Topics

[Introducing Duo.The Higher Energy Analogue System.]

https://www.analogue.co/duo
https://store.analogue.co/#duo
Introducing Duo.
The Higher Energy Analogue System.
You've always known what to expect from a video game system. Until now. Duo is an all-in-one reimagining of perhaps the most underappreciated video game systems of all time. Analogue Duo is compatible with nearly every NEC system and game format ever made. TurboGrafx-16. PC Engine. SuperGrafx. TurboGrafx CD. PC Engine CD-ROM². Super Arcade CD-ROM². 1080p. Zero lag. Bluetooth. 2.4g. Because the last thing a video game system should be is predictable.
Completely engineered in FPGA.
Analogue OS.⁷

Loading: twitter.com/NightWolve75/status/1663666835915456512

8553 units left as I wrote this (5/31/2023) with white duos closer to selling out (1593 left) being the more popular choice. But anyone can monitor the remaining stock in realtime with this special link:
store.analogue.co/./checkout/./stock_problems

I plan to try doing yearly newsletters to email PCEFX members, a year-end/retro roundup review of anything newsworthy that occurs in PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 fandom. Some news from 2022-2021 will be appended and more rushed as I didn't get a chance to collect much while thinking about this idea. The hope is to keep in touch with our retro fanbase, provide relevance, see if PCEFX legacy can carry on. Wish me luck!

So the idea is this: Collect/record relevant PCE/TG-16 news as it occurs throughout the year, append it to this post, and run the email newsletter system on New Years day sending it out to existing PCEFX membership. It accomplishes 2 things: lets people know we're still alive'n'kicking and will help keep 'em informed.

P. S. Feel free to contact me for anything that can be included I may have missed to make it the most thorough PCE newsletter possible. It'd be greatly appreciated!

1/1/2023 - "Billy's Bad Day" is released, a PCE homebrew fighting game that's an homage/tribute to Michael Douglas' 1993 movie "Falling Down."
https://vintagearcadeworks.com/shop/
https://youtu.be/BrsFzD-ZW94

2/4/2023 - The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Community mourns the loss of BT Garner @ MindRec.com who passed away due to health problems... He was a top PCE homebrew developer and founder of the OG Turbo List. Condolences to family and friends. Thanks to Nathan McLain for info. A nice tribute by esteban: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1360287888149555 (https://www.pcengine-fx.com/images/BTRIP.jpg)

3/4/2023 - krikzz began sales of Turbo Everdrive PRO which uses FPGA to let you play CD images on any base or portable NEC consoles making it the ultimate PCE flashcart on the market to date!!
https://twitter.com/krikzz/status/1632048223228510208
https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/turbo-everdrive-pro.html

3/13/2023 - The SuperGrafx: That time when NEC made an amazing console with no games... (by Sharopolis)
https://youtu.be/tzreF97_tNI

4/05/2023 - PC Engine Localization for Bravoman is released by Pennywise.
https://twitter.com/ElCaminoOscuro/status/1643685579912093707

X/XX/2023 -
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Wanted to branch out from the PC Engine Pixelization thread after Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys to include/link cool animations from any game/console.

To start it off, much credit again to Kishi's Gift of GIF, now a lost thread after the www.talking-time.net forum was scraped in 2020 and rebooted with XenForo. But thanks to WayBack and some grunt work we can dig out some of the best highlights!
Find more animated GIFs be it Falcom and others below e.g. Ys I-III PC-98 ports:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.snowy-day.net/grokyou/*
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.snowy-day.net/grokyou/brandish/*


https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.snowy-day.net/grokyou/falcom/*












https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.snowy-day.net/grokyou/gradius/*




https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.snowy-day.net/grokyou/hideo/*






https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.snowy-day.net/grokyou/metroid/*




And finally some of Kishi's finest work, the NES/SNES Super Punch-Out Parade!

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/pdf/CLV-P-NAATE.pdf


https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clvs/manuals/common/pdf/CLV-P-SAAXE.pdf






Arcade extra with Bald Bull:

Synopsis: Dead/broken IMG links plague forums in Random Photo Threads like these, but what if runtime JavaScript could loop through broken/missing images, prepend a special WayBack link (https://web.archive.org/web/0im_/) to search for them in their database and seamlessly return the lost image ??    Let's try!

http://www.sparkcaster.com/demotivational/images/a%20pony.jpg




Dead IMG Link:
https://www.storochliten.se/themes/storochliten/content/images/stor-och-liten-symbol-large.png

Working via WayBack:

Back in the 80 we had Big&Little that was THE toystore here back then, that has somehow
remerged online for being gone in like 20 years time, nostalgic for us...

That logo is for us what TRU are for Americans.

Dead IMG Link (11 years old):
http://chzgifs.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/girlsfartp1.gif

Dead IMG Link (10 years old):
http://asset.soup.io/asset/1180/6135_062f.png

I waslike WTHMF

Dead IMG Link (10 years old):
http://images.paraorkut.com/img/funnypics/images/b/bruce_lee_loves_birthdays-13330.jpg




Here's one of the more interesting cases with lifetime member and former mod GameSack Joe Redifer! When he started off, turns out instead of using his later joeredifer.com domain to share images, he owned/used pixelcraze.film-tech.net circa 2002 (then pixelcraze.com)!

An example post in question:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=3082.msg40362#msg40362

In it, he shared this "pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/turbogames.jpg", but that domain is dead and not many files are found on Way Back!

So is all hope lost ? No, I remembered his /crap/ folder being associated with joeredifer, so what if I swap domains and try looking in WayBack again ???

Before : pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/turbogames.jpg
After  : joeredifer.com/crap/turbogames.jpg



And voila, now it works, the image can found! *catches breath* But, it's not over yet, searching the forum with Joe's "pixelcraze.film-tech.net" which became "pixelcraze.com" returns dozens of results (60+), so a global find/replace to "joeredifer.com" is needed to lead to most images from 2006-2007 working again! A little more grunt work to recover what is lost, but I made a script for that. It's a bit dangerous though, no mistakes can be made, you make sure the text is 100% unique, no undos if you make a mistake!

So yeah, it's an interesting case where a little extra effort can recover more images/history!


And so on. It's hit or miss, since Aaron kept the forum mostly private in its 2 decades, spiders couldn't archive as much, so if the link was only posted here and nowhere else, it's likely gone forever...

The JavaScript code goes something like this, just a single function called on the onload() event and relies on the fact that SMF forums will set dead image objects to width=0/height=0 so they're not noticed. This idea happened on accident as I was trying to track down where this is happening to stop SMF from setting their dimensions to zero since I want to know a link is dead to fix it manually. But with runtime code you can fix some cases automatically by way of WayBack magic.

Code Select Expand

function ShowLostImages() {
var aLink1, aLink2;
for ( i = 0; i < document.images.length; i++ )
if ( document.images[i].width == 0 || (!document.images[i].complete && document.images[i].width <= 28) ) {
document.images[i].border = 1;
aLink1 = document.images[i].src;
document.images[i].alt = document.images[i].title = aLink1;
aLink2 = "https://web.archive.org/web/0im_/" + aLink1;
document.images[i].src = aLink2;
aLink1 = "https://archive.org/..." + aLink1.substring(aLink1.lastIndexOf("/"));
document.images[i].outerHTML += "<BR><b><font color=red>WayBack Repair:</font></b> <a href=\"" + aLink2 + "\" target=\"_blank\">" + aLink1 + "</a>";
         
document.images[i].onclick = function(event) {
var a = document.createElement("a");
a.target = "_blank";
a.href = this.src;
a.click();
}
}
}


While Alan Oppenheimer is fairly famous for all his voice-acting work in 80's cartoons (He-Man, The Smurfs, The Transformers, Scooby-Doo, etc.) and did a great job voicing Darm and the opening narrator for Ys Book I & II, there's somebody else that worked on the game who achieved far greater fame that's worth mentioning when one fondly looks back at a great classic such as this for the NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-CD system!



Something I once learned from a Game Sack episode (thanks to Joe Redifer) and never was the wiser till it was explicitly pointed out: See that Thomas H. Church credit for Goban Toba ? Yep, that's one in the same as Thomas Haden Church, the Hollywood actor last known for playing SandMan in Spider-Man 3! The Ys Book I & II dub was well-funded after all and still is one of the best that I know of in a videogame!

Thomas Haden Church
As SandMan	As Goban Toba

How about that ? I was pretty surprised when I first learned of this. In addition to a high-quality dub, Ys Book I & II sports one of the greatest soundtracks in videogame history, right along with the sequels for the NEC CD consoles, and that is a big reason why I and many others became such devout Ys fans!!!!

The magic of when I first fired up Ys Book I & II on my brand new Turbo Duo in the 90's still remains with me to this day. The partnership of Hudson Soft and Falcom led to some great things in gaming console history, and it's too bad Hudson is no longer with us...

Ys Book I & II Reviews:
https://www.rpgfan.com/review/ys-book-i-ii-2/
https://www.rpgfan.com/review/ys-book-i-ii/

For a recently translated interview of the Ys IV: Dawn of Ys staff (both from Hudson & Falcom), check this out as well:
https://shmuplations.com/ysiv/

[Kickstarter-triumph "Battle Princess Madelyn" Released! - 12/6/2018! Inspired by and a love letter to the NEC SuperGrafx Ghouls 'n Ghosts port!]

