Messages

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: The correct method to connect a SuperGrafx to the Super CD-ROM2?]

Or there's an adapter plug that will convert the existing cable to fit in the SuperGrafx.

That adapter was discussed here not too long ago...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19255.0

Yes, it works great. Been meaning to post pic in the other thread... might do one day. It was a great suggestion.

[Off-Topic / Re: That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!]

(1) Public education/enlightenment about the issue (getting the word out there, using various tactics: PSAs, outreach to "opinion-shapers" (I hate this term, but, whatever...folks with clout on YouTube)

(2) Building relationships with repromakers (I can't help but feel that this is the weak link...how do I even trust these folks? What would it take, outside of personally befriending them on a local level and having access to financial records?)

(3) Generating our own data/projections (determining actual costs for repros—including economies of scale—versus profit margins).

(4) Some folks would not want certain projects to EVER be handled by a bootlegger/repromaker...so, we would have to help educate folks on good, old-fashioned D.I.Y. (Guides on how to easily create your own reproductions).

• A decent domain name (as in search friendly) serving a max 500 words explanation on repros should do the trick as a starter and handy URL to spread to have a crisp and simple explanation about the practice.
• That's the most difficult part, to find existing or repros makers to willing to work on or accept some code of conduct. As for the trust, it's something that has to be assumed without doubt, otherwise all the energy will be spent on tracking, controlling, certifying, enforcing, punishing, etc. In no time it will become yet another disciplinary society in a box.
• You can do that for your own repros making, but it's not something we can expect others to do and it would be a bit totalitarian to impose such a level of transparency.
• Great point, such code of conduct should respect the wishes of the groups that made the hack/translation. Quite similar to what batoto tries to be for scanlations. As for the guide it would be great to have a wiki and populate it with several howtos, but a bunch of links to existing guides could be a good start too.

[Off-Topic / Re: That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!]

But, to play Devil's Advocate:

I would counter that contracts are just as ineffectual at our level (that is, the level of an average person, who has no time/resources/expertise to enforce a license, contract, or handshake).

Everything you said (which I agree with) is applicable to all licenses/contracts:
1. The selfish/powerful will exploit opportunities (in this case, IP)
2. If it comes to litigation, the IP holder can't match resources (legal or otherwise)
3. Any penalties, if there are any, are a pittance
4. The offender knows that they will most likely gain a net positive, even in a worst-case scenario.

So, what I am asking is: is the real issue "license vs contract" or "powerful vs. weak"?

Sure, I know they all interact with each other and are not mutually exclusive. What I am sincerely wondering, though, is if the barrier to entry (into the legal system) is simply too high for common folks.

Of course, you are completely right. IP is something out of the reach of the people. These days these are essentially the tools of corporations, which are the only entities able to access and navigate this field at their advantage. This is also the reason why there was 10 years ago, so much hope put in the concept of free culture (or any new social movements related to cultural environmentalism) as it gave the impression of giving control back into the hand of the people. To some extent this is still perceived strongly in South America and Southern Europe where the idea of commons is still tightly linked to social empowerment.

But...

Correct me if I am wrong, but no license/contract is capable of actually addressing (b) below:

A) The political/philosophical crafting of a fair IP system that can protect all entities, weak and powerful
B) Creating something that is enforceable by the "weak" / Acknowledging realities   (how power/resources win out over "justice")

These are unsolvable issues, although there has been some attempts to make, in the case of licensing, a stronger link with some ideological intention. For instance there exists a so-called Peer Production License (PPL), which is a fork of the CC BY-NC-SA (if I remember correctly) that prevents commercial exploitation of the licensed work by corporations, unless it's a worker owned corporation or cooperative. Unfortunately these forms of IP hacks are so niche that they never take off.

As for your point B, and the notions of enforcement and access, most of the time, these institutions are only the reflection, implementations, and manifestation of a dominant ideology or a dominant set of neighbouring ideologies. So all these things only exist to reinforce whoever/whatever has access to power.

