacitor has vomited its electrolytes and nuked everything around it". At some point, when I'm comfortable and have the right gear, I'll look into recapping all the SMD stuff but since I'm now gonna be working with a basic kit, I think i'll leave it be  .On another note, I ordered myself a soldering kit, multimeter, a pico-PSU (90W) and a power brick. First step is to get this thing running in the US. Next I'll sort out the video situation (I'm looking at various SCART to HDMI upscalers since I already got an RGB->SCART cable with audio leads, any suggestions would be welcome ). My other alternative would be a scan doubler but those seem to require that i run separate audio to the TV and also run more expensive than a discrete upscaler.
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Oct 19, 2014 19:52
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shodanjr_gr posted:I appreciate the warning and understand the need to recap the machine. However I'm still glad that it's not an obvious case of "this capacitor has vomited its electrolytes and nuked everything around it". At some point, when I'm comfortable and have the right gear, I'll look into recapping all the SMD stuff but since I'm now gonna be working with a basic kit, I think i'll leave it be All the Amiga scandoublers "double" to 50Hz on PAL Machines which wasn't a problem with CRTs, but is something lots of LCDs and assorted Hardware already can't deal with properly or even at all. Nowadays, they really aren't worth the money they cost and I'm not sure why people still trade them at these prices. I heard the SCART to HDMI upscalers from Ligawo are good. I use an XRGB-Mini which you need to make custom cables for but looks great combined with Amigas. Only downside is that this thing gets a blackout for several seconds when the Amiga switches between progressive and interlaced (as an Amiga is able to) but in reality and practical usage this is rarely a problem. There's also the Indivision ECS from german manufacturer individual computers which basically emulates an ECS Denise (the graphics chip) and gives an VGA output of 800x600@60Hz. For some reason that thing is really popular and I also had one, but I did not think it was all that great from the picture quality to the configuration to the price. I kind of understand about switching the caps but be aware that every problem you might run into will probably be a direct result of the caps being wonky, from bad audio to general system stability. Just don't consider the computer to be stable or working correctly.
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Oct 19, 2014 23:51
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Found this baby at Goodwill over the weekend:  Full screen? Full color? FULL SOUND?! AND FREE COMPUTER HEADPHONES?! :supburn: Didn't actually buy it, because I have no way to play it. If anyone here is interested, I can go back and see if it's still there and buy it for you.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:37
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I mean, probably half the people in this thread would have bought that out of an inability to pass up shrinkwrapped software from an era before the one that would normally still be available in stores.
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Oct 21, 2014 02:03
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Quarex posted:I mean, probably half the people in this thread would have bought that out of an inability to pass up shrinkwrapped software from an era before the one that would normally still be available in stores. Exactly! Also thanks to Gog I have been replaying a classic in 1080P:  HAAAY YOOOOO GUUUUYYYYYZZZ!   I don't like the look of this, no.  FUUUUUCK! FUUUUCK!! gently caress gently caress gently caress!!! It still holds up even if the textures have seen better days. A lot like Mechwarrior 4 really. Its not so much the models as it is the textures. Also the first 5 minutes are a 100 times scarier than Doom3 period. And they don't gently caress you with a lovely flashlight.  I wasn't supposed to be here today! Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 06:28
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DrBouvenstein posted:Didn't actually buy it, because I have no way to play it. You can install Windows 3.1 in DOSBox. Of course, if your problem is that you have no computer with a 3.5 inch floppy drive, things get a little hairier, but you can get a USB one for like 15 bucks online these days. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 02:02
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Shlomo Palestein posted:I'd be interested in a basic guide; I've never opened an old floppy drive, so I'm not at all familiar with the components. That's also already about a week ago, sorry Shlomo It looks like I won't get around to make a guide anymore as I'll retire from this thread. (Nothing dramatic, just noticed I'm not a good fit here) I'll leave you with a few pointers though, the 1541 is relatively easy to take apart, the dangerous part you shouldn't get into while the unit is running (the transformer) lies below the PCB. Like for everything Commodore, there are different revisions of PCBs for the 1541 but for a quick cleanup of the unit this is not going to matter much. If you live in Europe, there is some benefit to change a few wires on the transformer, as many units are configured for 220V while the mains current in Europe got standardized to 230V around '88-'89. In the case of the 1541 this means it produces about 30% more heat with 230V, which of course is bad. The used transformers in such units are relatively universal so they also have windings for 240V, which was the mains voltage in the UK. 240V is inside the tolerance of 230V so changing the wiring to the other windings is beneficial to the life expectancy of the unit and also relatively easy and safe if you solder well. Won't describe the details here but interested european goons can probably google something about this. The standard disclaimer applies - working with mains voltage is dangerous, and if done incorrectly