Kickstarter-triumph "Battle Princess Madelyn" Released! -  12/6/2018!
Inspired by and a love letter to the NEC SuperGrafx Ghouls 'n Ghosts port!


https://.steampowered/.../Battle_Princess_Madelyn/

Classic retro gameplay for a whole new era!

* Tru NEC SuperGrafx Origin Story: [Developer] Chris Obritsch' daughter Madelyn loved to watch him play Daimakaimura/Ghouls 'n Ghosts on his SuperGrafx which led to her wanting to be IN the game! So eureka, dad's solution was to make her the star of her own!!!

* With the retro feel of Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Wonder Boy 3, this will conjure up memories of the arcade era with its Unity driven hand-drawn pixel art

* 10 levels with five stages each, they're replayable with no starting over (that is unless you want to)

* Two modes including story (by a professional children's author) and arcade (for the experts)

* Hidden collectibles with extra rewards, weapons are upgradeable depending on your armour, which you can find through the blacksmith in story mode

* Madelyn's pet ghost dog "Fritzy" acts as both a weapon and a way to solve puzzles, allowing the player to tackle boss fights and maneuver puzzles.

* Weapons are specific to certain areas, providing access to secret locations

>> Kickstarter History/Game Discussion thread.  <<

[Discussion]

ysutopia.net/projects/ys4/

Presto! It's magic!!! 

Discussion

   Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys English Dub Patch Released!

Downloads

   ysutopia.net/downloads/ys4/ - Everything!
   Ys IV Text Patch v.95 (442 KB)
   Ys IV Dub Patch v1.1 (105 MB)
   Full HTML ReadMe

YouTube Promotionals

Ys IV Dub Trailer on YouTube
Other

   Dracula X Translation Project also by BurntLasagna
   https://ys4.ysutopia.net/
   ysutopia.net/forums/index.php?topic=395


TO DO: WIP

Originally: TurboViews FB Group orphaned, Chris "TurboViews" Bucci Deactivated Account! WHY?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/65214321555/

Anybody know why Chris Bucci deactivated his Facebook account all of a sudden ??? It seems to have orphaned his Facebook group a bit as the banner image is gone, but all the posts/threads are there and his co-admin... Very strange, I have seen him log in a few times here and some months ago I asked him for permission to include his TurboViews videos here.

I hope it's temporary and nothing bad happened... :/

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-13-husband-and-wife-must-pay-usd12m-to-nintendo-for-running-rom-sites

Arizona couple have been ordered to pay Nintendo a whopping $12.23m (£9.5m) in damages for running a pair of sites which offered pirated ROMs.

Jacob and Cristian Mathias admitted copyright and trademark infringement for operating LoveROMS.com and LoveRetro.co until July this year, when Nintendo intervened.

The sites, registered under Mathias Designs, a company set up by the husband and wife, offered pirated versions of games such as Mario Kart 64, Donkey Kong Country, Pokémon Yellow and Super Mario World.

Both websites were pulled offline when Nintendo threatened legal action, and replaced with a notice saying they were undergoing maintenance.



The eyebrow-raising $12.23m ruling, originally discovered by TorrentFreak, has likely been set as an example to deter others. (And indeed, a number of other ROM sites have since vanished from the internet.) Whether the Mathiases will have to actually pay the full amount is not known, however - other cases have been quietly settled behind the scenes for much less.

On paper, though, this is a huge win for Nintendo. The couple have taken down their sites, admitted culpability, agreed to pay damages, and must now also relinquish any Nintendo games and hardware still in their possession.

Head to LoveROMs.com now and you'll be greeted with a simple message, titled "Apology to Nintendo":

"Our website, LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co, previously offered and performed unauthorised copies of Nintendo games, in violation of Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks. LoveROMS.com/LoveRetro.co acknowledges that it caused harm to Nintendo, its partners, and customers by offering infringing copies of Nintendo games and has agreed to cease all such activities. To access legitimate Nintendo games online, please visit www.nintendo.com for information about the Nintendo Game Store."

Nintendo gone  -earth...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/catalog/




Anybody remember this ? I do!

It was called the "PC Engine CD Offline Catalog," a rock-solid ~2003 Windows app by the now defunct French group "NEC-Ro-Pole" which barely exists in the WayBack Machine. Developed by RAPH99 and FagEmul in the heyday of French PCE groups, the group long ago shut down leaving behind impressive software like this and CD ISO/MP3 image extractors. I knew FagEmul from my Ys I Complete fan translation project for a bit actually, he's credited for helping with image work.

Why is it useful exactly, as there are already lots of sites you can browse PCE games on after all ? Basically, it's a super fast screenshot browser of the PCE library. It's just a rapid screenshot selector is all it is. You might find screenshots of CD games you've never come across before in random browsing with it.

With rapid scanning/scrolling of screenshots of PC Engine/TG-16 games, you find stuff you never knew existed and perhaps consider wanting - just as some people can only deal with short sound bites, this offers quick, 16-bit colorful eyecandy, visual bites, if you will, to get a "taste" of what the system has to offer. That's been my experience, like, "Wow, that looks cool, totally missed it." You just click on the game titles and then you can use the Up/Down arrow keys or PageUp/PageDown to quickly scroll through, you get the idea...

So anyway, on a whim, I decided to port it to JavaScript & DHTML for fun, see if I could host it on PCEFX to function almost ~exactly as the original app, sure enough it was only a 1-2 day project over the weekend! Using all the PNG image assets from their Windows app, and the text database file they built it with, they allowed for easy porting, pretty much was a piece of cake.

Notes: A download to the original retro app itself will be made available on the page too and I just rediscovered there was a HuCard version, so I can quickly port that now as well.

Open call: It could use some help/tweaking for missing screenshots or game titles, so if you wanna help in your leisure to make it 100%, lemme know! Use this thread to post about any missing games, screenshots, erroneous info, etc. Some existing screenshots weren't well done, so you can help replace them with better ones if it ever interests you. They should be in 256x224 standard PCE resolution and in PNG.


Updates:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/catalog/music.html - Access to The Poor Man's PCEFX Jubebox separately. Testing for me, and for you, a separate version from the catalog viewer.

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/reviews/

As Zigfried/EmeraldRocker mentioned, we moved on the idea of a PCEFX Reviews section for both new and classic reviews of his that are no longer published on the Internet. I think the "mission" of PCEFX has gone off-track for some years and I wanna see some return to what PCE preservation should be about going forward. More content, ideas for content, and getting back to some "fun" and an atmosphere of comradery wouldn't hurt either!

As stated in the title, anyone that wants to publish a PCE/PCFX review here can drop me a line. If you bring the quality, I'll get it uploaded/published. Aaron used to have a few people in the late 90's actually but the motivation died off I guess, as some things inevitably do. We'll figure out how to link it up in the index and either you or I can apply the template to it that EmeraldRocker made which fits with the PCEFX look.


https://www.pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/

On June of this year, per my earlier thread, The Brothers DuoMazov domain mysteriously expired... RuninRider/IvaNEC cannot be reached from his Facebook page, email or anywhere else... We don't know if this is the end for sure or what, but the longer the domain is without an owner, the hopes of a return to normal grow more bleak. Thankfully, The WayBack Machine has pretty much copied the whole website, so I decided to import what I valued the most and I also created a dropdown combobox linker that lets you access 100% of the other reviews with the WayBack site. WayBack did accomplish this, but my linker is a tad better from some of the broken pages that are archived and it's a piece of cake to add to other sites.

Now, keep in mind this all may be temporary as RuninRider could return without warning at any time, so this was done with the respectful assumption that he might not and that his content is worth preservation for future PCE-loving generations to enjoy. If at the end of the year he/his site still doesn't return, I may continue to import more articles onto PCEFX for better preservation than WayBack so long as the space is there to allow for it.

What a shame if fan work like this was to be lost for good or only left as a remnant inside The WayBack Machine with its popup menu insertions and slow response time...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/legend-of-xanadu.html




I like the colorful PCE 16-bit eye candy upfront, instant, versus waiting for it in a YouTube review personally.

Anyway, that concludes this update. The grunt work needed to clean up those pages for importation was quite tedious and the effort could be in vain at any moment, so don't wanna go too far with this until RuninRider turns up again. It'd be better to get a ZIP of the whole site from him if he decided he doesn't wanna host his review site himself anymore...

thebrothersduomazov.com/2010/12/emerald-dragon.html

I was looking for Bonk III screenshots, tried an old ED link, got a dead site with domain expired message... I sent a message to @Emerald Rocker to see what's up, but who knows... Shame if it doesn't return, so FYI.

BUT, let's check the The WayBack Machine....

wayback://thebrothersduomazov.com/2010/12/emerald-dragon.html






Yep, that works, and since they were all static HTML articles, it can all remain accessible.


Which brings me to the other case where the site is truly, currently dead, PCECP.com...

http://www.pcecp.com

Sorry ... for 16+ years, pcecp.com has server up info about every PCEngine, every Turbo and every PC-FX game ever made. However the site has been sorely neglected for the last few years. The code that runs pcecp now suffers from multiple deprecated calls, and fixing it, though not impossible, is a large under taking that I currently do not have time for.
So for the time being, pcecp is on vacation. Hopefully it will find new life, but as you are well aware there are other resources out there that are more modern, and support better media representation of our beloved systems.