But to come back to my initial comment on Nina Paley, I find it particularly inspiring because it bypasses the regular mechanism of terms-permissions-enforcement-punishment, it does not rely on intellectual property laws for that, and it does not try to implement such a disciplinary system in the medium used (like DRM or any other copy protection system). Instead it reaches out to the public and offers in a transparent way, a choice that they can make by informing on how the project has been put, that it costs time and money and that there are some ways to consume the final product in which a bit of financial compensation will flow back to the project initiator.

I am so glad it worked for her. As I said in my earlier post, her case study intrigues me.

I give her (and anyone who helped her) full credit for a creative solution..I am sure it required a lot of work, skill, negotiation, perseverance.

Yes, and that's sadly enough the reason why she won't do it again for her next big project. The time and energy it took was way too much, and somehow demonstrating the reason why there are such things as collecting societies (the organisations which deals with artists' work exploitation, licensing and royalties). However, it showed that collecting societies do not have to be opaque and revolve around a celebrity system. Maybe something like what she did could scale up given some visible and already established artists would be up for operating differently, which might not happen given the fact that it would mean giving up on a well known scheme for easy incomes.

Some random thoughts...

NOVELTY WILL WEAR OFF?
How much of her success is due to the novelty of the situation? Will others replicate her success? I suspect that the challenge is to CONTINUALLY devise unique solutions to unique problems

I don't think it will wear off, actually it is already in place in the form of consumer capitalism and the way the market is manipulated by the use of all sorts labels and classification of goods based on morales and ethics. For instance Fair-Trade, Organic, Green, etc. In a way her approach is similar in the sense that she sorted establishments based on a moral system (they gave me some money so they're nice) and let the customers decide whether they wanted to reward the nice people or be cheap. The difference is that her system was simple, transparent and singular, so the manipulation was limited (in my opinion).

...which leads to...

EXISTING AUDIENCE WILLING TO PAY?
How much of her success is due to the unique nature of the medium (screening an art film) where a niche audience exists who are willing to pay (art house culture)? Do we have an equivalent in software? Video games?

That I don't know. I guess for the translation/repros issue, the best way to figure out if there is an audience for a more ethical approach would simply to try setting up such a list and agreement with a handful repro makers. Anyone up for it?

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Bubble Bobble]

It's super nice.

[Off-Topic / Re: That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!]

TANGENT:
Well, it wouldn't solve our fan translation issue, but for most folks who create stuff...

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

...Allows folks to build and transform your stuff, but not for commercial profit, so, slimy websites with ads that just scrape content from others are technically/ethically wrong.

NC type licenses have a very bad reputation within free culture circles. Usually it can be summed up like:

• False sense of security, this is a license, not a contract, so it is much more difficult to track and enforce
• It is very difficult to define what is a commercial activity, there will be loopholes to be exploited for those willing to abuse it and there will be severe limitations put on the audience supposed to benefit from it when the work is used as part of an economic activity not directly related to the exploitation of the work but relying on it, making such audience avoiding using the work by precaution
• Going to court costs a lot of money and a lot of energy, it is not worth the trouble in most cases to test the license validity and its potential abuse on your own. In the rare cases where it was tested in the past against big corporations which were abusing NC licensed works from individuals, the outcome was quit disappointing, as even if successful the compensations from suing were symbolical and the process to get it long and tedious.

As I said in the Zeroigar thread ... I don't have a lot of faith in that Creative Commons license.

It looks like it was written by lawyers, for-the-benefit-of lawyers.

I've read enough contracts and licenses, and paid for enough "professsional" advice (which usually totally missed the really significant loopholes), to be very wary of a license that claims to protect the author from someone else's "intent" to make a profit.

CC has been founded by Lawrence Lessig, an open content activist, law scholar and constitutionalist. So yes, CC licenses are biased in the way that they try to respond to the problem of intellectual property in the network society from the perspective of the law. This is different from GPL or BSD licenses that, even though are also legal documents, are rooted in the practice of software development, and more particularly the idea of software freedom and so called hacker ethics to refer to collaborative practices within commercial and academic computational culture in the 60s and 70s.

