News:

RIP to BT Garner of MindRec.com... He passed away this year from health problems. BT was one of the top PCE homebrew developers and founder of the OG Turbo List. Condolences to family and friends.
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Messages - NightWolve

#1
Off-Topic / Re: Game Sack
June 26, 2023, 06:20:38 PM
GameSack decided to cover every PC Engine CD game that supports/relies on the Arcade Card enhancement memory, including games where it's uncertain/unadvertised like Emerald Dragon which doesn't indicate in any way there are benefits.

I always wanted one for my Turbo Duo given the used/cheap Strider ACD that I bought for $15 but I never got around to it. Plus, I'd have to also buy a region adapter to make it work on a US Duo! So it wouldn't be until the Magic Engine emulator when I finally got to play that ACD port to see just how awful it was!

I was also interested in Fatal Fury Special (not to mention SFII for my 6-button pad), Sapphire, a SuperGrafx itself, but gaming habits were dying off as I started my university studies, so didn't happen. But yeah, eventually when I discovered the world of emulation in late 2001-02, I got to download/play some of the missed opportunities from back when real hardware was the only game in town!
#2
Quote from: Ashevent on June 01, 2023, 11:26:24 PMI don't have anything credible to add. Just wanted to say this thread is amazing. ..lol.

I do find the difference between the TG16/TGCD and some other systems to be less muted colors than many other systems but..what do I know?
Glad you appreciate it!

I did a lot of grunt work to bring it into the modern era:
1) Built custom post buttons to speed up the process of adding "width=49%" dynamic image resizing for the 2 side-by-side image shots that awack did, I did EVERY post here!
2) awack used Photobucket which watermarks their shared images, but I made a special script to counter that, download/show a clean image AND then I returned for another idea to simply cache ALL Photobucket images shared on PCEFX so they're never lost! Over 11,000 Photobucket images are now permanently hosted here https://www.pcengine-fx.com/images/cache/ and will never be lost or watermarked now!

It's looking a lot better and the new theme already handles mobile adjustments for viewing on a phone. Still, this forum software is outdated, but I'm here, paid for the web space for 10 years, might as well research improvements to carry PCEFX legacy on as best I can.
#3
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

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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

#4
Quote from: Ashevent on May 10, 2023, 01:51:49 AMPicked up Legendary Axe II a little while ago and decided to give it a go lately, pretty darn fun and I dig the more sinister look of the game. Looks freaking great too IMO.
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LAII-2.png Ankoku_Densetsu-front.jpg

Glad you randomly brought up Legendary Axe II, I rediscovered what my favorite track was on the game so perfect opportunity to log some tweets forum-style that I made about it a while back!

The best chiptune of Legendary Axe II (1990) (TurboGrafx-16) I identified awhile back: Stage 3, wait about ~56 seconds for that sweet hook to kick in (though it's much too short)! ❤️

https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/legendary-axe-ii-ost-1990-nec-turbografx-16
Direct Download: 06 Stage 03.mp3 (Sometimes direct link breaks, but page link above should work)
Or better yet, I'll add it to the PC Engine Greatest Hits audio folder:I still remember actually getting to rent it as a kid via 1 of 2 video rental stores (Ken's World of Video & Bogarts) that actually stocked TurboGrafx-16 HuCards (never CDs though), was blown away! I owned an original TurboGrafx-16 model at that point which I had won with Bloody Wolf included, but I upgraded to a Turbo Duo after it broke...

Anyway, just wanted to preserve some of my history/share the soundtrack/add content in longer form given the context/your post.

LAII.jpg
#5
The 2nd English manual might be a PCE Works bootleg copy, if not, the seller somehow separated the official manual from the US product and just threw it in with what was sold. Best guess, yeah. Maybe share a photo so it can be compared to an original.
#6
Hi @shaggy, good to have ya stop by.

One of the few active repair people left is @Keith Courage - check his profile for contact on YouTube, Facebook, etc. I linked him your question since I can usually reach him on FB.
#7
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!


Quote1/1/2023 - "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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X/XX/2023 -
#8
Hey Great Hierophant

I made a special blast-from-the-past screenshot in honor of your visit! ; )

GHierophantReturns.png

Look familiar ? It's my/our old PC Engine RIGG (Retro ISO Gaming Guild) forum running locally, ~20 years to the day, wow! Some day soon I hope to export/upgrade it to SMF and publish it here as read-only to make more PCE/Ys history available: pcengine-fx.com/rigg/. So that's how I remembered your old Mario avatar and just patched it in. If you use another, feel free to update. : )

As for your problem, I've forwarded it both to thesteve and Downtown Chris Brown (AKA Keith Courage)! I'll let you know if I hear anything back. We might even get a visit from Steve, just got his account working (he was our top EE, Voultar-level).
#9
Off-Topic / Re: What's up ya'll!
September 07, 2022, 10:47:11 PM
Hey MG!

Guess I've had a setback rebooting with the SMF 2.1 core, I have to redo the theme and add the basic chatbox again, so less to see here now...

Pretty much looks like the nfg forums. On the plus side, lots of Photobucket images have been permanently cached (11k+) without the watermark AND will NEVER be lost should Photobucket delete them, plus more avatars, so image recovery behind the scenes has been my focus.

See for Avatar Image Recovery: pcengine-fx.com/forums/fixavatars.php

I'm OK I guess if I can only manage to archive the good threads, PCEFX history, for random google searches. Judging by NFG and the 2018 disaster, I can't expect to recover the activity we once had, have to be realistic about the goals here.

