Only Brits think he has a bad American accent. However, it was months before this particular American realized that not only was he British, he was the same actor who appeared in Blackadder.
I played GemstoneII in the eighties via Compuserve (for free with a CIS sysop account)
That's odd, because Gemstone II ran on the GEnie system. (I started in the last month of GSII beta.) GE's mainframes made for some fun times when they did backups and such, when the whole game would come to a halt. Except for the monsters, hitting you every ten seconds like clockwork. GSIII was a complete rewrite that either ran on a Unix machine from the start, or quickly moved to one.
The Compuserve game was (IIRC) Island of Kesmai, which was a 2-D game with a rogue-like interface. Gemstone used a Zork-style interface.
Another interesting RPG comment, this time by me - I have always felt that the most pleasing RPG experiences, with regard to story and gameplay, are those in which I was part of a larger battle, not fighting on my own.
I've been playing in the FFXI "Wings of the Goddess" expansion areas lately. This is basically a FvF environment, with the Bad Guys faction being all AI. You don't even get drops, other than an award of XP and some scrip at the end of a battle. But the style of play is completely different from the rest of FFXI. And people get killed regularly, so when you're in FvF mode, you don't lose XP for dying. While you can form parties, the only reason is for party-effect spells and party chat.
And while it's normally intended for level 60+ players, there's a niche for white mage level 35+ because it awards XP for doing healer-type things. And because you're especially squishy (one or two hits will kill you at that level), it's especially fun to do guerilla heals and raises as a mid-level white mage. Even though I could get XP much faster by participating in a standard XP grinding party, standing at the back and throwing heals when someone's HP bar goes low, it is incredibly more fun to run around and search for people who need healing and raises, while keeping in mind the aggro effects of healing someone.
A spindle of freshly-pressed discs that haven't had their labels printed yet ends up in the wrong stack, and presto, it ends up with the wrong label and shipped out based on the label.
Back in the early days of DVD, I heard of cases where two titles had misprints with each other's labels. Movie A would get label B, and movie B would get label A. So it's entirely possible that there's some DJ out there who is wondering why he is hearing nothing but a loud screeching, or nothing if his CD player is smart enough to know not to play a data track. But from the description of the music, it would probably be an improvement.
The lock out chip (famous for creating the blinking power light and yellow screen) wasn't made to create separate regions, it was created to keep cheap/pirated games off of the market.
Then why did they have a version of the chip for the EU market, which used a different code than the US chip? I seem to recall reading that four different lockout chips were made, one of which was for a 10-game hotel room system.
RCA Studio II 4-evah! It didn't need controllers, it had the keypads built into the console! The tag game was awesome! And it had a real cool chirp sound effect too!
This one is relatively easy to do, since DOS uses track 0 to find the directory, and the C64 keeps the directory on a middle track. Even better, the whole second side of the disk could be formatted for PC sectors. But you do have to put the disk through two duplicators, one for the PC sectors, and another for the C64 sectors. (Nowadays this could be done with a Catweasel or similar disk controller that deals with times between transitions.)
This is pretty impressive, but it only needs one format per track. There have been cases where the same track was in multiple formats. The TRS-80 Model I booted from a single-density T0S0, while the Model III booted from a double-density T0S0. There were autoboot games which formatted sectors on track 0 in both single and double density.
As I heard it, the first part of the trick is that the Model I switched density by having both types of disk controller chips. (I don't know details of how the III did it) The second part of the trick is that you start one of the FDC chips formatting a track, then interrupt it partway through. Then you start the other FDC formatting the rest of the track. Presto, you have a track with sectors in both densities! You don't need any other data on track zero, as the boot sectors were customized to boot from the rest of the disk in single density, which both a M3 and an standard single-density M1 could read.
...and of course at the last moment I decided to change "FF13" to roman numerals. This insanity must end! I demand Squeenix change to only using kanji numerals for future FF games!