But to come back to my initial comment on Nina Paley, I find it particularly inspiring because it bypasses the regular mechanism of terms-permissions-enforcement-punishment, it does not rely on intellectual property laws for that, and it does not try to implement such a disciplinary system in the medium used (like DRM or any other copy protection system). Instead it reaches out to the public and offers in a transparent way, a choice that they can make by informing on how the project has been put, that it costs time and money and that there are some ways to consume the final product in which a bit of financial compensation will flow back to the project initiator.

[Off-Topic / Re: That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!]

Now ... just for the sake of argument. Let's consider the possibility that I take a look at helping out on one (or maybe two) PCE fan translations that people would love to see get finished.

I don't have any desire to see Tobias just turn everyone else's hard work into pretty, but expensive, "collectors" sets.

Is there anything that can seriously be done to avoid that?

Not directly related but maybe helpful to the discussion:

Within free culture, that is to say the community of people who distribute their work under a free culture license (GPL for software, CC-BY-SA for media, etc, to simplify a bit), the question of commercial exploitation is even more problematic because there is unlike with fan translations, no grey zone at all. You use a license that provide unilateral permissions to anyone to do whatever they want with your work, as long as they follow the terms of the license. It means that the question of how to avoid being ripped off comes up fairly often. For instance if I release a music under CC-BY-SA and make it a free or paying download, whoever has it can resell it and not give me anything, as long as what is being sold still under the CC-BY-SA. Shit will happen and shit happens fairly often with such licensing. Recently Flickr started to sell printed version of the photos made by the users of the service: those who had chosen for a normal copyright protection when uploading would receive a fee (traditional commercial licensing of their intellectual property) but those who had chosen a free culture license like the CC-BY-SA when they uploaded their photo would not receive anything at all. Long story short, even though Flickr did not do anything illegal, it felt like a massive abuse given the pool of free culture licensed photos they have collected for years and could use to make an extra profit, a couple of days later, they stopped doing that because they felt public pressure.

However, similar situations happen all the time with such licensing, and with little consequences as it is done in a much smaller scale. Indeed, the last thing that Yahoo wants is to be perceived as some evil corporations ripping off the work of their users, but that's not the case when the abuse is done by smaller groups or commercial entities. So generally the ethos of free culture is to accept that no matter what you do and no matter how you protect yourself, you will get ripped off by someone, at some point. It is not a question if it can happen, but more when it will happen, and the reason why free culture licensing is chosen, so that for all the others with no unethical intentions, nothing will get in the way of both accessing, using and modifying the shared work.

Of course, this does not solve the problem of tracking ethics across the pool of all the people that might do something with your work. This is why an interesting experiment was done by Nina Paley, who when she released her free culture licensed animation "Sita sings the blues", and seeing the growing success of it, knew that even though she would get a lot of screenings in indie cinemas and art houses, she would not get anything at all in return, and as everyone knows here, donations/patron systems are rarely helping unless you are already a celebrity. So she decided to develop a program in which places who would give her a bit of money for showing her work would be allowed to use some sort of certification, or sponsoring label, like gold, silver and bronze. ON her website she would list only the screening where sponsoring existed, and via her project, the audience would be able to know, in a more transparent way if the ticket they would buy or had bought were only cashed by the venue or if some bit were sent in the direction of the animator.

All that to say, even if fan translations are in a grey area of intellectual property, there is some common struggle to be found here I think. Maybe a similar experiment could be done here.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Some new PC-Engine chiptunes]

A sound driver is a piece of software on the target game system that reads notes (stored in some format) and plays them as music or sound effects, usually as part of a video game.  Usually the music notes were converted from a tracker / editor / MIDI sequencer on a PC because raw hex (which the sound driver reads) is not very "musician-readable".   

A lot of early game / home computer musicians were also programmers, so they wrote their own tracker/editor software and their own sound drivers too.  A lot of games also had NO music editor... just hex manually punched in on a keyboard (imagine MML but with even less visual structure.)  Hex entering music... that's hardcore, but oh so stupid.

Thanks!

Yes, the note/duration equates do actually assemble directly down to hexadecimal values and sometimes even sound-chip frequency settings ... but the musician didn't have to type in "262" for a middle-C, they'd type in "C3", and the assembler would fix it up.