Now it's been broken for years, and it's dynamic so WayBack does not apply, so I hoped it'd get fixed eventually, but now BT Garner formally shut it down with that message... I actually reached out to him on Facebook and offered to fix the PHP if he's interested, so I'll see.

But anyway, shame to officially lose both of these websites... If it's to be, then RIP...

The idea for closing Fighting Street for a couple of weeks/months had been floated, 2 people even told me they wanted it shut down for good though I'm not sure I agree with that in full... More obvious rules need to be specified against things like death threats, dox jobs, and some level of discretion when things get too out of hand as was true for months!!! It can't be just a pure 4chan situation...

Given all the drama, 5 self-deletions after the delete/permaban of Nulltard for extortion/blackmail/intimidation by hijacking a dox job, various forms of continued trolling/abuse/hounding weeks afterwards, exodus threats, some being carried out, FS has done more harm than good in terms of venting versus destroying... So, a temporary shutdown was in order given the extraordinary circumstances...

In addition, last week I started looking for another moderator, I'd like 2 new ones, but only made the offer to someone that could even be trusted as a co-admin so far, and I can't think of anybody else here besides him. Obviously that plan was expedited as I was hoping for a few months for us to cool off first, but enough still wanna continue hound harassment trolling (including Necromancer) and other forms of it...

Any suggestions for said new moderator roles can be PM'ed to me. My 1st choice wasn't sure he'd want to, and maybe less so now given the escalation, but yeah, I need ideas on that and for new future rules for Fighting Street, plus the forum in general.

ALSO, ANY attempts to poison existing threads or make new ones to continue Fighting Street (as some of you quickly tried to organize off a chat room) WILL be heavily policed, you'll join a 1 week timeout ban immediately! Yes, peace via delete and ban-hammer! Take/Keep your trolling snipes/viciousness/hatred/hate-mongering somewhere else!!! This forum needs a long break from it!

nintendo.com/games/detail/necromancer-wii-u


 

Enjoy a world of mysteries.

Necromancer is a horror RPG released for the TurboGrafx-16 in 1988. You are a hero who heads out on an adventure with two other allies in order to search for the Evil Holy Sword "Necromancer" to defeat an evil force that is about to take over the Kingdom of Ishmaelia. Defeat enemies to level up and travel the land to gather information about the Evil Holy Sword "Necromancer."

You will be able to choose your two allies among five possible candidates at the castle which is the starting point of the game. Each ally possesses different abilities so choose them wisely and make sure that you progress the game with each character's specialty in mind.

Virtual Console
This classic game is part of the Virtual Console service, which brings you great games created for consoles such as NES™, Super NES™ and Game Boy™ Advance. We hope you'll enjoy the new features (including off-TV play) that have been added to this title. See more Virtual Console games for Wii U.

Platform Wii U
Release Date Feb 01, 2018
No. of Players 1 player
Category Role-Playing, Adventure
Publisher Konami
Price: $5.99

Untranslated though, in pure, original, 100% preserved Japanese for the truest of retro experiences, so uh, thanks for the halfway effort Konami! ;)

I had been waiting to see if I got stable Internet connectivity with Comcast and my new DOCSIS 3.1 Gigabit cable modem before considering ditching a traditional AT&T telephone landline that probably will cost $90/month with the upcoming $5 dollar 911 tax for Chicago residents...

The new modem seems to have fixed my issues along with making good use of the new copper ground rods I had installed - good grounding of your cable line is very important to prevent TCP packet loss from interference!

Anyway, can someone please give me some reviews on any of these VoIP telephone services ?? How do they compare to traditional telephone lines ? It certainly should be better than a cellphone if you have good upstream with your ISP I imagine, but how much worse compared to a traditional land line ?

http://www.magicjack.com/index.html

I have been looking at MagicJack for years now, but my old modem for the last 2 years couldn't give me 24/7 always on performance so I never trusted the idea of switching to VoIP... But as stated, the conditions are right to ditch AT&T finally, just need advice/reviews/tips.

Thanks!

Per what's detailed in this post, I did a little coding to improve the loading of ads given the issues the previous synchronous loading style presented.

Lemme know if you notice improvements with the basic idea, let the whole PCEFX HTML page parse/render, and wait 3.5 seconds later to load the ads in their spots, etc.

Hey guys, you've probably had to relogin and noticed the server was down for about an hour. It was my fault in trying to apply the SMF 2.0.14 upgrade to a SMF 2.0.13 working installation... SMF used to have a very reliable patch system, but this time it took the server down and no database connections could be made. I had to scramble with Aaron to figure it out, ultimately it was a tip on the support forums that saved the day here: https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=554387.msg3941759#msg3941759

Anyway, everything seems to be back to normal, and I guess we'll be sticking with SMF 2.0.13 after that experience... :/

[BOSS!!!!!]

[2020]

https://www.monsterbathstudios.com/ (New company name, au revoir to Causal Bit Games)

[December 6, 2018]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/603930/Battle_Princess_Madelyn/

[April 16, 2017]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/causalbitgames/battle-princess-madelyn



BOSS!!!!!


Wanted to plug Chris Obritsch's 2nd indie game since Insanity's Blade which you might remember here. It also ran a Kickstarter which...WOW, I'm amazed to report closed out at $212,665 CAD/$159,663 USD this past Friday, smashing all stretch goals... Hard to believe, and it's still a 2-man team primarily, Chris Obritsch and Daven (Chris mostly on art/design, Daven on coding)!

Durrr, I did want to plug this earlier when the KickStarter was actually active, but just didn't get a chance... I also didn't get to contribute/pay-in either, my PayPal account is locked because they're trying to force me to delete TurboRip from my website... Feel a little bummed I didn't resolve that, but this project certainly didn't need my help!!! Pretty historic how he rose from RIGG, our defunct PC Engine group circa 2001-2003, and made it to the big leagues!! Anyway, I'll buy the PC version when it comes out at least!

About the game: It's obviously making good use of Capcom's Ghouls'n'Ghosts legacy as you can tell right away, and why not, if Capcom isn't doing much with it anymore, right ? ;)

Chris has kind of a cheesy story to go along about how this came to be: His daughter Madelyn loved to watch him play Ghouls'n'Ghosts over and over on the good ole NEC SuperGrafx (How about that ?), specifically, she liked to see him beat the first boss, who she calls "Green Head," and one day she said she wanted to be IN the game which led to him offering to make her a character in one! It's named after her naturally, future dad of the year award recipient right here, am I right ?

Well, I guess that's good enough of a primer, I'll leave the videos and screenshots to do the rest of the talking and they DO a lot of talking. The promotional buzz around this was pretty noticeable and explains the great success he had this time around compared to Insanity's Blade KS when he was just entering the indie videogame scene!

As you can plainly see, they've gotten A LOT better compared to their first game, haven't they ???

Review(s):

https://web.archive.org/web/20190509160203/https://epicbrew.net/2018/11/03/his-daughter-didnt-think-girls-could-be-knights-so-he-made-a-game-where-shes-the-hero/

The SuperGrafx version that inspired it all:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/daimakaimura-ghouls-n-ghosts.html

** 8/19/2018 **

* A JavaScript+DHTML version of the classic PCECD Online Catolog was developed and an additional Reviews section was opened. Details below.

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/catalog/
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/reviews/
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/

** 6/4/2018 **

* Integrated Chatbox module reinstalled... It's risky to run the chat "experiment" again but I'm gonna try. Follow ALL PCEFX forum rules (expect Chat rules thread as well), no-to-low tolerance for trolling/bullying/harassment/spamming/etc.!

* Upgraded Tapatalk SMF 2.0 Plugin to version 4.5.2, stable release of 05/29/2018. The old version generated lots of PHP errors that annoyingly filled up on the logging sys on occasion, hope this one is better.
- Tapatalk is down until I can talk to Aaron, it requires him logging into their site to reestablish a link.
( Source: https://www.tapatalk.com/download_SimpleMachines.php )


** 5/5/2018 **

* http:// v. https:// now works either way, so you may update your PCEFX bookmarks for secure/encrypted logins to https://www.pcengine-fx.com. Tech Details.

* Found a setting for a feature that was always available on the Neo-Geo.com forums, but by default was turned off with this forum. You'll now see members who are viewing the same thread as you when clicking in it instead of looking at the "Who's Online" feature as the only source to see what others are browsing. I think that's useful.

* I deleted a StyleBot Chrome extension I was using to modify the forum theme to full-width. The forum went back to being fixed-width which I hated, so I updated the CSS to convert the design to full width of the browser. If you were using this StyleBot ext and the CSS override by a certain DoxPhile, it is now obsolete. You can delete or remove the hack, save CPU/parsing execution on a page load for the PCEFX domain.


** 2/18/2018 **

Forum patched to SMF 2.0.15 with NO problems this time, thanks goodness! - Details below.

Lemme know if something broke. I took a risk doing it in a "feeling lucky" click of a button since last time caused a corruption of the database user account password, preventing access and effectively shutting down the forum...