Re:Electron ROM Ripping, ol' school
on
1200-Baud Archeology
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It was 500 baud. I've done a similar thing trying to read some of my own Model I tapes, but noise makes the simple decoding mechanism in TFA not work so well. (The Model III used 1500 baud)
I've also done some experimenting with Apple II and C-64 GCR decoding with a Catweasel board (FM/MFM already having been handled quite well), and the C-64 GCR is a lot harder to keep in sync because it doesn't have address-mark-only nibbles.
...and all of you who already have a PS3 specifically because you wanted it for FFXII someday, please slap yourself. Especially if you bought your PS3 more than a year ago for a game that would happen "someday".
And it's not like Squeenix doesn't have 360 experience. There's a lot of folks using a 360 for FFXI.
The LiDE scanners are good and portable (especially being USB-powered), but they are S L O W. I scanned one of my old '80s video game magazines with a LiDE and it took a long time. FYI it is necessary to use a sheet of black construction paper to prevent bleed-through of the image.
As for sheet feeders, most of the scanners with them built in are crap. Just look at the reviews on Amazon and you will see that they all break.
The best thing if you have stuff already on 8.5 x 11 single-sheet paper is when your workplace has a super copier with scan-to-PDF capability. These are not so good for magazines, but will tear through old looseleaf computer manuals.
Or you can get gutters you'll never have to clean again. Sure, you won't be able to use geeky toys to clean them, but for $2000-$3000 you'll be able to forget about them completely. And it will probably increase the house value when it's time to sell.
...and it's much more convenient for me to load ROMs onto a hacked Xbox or PSP since they have a storage device larger than 2gigs and a way to load them other than by swapping cards around all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Only Brits think he has a bad American accent. However, it was months before this particular American realized that not only was he British, he was the same actor who appeared in Blackadder.
I played GemstoneII in the eighties via Compuserve (for free with a CIS sysop account)
That's odd, because Gemstone II ran on the GEnie system. (I started in the last month of GSII beta.) GE's mainframes made for some fun times when they did backups and such, when the whole game would come to a halt. Except for the monsters, hitting you every ten seconds like clockwork. GSIII was a complete rewrite that either ran on a Unix machine from the start, or quickly moved to one.
The Compuserve game was (IIRC) Island of Kesmai, which was a 2-D game with a rogue-like interface. Gemstone used a Zork-style interface.
Another interesting RPG comment, this time by me - I have always felt that the most pleasing RPG experiences, with regard to story and gameplay, are those in which I was part of a larger battle, not fighting on my own.
I've been playing in the FFXI "Wings of the Goddess" expansion areas lately. This is basically a FvF environment, with the Bad Guys faction being all AI. You don't even get drops, other than an award of XP and some scrip at the end of a battle. But the style of play is completely different from the rest of FFXI. And people get killed regularly, so when you're in FvF mode, you don't lose XP for dying. While you can form parties, the only reason is for party-effect spells and party chat.
And while it's normally intended for level 60+ players, there's a niche for white mage level 35+ because it awards XP for doing healer-type things. And because you're especially squishy (one or two hits will kill you at that level), it's especially fun to do guerilla heals and raises as a mid-level white mage. Even though I could get XP much faster by participating in a standard XP grinding party, standing at the back and throwing heals when someone's HP bar goes low, it is incredibly more fun to run around and search for people who need healing and raises, while keeping in mind the aggro effects of healing someone.
That's why you mount a scratch monkey* first.
*any average Windows user will do
A spindle of freshly-pressed discs that haven't had their labels printed yet ends up in the wrong stack, and presto, it ends up with the wrong label and shipped out based on the label.
Back in the early days of DVD, I heard of cases where two titles had misprints with each other's labels. Movie A would get label B, and movie B would get label A. So it's entirely possible that there's some DJ out there who is wondering why he is hearing nothing but a loud screeching, or nothing if his CD player is smart enough to know not to play a data track. But from the description of the music, it would probably be an improvement.
Dammit, you people just don't give up on your quest to copy every bit of Intellectual Property you can find!
One more bit copied.