Are there examples of very primitive, "hello, world." equivalent of simple sound drivers for the PCE or FC/NES or MD that I could look at? (ideally just very basic pitch/envelope control for one of the waveform generators, a notation system and a sequencer).

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Where can I keep a wish/want list online to link people?]

I use a wiki, shared with a few other friends.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Some new PC-Engine chiptunes]

If people do not mind me asking in this thread. Could someone clarify for me the term "sound driver" or "audio driver" that I've seen in some old game dev interviews or credits. Sometimes it seemed the same person was behind both such driver and the music made, sometimes it was different persons.

What does that mean in the context of the PCE or the Famicom (and possibly some other 8/16 bit consoles with dedicated soundchip)? Is it the sound engine written on top of the soundchip registers to offer to the composer an easier way to make music (ie. ready made instruments, envelopes, effects)?

Thanks!

[General Gaming / Re: Nes to Famicom adapters?]

Put it back on Ebay, label it version two and sell it twice the price

[General Gaming / Re: Nes to Famicom adapters?]

No. Slight wobble does not seem to affect it. Maybe if you jerked really hard it might. But I have no plans to do something like that. I sit pretty close to the system so that is a non-issue.

Thanks for the review

I'll cowardly wait to see if someone gets the one from Ali and reports back. Otherwise I might get one. I looked into doing one myself with the instructions above, but even with an existing unused FC game to cannibalise, getting a spare 72 pin connector is around 13-14$, not really worth time/money/effort.

[General Gaming / Re: Nes to Famicom adapters?]

The adapter I ended up getting arrived today. It works fine. The cart slot pins on it grip nice and are thick. The only thing I noticed is you have to slide it to the left or right of the Nes cart once it is inserted into the adapter to make sure the pins make a perfect connection with the Nes games contacts.

Sounds good. The game does not crash when you touch the cart or move the console?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Best Shoot Em Ups on Turbografx & PC Engine]

HANA TAAKA DAKA!?
http://www.videogameden.com/hucard.htm?sln

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: CD Stupid Card 4.0]

Percy!

[General Gaming / Re: Nes to Famicom adapters?]

And well, to be honest, if you look close at the pics, they sacked a cart and used its shell to make that one on Ali. Look close and you can see its not cut even or anything. Basically just someone selling hand made ones.

Yeah I'm curious as to how they are. It looks like they filled in the inside with hot glue, which I am guess is to prevent wobble.

Oh! Well spotted, I missed such details, now that you just mention it, it does indeed look like a DIY job, as the name implies not so subtly. In fact this is pretty much something that could have been made following such an HOWTO: http://nesdev.com/NES_ADAPTER.txt

[General Gaming / Re: Nes to Famicom adapters?]

After spending some time scouring Aliexpress I found this:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-NES-card-turn-FC-host-using-72-feet-turn-60-feet-converter-in-high/1069576571.html

Maybe would work?  I dunno, but it's only $15 shipped from China!

And cheaper than the auction listed above which ended up at $15.51 + $6 shipping from HK.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Well, messy mod on something I got off eBay]

At least there were no extra layers of hot glue to secure the mod/recap

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: Super CDROM 2 to SuperGrafx jumper power cord]

Oh! That's a nice trick!

I have a SGX and SCDROM^2 and I had on my TODO to cut the default cable to extend it. The adapter trick is more elegant and less destructive... So this particular one works perfectly fine? (juts confirming before ordering one)

Yeah. It's the right one.

Thanks!

[General Gaming / Re: Aspect Ratio in Games]

It's the same habit as with people watching 4:3 videos and stretch the image to the maximum of the their 16:9/16:10 TV sets.

I always wondered why it does not seem to bother those doing that. It's like if the potentiality of the technology, the image generated, is so mesmerising that any deterioration of what is being actually displayed does not matter anymore.

