It varies by game. The current version(s) of PocketNES allow you to fiddle the lines that are dropped so you can usually find one that's readable (L-Select). I've played a lot of FF1-3 and Exodus Ultima without a problem at all, as well as some gameshow-type games, though the text is indeed noticeably squished. I've always found at least one setting that was a good compromise. I recently found several other obscure Japanese-style RPGs for NES that I've been trying out with decent success too. But then, part of it might go back to the good eyesight thing. I got my Micro as a birthday present, but in reading reviews they seemed equally split between "too small to read RPGs" and "looks perfect". On my old GBA SP, everything is nice and huge.
If all else fails, it offers an unscaled mode with the shoulder buttons scrolling up and down. Not ideal, but might be playable if you're desperate for some portable NES:) The automatic sprite-following mode works decently, although it's mostly useful for platform games. It's less useful for RPGs where the main sprites are going to be in the center most of the time.
The biggest problem I've run into is just general rom incompatibility. A few of the more complex ones are glitchy in various ways. I was disappointed that Elite didn't work. I did discover a Japanese NES emulator called HVCA that has FDS support - lets me play the original Doki Doki Panic and SMB2J. It seems to do scanlines about the same as PocketNES, although less configurably. It does support a few esoteric games better, so it's handy to have around too. All in all, my GBA/GBM have spent more time as a NES than a GBA, but I'm playing through Final Fantasy 5 Advance now so I've spent more time in GBA mode lately:)
I still think it's a shame the Micro didn't do very well in the US. I love mine. With it and my flash card, I have several GBA games and a couple or three dozen NES games in a very nicely portable package. I have good eyesight, so the smaller screen isn't too much of an issue. Combined with the standard headphone jack and replaceable faceplate (== new screen, if you avoid scratching the inner screen itself), I find it to be a pretty perfect system for me. I never found the GBA SP to be very pocketable. I do keep my GBA SP around for the occasional GB Color game I want to play (still need to finish the Zelda Oracle games...)
I think this point can't be stressed enough. I was layed off from a job I was miserable at some years ago, and for the first month or two I was in the "excited" mode. Then my savings started looking a bit thin and every day I was unemployed was another reminder of unjobbiness. My parents bought me groceries a couple times (which I appreciated, but didn't make me feel much better about myself) but they weren't really in a financial position to do much. So, the next couple months after that were far worse than anything I'd ever felt at the job. I'm just glad I'd socked away enough money to make it fine, instead of a lot of my coworkers caught in the same layoffs who had spent everything they had on laptops, cars, etc.
The upshot of all that is, when you're unhappy at a job, the freedom of unemployment can be very appealing. But unless you've really set up your life and finances to be prepared for it, it can end up far worse than the job.
(btw, I ended up getting a job making about 33% more than I was, on the absolute last day possible to make my bills. I finished out the month after my first paycheck with about 50 cents in the bank account.)
I can't even get my neighbors to turn down their crappy music at 2AM on a worknight and stop throwing their cigarette butts outside my apt door. You think I'd be able to convince them to mess with power settings or get new routers and wireless cards?
While I will definitely grant the complete setup is highly difficult and improbable, it has happened and continues to happen where people leave kids unrestrained in a running car while running into a store or something, and the kid manages to get the car into gear.
Still, silly to complain about the commercial. Any kid smart enough to figure it out is either going to need help from a stupid parent (see above) or is going to do it anyway, regardless of a commercial.
I have the same opinion about commercials that put children into adult situations. Not the pr0n sort, just making them say and do things that kids don't say and do. A gosh-darn-cute 4 year old giving a long, well-thought-out monologue about why they prefer some product over another just doesn't sit well with me. I've also noticed that occasionally the script doesn't match up with the casting. You'll have a kid speaking lines that are clearly intended for someone quite a bit younger. And then there are ones that are just plain exploitation; I saw one recently where a kid was extolling the virtues of a particular credit card because it helped her mommy buy her the most and best toys. Actually rolled my eyes at that one.