Anyway, I keep active mostly on Twitter (/NightWolve75) if anyone wants to reach me or follow/catch-up.
#10
Hey, so your thread doesn't have to be lonely, continuing on the WayBack/Archive.org theme: GamingAlexandria (with help/contributors) scanned/preserved EVERY PC Engine Fan issue this year for upload to WayBack!!!

You already knew I'm sure, but it's relevant PCE content that should be shared. Plus I added more embed power (to Wayback links & my auto Twitter embeds), looking much better!

PC Engine Fan issue #1 began in December 1988:

...And ran till October 1996:

Random Highlight: Page 57 of issue #1 was a Studio Ghibli ad for their My Neighbor Totoro anime movie which was also released that year.

PC Engine Fan - December 1988_0057.jpg
#11
General Gaming / Re: I’m back!
June 06, 2022, 12:40:09 AM
Hey Chris, haha, good to have ya stop by! I didn't think you would as I know you're friends with certain mutuals I'm at odds with, but cool to see you can cast that aside.

I wish I had made a lot more progress with the forum mods and rebuilding, but still a long way to go to make the place more presentable and then fire off a newsletter to all existing accounts.

The longer I wait, the worse the odds are I can get more regulars to return, so I may just have to bite the bullet and do it end of summer regardless of whatever progress I can make as it'll be a year since I first decided to upload PCEFX from the 2019 backup after seeing Aaron was giving it all up...
#12
Wowser, @Odonadon, been a llllllooooooong time! Mister OG Turbo2K (gone, but not forgotten) himself!

Guess I need to hurry up, get the chatbox back up again for quick hellos/catchups; I surely didn't expect to see you again, but trust you're doing well. If you're on Facebook, Twitter, or Discord BTW, add it to your profile; makes it easier for someone to catch up when old members/veterans randomly wander back.

I think that's your correct avatar, I know I embedded/saved it, but I wondered if that was a placeholder from the host, if not, feel free to patch it before you disappear. (It's all part of my image recovery scripts, so threads/posts are less broken from lost images to better archive ~20 years of PCE history/legacy with some Wayback aid).

I'm still not very happy with the state of the forum/software; the SMF 2.1 core was only a mild catch-up/improvement, but it's still way behind XenForo and even ProBoards where you don't have to deal with maintenance yourself (compelling reason to switch).

Anyway, given the bump to this thread, might as well share details on Chris Bucci's new Turbo Views channel update I noticed just now via Facebook! Ah, you noticed it also; I didn't read your whole post, I was still shocked at the "hi all" and that it was you, heh.
facebook.com/groups/65214321555/posts/10158349665281556

TurboViewsDVDBox.jpg
Nice DVD collector's box being readied.
#13
Quote from: SchattenJager0 on May 18, 2007, 12:16:04 AM
Quote from: Trevor PawlakHere I am performing the PC Engine game Ginga Fukei Densetsu: Sapphire's Stage 1 music.  Much like my other Sapphire video.  This one was actually harder, but it's still fun.  Sorry about the intro being off camera, but who cares about that part anyway, right?
Random Retro WayBack: Awesome to find an old, genuine PCE Turbro [from 2007] that knows how to jam out some of the greatest tunes from the NEC/PCE library!

Feels like he gets most of this Sapphire track [stage 1 BGD] right with only a few misses. So overall, well played.


Addendum/Tangent: I was globally patching certain YouTube links (about 2,570) for better embedded appearance, found this, so I also patched his account with external social media links/info off his YouTube. Anyone randomly browsing here someday via Google can find more on what he's been up to; it's a nice tidy feeling to see more complete profiles with present-day social media connection. Really makes you think: kinda sad Aaron was eventually willing to give up on so much work, info, history, resources, legacy, knowledge-sharing/etc. of PCE fandom spanning ~20 years... I paid hosting for the next 10 years (while domain is yearly auto-renew), it's pretty affordable nowadays, don't see why it shouldn't continue to serve pages sharing PCE legacy/history/archives. pcengine-fx.com is here to stay AFAIAC.
#14
Quote from: esteban on August 13, 2012, 07:15:06 AM
Quote from: Deletion on August 12, 2012, 10:24:04 PMOnce I got past the side boobage, something else caught my eye...
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You can't create a more captivating reason to play KLAX than this. Seriously.
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https://twitter.com/Playboy/status/1435665707962880008
PlayboyTweet.jpg

Upon patching/embedding lost ImageShack images (thanks to esteban for preserving the PDF!) with some liberties for Klax/TG-gloves and sharing this retro thread, someone questioned if this Playboy issue was for the UK-market. Most any searches for "Playboy April 1991" continue to confirm it's US - Dixon/Deletion who scanned it was a US resident, plus you got interviews with famous US entertainers: Steve Martin, Martin Scorsese, and boxer George Foreman. Those interview choices were for an American/US market.

And for those of you curious about this particular model that made the cover, another "detective" on Facebook discovered her name/info, etc. Julie Ann Clarke from Arizona, she was the March 1991 Playmate.

Quote from: esteban on August 13, 2012, 07:15:06 AM
Quote from: FiftyQuid on August 13, 2012, 12:55:21 AMSo this chick is what now?  50 years old?  *Shudder*
She's 46 years old now and she still remembers the TurboExpress fondly.
FiftyQuid was a tad off in 2012 (DOB: 8/11/1969), so she would actually be 52 now and looking back on the Turbo Express fondly, haha!

Addendum #1: During my typical perusing on Twitter, I came across the April 1990 PC Engine Fan cover which gave me a fun idea for an interestin' comparison to append here! Turns out the editors of PlayBoy magazine were a tad more conservative on how much female skin to show for the front cover versus our PC Engine pals/brethren in Japan, ha! Let's take a look!