can cause personal harm, damage to property, and death. For american goons, I *think* it doesn't matter. Not all that familiar with power-related things over there. The two big axial electrolytic capacitors on the PCB like to fail because of the high temperature of the environment. Axial capacitors are sort of out of fashion and it might be somewhat difficult to find good replacements were you live. If you do, choose 105C parts. Checking them with the appropriate tools to see if they even need to replaced doesn't hurt but if you don't have those tools, blindly replacing them doesn't hurt either. They are pushing into their 30s after all. There are values you can check with a multimeter to see if the Head still works correctly, but I will not get into that either. When the drive still reads disks, chances are this is not going to be important for you. It's about maintenance and not repair after all. Now a thing about the cleaning of the drives head: many people make the mistake to take a q-tip or something and just swab the drives head with it, pushing it up in the process. This can overextend the spring which pulls the head down and in the worst case, can make the drive not read properly anymore until that spring is replaced. I advice to impregnate some tissue or a q-tip with alcohol and place it in a way where it just slightly presses against the head from below. Then let it sit that way for maybe about a minute or two, then afterwards wipe it all dry. In this process again be VERY careful to not overextend the head backwards. This now all sounds super-complicated but becomes pretty self-evident if you have the entire mechanic in front of you. You can also take out the rubber-strap and clean it with a tissue, this won't damage anything. You'll be surprised how dirty it is. Just make sure you seat it back the same way it was before. You can also apply some oil to the slide of the head. (What that is again will become really self-evident when the drive is in front of you) Please do use good, low viscosity oil, suitable for fine mechanisms like this, like for clocks. DON'T use vegetable oil, it'll become rancid. (you'll laugh but I've seen it) There's no other place inside the drive where you need to apply oil, like whatsoever. (I have seen this a lot, drives literally slathered in oil for some reason, people probably think it's mechanic and so you need to apply oil everywhere or something, I don't get it either) DON'T remove any other screws inside the mechanic part of the drive, the only thing you'll do is deadjust the drive if you do not know what you are doing, there are no serviceable parts here. Readjusting the drive is a finicky process and involves an oscilloscope. Everything else you can just clean like you'd clean it normally. These were a few pointers, I didn't really go all that in-depth but I hope it helps. I wish everyone good luck with their old hardware!
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Oct 23, 2014 02:49
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Police Automaton posted:These were a few pointers, I didn't really go all that in-depth but I hope it helps. I wish everyone good luck with their old hardware! Thanks, man. I appreciated your earlier in-depth posts, too. If you ever get around to compiling anything huge regarding commodores/amigas/whatever, I'm sure everyone'd appreciate you stopping by to let us know.
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Oct 23, 2014 18:01
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shodanjr_gr posted:I'm also wondering what's the best way to get this (an Amiga 600) across the Atlantic (to the US). I can either stick it on my checked baggage since its not that big, or lug it onto the plane as a carry on. The first situation risks some damage to the machine, in the second case I'm worried that some airport security person will look weirdly at the 20 year old piece of electronics that I can't power on. What do you guys think? Self-quoting since I would appreciate some info to this. Never travelled internationally with old electronics so I don't know what to expect.
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Oct 24, 2014 13:25
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shodanjr_gr posted:Self-quoting since I would appreciate some info to this. Never travelled internationally with old electronics so I don't know what to expect. I assume travel guidelines are provided by the airline, but I'd probably keep it in my unchecked luggage, wrapped protectively but in such a manner as to easily remove it from packaging. They can X-ray it, and in the worst case scenario I'd think they'd just make you check it. Federally, you can travel with firearms so long as they're in a locked case (and, you know, legal). I don't think they'd have any problem with you taking an old Amiga with you from overseas as long as it didn't set off any (literal) alarms. Logan airport has these weird molecular scanner things for drugs/explosive residue that just scan over your hands quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if most major airports have at least one in reserve just in case, and they can scan your Amiga, presumably find a bunch of old nicotine and coffee stains, and pass you on through. You could also just explain this to the foreign TSA-agent equivalent and I would assume the worst case would be them taking you to a private area to go through stuff. Terrorists tend not to be like "Hey guys, I have this old equipment and wanted to be sure it's kosher." It's not illegal to buy, so I wouldn't think you'd have any issue with that. EDIT: As full disclosure, I don't know European laws, but airline travel tends to be pretty standardized in Western countries. If you end up getting flogged in some former-soviet dungeon for trying to bring an Amiga to the land of capitalist pig-dogs, I apologize. George RR Fartin fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 14:57
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The A600 is tiny, just treat it like a laptop. Don't leave it in your bags and put it directly in a bin and you won't have any problems.