My company runs an ActiveX IE Only ickified CRM (Siebel 7.7 thin client). I've spent quite a bit of time experimenting with ies4linux, Crossover, winetools, and a couple other IE in Linux setups. It mostly works - probably 90-95% of it. But that last 5-10% is the problem. It tends to randomly freeze up, crash, or otherwise malfunction. And, unfortunately, without 100% compatibility, there's no hope of ever having Linux replace Windows for good. It's a shame too, I've gotten a couple other apps we use to work in wine or natively; it's pretty much the only thing holding me back. And it's a biggie, sadly.
Never had a problem with 8-2. Like the previous poster said, inching over on the left post and doing a running jump will do it every time.
What gets me in SMB more games than I care to admit is the last hammer brother in 8-4 just before the last Bowser. If I make it through 8-4 with a fire flower, or even big, it's cake. But if I make it there small, it can be hard to get past. I've spent 10-15 extra lives to a Game Over trying to get through that. On the other hand, on a good game I can beat it in 6-7 minutes without taking a single hit. Still a fun game to play when I have a few minutes here and there.
A lot of people I know who are the type that might be bright enough to use a restore disk that came with their Dell but not quite bright enough to install something like ZoneAlarm have computers with restore discs that predate SP2. So, even if a completely up to date computer is restored it may suddenly be at SP1 or even RTM XP again. And therein lies where the 10 minute problem lies - it'd take a heck of a broadband connection to even get SP2 downloaded in 10 minutes, much less installed and rebooted. Heck, it might even take 10+ minutes to install ZoneAlarm even if they were bright enough to do so.
It would be interesting for people in that situation to call Dell/whomever and try to get an updated restore disc. Since I'm the build-yer-own sort I've never owned a name-brand computer; for all I know they may well offer that. I just couldn't imagine your average joe figuring out how to make and burn their own slipstreamed SP2 install disc, and it'd be a noticeable burden on computer makers to have everyone who'd ever bought a computer from them wanting new restore discs every time a SP comes out.
On another note, I currently have my computer, my fiancee's computer, and both our laptops in this room. If 25% of computers are on a botnet, I wonder which one it is;)
Not only am I still coasting along on my PS2/GC/N64/NES combo (to which the PS2 was only added, used, a year or so ago), but I was recently outright given a complete Dreamcast system with a dozen games or so. I've spent more time playing Grandia II and a couple other things than I have anything else lately. I really like the DC controller; it's a shame things went the way they did.
You can add me to the list of would-have-a-Wii-if-I-could-find-ones though.
I'm going off some several-years-old memories, but I seem to recall it being a rad-hardened, somewhat modified version of a 601 PPC chip similar to the ones used in the early PPC Macs running at 25ish mhz. Doesn't take much processor power to navigate Mars:)
You jest, but when my fiancee and I were shopping for a video card upgrade for her computer, it took a fair amount of convincing to get her to go for the higher-specced card over the equal price, lower-specced one with a purple PCB. She really really wanted that purple card.
My guess is the rom hack community is a teeny fraction of even the emulation community. Even my fiancee was playing Sonics and Marios with an emulator when I met her, but she'd never heard of rom hacks. I recently got Mario Adventure working (Awesomest hack ever, see Here for it. Total conversion of SMB3.).
That said, Nintendo could probably make a killing if they contracted and/or somehow got the best of the rom hacks onto the Virtual Console. Imagine being able to not only advertise classic games, but new versions of classic games. I don't guess there's much chance of that happening though, since they're fighting tooth and nail to kill the emulation scene.
Re:The MSX was undoubtedly a computer
on
Consoles M.I.A.
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In many cases, it was marketing. Especially when the computer market was on the downturn and the video game market was just getting going. Telling retailers you were selling a "game system" was easier than getting them to sell a "computer". So, Atari sold something designated as a Game System that just so happened to have a keyboard you could attach and make it into a computer.
Keep in mind that we're talking about the early-mid 80's here. The idea of floppy disks and such was still fairly new to the general public, while sticking in a cartridge and turning something on was a lot more accessible.
Well, last I checked, "poly" was the prefix that means many and "ticks" are blood-sucking arachnids. Best guess I can come up with./I'll be here all week
You know, in 2000 years some archeologist is going to unearth those and wonder why the heck we decided to protect them so well. And if the other stories about Atari's dumping are correct, they'll probably find systems and other hardware to play them on close by.