It also reminds me, the infamous "black bars" discussions, back in the days of 4:3 tech, where some people would be upset because a rented or broadcast film would be left in its original cinematic ratio, and not cropped to maximise the surface of home TVs.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: Super CDROM 2 to SuperGrafx jumper power cord]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-Power-Jack-5-5x2-1mm-Female-to-6-3x3-0mm-Male-Plug-Adapter-for-Notebook-/321704632064

I think this should work.  I have a few and have been meaning to make sure everything still lines up correctly.  If I remember, I will try to test it tomorrow.

Oh! That's a nice trick!

I have a SGX and SCDROM^2 and I had on my TODO to cut the default cable to extend it. The adapter trick is more elegant and less destructive... So this particular one works perfectly fine? (juts confirming before ordering one)

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

Hi everyone,

I just posted to Joe the 7 TED, 3 TED+USB and 1 EDGG that were sent to me.

Tracked, insured, everything.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

Hello NightWolve, SephirothTNH, cjameslv, and of course all of you stuck in this conundrum,

You are completely right. US and EU orders should not be mixed. This is precisely the reason why jtucci31 inquired about the possibility to split the orders. If this would not have been approved by the seller, Pokun and I agreed with jtucci31 that we were out of the deal.

Technically, and logistically speaking, these were in fact 3 orders that had to be honoured.

How we ended up in this mess, and how we will get out of it, is being actively discussed.

[Off-Topic / Re: That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!]

Looking forward to the unboxing videos.

Where is the game ?

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

I know everyone is like aww fuck, but im sure you can get it resolved! So just keep us up to date.

Yes, it will definitively get resolved, no doubt about that. It's a bit quiet here but PMs are being exchanged to find a solution.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

That's funny, I didn't have 17 ED's show up at my door.  Just one.

Huh? You got one delivered to you?

Ah I guess they screwed up so it's up to them to fix it.

Yes, ideally I'd like them to arrange for some pick-up by a shipping company of their choice.

I'm way from home for a while, I wonder if the rest of the Everdrives are waiting in my postbox...

Yeah I thought about that, given that my parcel only contains an arbitrary sub-quantity of all the TED/ED ordered.

Let's wait and see what jtucci31 managed to figure out.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

Thanks for looking into that!

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

Questions before deciding on best strategy to solve this mess:

- Do you know where is the rest?
- Is the GB cart a mistake?
- Were you given any tracking info for the parcels?

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! ORDERED!]

Hi everyone,

TL;DR: I'm one of the group buy participant, not the organiser, and I just received a bunch of everdrive today.

I have some good and bad news.

Good news: My TED has arrived today.

Bad news: pic related.

kuri.mu/~aymeric/img/uh-oh.jpg

• 4 USB TED
• 7 regular TED
• 1 unknown (looks like a GB cart)

I have no idea why I am receiving what seems to be a small part of the group order. There are no invoices or letters, nothing.

jtucci31?

[Off-Topic / Re: The quest to save today's gaming history from being lost forever]

This is interesting. The discussion on the preservation of so-call media art, and that has now moved to digital/generative/software/net art, is very close to what this article is trying to express. These issues have started to be discussed more intensively in the 80s when cultural institutions realised that video art performances and installations were going to be extremely hard to preserve.

The discussion took a new turn in the 90s with the rise of computer networks and computational art, which at first gave the impression that things will be easier. Of course it was not the case, as while the means to preserve and archive cultural expressions developed, the new works themselves developed on an increasingly fast changing tech landscape. Fast forwarding today the question of digital preservation has became a field of study on its own and is the topic of academic curriculum, publications, and conferences. New terms are being coined all the time to constantly try to articulate these problems, but essentially the debate tends to stagnate around the following points, that will be all too familiar for communities into 8/16 bit gaming:

• Conservation: only works for some time, as some physical components needed will eventually be not produced anymore, or will not have any equivalent and very hard to maintain. Upgrading such missing parts with the next close technological things poses concerns regarding the legitimacy of a preservation process that end up modifying the artefact it is supposed to preserve in its entirety.
• Emulation: a popular method but that shows its limits specially when the emulation is not able to reproduce specific hardware particularities that the preserve work rely upon to function correctly. It also poses the question of how much needs to be emulated, for instance the behaviour and characteristics of the physical input and output devices as well as displays.
• Simulation: sometimes the only thing left when the other two options are not possible, therefore providing a crude simplification and attempt to communicate the core idea of the work via an entirely new systems that shares no part with its original.
• Documentation: so that the thing preserved is understood both technically and culturally, in order to provide to future audience an idea about its purpose and value in relation to its past and current context.