** 9/14/2017 **

Barely succeeded in patching the forum to SMF 2.0.14... This was the 1st bad patch I've ever seen from SMF, it caused major problems to recover from, the forum went down for at least 2-3 hours or more while Aaron and I scrambled to solve it...  Details below.


** 4/16/2017 **

Forum patched to SMF 2.0.13. It addresses a few vulnerabilities in SMF 2.0.12 and fixes several bugs. If this causes new bugs, issues, strange behavior, lemme know - Details below.


** 9/26/2016 **

Forum patched to SMF 2.0.12 - Details below.


** 9/2/2016 **

Forum Registration/Profile New Field Additions. Should help registration pruning and encourage people to share interesting personal details - Details here.


** 8/29/2016 **

The auto-embed feature for Youtube/Facebook videos was upgraded to HTML5 standards to deprecate Adobe Flash (so long Flash, we hardly knew ye!) - Details here.

Or any problems with it so far ?

Synopsis: You install a new 4GB Radeon video card, the RX 460 in your PC's PCI Express slot, you get the drivers installed, everything seems to be working fine, but after you reboot your computer, it no longer boots, no video output, it stays stuck... Uh-oh, so what went wrong, why ??

TroubleShooting Steps I went through:

1) Rule out the video card. I swapped back the old video card, but same problem, the PC would get stuck... No video output, won't boot... Uh-oh, it won't be as easy as that....

2) Now I'm in a panic thinking my motherboard is dead and that I'd need a new computer... I tried to think, what, why is this happening...? Then, I spotted a ruptured capacitor near the PCI Express slot! AHA, I thought!!!!!! Maybe the EE skills I learned from TheSteve will help, so time to pull out my soldering iron, my cap kit, etc., and see if I can save this 2008 motherboard!!!!! After I unscrewed the whole motherboard out, I got to work!

a) Presenting, the victim capacitor:



b) After much difficulty, I desoldered it off:



c) For kicks, just to see how much it failed, I used my VC99's cap testing feature to measure its remaining capacitance ability (it's a 470 uF cap, so...):



Yep, almost total failure, from 470 uF down to 69 uF... NOT GOOD!!!! That cap was terminated!

d) Being a perfectionist, I wanted the best new capacitor from my kit and that's what the VC99 is great for, after measuring about 20-30 of them, I chose this one:



e) New cap installation results:



f) So, after putting my PC back together again and turning it on, was I successful.... DOH!!! SAME PROBLEM!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

3) WHAT NOW ?? Then it occurred to me, I tried to think, the only other time I can remember that this happens is with bad memory modules, the PC stops, beeps about a problem, a card not inserted fully or memory cards... I removed these 2 newer 1GB DDR2 modules I had installed...rebooted and EUREKA!!! The computer would boot again... YAAAAY!!!

Thankfully, my neighbor had given me a Win7 box, I took out 2 GB modules, and got my rig up to 6 GB now running with Win7 64-bit, so the swap file is obsolete. I got other 2 GB modules from my other neighbor too, so those went back to the old Win7 box I was given as a why not (I did upgrade it to Win10 and will have it around for testing/development).


OK, moral of the story, I took the whole computer apart to replace a dead capacitor, which IS a good thing, but while that looked like a CLEAR problem and should be corrected, it really wasn't, 1 or 2 memory modules had gone bad...

That's my story, if it ever helps you out, you're welcome.

And...I'm out!

[Biography]

I added a bunch more fields to our PCEFX profiles/accounts to allow for more information about members to be present as typically is available on other forums. It'll also be useful for us mods in the occasional registration approval/pruning as the more info a user provides, like real Facebook profile, the easier it'd be to approve or reject a registration attempt. Before, all a user could enter was email address and username, which didn't give you much info to go on as far as differentiating between spammers and what not.

So, here are the new fields (I already filled in my profile for example):

Biography
Tell us about yourself in 512 characters or less.

Facebook URL
Your Facebook URL

Twitter URL
Your Twitter URL.

Favorite Books
What are your favorite books?

Favorite Films/Shows
What are your favorite movies/shows?

Favorite Games
What are your favorite videogames?

Favorite Music
What are your favorite groups or solo artists?

Interests
What do you like to learn about or do, any noteworthy hobbies?

Occupation
What's your job?


Well, that's what I came up with. But yeah, if you have ideas on more, or if something can be reworded better, lemme know. Another little helpful tweak that PCEFX can use I think, so wanna make the best of it.

Hey guys,

I worked on PCEFX today with Aaron to modernize the Youtube embedding mod a bit to stop using Adobe Flash and instead use Youtube's prescribed way with an "<iframe>" tag where Youtube handles building the video player using HTML5-approved standards. I was annoyed enough about it and I wanted to put my coding skills to use here and help out!

This should stop all the problems in our Youtube thread and eliminate security issues (however small they were). Also, an added result/benefit, our thread will now work for Android and other Operating Systems that don't support Flash, so that's good too!

We had problems trying new Youtube SMF mods, so I wound up editing the one Aaron already had instead. Here is the PHP code I wrote to make this reality (mind you, it was a quick hack job):

Updated for Youtube, Facebook and Audio links (MP3, OGG, WAV)

Code Select Expand

// nightwolve start
  $URL = $input[2] . '';
// Handle Youtube
  $youtube = strstr($URL, "youtu");
  if ( $youtube ) {
    if ( ($URL = strstr($youtube, 'youtu.be/')) )
      $youtube = substr($URL, 9);
    else if ( ($URL = strstr($youtube, 'v=')) )
      $youtube = substr($URL, 2);
    else
      $youtube = $input[3];
    return '<P><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/' . $youtube . '" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></P>';
  }
// Handle Facebook
  $facebook = strstr($URL, ".facebook.com");
  if ( $facebook ) {
    if ( strstr($URL, 'plugins/video.php') )
      $facebook = $URL;
    else
      $facebook = '[url]https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href='[/url] . URLEncode($URL) . '&show_text=0&width=560';
    return '<P><iframe src="' . $facebook . '" width="560" height="315" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></P>';
  }
// Handle audio (mp3/ogg/wav)
  $ext = strtolower(substr($URL, -4));
  if ( $ext == ".mp3" || $ext == ".ogg" || $ext == ".wav" )
    return '<P><A HREF="' . $URL . '">' . $URL . '</A><BR><AUDIO SRC="' . $URL . '" CONTROLS></AUDIO></P>';
  return $URL;
// nightwolve end

I'm building the basic embed tag as prescribed by Youtube, with default width/height of 560x315 and for allowing fullscreen mode.

Code Select Expand

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YPXXslxEyvc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The reason I'm showing you this is to speak now or forever hold your peace in terms of adding useful formatting or other tweaks.

For example, I added enclosing '<p></p>' to get similar breaking as before, although it changes things somewhat you notice over time, like you'll only need one break if you have multiple Youtube links and you'll need one less break if you want a sentence above or below it, you'll see what I mean, put it that way.

I'm glad to help give ole PCEFX a little modern boost, took a bit to track the code down and rebuild a packaged mod based on the original to get this going. I actually set this mod up on my site first, tested out hacks/changes, then when it was ready I installed it here. After looking at the whole mod's features, I also disabled support for all other embedding and just left it for Youtube to avoid any problems/security issues.

Anyway, yeah, if you have any thoughts/suggestions on how to tweak, now's your chance while I can and am interested. I think I got it working pretty good so far, but that remains to be seen!

EDIT: So here's an inline test: It behaves as before, if you want auto-embed, you remove the 's', while leaving it to just paste the link.

E.g.

With 's'

Without:

https://gamester81.com/big-trouble-in-little-china-is-now-a-nes-game-in-this-playable-hack/ (by John Riggs)

So looks like Bad Dudes was the source-hacked ROM.

_{https://gamester81.com/wp-content/uploads/YouTubeThumb_bigtrouble-1024x576.jpg}

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-carpenter-speaks-director-halloween-834754

Some interesting tidbits from this interview with Director John Carpenter​. Figure it might be interesting to some here, both in gaming and movie-making areas.

1) Carpenter's company CanalPlus sued Luc Besson​ (known for The Fifth Element, Transporter, Kiss of the Dragon, Taken, The Professional, etc.) for his Lockout​ movie feeling it ripped off Escape from New York​. They won 80,000 Euros in French court.

2) They also wanted to sue Konami​ for the Metal Gear Solid​ series, feeling it too "kinda ripped off" Escape from New York, but Carpenter told them not to because he knows and likes the director (Hideo Kojima​), says he's a nice guy, etc...

[CanalPlus] wanted to also go after the video game Metal Gear Solid, which is kind of a rip-off of Escape From New York, too, but I told them not to do that. I know the director of those games, and he's a nice guy, or at least he's nice to me.

I guess a point of discussion would be, does anybody familiar both with the Metal Gear Solid series see a "solid" comparison with Escape From New York ??

[losing]

wayback://theretroleague.com/1990-tournament/

We started with 64 games and we're down to the final two. What is the best video game of 1990 - Super Mario Bros 3 (NES) or Ys Book I&II (Turbografx-16 CD)?