I was looking for something in the basement of my parents' house recently when I happened upon the cassette tape drive for the Atari 130XE we had growing up, complete with game tape still in it. I immediately ran upstairs and hooked it up to the computer (my parents still have it up and running in my old bedroom; my dad still plays a few old games on it). My fiancee had never heard a tape booting before; it's a horrid, wonderful sound full of memories of days long past when I'd sit for 5 or 10 minutes waiting for some game or another to load up, only it have it error out and have to start all over again.
I've never actually booted a C64 from cassette, so I have no idea if it actually played the tape noises. One interesting side effect of this is I remember a few tape-based games with actual voiceovers. Didn't see that again until the CD-ROM era.
There is a NES version, and while it's playable it just... doesn't quite have the charm of the original Atari version I grew up playing. I'm not quite sure why; maybe it's because they made the MULEs look more like mules than camels. Maybe it's the audio. I don't know. I still play it plenty since I have an NES emu on my GB Micro, but when it comes down to it the Atari version is the one of choice for me.
A friend of mine did just that to try to get some workable computers for a youth center/after school program. Rather than solicit for old PCs, he put up signs offering to dispose of them cheap. He was pretty quickly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of stuff. Part of his problem was he felt that since he advertised a removal service for-pay, he was obligated to take the stuff whether it was useful specifically to him or not. So, he pretty quickly ended up with roomsful of often-broken equipment all the way back to original PCs, and surprisingly little relatively-modern stuff for the era (1998-1999ish). He played around a bit with 386-era boxes and scaled-back expectations, but he was really trying for passably internet capable machines. In the end, he ended up dumping most of the stuff he got at a loss (since he still had to pay for getting rid of what he couldn't use) and a company replacing their workstations on their typical couple or three year cycle donated the lot once they figured out what he was up to.
If you try this, it may depend on how picky you are with the stuff and how big/busy an area you live in. This was done in a major suburb of Atlanta, GA.
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I tried a 'touch -- -i' and it worked fine. Fun hack.
Hmm, someone better tell my USB mouse plugged into my USB keyboard plugged into my USB hub plugged into my computer that it can't do daisy chaining.
Although I'll grant it's perhaps not as versatile, and the voltage thing is kind of silly.
It varies by game. The current version(s) of PocketNES allow you to fiddle the lines that are dropped so you can usually find one that's readable (L-Select). I've played a lot of FF1-3 and Exodus Ultima without a problem at all, as well as some gameshow-type games, though the text is indeed noticeably squished. I've always found at least one setting that was a good compromise. I recently found several other obscure Japanese-style RPGs for NES that I've been trying out with decent success too. But then, part of it might go back to the good eyesight thing. I got my Micro as a birthday present, but in reading reviews they seemed equally split between "too small to read RPGs" and "looks perfect". On my old GBA SP, everything is nice and huge.
:) The automatic sprite-following mode works decently, although it's mostly useful for platform games. It's less useful for RPGs where the main sprites are going to be in the center most of the time.
:)
If all else fails, it offers an unscaled mode with the shoulder buttons scrolling up and down. Not ideal, but might be playable if you're desperate for some portable NES
The biggest problem I've run into is just general rom incompatibility. A few of the more complex ones are glitchy in various ways. I was disappointed that Elite didn't work. I did discover a Japanese NES emulator called HVCA that has FDS support - lets me play the original Doki Doki Panic and SMB2J. It seems to do scanlines about the same as PocketNES, although less configurably. It does support a few esoteric games better, so it's handy to have around too. All in all, my GBA/GBM have spent more time as a NES than a GBA, but I'm playing through Final Fantasy 5 Advance now so I've spent more time in GBA mode lately
I still think it's a shame the Micro didn't do very well in the US. I love mine. With it and my flash card, I have several GBA games and a couple or three dozen NES games in a very nicely portable package. I have good eyesight, so the smaller screen isn't too much of an issue. Combined with the standard headphone jack and replaceable faceplate (== new screen, if you avoid scratching the inner screen itself), I find it to be a pretty perfect system for me. I never found the GBA SP to be very pocketable. I do keep my GBA SP around for the occasional GB Color game I want to play (still need to finish the Zelda Oracle games...)