PCEFanApril1990.jpg PlayboyApril1991.jpg

So special thanks to Gaming Alexandria for this extra, unexpected PCE excursion who is on a sacred mission to scan all PC Engine Fan covers for preservation on WayBack!

Addendum #2: This thread/forum was private to the vast majority of the public, a consequence of which is lost images (Wayback couldn't scan them) and less visibility/fondness of its legacy/history, etc. So to undo some of the past, I'll occasionally share the "best of" threads (like this one) on other platforms where PCE people might congregate. I'd say it was a success judging by the fun replies I got on Facebook and Twitter.
#15
Howdy copados33, welcome! I see you go way back to 2009, 13 years, but not many posts. Regardless, happy to have ya stop by as we hopefully rebuild this forum to a more friendlier place that lives up to retro ideals!

So, it's VERY interesting you brought up Terra Onion, whoo boy, there is a lot to say/unpack now, quite the coincidence!

1) I was first going to suggest contacting Todd Gill on Twitter to forward your video to the TO team, they may some day work on the bug and release a patched firmware (but someone must make an effort to report it). However, Todd left Terra Onion last year, he no longer works with Alex'n'crew and, ugh, recent events may explain why...2) Next I was gonna mention I only know 2 people that own it and direct you to them, but, something happened in between that time... It's no longer a company I can excuse/support/help, it's a much more significant matter than all the bugs in their products...

You see, Alex, the owner of Terra Onion, has had a real problem with competitors over the years... He's cutthroat, bitter, jealous, I've seen it for myself and he's a toxic Neo-Geo.com turbo troll; he fits that angry mold and operated on that horrible doxxing forum for a while when xRotx (and Psycho Wasabi) was running it who was later chased off himself by his own fellow psycho gang members (his account was shutdown in a special way, IDK exact details but: 1 crazy person, Sylvie, got 2 crazy mods/admins, xRotx/Evil Wasabi, to break into accounts to spy for dox data on the target for extortion... I don't understand how this verbally-abusive Sylvie nutjob isn't permabanned, but Wasabi & xRotx fled for the exits... At any rate, Neo-Geo.com is imploding, Shawn should finally do the right thing by pulling the plug, it's a vile stain on the Internet with dual KKKFarms . net membership e.g. Psycho Dox Shroom, FilthyRear, and XSEEDGames' very own Deuce/Jeff Nussbaum marking other NeoGeo fans/members for death (Shroom too!) and pulling his pants down for them, etc.)!

Unfortunately (or, fortunately, if you already knew he was an a$$hole) this callous mindset got Alex into Y-YYUGE public-relations trouble by going after krikzz/Igor [again], the best of the best in the flashcart business with what I coin "The Everdrive Empire," which was put at serious risk with the invasion of Ukraine by Russian war criminals/imperialists/etc... Imagine if we actually lost all of that due to war, really makes you think!

I've collected a series of tweets you can examine yourself and see how this mess blew up. Alex eventually deleted his horrible, petty tweets, but the damage was already done. Todd even distanced himself further from the company as he was receiving DMs about the matter.So to wrap this up, I will never touch Terra Onion products either... Alex had an opportunity to be magnanimous, and instead revealed he kinda hoped krikzz was KIA in Ukraine so he could take his business/sales...

I was mildly thinking about buying the PCE Super SD System 3 PRO add-on, even got a real Coregrafx II model off eBay:But I'll just stick to my original plan of the Analogue Duo which might be my last console purchase after the MiSTer. I don't game much, not getting any younger, and anything else I can emulate on the ole PC.
Anyway, that's the recent story/drama with Alex/Terra Onion. People destroying/self-sabotaging themselves for free with Twitter or Discord by opening their mouths too much when they should've kept their real thoughts private... :lol:
#16
PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Trade
February 26, 2022, 12:34:27 AM
Hey fsa, I don't remember if we ever talked before and I noticed you logging in a few times over the last few months. I dunno how you learned of my relaunched forum, but it hasn't really happened yet and most don't know about it so just FYI, only a few of us are around so far...

IMG IMG

So looking at current trading prices on eBay, Jackie Chan sells for $15-$20 more. I think more replay value is in the racing game (I played Chase H.Q. at the arcades), but not sure if you're asking in terms of game quality and/or money. Looks like they're both cheap enough to buy CIC if you're serious...
#17
Well hello! Wow, I didn't expect to find new posts today AND by two different people in the same topic (still haven't tried relaunching the forum via a newsletter to registered accounts, plus now I have less time to work/fix existing data/content), haha! Thanks for stopping by!

OK, so like Chase said, it's always better to meet or exceed the max breakdown voltage rating of a capacitor (the higher/bigger, the better, just means more money/space), while keeping the capacitance the same. But in this case you went lower from 50V to 35V which I think should be fine, maybe... Even 16 VDC caps are safe for the most part on 5V PCBs, triple or more is preferable than the operating voltage and to handle ripple current/heat.

These motherboards in general operate at 5 VDC after the regulator, more true for portables (the batteries total 9 VDC), and I can't imagine some kind of inversion situation that'd ever lead to that area running near 35 VDC (the backlight lamp at best?)! I vaguely remember having this conversation with Steven Hanley though regarding higher "power inversion," the top PCEFX electrical engineer, so I'm gonna ask him just to be thorough/safe about this.