Answer    Votes    Percentage
Answer    Votes    Percentage

Super Mario Bros 3 (NES)    58    54.21%
Ys Book I&II (TurboGrafx-16 CD)    49    45.79%

Ys Book I & II is apparently losing a poll to some NES game, can you believe that ? Please throw some votes at Ys ASAP. Thanks! ;)

site.douban.com/120173/widget/notes/14552530/note/298028528/

Other threads of interest:
http://www.bcpark.net/bbs/302698
vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14085

Alright, so apparently there is a full-fledged debug mode in Ys IV and it's been accessed before... Note, this is NOT the known Developer/Staff Room feature that is available after you beat the game once! The problem is nobody knows how it access it at present and in the past there apparently was a patch for Ys IV from a famous Falcom fan site run by Sugimo.

So, does anybody know anything about this ? I'm hoping if some of the more talented programmers around here might be willing to take a look at the Ys IV ROM to see how if there's a way to hack the game to go into the Debug Mode branch which is probably what the alleged patch once offered by Sugimo did.

>> HOW DEBUG MODE WITH SUGIMO'S PATCH ONCE WORKED <<

So after applying the patch, select "Beginning" in the title screen to enter full Debug Mode.


You'll be taken to the Village of Arieda and surrounded by villagers.


Talk with the leftmost woman for a menu of cinemas.


Talk with the rightmost woman for a menu of 3 Ys IV History animation scenes [my guess].

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/43113410/steel-assault
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/43113410/steel-assault/widget/video.html



Saw this on a twitter feed. Really great trailer, I'll give it that!

Personally, not crazy about 8-bit style just for the sake of nostalgia though. I say, at least bump these up to 256 colors or better. NES games have a way of giving me flashbacks to Atari 2600 and I don't need that. Though the developer asserts he's going for the quality you saw in the final games released for the system.

It's interesting, if you recall I had a friend that started with the same idea for his

Insanity's Blade game

, but then midstream he kicked it up to "Arcade Mode" AKA 16-bit... This developer seems pretty adamant that's what he wants, but regardless, this does look like it could be a cool game based on that trailer!

https://pceworks.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/xakiii-and-soii/
https://pceworks.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/xak-iii-deluxe-edition/



To be clear, I was not contacted in any way, shape or form about Xak III... SO II is Tru's project mainly by agreement, though I helped him start it ages ago, and is outside of my concern. Xak III is my issue and the fact that this f--k is likely getting ready to press Ys IV down the road, and so my hopes of eventually doing it myself someday, the right way (partly), by contacting members that can be, taking votes, working out deals, redubbing any voice actor who refused inclusion (e.g. like BurntLasagna's brother for a soldier character I'd definitely have to redub), etc. that's all dashed as I don't think I could ever catch up to this guy's expertise in doing this and I'm far too busy to even try this year! He definitely thinks he should get to do it and pocket 100% of the earnings!

As many know, I'm not a fan credo fanatic and against the concept in principle, but sneaking around and doing it in secret when you COULD contact the people's fan translation work you are using, is where there's an issue for me! Avoiding the company which would want $5k-$10k-$15k in licensing fees is understandable and would mean no bootlegs/repros would ever happen, so escaping that, I understand.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kusoge/kusoge-chinawarrior.htm

THOSE NO GOOD ROTTEN ##!?!!!!! THEY TALKIN' BAD ABOUT CHINA WARRIOR!

"China Warrior, an early PCE title which sacrificed gameplay for huge sprites"

"It's a good thing you aren't actually Bruce Lee, or else this game would almost be a greater disrespect to his memory than Game of Death. Hudson thankfully moved on from this dark mark in their history..."

[Downloads]

This project began around Dec 15, 2001 after I gave up on Legend of Xanadu. In the 2-3 weeks prior, I gained a great deal of experience with hacking LoX, began development of Translation Station (a big part of the success of all my projects!), but soon realized 2 major difficulties that I wouldn't be able to overcome (You'd have to become as good as Bonknuts or EsperKnight to do so). So, I had to search for a more easier title to translate and Xak III was the lucky Action-RPG find. Since 2004, it stands at 100% complete for script/text work, but 0% on dubbing - it would need a translator to listen and transcribe all the voice acting and go from there, actor recruitment and so forth. Although, I do have the first cut-scene transcribed, it was in the game ROM oddly enough.

The developers of Xak III, thankfully, were lazy in conserving space within the game ROM & didn't use a text codec (compression) scheme - that's what you hope for primarily... Clear S-JIS DBCS (Double-Byte Character Encoding) per the standard of PCE CDs is used without codec tricks!! The 2nd quality that also made this game a prime candidate for easy hacking was that 1-byte ASCII/ANSI was supported for English characters. A working 8x16 font is already there, so by replacing 2-byte Japanese characters with 1-byte English characters, we double the available string length originally allocated!!! Of course that's not enough, but string pointers come into play and it worked out to where I never really trimmed translations because of the size of text blocks (with rare exceptions)! The quality of Paul England's translated results is another matter, however.

While the project is old, mostly complete minus dubbing, I made the thread here realizing I never had one for marketing and because I'm doing minor things I might release in the future. Am also open to someone revamping the script work if they take an interest, it could use lots more proofing and sprucing up. So yeah, the thread might help for new people who have no idea about the English patch and see this for the first time, plus, might as well have a spot to collect occasional feedback on an active forum.








The basic before/after magic of translation projects:





Downloads

* Xak III English Patch v1.00 (XakIII(US)v100.cab) - The latest release as of 2004. Text/Script = 100%, Dub = 0%.

* XakIII-Jap2EngScript.zip and XakIII-Script.zip - Entire Xak III script in HTML view for proof-reading, rewrites, etc.

* The Xak Hack - A Perl script to hack a saved state file to make your gold = 65,536 & EXP = 8,388,607!!! It works with saved state files from both YAME & MagicEngine. For ME, make sure compress_state_file=n in the PCE.INI otherwise it won't work. To use it, simply copy it & the saved state file to a separate directory, double click the Perl file, then copy the saved state file back to it's original location & reload it while playing the game. That's all there's to it - when gold runs low, do it again!!! Make sure you run it on a saved state file after you've started the game & actually have control of the main character in the beginning city. Also, you'll need to install the ActivePerl runtimes by activestate.com

Links

ysutopia.net/projects/xakiii/ - My Project Pages
ysutopia.net/projects/xak3/
retro-type.com/xyz/xak.htm - The Xak Series Tribute by SkyeWelse
http://www.pcengine.com.br/Xak3/xak_iii.htm - Review

https://gdemu.wordpress.com/about/

The maker is wrapping up a model for Dreamcast and that's what he's selling right now on the website. However, a friend told me he's working on a Saturn and PC Engine/TG-16 version, but I don't see anything about that on the actual site though, so that info must've come from a forum or something. I figured it was rumor cause I find it hard to believe, but wondering if anyone else can confirm this ??

Seems a shame something like the 3DO already got a mod device like this first, though it was pretty expensive. Anyway, I'd be pretty interested in one if this rumor is true.

[Loading:]

Thread Mirror #1: ysutopia.net/forums/index.php?topic=431.0
Twitter Tweets: twitter.com/NightWolve75/status/555595460602527745
https://twitter.com/NightWolve75/status/1089000068215177216

Intro [1/13/2015]: I had been in talks with my old friend David Shadoff about taking over one of his excess stalled projects and this was one of them. Mulled it over and decided I'll try to push this over the finish line, but no guarantees... As such, I was given all project materials, including ~60% of SamIAm's translated results from 2007. I've also been discussing it with Sam on how to proceed and think I can meet his needs, though time will tell. If successful, this'll mark 11 years since my last full PC Engine CD RPG project (Ys IV) got off the ground in 2004 (the dub in 2012 was just a little blip)! I had decided I wanted to stick mainly with more modern x86 Falcom PC Games after Ys IV, but with Emerald Dragon, I am retro again, baby!

9/6/2019: A first-look teaser of the Emerald Dragon [PC Engine CD] English localization project has been published!!!  Took YEARS to get here...

Loading: twitter.com/NightWolve75/status/555595460602527745

Loading: twitter.com/NightWolve75/status/1089000068215177216

Reviews:

pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/emerald-dragon.html
honestgamers.com/3140/turbografx-cd/emerald-dragon/review.html

"FINAL FANTASY® XIV"

Just saw the ad for it pop up right here in the forums. I clicked it to give Aaron some change; Google Adsense pays for the PCEFX hosting and domain, with change to spare, so I try to remember once in a while to click the ads that pop up that are relevant to me.

http://store.na.square-enix.com/store/sqenixus/en_US/list/ThemeID.29853700/categoryID.64514800


Anyway, I was wondering, does anybody still get excited when a new Final Fantasy game is released ? Anybody give a shit ? Or like me, is it a very far off distant memory when you used to REALLY care about the series and it had your undivided attention ?

Hey guys, I could use some help. I got a 7" tablet and I'm pretty sure the maker doesn't give a shit about it anymore, so there won't be any official updates for the OS in the future. Only way I'll ever be able to upgrade it to Android 4.4 (AKA KitKat) will be by force after it's rooted. Has anybody ever done this ? I need a definitive guide if possible. I spent hours googling around yesterday and I didn't find much of anything that was worthwhile. I need 1) a good guide and 2) the source website for a generic build for Android KitKat... Nothing seems to be clear on where to download the latest build let alone a guide on how to do this for an average tablet... I'm hoping somebody here might have experience so thought I'd ask before continuing on my own. Thanks!