I think this point can't be stressed enough. I was layed off from a job I was miserable at some years ago, and for the first month or two I was in the "excited" mode. Then my savings started looking a bit thin and every day I was unemployed was another reminder of unjobbiness. My parents bought me groceries a couple times (which I appreciated, but didn't make me feel much better about myself) but they weren't really in a financial position to do much. So, the next couple months after that were far worse than anything I'd ever felt at the job. I'm just glad I'd socked away enough money to make it fine, instead of a lot of my coworkers caught in the same layoffs who had spent everything they had on laptops, cars, etc.
The upshot of all that is, when you're unhappy at a job, the freedom of unemployment can be very appealing. But unless you've really set up your life and finances to be prepared for it, it can end up far worse than the job.
(btw, I ended up getting a job making about 33% more than I was, on the absolute last day possible to make my bills. I finished out the month after my first paycheck with about 50 cents in the bank account.)
I can't even get my neighbors to turn down their crappy music at 2AM on a worknight and stop throwing their cigarette butts outside my apt door. You think I'd be able to convince them to mess with power settings or get new routers and wireless cards?
While I will definitely grant the complete setup is highly difficult and improbable, it has happened and continues to happen where people leave kids unrestrained in a running car while running into a store or something, and the kid manages to get the car into gear.
Still, silly to complain about the commercial. Any kid smart enough to figure it out is either going to need help from a stupid parent (see above) or is going to do it anyway, regardless of a commercial.
I have the same opinion about commercials that put children into adult situations. Not the pr0n sort, just making them say and do things that kids don't say and do. A gosh-darn-cute 4 year old giving a long, well-thought-out monologue about why they prefer some product over another just doesn't sit well with me. I've also noticed that occasionally the script doesn't match up with the casting. You'll have a kid speaking lines that are clearly intended for someone quite a bit younger. And then there are ones that are just plain exploitation; I saw one recently where a kid was extolling the virtues of a particular credit card because it helped her mommy buy her the most and best toys. Actually rolled my eyes at that one.
:)
Anyway, curmudgeon-mode off
My company runs an ActiveX IE Only ickified CRM (Siebel 7.7 thin client). I've spent quite a bit of time experimenting with ies4linux, Crossover, winetools, and a couple other IE in Linux setups. It mostly works - probably 90-95% of it. But that last 5-10% is the problem. It tends to randomly freeze up, crash, or otherwise malfunction. And, unfortunately, without 100% compatibility, there's no hope of ever having Linux replace Windows for good. It's a shame too, I've gotten a couple other apps we use to work in wine or natively; it's pretty much the only thing holding me back. And it's a biggie, sadly.
Never had a problem with 8-2. Like the previous poster said, inching over on the left post and doing a running jump will do it every time.
What gets me in SMB more games than I care to admit is the last hammer brother in 8-4 just before the last Bowser. If I make it through 8-4 with a fire flower, or even big, it's cake. But if I make it there small, it can be hard to get past. I've spent 10-15 extra lives to a Game Over trying to get through that. On the other hand, on a good game I can beat it in 6-7 minutes without taking a single hit. Still a fun game to play when I have a few minutes here and there.
A lot of people I know who are the type that might be bright enough to use a restore disk that came with their Dell but not quite bright enough to install something like ZoneAlarm have computers with restore discs that predate SP2. So, even if a completely up to date computer is restored it may suddenly be at SP1 or even RTM XP again. And therein lies where the 10 minute problem lies - it'd take a heck of a broadband connection to even get SP2 downloaded in 10 minutes, much less installed and rebooted. Heck, it might even take 10+ minutes to install ZoneAlarm even if they were bright enough to do so.
;)
It would be interesting for people in that situation to call Dell/whomever and try to get an updated restore disc. Since I'm the build-yer-own sort I've never owned a name-brand computer; for all I know they may well offer that. I just couldn't imagine your average joe figuring out how to make and burn their own slipstreamed SP2 install disc, and it'd be a noticeable burden on computer makers to have everyone who'd ever bought a computer from them wanting new restore discs every time a SP comes out.
On another note, I currently have my computer, my fiancee's computer, and both our laptops in this room. If 25% of computers are on a botnet, I wonder which one it is
Not only am I still coasting along on my PS2/GC/N64/NES combo (to which the PS2 was only added, used, a year or so ago), but I was recently outright given a complete Dreamcast system with a dozen games or so. I've spent more time playing Grandia II and a couple other things than I have anything else lately. I really like the DC controller; it's a shame things went the way they did.