This is your first post/question EVER after 6 years of registration, so I'll do my best to help out! ; )



UPDATE: Yep, according to TheSteve, there is a power inversion circuit running at 24 Volts and a 22μF cap is involved if he remembers correctly. So still safe with a 35VDC cap!


Keep tabs on that tweet as Voultar or leonk may provide further answers/info.

The plot thickens! So it's the CC502 spot, a 4.7μF capacitor to watch out for where up to a 32-Volt power inversion is possible. So your 35V model is barely safe I guess ? More peace of mind if it was 50V, but yeah, there you go, it mattered here!
#18
Quote from: gameblabla on January 24, 2022, 07:39:02 PMI figured out how to play a CD-DA track and loop it.
It turns out the PC-FX was not fully compliant with the SCSI-2 standard !
This is apparently because it was based upon an earlier (free) draft of the standard.
Instead, if you want to have a CD-DA track looping, you have to use the vendor-specific 0xD8 and 0xD9 modes.
That's interesting, I had some experience/difficulties in this area when I was developing TurboRip!

The 0xD8 read CD-DA/raw command is a very old fallback on some early NEC (and Toshiba?) PC CDROM drives that were made before SCSI-3 AKA "MMC [1] (Multi-Media Commands)" was drafted/adopted which also dealt with DVD commands!

Ultimately they decided on the 0xBE command to read data sectors raw or for CD-DA extraction/reads, etc. Unfortunately it created an incompatibility with drives produced with the 0xD8 command unless the CD ripping software accounted for it. So all the manufacturers that took early initiative to produce such CDROM drives with 0xD8 kinda got egg on their face and had to rework the designs.

Exact Audio Copy is pretty good about this; it has a specific Drive Option to detect the correct command (just in case), but yeah, pretty much MMC1/0xBE became universal and it's those really rare cases it might be a problem. That's what David Michel had told me years ago when I first started working on TurboRip, to just deal with understanding 0xBE.

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Starting with Windows NT, you still had the option to build your own SCSI command packet and send it to the drive direct, but also the prescribed NT SPTI method. In Windows 7 they forced you to do this for MODE1 data sectors which broke TurboRip and I'm assuming other CD ripping software because Microsoft removed this "security" requirement in Windows 8/10+. So I tried to use this exclusively, only to discover from Chris Covell's feedback/tests that it was extremely slow! Part of the reason is if you looked at the API, you can find it checks for old [NEC] drives that need the 0xD8 command, so I liked the idea of more guaranteed compatibility which is why I tried to make it default! In the end, I did a balance: defaulted to my own SCSI command packets with 0xBE, then the SPTI method upon failure detection (which IS hard in SCSI!!). I kept the speed, and still gained some extra compatibility (possibly)!

Anyway, I'm afraid I can't help add much else to your research it being the PC-FX and all, but yeah, I do have some experience with general SCSI-3/MMC commands/programming under a Win32 environment so I share when I can.
#19
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Looks like Aaron has not quite "retired" yet, apparently he's resumed work on his old Lords of Thunder Windows PC port! I'll update the OP thread with download links/shots accordingly when available. The files linked are the same from 2007 so far.
#20
Hey gameblabla, thanks for stopping by and contributing with this news/work!

I was confused what you meant at first, but I understand now: So this is a PC Engine emulation layer (albeit WIP, very slow, unfinished) whereby the user can take PC Engine ROMs, burn a CD-R with it, and actually load it on their NEC PC-FX console for play! I'm imagining Bonk's Revenge loading on a PC-FX, and other games people would actually wanna play on it, haha!

A fellow PCE turbro of many turbo names -- Tom/Malducci/Tomaitheous/Bonknuts and now Super TurboXray -- actually did something similar: a NES "hackulation/emulation" layer that allowed running games like MegaMan, Contra, Jackal, Dragon Warrior on PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. It was actually very cool to load Contra or MegaMan on my TurboExpress portable with an Everdrive flashcart, so it was kind of useful beyond a novelty experiment to "see what's possible."

IMG IMG

Anyway, I spread the word as you know, your tweet got a little bit boosted after David noticed me/it.

And FYI, I patched the thread with YouTube embedding and attached the ZIP download, looking better! It's been a tiring uphill battle to restore this forum, perhaps I've concentrated too much on image/photo retrieval/retention/preservation... I should've relaunched it by now, but things have taken longer than I had hoped.

EDIT: Oh, I'll just embed your tweet, that'll look cool/better too instead of pasting a link here!
#21
SMF AutoEmbedAV v1.00 (new) Test

(The old Aeva plugin was buggy/huge/too-complex, caused problems like ruining consistent formatting of quoted text, so I decided it'd be fun to delete/uninstall it, take a stab at writing my own [in PHP] for auto Audio/YouTube embed that's fast/compact)


YouTube embedding advancements:

-uses latest 2021 iframe embed code from YouTube.
-"lazy" loading, only fires http requests when iframe object is visible, so our big YouTube collection thread is less of a pain when browsing.
-16/9 aspect ratio with 100% width (aspect-ratio: 16 / 9;), mobile-friendly for the first time! I use the new 2020 aspect-ratio CSS4 draft attribute (support is not universal yet, Chrome/Firefox, not Safari), but also the old padding hack for old browsers.
-pre-loads the best thumbnail first (I didn't wanna rely on JavaScript, but it's the best way).
-playlist links with index work.
-time start honored (either in seconds or min syntax, e.g, ?v=xxxxxx&t=5m23s)
-trimming of breaks/spaces before/after, same formatting/placement every time and within 1 paragraph break (<p></p>).
-using lack of thumbnail as condition of a deleted/expired video, a red unavailable link is replaced instead of a big empty video container. Sometimes you can discover what the video was with WayBack or google searches with the video ID.
I think I did a better job than most SMF plugins now.