Hidden for three decades in a landfill deep in the New Mexico desert lie thousands of Atari cartridges from what is widely believed to be worst video game ever made — or so the urban legend goes.

A group of filmmakers hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery Saturday by digging up the concrete-covered landfill in search of up to a million discarded copies of "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" that the game's maker wanted to hide forever. The game and its contribution to the demise of Atari have been the source of fascination for video game enthusiasts for 30 years, and the search for the cartridges will be featured in an upcoming documentary about the biggest video game company of the early '80s.

"Bottom line, this is just trash. But there is a legend in it, we want to unlock that legend, that mystery," a spokeswoman for the public relations firm working on behalf of Xbox Entertainment Studios, one of the companies developing the film. The documentary is expected to be released later this year on Microsoft's Xbox game consoles.

Paywall'ed: https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/article2597098.html
Wayback: sacbee.com/2014/04/26/6355644/diggers-ready-to-unearth-ataris.html

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. -- A construction crew is digging through several feet of dirt and trash in a New Mexico landfill to reach what they believe is a giant cache of cartridges from what some call the worst video game ever made.

A New York Times article from 1983 reported that Atari cartridges of "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" were dumped in the landfill in Alamogordo.

Fuel Entertainment is producing a documentary about the search.

The videogame's commercial failure was partially responsible for the demise of Atari in the early 1980's.

The contents of the "Atari Grave" have become urban legend, with blog posts speculating about millions of cartridges and other Atari projects buried there. A spokeswoman for Atari says the company changed hands many times since 1983 and does not know what is buried there.

So...will this urban legend of an alleged "Atari Grave" finally be uncovered ?? ;) Somebody thought about it enough to actually take it this far... Heh-heh.

Only 2 items of significance to speak of this year:

1) Because my smart phone is too small and I've come to enjoy being able to check email, visit here, facebook, handle general browsing, I wanted a tablet to serve as a cheap, simple laptop solution so that I don't always have to power on my PC Windows Tower machine. I was also curious about Google's entrance into the Operating System market so I wanted to get familiar with this Android OS for mobile devices. I found this 7" model for $59 + $2 for shipping so I snagged it up.

wayback://nomorerack.com/daily_deals/view/android_2ghz_4gb_7__tablet_pc

• Brand: iRola
• Model: DX752
• CPU: Rockchip2926, Cortex-A9, Up to 1.2GHz
• Google Android 4.2 OS
• 512MB DDR3 RAM
• 4GB memory
• External MicroSD card 1GB to 32GB supported; card not included
• Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Built-in speaker (x2)
• Built-in camera: front 0.3MP
• Built-in camera: back 1.3MP
• 7" wide screen with 800 x 480 resolution
• Capacitive touchscreen
• T-flash card (supports up to 32GB)
• Built-in microphone
• 4-dimensional gravity sensor
• Micro-USB port
• Audio: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR-WB, QCP, MP3, WMA, WAV, MIDI, M4A
• Video: WMV, ASF, MP4, 3GP, 3G2M4V, AVI, MJPEG, RV10, DivX, VC-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, h.263, H.264
• Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Flipit, Talking Tom, Temple Run, Solitaire, Skype, Adobe Reader, Facebook, E-Reader, Netflix, Youtube, Twitter, and more
• Google Search, Camcorder/Camera, Gmail, Apk, ES file Explorer, ES Task Manager, Google Talk, E-Reader, Market, NC Manager, PDF Reader, and more
• Rechargeable polymer lithium battery
• 5V
• More than 6.5hrs battery life
• Unit size: 7.6" x 4.75" x 0.375"
• Weighs 12oz

2) I had also been wanting a good HD camcorder to record mod videos and whatever else for quite a while now. First I bought a Sony, but then I took it a back and was willing to pay a little more for this Canon model which seemed like a better deal overall. Best Buy threw in a 32 GB Class 10 SD Memory Card for a total of $170+tax.

cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-vixia-hf-r400/4505-6500_7-35562084.html
crutchfield.com/./Canon-VIXIA-HF-R400.html
Canon HF R400 Camcorder:

Storage and Formats:
-records high-definition video and photos onto SD, SDHC, and SDXC memory cards
-8GB memory cards hold up to 3 hours of AVCHD video at lowest quality setting
-maximum video resolution: 1920 x 1080/60p

Features:
-1/4.85-inch CMOS sensor shoots at a full-HD 1920 x 1080 pixels advanced DIGIC DV IV image processor
-32X optical zoom lens (53X Advanced zoom, 1060X digital)
-3" touch-panel widescreen LCD (230K dots)
-four image stabilization systems optimize image in different shooting situations
-record in 28Mbps AVCHD for best quality, or in no-fuss 35Mbps MP4 for easy compatibility with editing software and web uploads

Well, that's about it for me... I usually don't manage to get anything worthwhile, but I hope both products work out for me. I still haven't received the tablet though... Just checked the tracking # as a matter of fact and because of volume it got sent out by the 2-day USPS method only yesterday... No biggie.

Anyhow, how about anyone else, did you score any good deals this year or just didn't bother with all the craziness that comes along with it ?? Brag/boast away!

I read reports that ~70% of the door buster deals that brick'n'mortar stores offer can actually be found online as well, so you probably didn't have to deal with driving around and facing large crowds if you're comfortable with online shopping and the wait, etc. Good to know in the future.

[Update: February 16, 2016]

Update: February 16, 2016

Chris' game was completed and has been live on Steam since December 5, 2014. It's fully matured well over a year now with all the latest patches, so good time to buy it, most especially when there's a sale and it only goes for $2.22!!!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/334190/Insanitys_Blade/

Trailer/Purty Screenshots

Update: December 12, 2013

My friend Chris has gotten serious with the production of his indie videogame and has set up a kickstarter project with 6 days to go. It's done in 8-bit retro classic style and I think a few of you on here might be interested in supporting it. Check it out!

kickstarter.com/projects/353834117/insanitys-blade-ultimate

Interview:

Deleted: 4colorrebellion.com/archives/2013/12/-12/kickin-it-with-causal-games-studio-insanitys-blade
PCEFX Archived: https://www.pcengine-fx.com/content/InsanitysBladeDeveloperInterview2013.html

You might remember him as LoboDaMainMan if you ever hung around the #rigg chatroom (@Keranu).

Update: January 07, 2014

P. S. It succeeded in obtaining its minimum Kickstarter-backing at the last minute because of some generous big spenders. 

DEMO - WINDOWS:
New "Arcade" version: http://causalbitgames.com/demos/IBARCADE-WIN32.zip
Old 8-bit Retro version: http://causalbitgames.com/demos/IBWIN.zip

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Insanitys-Blade-Header.jpg
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Insanitys-Blade-Boss.jpg
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Insanitys-Blade-Cutscene.jpg
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Insanitys-Blade-2.png

http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/r-i-p-james-gandolfini/

Actor James Gandolfini died suddenly after a suspected heart attack while on holiday in Rome to attend the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily. He was 51. Gandolfini will be forever known for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on the seminal HBO series The Sopranos, which eventually won him 3 Emmy Awards and a $1,000,000-an-episode paycheck. Overweight, balding, rough around the edges with a thick New Jersey accent, Gandolfini was the opposite of a marquee leading man, destined to be a character actor. Yet he proved through his masterful acting that he could make Tony Soprano sexy and smart, towering and powerful. Chris Albrecht who greenlighted the crime family saga at HBO in 1999 and approved Gandolfini in the role, just emailed Deadline: "Absolutely stunned. I got the word from Lorraine Bracco and just got off with Brad Grey who had just heard from David Chase. We had all become a family. This is a tremendous loss." (Grey was the executive producer and Chase the creator of The Sopranos.) And Gandolfini's managers confirmed the actor's death. "It is with immense sorrow that we report our client James Gandolfini passed away today while on holiday in Rome, Italy,' said Mark Armstrong and Nancy Sanders. "Our hearts are shattered and we will miss him deeply. He and his family were part of our family for many years and we are all grieving."

Pursuing this for me began here thanks to Duo_R. The desire to tweak and learning a few tricks from thesteve made the simple circuit design you see below possible. It only applies to 1st generation SNES consoles made between 1990-1993 with the S-ENC chip clearly shown or BA6592F. If your video chip says "S-RGB" ANYWHERE on it (the newer SNES JR/MINI/FAT models), sorry, this mod will NOT work!

The known working chips for this are labeled as:
1) BA6592F (you'll likely need to amp both Red-Y & Blue-Y guaranteed with this chip)
2) S-ENC (you might get away with just using a cap/resistor combo on one or both signals, as I did for Blue-Y)
3) S-ENC B BA6594AF

<WIP>
(Self-Reminder: Add official circuit dumps to image, and call for EE to professionally design circuit.)