But in the end, culture is more than what can be captured by machines, so...

The popular conception of things like WWII or pre-Columbian America is about as accurate as a Game Boy port of Ms Pacman.

This.

[NEC Console Resource / Re: Greetings from France!]

Yeah, that's right!!! It's been taken from a "french" comedy (well, it was a rebuild of old US movies with Redford, Hoffman, Eastwood, Wayne...) called "La classe américaine", and the main guy was living in "tegzas"!

George Abitbol!

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: Re-Re-Raffle: Winner Chosen]

Congrats to the winners! Thanks for organising this Raffle-Type!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Question about auctions]

Another thing to note is with the rise of proxies and international bidders, prices are skyrocketing.  10 years ago, yahoo was a gold mine as it was a lot harder for internationals (which generally bid way higher then locals) to get in.   These days prices aren't much better then ebay, often more expensive depending on where you live in the world.  The real reason to use yahoo these days is for finding extremely rare items that a person wants at any cost.  Not recommended for bargain hunters on a budget.

This.

I got a few things around 2000 via a friend who lived in Japan back then, you could get many things for ridiculously low prices and EU was not as protectionist as it is now, so they were very slack in terms of controlling "gift" imports.

Last year I tried one of these so-called commercial proxies and that is a small sump-up of my experience:
http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/what-is-the-best-value-yahoo-auctions-japan-redirection-service.45785/page-8#post-766740

Bottom line:

• great choice and quality (if you're lucky and careful as Japanese know these auctions are stuffed with foreigners who will have no way to complain due to language and proxy barrier),
• same price or worse once all the fees are taken into account (all these proxy systems use deceptive transparent rules, that is to say that everything is explained but purposefully complicated and obfuscated to make it less obvious what are all the extra charges)

And with further distance on the whole experiment, I can say today that I will probably not use such a service again. Better save the proxy fees for a trip to Japan ;)

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! PM's are out!]

Sent!

Sorry everyone for delays, jtucci31 was helping Pokun and I avoiding double taxing of the TED upon EU re-entrance. All sorted now.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! (Not accepting anymore people. Sorry!)]

USB Orders
elmer x3
BigusSchmuck
Pokun
ultrageranium
Warbucks

International Orders
Pokun (Ukraine)

Let me know if all of this is correct and/or satisfactory enough. PM's will go out soon enough once I get confirmation from krikzz and confirmation from the people listed.

Hi jtucci31,

I'm an international order too! (Netherlands)

USB order incl. shipping to EU without discount would normally be $99, so anything cut from that would be very much welcome.

Now I'm wondering something though. If the card is shipped back to the EU from the US, there is a risk for it being taxed upon re-entrance. I do not know for Ukraine but the Netherlands is quite awful at dealing with person to person gift imports (even if marked under the €45 value threshold, set by European laws). They often apply the 20% VAT + €13 admin fee on top, regardless (I have one current 30€ gift taxed sent from Japan with SAL taxed like this, currently in appeal).

Do you think it would be too much asking krikzz to ship the EU orders separately to avoid customs nightmare? Maybe that's an acceptable request if it's just Pokun and I, given the total quantity ordered is quite large? What do you think?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: New Turbo Stick]

if you can find one, i'm a fan of the Micomsoft XE-1 Pro.  only PCE stick i really like

I tried to find one for months and gave up. I eventually got a PS2 Namco arcade stick that I use on the PCE with a small adapter. Really nice for STG. Visual novels, RPG, Action/Adventure/RPG etc are nicer with a pad though.

Thanks, I think I still secretly want one. The dangerous issue with it though is that of course Micomsoft was clever enough to port their XE-1 for all the FC, the MD, the SFC, etc. So if it's really the most amazing stick it is supposed to be, there is a potential risk for those who play on more than on platform to end up in yet another collectard trap. At least with the PS2 stick and a couple of adapters the risk is more manageable...