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Oct 25, 2014 03:10
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d0s posted:The A600 is tiny, just treat it like a laptop. Don't leave it in your bags and put it directly in a bin and you won't have any problems. Yup made it over the Atlantic in one piece as part of my carry on. Airport security folks didn't flinch and I had one random lady comment on not having seen a commodore computer in 20 years. I think I'll start posting build pics as I go about getting this up and running (hopefully without ruining it in the process).
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Oct 27, 2014 06:16
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Shlomo Palestein posted:Thanks, man. I appreciated your earlier in-depth posts, too. If you ever get around to compiling anything huge regarding commodores/amigas/whatever, I'm sure everyone'd appreciate you stopping by to let us know. I thought a bit about it and actually decided to split my hardware-sperging off into a different thread, it can be found here. There I don't need to feel guilty for page long musings about printer protocols or whatever.
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Oct 27, 2014 07:59
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Police Automaton posted:I thought a bit about it and actually decided to split my hardware-sperging off into a different thread, it can be found here. There I don't need to feel guilty for page long musings about printer protocols or whatever. You ought to link to this thread for gaming and I will link back to it when people need to get their hardcore fix on. Edit: do any of you like DOS shareware games? Well how about getting most of an entire publisher's output? http://youtu.be/rxCDCTZ-RJI Then watch that handy video. Sadly I own about a third of the games on the list and the other 2/3rds are not really worth 20 (soon to be 40) dollars for a digital only download. Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 08:14
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Captain Rufus posted:You ought to link to this thread for gaming and I will link back to it when people need to get their hardcore fix on. It's in there, although somewhat hidden, tomorrow I'll see if i can collect all the retro game threads that float around and make a list or something. I sort of am not a friend of these huge introductory threads, probably because I personally never read them. Mine already feels too long.
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Oct 27, 2014 08:50
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Got to work a bit on my A600 today. Desoldered the power connect and attached wires harvested from an old PSU. Pro-tip. Don't expect a $15 soldering iron from Amazon China to properly melt solder attached to a massive through-hole component. Ended up lifting a pad on the top in the process while tinning everything but eventually:  .I didn't have the male side of an ATX connector in order to properly set up my picoPSU so I had to improvise:  Eventually the pico PSU will be embedded inside the A600 case. After hooking up everything and checking for shorts with my super awesome $15 chinese multimeter I plugged in the power adapter to the picoPSU:  And the power led came up green without smoke or fire! Then I had to hook it up to something in order to check if there's video:  That's a SEIKI crappy 4K TV which can (fortunately) handle PAL signal on the composite input (although it comes up in black and white, not sure why). Eventually I plan on grabbing (and perhaps embedding into the machine) a SCART->HDMI upscaler. Of course I left all the game disks and my pad at home. I'm not very happy with the (de)soldering job but it was the best I could do with the lovely iron that I had (also I hadn't touched a soldering iron since I was 10). Tomorrow I'll drop by radioshack and look for a better one. Any ideas on how to attach the picoPSU to the Amiga's case internally?
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Oct 28, 2014 05:47
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The composite picture is in black and white because your TV is expecting an NTSC composite signal. The colour burst is at a different frequency. I see the same thing on one of my pal TVs when I use an NTSC nes If you can use it I would get a Scart cable. The rgb output from Amigas looks really good
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Oct 28, 2014 11:08
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http://masterratings.blogspot.com/2014/10/game-two-ghostbusters-1987.html Well I have now gotten my second Master System review up for my grand blogging project of collecting and reviewing every US Master System title on a biweekly schedule. And what better way to celebrate Halloween than by shooting ghosts with unlicensed nuclear accelerators? I am sharing it in this thread alongside the normal console retro thread because the original C64 Ghostbusters game was a goddamned CLASSIC. And this version is that game on Uppers.
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Oct 30, 2014 09:14
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shodanjr_gr posted:Got to work a bit on my A600 today. If I had an A600 I'd find a cute but extremely high quality monitor for it like this guy 
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Oct 31, 2014 21:15
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d0s posted:If I had an A600 I'd find a cute but extremely high quality monitor for it like this guy I'd contend that a 13" or 14" PVM would also be appropriate, though. Most accept RGB (through appropriately vintage and weird interfaces), most handle both PAL and NTSC signals, and considering the Amiga's heritage in video production and broadcasting, a PVM is most certainly a more natural display companion for one than some scrubby IBM-compatible VGA monitor  .