Memo: Ultimately, the purpose of the pretty schematic below is to help lead to a more perfect transistor-based amp for Red-Y and Blue-Y by allowing others to clearly see what ROHM/SNES engineers did. It's out of that hope that a professional electrical engineer (like thesteve) with a scope, SNES hardware and who IS hands-on will show up and be able to model the best circuit design by having all available information upfront and in a very clear manner, etc. That's the idea. So yeah, here's what's currently going on inside a 1990 SNES, all 100% verified:



I recently bought a nice toy which has been a big help for tweaking this mod:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/120966019918?ssPageName
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=F03147+Capture

It's a F03147 HD USB 2.0 Video Audio Capture Grabber with 240p+ YPbPr support! Yay! And $23 shipped!

I rolled the dice in buying this because I didn't know if 240p would be supported, but thankfully, it worked perfectly! So, with this device, you can take digital screenshots of videogames on your PC via analog Composite, S-Video or Component video signals, side-by-side, then page up/down very quickly on the images to see how well the color level and tint match up, etc. In other words, pause the game, switch to Composite mode, take a screenshot, switch to S-Video, take another screenshot, finally, switch to YPbPr Component, repeat, etc. Adjust your circuit as needed so that the coloring/tint matches up to the native signals (Composite/S-Video) that the system is producing for best results, etc. You get the idea.

Now, the included software is kind of cheap, but it works with any DirectShow supporting software like DScaler and any other Movie Capture software, etc.


Extra Notes: It's important to understand that the circuitry of a TV set that processes an analog YPbPr Component video signal varies and even if one could figure out the perfect output circuit, you're still gonna get people complaining about green levels, tint, yellow mixed colors even, etc... That's the unfortunate reality.

Examples: I have a Samsung LCD 19" TV that can process a 240p signal thankfully. It computes the color green perfectly. This is testable with Super Street Fighter II, the Ken stage where the water is supposed to be green and also with Super Mario World, the title screen. However, my old school Panasonic 32" CRT TV has a problem computing green from a Component signal and it's usually darker and/of the wrong tint, looks more bluish. Yet on the very same TV set, the circuitry for Composite/S-Video properly displays green as it should be! Two different sets+capture device, same circuit on console, yet green is wrong in one, the CRT. :\

The other issue is how it handles red, apparently. My Component-to-USB device tells me that I need a little more amplification for red, so it's almost perfect with no output resistance, just straight from the transistor with filter cap seems right. This also holds true for my Samsung LCD. But again, this old school CRT tells me that the red is a little hot and could use a 15-25 Ohm output resistor which is why my old first circuit had 15 Ohm resistors on the outputs... So anyhow, I am preferring to trust my USB device here in the view that a circuit revolving around that would produce the most universal result, while accepting that some TV sets you're gonna have differences and people may customize the circuit to fit that particular TV set.


Reference Links:
http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=71069
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=37716&start=90
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8979&p=110204#p110204 (More complex circuit with chip here)

[ I know, I know, it's a NEC forum, but doesn't mean we have to be all "platformist" exclusionary or whatever ;) ]

Old circuit:

I've been wanting to buy a DMM with capacitance measuring support and decided on the eBay VC99 which can test capacitors up to 2000uF. I asked steve what his recommendation was right before buying it, but the one he likes didn't have capacitance measuring, so not wanting to wait any longer, I went ahead with the purchase. Still, I'd be curious at what other peoples' opinions are on their favorite DMMs. Anybody have a particular brand they like to stick with ? Any opinions on the VC models ?

Linky: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-VC99-3-6-7-Auto-Range-Digital-Multimeter-Thermomete-Capacitance-Resistance-/180876654055?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1d16b5e7

$34 with shipping which I think is an OK deal. You could find the VC97 for $10 bucks, but that only handles capacitors up to 200uF. This was the best deal I could find for a DMM that handles caps up to 2000uF as mentioned although having gotten impatient, I didn't spend that much time searching (could be better deals out there). =\ Anyways, I think it'll do the job well enough for my hobby uses.

[Steve Hanleys's circuit design advanced to be more universal to work for many other consoles. But I think this thread should remain NEC specific.* A Simple Jailbar Fix Guide has been included. Check end of this post.* Current Revision (8/24/2014): The latest 2014 design (over the 2013) adds a 470 uF DC filter cap for Luma/Y to bring the video signal closer to video standards and help eliminate problems like screen flashes, sync dropout, etc. Many other tweaks to note also, so it's significantly different from previous designs.]

Steve Hanleys's circuit design advanced to be more universal to work for many other consoles. But I think this thread should remain NEC specific.

* A Simple Jailbar Fix Guide has been included. Check end of this post.

* Current Revision (8/24/2014): The latest 2014 design (over the 2013) adds a 470 uF DC filter cap for Luma/Y to bring the video signal closer to video standards and help eliminate problems like screen flashes, sync dropout, etc. Many other tweaks to note also, so it's significantly different from previous designs.

RGB + H/V Sync taps from 6260 Video Encoder Chip
	Yellow is for H/V Sync, RGB pins are color matched. Exact: pin 51 - Blue pin 49 - Red pin 47 - Green pin 44 - H/V Sync

** Parts List Review (Updated: 8/24/2014) **

• Resistors (15): A $10 general 500 resistor pack should have all values needed, check eBay.
• Capacitors (5): 1 x 22 μF, 1 x 470 μF, and 3 x 100 μF (circuit operates at 5 VDC, so a cap voltage rating of twice or more is safe: 10 V+). A $10 capacitor kit should also have all values needed, check eBay.
• Transistors (7): 7 x model "S8050" and that's IF you want the BEST according to steve, but you can use the RadioShack favorite/standard, the 2N3904. You can buy 50 pieces of the S8050 transistor for about $2 bucks on eBay from Chinese sellers.
• Potentiometers: (3) 2 x 10,000 Ohms, 1 x 100 Ohms. a) The 10,000 Ohm pots should be centered to 5,000 Ohms on both terminals to start the circuit off. Alternatively, you can substitute these pots with four 5,000 Ohm resistors in series, 2 for each line, with the center point soldered to the transistor base. b) As for the 100 Ohm pot, you can either get it or fiddle around with 10 to 90 Ohm resistors from your pack to find the best output value for the Luma/Y. I'll try to determine the best value for this when I get a chance.
• Diode (1): One, any cheap low-watt model will do.
• PCB: One 5cm x 7cm board is good enough to build this circuit on. Have fun!

This image is a little outdated because of how much steve changed the design. I will update it eventually. Stuff like the S8050 transistors shown is still relevant. It's just the capacitor types that have changed.


Notes:

• If you can get a ceramic version of the 22 μF capacitor, that would be better as ceramics are non-polarized! The ambiguity here of voltage direction doesn't best lend itself for polarized aluminum caps. Ceramics start getting expensive for bigger caps such as the 100 μF and so forth, so just pay attention to the schematic for polarity when it comes to the aluminum caps that you'll have to use, same for that last 470 μF cap (negative end goes to jack/TV).
• S8050, NPN transistors can be bought cheap on eBay by this seller, yankee_electronic. A pack of 50 for ~$2 bucks, etc. Search his eBay store if he has them up for sale, and after purchasing, ask for S8050 so you get regular, full sized transistors and not surface mount, small type ones, etc.
• Pretty sure everything can be purchased at your local RadioShack if you're impatient, prefer retail options and go with the 2n3904. For caps, the 470μF are standard, but cost a $1.69+ each, so are the 220μF, and the 22μF ones might or might not be there though. They have a 500 piece $9.99 1/8 watt resistor kit or a $13 1/4 resistor kit (1/8w is fine!). PCB boards are $2.19 each, but for that much money, you can buy 10 pieces from a Chinese seller on eBay... There is a 15 pack of transistors, 5 of which are the 2n3904 needed for about $2.99+ or so... As for RCA jacks, they are a complete ripoff at RS... So, in the end, I recommend just getting used to learning how to shop on eBay for this stuff. You'll have to wait longer, but your money will go so much further. Example, for $4 bucks I bought 100 S8050 transistors, the good kind that are steve-approved... They came, I tested them on my SNES mod, they work fine! With the same amount of money at RadioShack, I get only 5 of the needed transistors and they're generic... Pathetic!

Cheap hobbyist PCBs are plentiful on eBay (bought 10 pieces for $2 bucks) such as this 5cm x 7cm board which is perfect for this mod:



These wall plate gold-plated RCA jacks are also perfect if cheaper than buying 3 jacks individually, though they usually come in standard yellow (composite), white, red colors, but nothing a little good blue & green nail polish can't solve to give you the proper coloring for component jacks as I did here:


EBay Search for "rca wall plate" with or without "component".

This circuit is still a WIP and subject to revisions. I have yet to build mine, though I was responsible for pestering steve to help me when I tried to use the R-Y/B-Y outputs off the HuC6260 chip, but we eventually found that repairing these signals outputted by the chip was not worth the trouble and that led steve to later design the Red/Blue/Y mixer you see above! There are plans by BlueBMW and steve to manufacture professional printed circuit boards of this, so you may be able to buy one from them in the future instead of building it yourself. But I think this will be an enjoyable mod to perform yourself (building the circuit), so that's why I'm not gonna wait.