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! (Not accepting anymore people. Sorry!)]

Oh crap.
I missed the first round and now this one too.

aaaaa........

Ah fuck it. I'll add you both.

Oh wow! That's super kind! Thanks!

I believe I have everyone on the list and the quantities/usb option listed as well. If I messed up, let me know now!

Small addition then: I'm EU based and I'd like the USB option as well.

Thanks again!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: New Turbo Stick]

if you can find one, i'm a fan of the Micomsoft XE-1 Pro.  only PCE stick i really like

I tried to find one for months and gave up. I eventually got a PS2 Namco arcade stick that I use on the PCE with a small adapter. Really nice for STG. Visual novels, RPG, Action/Adventure/RPG etc are nicer with a pad though.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: TED Group Buy Round 2! (Not accepting anymore people. Sorry!)]

Oh crap.
I missed the first round and now this one too.

aaaaa........

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: FS: My beloved set of 400 new factory sealed pce games]

Whenever I see sales/auctions for sealed stuff, I always wonder how many are in fact empty...

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: Re-Re-Raffle: R-Type I & II, R-Type DX, R-Type Final]

Kindly requesting to enter if post count considered OK!

Otherwise, best of luck to the other participants!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: RetroFreak: New competition for Retron 5 with PCE/TG16 support]

I have no sympathy for the development of such products. First they treat emu systems as a free disposable software pool to bootstrap their business (see Retron 5 abuse of difference software licenses). To some extent I would even say they also exploit the translation communities (ips support promoted by Retron 5) yet without any mechanism to link back to such communities or the patch author(s). Second they flood the gaming market with tricked players who are buying games thinking they're playing the real deal, whereas in fact, they are merely playing a ROM dump on an emu, not even a cheap SoC clone. It is a manipulative ersatz, not so different from the artificial shutter sound added to digital cameras to reinforce the illusion that this is still a working mechanical device.

[Off-Topic / Re: The Anime Thread: Finding Good Anime]

For those into slow paced, mysterious, at times eerie (not horror though) short folk-tales like stories set in an imaginary medieval Japan, I really recommend Mushishi. Both the 2005 and 2014 seasons are very good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushishi#Anime

[Fighting Street / Re: Piracy]

The problem with such discussions is that the word piracy is being used for an umbrella terms for all sorts of practices and motives that are very diverse and often unrelated. To name a few: for-profit counterfeiting, personal backups, digital preservation and conservation of software, abandonware and unclaimed IP, translation projects, ability to flash/emu unaffordable/hacked/unreleased titles, etc.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo Everdrive Help]

I am considering to buy one of these everdrives for my Duo. It just seems like a really great idea to have all the games on one cartridge.

Is this the first instance that people are aware of getting a bad everdrive card? Do these cards fail easily?

I am mostly just curious before I decide to buy one or not.

I've got 3 ED: PCE, FC and MD.

The FC one was behaving funny, lots of crashes. I posted my problem in the relevant ED forum after reading all the posts that might have been related, and trying solutions to common problems. KRIKzz suggested I send him the cart so he could check for defect. I did that, and the cart indeed had a problem. he sent me new one, works great like the other ED carts.

Ref: http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1326.msg13254

I don't know how often this happens but I was very pleased with the way my problem was handled and fixed.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Anearth Fantasy Stories - Translation Project Thread]

+1 for Pilates Island

[General Gaming / Re: NESHD - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!]

So this mod bypasses entirely the APU?

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: HuSound]

Great documentation too, Thanks!

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: 240p Test Suite for PC Engine release (Huc/SCD/CD)]

This is fantastic news.

The 240p Test Suite is an essential piece of free software to fine tune upscalers like the XRGB Mini.

Many many thanks for the time invested in this project!

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Modless RGB and A/V Upgrade for TurboGrafx-16 and PC-Engine]

If only these had come sooner. I just the other day did an RGB mod

Which amp are you using? Is it the one from thgill?

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Modless RGB and A/V Upgrade for TurboGrafx-16 and PC-Engine]

nice!