And reference link: our > YouTube viewing collection history <.
#22
Off-Topic / Re: The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread
November 03, 2021, 07:17:06 PM
Special PC Engine mini sale on Amazon Japan, 25% off!!! :boom:

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Scored it for $77 total with today's USD/YEN exchange rate! They're limiting orders to 1 per person as well to fight scalpers/resellers also. Update: It was a clearance sale, the price fell to like $50 USD for a short time!!!!
#23
Hat tip to cccmar and crew for yet another PCE localization project, guess I didn't notice it at the time.

Threads needed more visuals during promotion, you gotta show the eye candy to get noticed, another reason Facebook/Twitter/Discord are winning due to how easy it is to share any photo/any time without worrying about an external host provider (that fails later like ImageShack)...

Anyway, I embedded the RHDN screenshots so they're also permanent here. We need a high quality super thread of all existing PCE localizations with at least 5 screenshots each, that'd be a good idea in the future.
#24
Wait, this was sold with the "Condition:For parts or not working" caveat. Sounds too good to be true...

It needed just a little cleaning ?? The seller wasn't bright enough to try some basics ?
#25
Quote from: JohnnyPhantom on October 04, 2021, 08:29:47 AMI even talked the seller down to $20.
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Ah, a broken Turbo Express for $25! Yeah, you got a 9X% chance to fix it yourself with a full capacitor replacement job! That's the same state mine was in after 5 years of storage and trying to turn it on back in 2012 I believe (it cost me $11 in SMD caps from Digikey).

I'd go the distance here, find/buy HQ Panasonic low-ESR capacitors, pay a little extra for more lasting power since you got a broken unit so cheap. Steve knows how to play with tantalum caps at the right spots to eliminate hum, but I don't trust that or novices (us regular folk moonlighting as EEs, don't try stepping in Steve/Voultar's lane) playing around, just replace electrolytic with electrolytic to play it safe.
#26
Can Keith Courage still be bought for $10 these days ?? :rollin
#27
Welcome back, you were one of my account-undelete/rebuild experiments (about ~30-40) which works 100% now... :lol:

I extracted a better shot of the game, but no, I can make out what it is.

IMG

As for your repairs, we pretty much have only ONE active repair person (maybe two if you're willing to pay Canada shipping rates to Jodi/Turbo Reproductions as a last resort), ChrisComputers (KeithKourage). I'll forward him your thread, he's one of the few I privately invited to test the rebuilt forum and say hello.

TheSteve/TurboKon pretty much retired from repair/mod service, as did others... Voultar might take 1 Duo once in a blue moon as a special request for a friend, they require too much time to offer service for general customers. Oh, there's Leon on Twitter that's active.
#28
I noticed gameblabla's image/download links were broken for his PC-FX homebrew demo, so I went looking on Twitter to ask for updates. I got PMs back with new links migrated to github which should provide reliability (permanency).

github.com/gameblabla/simplebattlefx-pcfx
github.com/gameblabla/simplebattlefx-pcfx/raw/master/release/SimpleBattle_FX.zip

Quote from: NightWolve on October 04, 2015, 02:39:57 PMAh, so basically you got a little Wizardry text battle engine up and running on the system with this.
Looks like I wrote the same thing years ago, it's a building-block ~Wizardry text-battle demo, how early RPG engines started off.

Might be hard to see the value but you have to consider the bigger picture, it has to start somewhere little by little. You may inspire/motivate someone else into developing a full homebrew game despite the odds being very low. Chris Covell does this all the time, many great demos are in his legacy to essentially leave breadcrumbs behind to inspire someone else to work off of them into something more/bigger/complete.
#29
General Gaming / Pixelization/Animation Perfection
August 14, 2021, 03:40:36 PM
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!
IMG Find more animated GIFs be it Falcom and others below e.g. Ys I-III PC-98 ports: IMG

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/*

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

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

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

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

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/pdf/CLV-P-NAATE.pdf
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https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clvs/manuals/common/pdf/CLV-P-SAAXE.pdf
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Arcade extra with Bald Bull:

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#30
Quote from: Michirin9801 on January 06, 2017, 09:31:03 PMshape___artillery_wip_mednafen_by_michirin9801-dauhpi7.mp3 ^As you can hear in this WIP, not really... It's good for the higher-pitched notes, but if you put it in the lower pitches it sounds kinda crappy, the popping is very noticeable...
I applied some WayBack magic to Michirin9801's intro thread here, it recovered her MP3 chiptune recordings and some images (I returned to further embed everyone's images). That and I kinda like this MP3 I quoted while listening to it a second ago after the WayBack recovery, hence worthy of a bump I thought.

IMG EDIT: We have a pretty significant harassment problem in PC Engine fandom which needs to be tackled one way or another, I recently learned michirin9801 was targeted by multiple [banned] turbo trolls here/elsewhere and I suspect she deactivated her DeviantArt profile as a consequence (which hosts these MP3s)... I invited her back without knowing about it, but now I understand her polite reply better...
#31
Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread
August 07, 2021, 02:26:16 AM
Quote from: EvilEvoIX on August 06, 2021, 11:29:22 AMIMG
Ready for the sequel?
Dear lord... I don't think we'd survive it! :lol!:
#32
Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys | Falcom & Hudson Soft | PC Engine CDRom² | 1993

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Credit: Kishi's Gift of GIF - Thank goodness for Wayback machine, that talking-time forum was scraped in 2020, rebooted with XenForo, and the thread these were posted in is lost or offline currently! I'm using Wayback links mostly going forward, they should last the longest given the mission of that group.