Screenshots of the first circuit built for one of steve's customer can be found here:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/pcengine/rgb-mods-t174-s10.html
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/pcengine/rgb-mods-t174.html


Jailbar Fix Guide - It is also recommended that you perform this simple mod to eliminate the "jailbar" problem that can occur in some cases.

pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=13231.msg287992#msg287992



A little History here with the old design of the circuit. Steve said the customer was getting "shadowing" effects with this circuit. It tried to use the existing Luma/Y that the chip produces and mix it with RGB Red and Blue, but steve concluded there was a syncing issue with doing that causing the "shadowing" and what not, so he decided he would have to tap RGB and Sync to fully produce his own matching Luma, making the new/current design far more complicated. Anyhow, I leave a link to the old design for reference and just in case for others to fiddle with.

https://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff216/Sephiroth1975/General/NECHuC6260YPbPrMod.png

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/dog-stands-guard-over-deceased-owner-grave-six-190556479.html

An extremely dedicated dog has continued to show its loyalty, keeping watch on its owner's grave six years after he passed away.

Capitan, a German shepherd, reportedly ran away from home after its owner, Miguel Guzman, died in 2006. A week later, the Guzman family found the dog sitting by his grave in central Argentina.

Miguel Guzman adopted Capitan in 2005 as a gift for his teenage son, Damian. And for the past six years, Capitan has continued to stand guard at Miguel's grave. The family says the dog rarely leaves the site.

"We searched for him, but he had vanished," widow Veronica Guzman told LaVoz.com. "We thought he must have got run over and died.

'The following Sunday we went to the cemetery, and Damian recognized his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing as if he were crying."

Adding to the unusual circumstances, Veronica says the family never brought Capitan to the cemetery before he was discovered there.

"It is a mystery how he managed to find the place," she said.

Cemetery director Hector Baccega says he and his staff have begun feeding and taking care of Capitan.

"He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master," Baccega said.

"During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o'clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave, stays there all night."

But the Guzman family hasn't abandoned Capitan. Damian says the family has tried to bring Capitan home several times but that he always returns to the cemetery on his own.

"I think he's going to be there until he dies, too. He's looking after my dad," he said.

Awwwwwww.

[Top Gun (1986)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Scott
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001716/
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/08/20/tony-scott-partnered-with-brother-ridley-had-several-blockbuster-hits-but-never/ - (Damn, his wife is pretty hot!)

No one ever mistook Tony Scott for a great dramatist. He was a director critics loved to hate for his slick barrage of images at the expense of story. The filmmaker did not dazzle the imagination with visions of lost or alien worlds, like brother Ridley Scott.

Tony Scott was as populist as they come in Hollywood, a man of action films, pure and simple. From Tom Cruise as a daring fly boy in 1986's "Top Gun" to Denzel Washington mutinying against an unstable captain in 1995's "Crimson Tide" or trying to slow a runaway train in 2010's "Unstoppable," director Scott mastered sky, sea and earth in the name of movie adrenaline.

The 68-year-old Scott died Sunday after jumping from a Los Angeles County bridge, authorities said. His death was being investigated as a suicide, Los Angeles County Coroner's Lt. Joe Bale said.

It was a puzzling end for a filmmaker who had maintained a busy pace, with a sequel to "Top Gun," his biggest hit, in the works.

The Hunger (1983)
Top Gun (1986)
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
Revenge (1990)
Days of Thunder (1990)
The Last Boy Scout (1991)
True Romance (1993)
Crimson Tide (1995)
The Fan (1996)
Enemy of the State (1998)
Spy Game (2001)
Man on Fire (2004)
Domino (2005)
Déjà Vu (2006)
The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)
Unstoppable (2010)

I saw his last movie pretty recently, Unstoppable, also pretty damn good, but I'd say my favorite out of that list is between Top Gun and Spy Game (Brad Pitt, Robert Redford).  If his name's familiar, it's because he's the younger brother of Ridley Scott, the Blade Runner/Alien/Gladiator director...

Anyway, bad news. Of most of the crap that Hollywood turns out, he was the exception in many cases. Sounds like he catches the same shit that Michael Bay does for emphasis on action over story though, but fuck those people, I enjoyed many of his movies!

I used to hang at another forum called The-NextLevel many moons ago and they had a subforum called "The Circuit Board" where members would ask for general tech support on whatever from other members, put up How-to Guides and the like, etc. Figured I'd float the idea here, see if others might find it worthwhile. Not sure where it should go exactly, but take a look at how it works at TNL:

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/forums/63-The-Circuit-Board
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/forums/63-The-Circuit-Board/page2

Example topics to give you a general idea:

"I need a new camcorder" - [Suggestions?]
"Speech to Text Software" - [Suggestions?]
"Why Is My Screen Clipping When I Play Video?"
"Need help with an 'OS not found' error"
"For the Love of God, How Do I Use an XBox 360 Controller with my PC?"
"Converting MPEG to AVI"
"How to Upload Music to Youtube/other"


So yeah, that's the idea in a nutshell. Best placement would be somewhere as a child board in the "Non-NEC Console Related Discussion", I guess under Chit-Chat, cause I'd bet Aaron and whoever wouldn't want a 5th board item appearing in that list.

Well, like or hate the idea? Any interest?

Anybody ever try replacing the capacitor that preserves your saved states with a Lithium type battery that'll last 10 years ? Any info around on how to do this for a US Turbo Duo specifically ? Weird thing, my saved states were around for years even without a 3 month recharge by turning the unit on (I left the unit alone for many years), but recently it lost all the saves, specifically the Ys IV ones that I had which could've been useful for jumping to parts of the game for testing the upcoming dubbing work...

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=7517.0

I did search around before posting, only found the above thread. It talks about the capacitor in question, but not the idea of somehow replacing it with a Lithium type battery. I assume with such a mod you'd have to get the right voltage and sever the trace that sends power to the old cap position, since you wouldn't want it recharging a non-rechargeable battery when the system is powered on.

I caught this auction with 10 minutes left and posted a title "Soldier Blade US: You got 10 minutes to snipe it." then subsequently updated it as the countdown commenced.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Soldier-Blade-TurboGrafx-16-/180910612241

It's at $83 bucks at present! 1 minute to go...

So at the last second, it went from $83 to $87.76. Congrats to the sniper! =)

 

I remember watching the exchanges in the gouging thread with one "KingOfGames" throwing images around of this game, essentially taunting other people and bragging how he could/would gouge it off for $200+ (a link was posted showing one that had sold for $255 even, etc.) yadda yadda.

Anyway, if one of you here wants it, here's your chance! - False alarm on my part, they're the JP versions.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEC-PC-ENGINE-Hu-card-SOLDIER-BLADE-shooter-Japan-TG-16-/290654656203?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43ac5e16cb

The seller is in Japan, wants $70, and worldwide shipping is stated as $6. I just happen to come across it while browsing for information so I thought I'd drop the link.

EDIT: Given what mrhaboobi pointed out, sorry if I got someone's hopes up... These are not the gouged US versions. I didn't realize this shooter was technically localized for the US and gouging was limited to that version.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/york-senate-bill-seeks-end-anonymous-internet-posting-162549128.html
http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-call-end-internet-anonymity-144224952.html

Anonymity is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the United States was founded, in part, thanks to Thomas Paine's anonymously written, pro-revolution pamphlet Common Sense. On the other hand, 12-year-olds who post anonymously on the internet can be rather unpleasant and cause real problems by cyberbullying. Whether you think the good outweighs the bad, this news is troubling indeed: A far-reaching bill introduced in the New York State Senate could end the practice of posting online once and for all.

Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara / NY Senate
Introduced by New York State Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara (R—Big Flats), S6779 would require that any anonymous post online is subject to removal if the poster refuses to post — and verify — their legal name, their IP address, and their home address. From the (likely well intentioned) bill:

"A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate. All web site administrators shall have a contact number or e-mail address posted for such removal requests, clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted."

Critics are quick to point out how dangerous and ineffective the anti-privacy bill would be in the off chance that it somehow passes.  After all, IP addresses do nothing to verify a person's identity, and including your home address on a controversial internet post could open you up to real-life threats.

In effect, the bill is an online stalker's dream. Of course, the most likely result of the bill's passage would just be the full-scale elimination of all comment systems everywhere, because the system is an unworkable burden on both the poster and the "web site administrators" who would need to respond to ludicrous take down requests at all times of the day.

I know I had been hearing about anti-cyber-bullying laws being enacted over the years and people getting arrested after doing something stupid on facebook, so the fact that more extreme speech-regulation laws were coming down the pike doesn't surprise me... But this?? It obviously doesn't stand a chance of going anywhere, but the fact that it was introduced and that some lawmakers would seriously consider going this far is certainly troubling. I wish there was a way to hold people accountable for say things like libel and/or cyber-bullying, BUT, a way that didn't ruin the Internet for everyone else, and I just don't know what that would be exactly without infringing on general principles of freedom of speech...

This is framed as a privacy issue, but if I have to give up my home address, phone number, etc. every time I say something controversial, you can bet I'm going to be deterred from saying something controversial, hence you're going to achieve a great deal of deterrence/intimidation when it comes to unpopular speech (which is the whole point of the 1st Amendment, protecting unpopular speech - popular speech doesn't need protecting, well, in theory ;))... The argument against the Fairness Doctrine was somewhat similar, forcing radio broadcasters to air contrasting views on controversial subjects led to them avoiding the talk-format altogether and become mainly a music station and what not, etc.

Anyway, I thought this topic would make for a good conversation. Thoughts ?