You can add me to the list of would-have-a-Wii-if-I-could-find-ones though.
I'm going off some several-years-old memories, but I seem to recall it being a rad-hardened, somewhat modified version of a 601 PPC chip similar to the ones used in the early PPC Macs running at 25ish mhz. Doesn't take much processor power to navigate Mars :)
You jest, but when my fiancee and I were shopping for a video card upgrade for her computer, it took a fair amount of convincing to get her to go for the higher-specced card over the equal price, lower-specced one with a purple PCB. She really really wanted that purple card.
My guess is the rom hack community is a teeny fraction of even the emulation community. Even my fiancee was playing Sonics and Marios with an emulator when I met her, but she'd never heard of rom hacks. I recently got Mario Adventure working (Awesomest hack ever, see Here for it. Total conversion of SMB3.).
That said, Nintendo could probably make a killing if they contracted and/or somehow got the best of the rom hacks onto the Virtual Console. Imagine being able to not only advertise classic games, but new versions of classic games. I don't guess there's much chance of that happening though, since they're fighting tooth and nail to kill the emulation scene.
In many cases, it was marketing. Especially when the computer market was on the downturn and the video game market was just getting going. Telling retailers you were selling a "game system" was easier than getting them to sell a "computer". So, Atari sold something designated as a Game System that just so happened to have a keyboard you could attach and make it into a computer.
Keep in mind that we're talking about the early-mid 80's here. The idea of floppy disks and such was still fairly new to the general public, while sticking in a cartridge and turning something on was a lot more accessible.
Well, last I checked, "poly" was the prefix that means many and "ticks" are blood-sucking arachnids. Best guess I can come up with. /I'll be here all week
You know, in 2000 years some archeologist is going to unearth those and wonder why the heck we decided to protect them so well. And if the other stories about Atari's dumping are correct, they'll probably find systems and other hardware to play them on close by.
Don't forget the Microsoft RAMCard. Quite popular in their day. I love the "Great Software: Yours, Ours, or Theirs" tagline in the ad. How things have changed.
Yeah, instead we became bums living in their basement begging for more chips
Just get some draino for those tubes!
It's not the accidents you have to worry about; it's people chucking turtles at each other on the highway.
I was looking for something in the basement of my parents' house recently when I happened upon the cassette tape drive for the Atari 130XE we had growing up, complete with game tape still in it. I immediately ran upstairs and hooked it up to the computer (my parents still have it up and running in my old bedroom; my dad still plays a few old games on it). My fiancee had never heard a tape booting before; it's a horrid, wonderful sound full of memories of days long past when I'd sit for 5 or 10 minutes waiting for some game or another to load up, only it have it error out and have to start all over again.
I've never actually booted a C64 from cassette, so I have no idea if it actually played the tape noises. One interesting side effect of this is I remember a few tape-based games with actual voiceovers. Didn't see that again until the CD-ROM era.
There is a NES version, and while it's playable it just... doesn't quite have the charm of the original Atari version I grew up playing. I'm not quite sure why; maybe it's because they made the MULEs look more like mules than camels. Maybe it's the audio. I don't know. I still play it plenty since I have an NES emu on my GB Micro, but when it comes down to it the Atari version is the one of choice for me.
A friend of mine did just that to try to get some workable computers for a youth center/after school program. Rather than solicit for old PCs, he put up signs offering to dispose of them cheap. He was pretty quickly overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of stuff. Part of his problem was he felt that since he advertised a removal service for-pay, he was obligated to take the stuff whether it was useful specifically to him or not. So, he pretty quickly ended up with roomsful of often-broken equipment all the way back to original PCs, and surprisingly little relatively-modern stuff for the era (1998-1999ish). He played around a bit with 386-era boxes and scaled-back expectations, but he was really trying for passably internet capable machines. In the end, he ended up dumping most of the stuff he got at a loss (since he still had to pay for getting rid of what he couldn't use) and a company replacing their workstations on their typical couple or three year cycle donated the lot once they figured out what he was up to.
If you try this, it may depend on how picky you are with the stuff and how big/busy an area you live in. This was done in a major suburb of Atlanta, GA.