Addendum: Find more Falcom animated GIFs and others by Kishi below e.g. from Ys I-III PC-98 ports. I might make a separate thread for it all:

wayback.snowy-day.net/grokyou/falcom/*
wayback.snowy-day.net/grokyou/brandish/*
#33
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 ??  :-k  Let's try!

http://www.sparkcaster.com/demotivational/images/a%20pony.jpg
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Dead IMG Link:
https://www.storochliten.se/themes/storochliten/content/images/stor-och-liten-symbol-large.png

Working via WayBack:
Quote from: Fidde_se on March 24, 2018, 05:34:06 AMBack 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.
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Dead IMG Link (11 years old):
http://chzgifs.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/girlsfartp1.gif

Quote from: Tatsujin on December 02, 2010, 04:26:42 AMIMG


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

Quote from: Tatsujin on January 02, 2011, 12:31:17 PMIMG

I waslike WTHMF :lol:


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

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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

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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! :thumbsup:



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. :thumbsup:

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();
}
}
}
#34
TurboViews tackles Capcom's legendary Street Fighter II: Champion Edition!

Chris "TurboViews" Bucci, a PCE pillar of the TurboGrafx-16 community, will focus on import HuCards after a decade+ of reviewing every US TG-16 game wraps up. A New Challenger Appears, the world phenomenon of "Street Fighter II" which prolonged the declining arcade business! Its arrival on consoles was a big deal. With a TurboExpress and region adapter, you were the cool kid on the block, best portable port at the time if you were lucky! Turns out Chris was one of those kids, even bringing it to school to show off, heh. ; )

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I joined the SFII arcade craze with the Hyper Fighting upgrade and at first I didn't understand the appeal of 2 fighters over a static background (I understood Double Dragon/Ninja Gaiden co-ops, the traveling/adventure/stages, not this!), but eventually I got hooked along with Mortal Kombat and dropped countless quarters throughout my High School days. For home consoles I began with the SFII:World Warrior SNES port, but regretted I didn't wait for the HF upgrade... I never dreamed of import shopping off gaming mags, it took Dracula X & Ys IV to make that leap later, so I missed out on the PCE port. By then, SNES ports satisfied the need so it was moot. Anyway, click/watch below for the YouTube Retroview to see what Chris has to say! :thumbsup:

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The Turbo Views (the TurboGrafx-16 / TurboDuo review series) Facebook Group - :thumbsup:

#turboviews #turbografx #turboduo #spida1a #youtube #retrogaming


HQ image assets I used to make this 2021 news entry:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/images/SFIICE-Manual.jpg
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/images/SFIICE-TurboViewsThumb.jpg
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/images/SFIICE-PCEnginefan_jp_1993-06-2.jpg

(A GIF of the 3 images above made with JSAC Animation Shop)
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/images/SFIICE-TurboView.gif
#35
Thanks for testing/stopping by, LionHeart! I thought you were another "lionheart" member we had from some years back, but no connection as you said. ; )

Note: PCEFX New Era is still in development, I haven't sent out a newsletter to the 5k registered membership to invite some back, so don't expect much posts for the time being until I finish the theme/repairs/import/upgrades and send those emails out.

That being said, I'll think up my ~Top 10 PCE list right quick. This is a rough estimate I'd say, I'd love to really sit down and go through my rental/owned/emulation gaming history of TG-16 to create a definitive list of my thoughts, but I dunno when I'd ever make the dedicated time for that... So best I can do on short notice is:

  • Ys Book I & II  :bonkthis: :adol:
    (Speaks for itself, fell in love with it the second the opening cinema began, led to my Ys IV localization project!)
  • Dracula X
    (Legendary! Castevania times 10!)
  • Super Star Soldier
    (My TurboExpress is quite familiar with this HuCard!)
  • Gate of Thunder/Lords of Thunder  :duran:
    (My first CD shooters, still hold best videogame soundtrack status!)
  • Neutopia 1 & 2 / series
    (Loved these Zelda clones, I was a NES kid after all; rented the 1st, bought the 2nd via TurboZoneDirect I believe!)
  • Cosmic Fantasy 2
    (I was a big RPG fan by this point too in addition to shooters, Working Designs did not disappoint!)
  • Bloody Wolf
    (I won this game with a TurboGrafx-16 system & Keith Courage, played it *many* times! Loads of bad ass fun, here's a recent Twitter thread!)
  • Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys  :adol:
    (Very special place in my heart, and my dream localization project I made reality!)
  • Bonk 1, 2, 3 / series  :bonkthis:
    (While 3 was the worst, the Bonk series overall provided lots of rental replay value, fun, etc. and deserves respect!)
  • Exile 1 & 2 / series
    (I bought both for my CD collection, tried to grab all Working Designs releases, interesting story, cool action!)
  • Ninja Spirit
    (I reevaluated my last pick... Almost went with SplatterHouse, then remembered of Dragon Spirit which had more replay/fun and great chiptune music, so ranks higher for me. But Ninja Spirit... was my pack-in Turbo Duo HuCard, loved it, mountains of replay value, so it's gotta be on the list somewhere!)
Honorable mentions: Valis series, Star Parodier (newly discovered on my Konami mini, charming/fun/lovable cute'em up shooter), Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes, Ys III (greatest soundtrack in videogame history), Dungeon Explorer, Cadash, Raiden.