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Oct 31, 2014 22:44
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Ahhhh... Command & Conquer The Way God Intended: :edit: I wonder if DOSbox is stylus-friendly. That has to be the equivalent of cheating in Life & Death. Lord Dudeguy fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Nov 2, 2014 |
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Nov 2, 2014 17:21
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I am still doing retro computing stuff in between other things. In fact I lost a little sleep and got an old friend up and running mostly perfect and awesomely:  Maybe this will give me a little less desire to do something silly like get the PS1 double analog flight stick thingie which is compatible with a fuckload of PC ports or PC inspired games that actually plays them better than anything at the time and with a dongle probably pretty kickass now. (Stuff like Vigilante 8 which is Interstate 76 sequel only light, Mechwarrior 2 Arcade edition which looks decent, Descent 1-2, Wing Commander 3 and 4, the Colony Wars series.) Only problem is the game doesn't recognize my 6 base buttons on my Logitech stick. The hat, 6 stick buttons, throttle, the stick turny bit for like airplane yaw or something fine. If I get time this week I might either have a photo essay on that wacky poo poo Acid sent me months ago (Was taking up space in my kitchen), or something. I probably should get back to that big Windows 98 thing I was doing. I still have the photos and they irritate me not being used. That or maybe something with Ogre since I am playing the tabletop game and running a convention game this weekend of it. http://wargamedork.blogspot.com/2014/11/kickstarter-ogre-battle-report.html Maybe I should run Altirra or my real A800 and play last night's game again as the defenders and see if they merely just had the worst rolls ever or something like that. And it would be fun to see if a 6502 1979 microcomputer with 48K of RAM running at 1.7ish Mhz can kick my rear end. (It usually does actually.)
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Nov 10, 2014 12:19
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Lord Dudeguy posted:I wonder if DOSbox is stylus-friendly. That has to be the equivalent of cheating in Life & Death.
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Nov 10, 2014 13:32
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I think Life & Death was one of two games to make me cry as a child. No matter how hard I tried or what I did, I would kill every patient I had in surgery almost immediately after beginning surgery. I think the last straw came when I started a new career and had like four or five patients in a row who I could cure without surgery, and I thought surely my luck would hold forever. Then of course the malpractice came with the next patient requiring surgery and I just sat there crying and probably never played again. The other was Action Biker. I had played it off and on for weeks and never really got anywhere, then one day in a flurry of not-sucking I slowly found myself actually succeeding (you had to drive your hard-to-control motorcycle around a map and pick up items...100 items) and with each new success came more excitement. What would happen when I got all 100?!? I bet I would win instantly!!! Well, I get the 100th item, and the game says "hurry to the start of the race!" and I am like "race?" but know they must be talking about getting to the speed track. I head for the speed track, go the wrong way a couple times, and am just about to pull onto it when the game screen pops up YOU WERE LATE TO THE RACE! GAME OVER and the next thing I remember besides screaming and crying was asking my Mom to hide the game from me forever. A reasonable plan
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Nov 10, 2014 14:40
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I had that same...reaction...when playing Kickman on the c64, circa 1987.
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Nov 14, 2014 00:07
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I haven't had much retro computing heat to post about lately but now I do. Between a good deal on Ebay with a bonus suprise and selling off some N64 games I won't ever want to play again I got quite a bit of computer (and other but not applicable to thread) retro heat without spending any of my own money! A gob of PC game goodness, most complete! The Quake Shareware was stuck in the Quake 4 DVD case and I couldn't be happier! Now I have another goodie for my Id collection. Netmech is another one that is mostly just for the collection. (I will give Q4 a spin eventually.) Duke 3D I got because IIRC it has Duke 1-2 on it, something my Atomic Edition doesn't. Zork Anthology I mostly got for Beyond Zork as its got RPG elements. And Planetfall as a bonus? I'm game! Longbow 2 is of course a spiritual sequel to Gunship which was the first computer game I got with my C64 with real money.  I had Sentinel Worlds back on my C64 but never made it far. The game was cheap on ebay, and included the cluebook which is a NICE SCORE. I love maps! I love original cluebooks! I love that era of EA cluebook where it basically told you the solution to the game in the form of a story! So what sort of retro computer heat have the rest of you been up to, besides Quarex's childhood gaming PSTD?
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Nov 18, 2014 05:38
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