The lock out chip (famous for creating the blinking power light and yellow screen) wasn't made to create separate regions, it was created to keep cheap/pirated games off of the market.
Then why did they have a version of the chip for the EU market, which used a different code than the US chip? I seem to recall reading that four different lockout chips were made, one of which was for a 10-game hotel room system.
I think it would be more interesting to see Don Shamino try some zero-gee rapier combat. Pity he can't take Don Tivar up with him.
RCA Studio II 4-evah! It didn't need controllers, it had the keypads built into the console! The tag game was awesome! And it had a real cool chirp sound effect too!
This one is relatively easy to do, since DOS uses track 0 to find the directory, and the C64 keeps the directory on a middle track. Even better, the whole second side of the disk could be formatted for PC sectors. But you do have to put the disk through two duplicators, one for the PC sectors, and another for the C64 sectors. (Nowadays this could be done with a Catweasel or similar disk controller that deals with times between transitions.)
This is pretty impressive, but it only needs one format per track. There have been cases where the same track was in multiple formats. The TRS-80 Model I booted from a single-density T0S0, while the Model III booted from a double-density T0S0. There were autoboot games which formatted sectors on track 0 in both single and double density.
As I heard it, the first part of the trick is that the Model I switched density by having both types of disk controller chips. (I don't know details of how the III did it) The second part of the trick is that you start one of the FDC chips formatting a track, then interrupt it partway through. Then you start the other FDC formatting the rest of the track. Presto, you have a track with sectors in both densities! You don't need any other data on track zero, as the boot sectors were customized to boot from the rest of the disk in single density, which both a M3 and an standard single-density M1 could read.
I've always wondered what the letters in IBM stood for. Now I know that they stand for "IBM". Thanks Businessweek!
Or maybe... game creators could get people to pay them directly and skip the middleman in China. (And that's a single-player RPG!)
Not only were they in San Antonio, but you could smell it when you drove by the place along I-35. Mmmm.
You misspelled "9th circus". Notice the first result? Even Google knows it.
How can you use the word "losslessly" when talking about HD Radio? This crap is worse than 128K MP3.
I think it stands for "Horribly Distorted".
...and of course at the last moment I decided to change "FF13" to roman numerals. This insanity must end! I demand Squeenix change to only using kanji numerals for future FF games!
It was 500 baud. I've done a similar thing trying to read some of my own Model I tapes, but noise makes the simple decoding mechanism in TFA not work so well. (The Model III used 1500 baud)
I've also done some experimenting with Apple II and C-64 GCR decoding with a Catweasel board (FM/MFM already having been handled quite well), and the C-64 GCR is a lot harder to keep in sync because it doesn't have address-mark-only nibbles.
...and all of you who already have a PS3 specifically because you wanted it for FFXII someday, please slap yourself. Especially if you bought your PS3 more than a year ago for a game that would happen "someday".
And it's not like Squeenix doesn't have 360 experience. There's a lot of folks using a 360 for FFXI.
The LiDE scanners are good and portable (especially being USB-powered), but they are S L O W. I scanned one of my old '80s video game magazines with a LiDE and it took a long time. FYI it is necessary to use a sheet of black construction paper to prevent bleed-through of the image.
As for sheet feeders, most of the scanners with them built in are crap. Just look at the reviews on Amazon and you will see that they all break.
The best thing if you have stuff already on 8.5 x 11 single-sheet paper is when your workplace has a super copier with scan-to-PDF capability. These are not so good for magazines, but will tear through old looseleaf computer manuals.
Or you can get gutters you'll never have to clean again. Sure, you won't be able to use geeky toys to clean them, but for $2000-$3000 you'll be able to forget about them completely. And it will probably increase the house value when it's time to sell.
Suddenly I'm getting hungry for a cheeseburger with jalapenos.
...and it's much more convenient for me to load ROMs onto a hacked Xbox or PSP since they have a storage device larger than 2gigs and a way to load them other than by swapping cards around all the time.
At least he isn't Def.
You forgot the link for lake-full.