Reference:

- My Incomplete TG-16 Backloggery/History -
https://backloggery.com/games.php?user=nightwolve&console=TDuo

Addendum:

Speaking of Bloody Wolf, it was covered by GameSack Joe recently on July 18th's episode!
Turbo still standing strong even in 2021! :thumbsup:

Joe has a shtick in throughout the video: every time he says "Bloody Wolf," a barking-dog sound clip must be played, heh... Why didn't he use a howling wolf ? I dunno, that's the joke, play off wolves and dogs being distant cousins.
#36
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!

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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/
#37
Quote from: tbone3969 on May 27, 2021, 01:40:39 PMBest shooter on the system?  Just might be.

[Blazing Lasers]

What is your favorite?
Blazing Lasers is excellent, one of the best for sure and it's in my top 5, but in reality the under-the-radar Super Star Soldier is unquestionably THE BEST PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 shooter! :bonkthis:

When I finished all the TG-16 HuCard games I ever rented or purchased, SSS (and sometimes Dragon Spirit) was the one I could keep slipping into my Turbo Express and playing over and over again while sick in bed or when the random mood struck years apart in leisure. Very high replay value!

Side note: I never traveled with my Express for fear of it being lost or stolen, just how I felt about it. Moreover, it never felt comfortable to play-on-the-go, it's just outside my preferences/habits. Shooters you can justify for portable devices, but say RPGs, my other favorite genre ? No, I wanna play comfortably in front of a TV/panel.

Super Star Soldier > Blazing Lasers :dance:

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Favorite tracks of stage 2 and 6:

A Chris "TurboViews" Bucci review/gameplay video for a final good measure!

Added a sprite rip collection, may be useful some time for smiley/icon creation. That's how Keith Kursor was forged! :)

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#38
Kickstarter-triumph "Battle Princess Madelyn" Released! -  12/6/2018!
Inspired by and a love letter to the NEC SuperGrafx Ghouls 'n Ghosts port!

Battle-Princess-Madelyn.png

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.  <<

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#39
Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread
January 10, 2019, 04:56:29 PM
Weird one off Twitter, it's a motion illusion effect from a totally static JPEG, i.e. it's NOT an animated GIF! It might make your eyes hurt/or you dizzy from looking at it too long!

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#40
Quote from: JoeQuaker on January 10, 2019, 03:17:16 PM
Quote from: NightWolve on January 10, 2019, 01:12:45 AMThis is what I get for being a "hot glue cowboy" like thesteve, hot glue blister burn... ;)
Damn dude!  :boom:
Ha, relevant use of a fireball smiley, well played!

I know some of the smileys there are totally stupid, useless, that it'd be nigh impossible to find the context where to appropriately apply them (a few have never been used), but this wasn't one of those times, heh!
#41
Quote from: DragonmasterDan on January 10, 2019, 07:59:28 AMMost modern aftermarket third party controllers are cheap crap made with shortcuts taken throughout the entire process. I'm hoping this is a quality product as a TG16 pad with a convertor cable is no longer nearly as inexpensive as it was just a few years ago.
Yeah, I have a whole drawer of USB PlayStation knockoff PC gamepads, nothing came close to the originals, but maybe it was my fault for settling at a $19.99 pricepoint when I saw one...

The 8bitdo SNES30 really is the best unlicensed counterfeit I ever bought - the weight, the texture, the concave/convex buttons between top/bottom rows, all match the original SNES pads. Feels weird for the first time to get a console "feel" with my Windows PC box, I can play a game so much better (until my thumb pinched nerves kick up, that is)...

One thing, I did buy a $4 SNES knockoff that let me fix my original SNES pad that broke, the Left side button just stopped working one day, the IC/chip just died as there was no physical damage. So I bought a $4 knockoff from a Chinese seller for parts, soldered out the chip from that and actually fixed my original! Hard to believe that it worked, but I pulled it off.

Anyway, my TurboDuo pad works, I even went to the trouble of soldering an extension wire years ago when I was more active. It's cool to see new pads still being manufactured for others if needed. Definitely would be nice to see maintenance packs with just the rubber/foamy material for the buttons and d-pad to swap it out if control/contact is not as good anymore from wear (I'm sure that's already available, just never looked).
#42
News / Re: PCEngineFX Change/Update Log
January 10, 2019, 12:14:30 PM
** December/January 2019 ** (Dating not too accurate, some things done in December)

* I increased the font size of Post/Preview buttons and added a pre/post space charatacter (e.g. " POST ", " PREVIEW ") and also removed Spell Check since it didn't work and your Chrome client browser takes care of that with red underlining. This makes the buttons friendly on a 5-6" smartphone without zooming, so a little convenience.

* "Keith Kursor" was implemented as the default web cursor for a more PCE theme. :) I figured out how to make it work as a ".cur" file for FireFox even - it required 24-bit true color mode instead of leaving it 256 colors as it was from the raw sprites out of the game, or it would appear garbled.

* Chatbox was defaulted back to "Fast Mode" to reduce server load.

* The ban logs/triggers from the normal ban system were significantly cleaned out from most of Psycho Nintega's garbage... I implemented the newer "Banned" group which is less of a server load, only matters when the account logs in instead, a KEY difference!

The forum should be a little faster because now the SMF PHP code doesn't have to loop through hundreds of IP addresses to compare against *your* IP in the endless sock puppet/alt accounts that he created across 10 years (as well as other members), to decide to allow you to view the board or not (if in ban range). It's a much more efficient ban technique. But yeah, his alt accounts being added with IP range bans kept adding to more comparison operations every IP address that comes here has to be checked against (if that makes sense)... :/

Sidenote: Unfortunately, Psycho Punch & Darkkobold noticed the normal ban system cleanup, and were identified spying/stalking PCEFX again due to Guest mode and were banned yet again (Punch, as Nintega, has 50 IP Ranges, can't be stopped, drives around like a loon for WiFi hotspots perhaps)... This shows that like Creepy Psycho Nintega, you'll never be able to get rid of them... :(

* If I didn't already mention it, some Guest viewing was enabled to help regrow the forum, keep Google ad flow/revenue, while bandwidth balancing was considered - I banned some spambot IP Ranges to make that work out which seemed OK for months... Up to Aaron if it stays that way in the future.

* Aaron has his own update/announcement to mention going forward for 2019 that should make some of you Nulltard Avengers quite giddy... Not sure of the future of PCEFX, registrations will now freeze and any other upgrade plans are nixed - the unsolicited harassment by John Luedtke (KingDrool/jlued686 AKA The Mad Chatroom Stalker), JoshuaTurboTrollX-16, Tim Favro and certainly thanks to the greatest PCE Community menace/saboteur/destroyer, AtherButt Arkhan, helped lead to this outcome in their bitter, vindictive desire for revenge/sabotage...

Darkkobold and Nulltard tagteam trolling/cornering Aaron on Sarumaru's Facebook post also helped play a role I imagine, with Psycho John Nulltard/Bullity/Spamity/Insanity/Harassity/Doxxity and his DuoDildoDoxPhile gang's crazed PCEFX chatbox harassment being the root cause after all...
#43
This is what I get for being a "hot glue cowboy" like thesteve, hot glue blister burn... ;)

I was fixing my fridge, modded it to add 2 more fans to keep the compressor motor from overheating, I soldered the 120V lines very nicely, it was almost a perfect job, but I wanted hot glue on the wire joints before applying black electrical tape, well, the gun spilled a bit of glue on my thumb as I moved it to the wires, should've wore my work gloves but paid the price for being lazy...

I quickly ran to the sink, flushed it in cold water for as much as I could but it got me good, it was too late to avoid a painful burn/blister... :(

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#44
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I looked at it, wondered why they defaulted to the TG-16 connector, but then saw the adapter cable from TG-16-to-Duo and thought, "Oh good, smart!"

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If it works and feels close to the original, then great. I'm wary of knock-offs though after the experience with SNES pads until I bought an 8bitdo SNES30 which really comes close to the feel of an original pad only with much better features!
#45
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4K: https://postimg.cc/FYvHVKtd

Ys Blast from the Past: Preserving old PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 receipts as they represent history for a very small group of gamers relative to more successful consoles (e.g NES/SNES/PS1).

Reflections: I shared this receipt in the past but I figured I'd include the original game CD/case as well this time! Found a Turbo Zone Direct flyer also, so I threw that in for good measure! :)

My purchase represents far more history worth capturing because it IS the reason for my Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys English localization project, it's WHY you can play it in English right now, a dream of mine realized having fallen in love with the Ys series thanks to my TurboDuo purchase from TTi that included Ys Book I & II!!!! :adol:

I was VERY hesitant to purchase a Japanese RPG at the time in 1996, I was 21, I didn't game as much as my university studies kicked off, I knew I'd probably get stuck, BUT because of the TurboDuo purchase with Ys Book I & II, and later Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, I knew that I would at least get a legendary soundtrack 100% guaranteed!

The other hesitancy was spending $55 bucks on an import... It was Dracula X that made me do it for the first time ($85 total with shipping), because everybody told me it was excellent, "Castlevania times ten," and even though it's Japanese you'll be able to mostly enjoy it. So Ys IV marked the 2nd time I was willing to buy imports because most of the US games I rented (HuCards-only), owned or didn't interest me, and I wanted to enjoy my TurboDuo for all that it was worth having run out of US options!

Sure enough, I did get stuck in the game as predicted: the white soldier who blocks the door back to the castle you escaped from, and not knowing you had to equip your 1st level armor/sword/shield (the idea being that it's the equipment you stole from that castle when you left, so it makes you "look" like a white soldier but without actual graphical effects)... Sad to say I really gave up, left it on the backburner, and wouldn't beat the game until years later with the help of a guide! But I DID return to it, glad I can say that!

Anyway, that's about it, I may have more thoughts to share some other time, but if you look at the Ys IV ReadMe, I already shared quite a bit of history on all that made the fan localization project possible, so there's more to read there if interested.

Until next time, take it Ysssy! :adol:
#48
It's a nice idea, but I wonder for how long it'll be maintained and the Wiki he linked (http://pcedev.wikia.com) didn't go anywhere not unsurprisingly. But yeah, a Wiki with free hosting somewhere where everybody can input information and that is always available would be useful in principle - I hope you're up for the battle to stay motivated to really populate it, Dave. :)
#49
Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread
January 08, 2019, 07:00:22 PM
Sorry Dan, you know I gotta "josh" with you about your Dragon Master alias. ;)

If you wanna blame someone, blame Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Star Wars Nerds episode.

Every time I see your alias, it makes me think of "Blackwolf the Dragon Master" who eats at Burger King, WHERE ALL Dragon Masters dine before heading out to tame the lands, explore, conquer, enjoy the days of high adventure... :lol: :P
#50
Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread
January 07, 2019, 10:07:32 PM
Quote from: DragonmasterDan on January 07, 2019, 09:02:15 PMBecause it had the word Dragon in it?
You get to master playing with your dragon AND spear while admiring:
Quote from: Flare65 on January 07, 2019, 06:25:49 PMThe boob physics are amazing!  lol
How is such a game not right up your alley, Dan ?? :lol: