Images

[News / Re: The Brothers DuoMazov 2.0 Returns - 100% Rebooted/Restored!!!!]

Progress: Last night I finished a decent Wayback download Perl script to download the whole Brothers DuoMazov website to finally move forward in totally rebuilding/rehosting it here on PCEFX 2.0!

There are 5,814 images / screenshots, 100% uploaded to PCEFX:
pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/images/?dir

It's live!!! Presenting "The Brothers DuoMazov 2.0" - 100% Rebooted/Restored!!!!:
pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/


The next step is another script to clean up the HTML and decide the basic template for which to upgrade all the review body/content, etc. Some new basic ideas like appending a @ChrisBucci TurboViews video will be considered for extra benefit when time/progress permit.

But yeah, seeing/realizing that ~7 years elapsed (WOW!) from when I first made these threads and manually downloaded/patched about a dozen reviews gave me some motivation to finally continue since nobody else cares or has done so, etc. I did mention somebody is working on rebuilding pcecp.com though, nice to see.



More Ideas:
* New Github entry to share the Wayback Download script.
* Full Offline copy of Brothers DuoMazov. A simple ZIP/7z file that you download and works 100% locally letting you browse/see everything. And we can send it to WayBack for final/guaranteed backup/preservation in the end. I do tend to think about the inevitable, if something happens to me, what happens to my work ? So I'm gearing up to eventually share my projects/code to Github, Wayback, or to friends, etc.

[PC-FX Discussion / Re: Space Patrol Luluco lays a sick burn on the PC-FX!]

/lulucopcfx.jpg

How dare they call it worthless garbage! But at least they're rethinking it.

Man, I can't believe I just saw a PC-FX reference in a 2016 anime. What a time to be alive, haha.

-We Blackholeians have shoplifted all kinds of things that hold value.
But because we shoplifted too many valuable things, we instead
ended up wondering if worthless garbage was actually more valuable.

-Huh? We made light of this stuff until now, but maybe it's actually amazing!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Patrol_Luluco
https://www.animerealms.org/watch?id=21637&ep=10&prv=prime
https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/G63VM514Y/space-patrol-luluco

Admin Action: I noticed the image capturing this PC-FX anime reference was lost/deleted, so I took a research excursion to find out what Aggie was talking about, restore the image, or even better, make an animation .avif. I downloaded 13 subtitles of this (there were only 13 episodes) and began reading until I found "garbage" in the 10th one. Sure enough, that's what I was looking for, what Aggie was talking about. I then used ShotCut and ezgif.com to create the above animation and preserve/embed it.

For some reason, or reasons, I don't seem to understand, diehard NEC PC-FX fans are growing in number from 12 up to 24 these days (go figure) , so I thought they might appreciate this little bit of history if it could be recovered.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is only thanks to PCEFX 2.0 that you could learn about the mysterious "Blackholeian shoplifters" so I'm proud to have made that possible for you...  Guess that helps explain why PC-FX prices are skyrocketing over the years...

[General Gaming / Heroine Anthem II]

This is a temp placeholder post, I just wanted to upload/share these Wayback screenshots to someone. It's a 2004 thread on my offline backup of RIGG/Retro ISO Gaming Guild, an ancient PC Engine forum primarily. I hope to rebuild it and upload it again here to keep the threads/history shared. Anyway, this post may be deleted, so I wouldn't bookmark it or anything, I just temporarily want the screenshots.

I came across chinese rpgs about a year ago and been addicted to it since! Well maybe me being chinese also had something to do with it XD

Chinese RPGs are probably never heard of by USA rpg lovers and here is a preview of some of the biggest titles.

here is a popular title in China Heroine Anthem 2










Heroine Anthem 2.; its a sequel to Heroine Anthem: The Elect of Wassernixie (or bride of Mermaid if you will). Heroine Anthem is a story follows the girl Edda, who drowned at sea trying to save this boy while on board a slave ship. She was saved by the mermaid prince, who turned her into a mermaid intending to make her his bride. She fled the palace of Mermaid under the help of a lobster named Bedin, wanting to find her lost sister; who was also sold into slavery. During her advanture in the mermaid world, she finds out that Ragnarok is upon the world, and the Dark Ark of Noah has also returned (the Dark ark of noah has monsters trapped in it since the time of the great flood). So bascially she is trying to stop it from happening and finding her sister. The game is split into two parts that tells one whole story which is an interesting way for an RPG to present itself(like the way Matrix's 2 and 3 presented itself).

The entire game takes place in a 2D world (well 3D pre-rendered background) and there is no world map, so going from place to place takes alot of walking or running around through forests, dungeons and moutains etc.

Music wise I think its very well written here is couple of music samples hope you'll enjoy.
http://www.rit.edu/~wqd9695/HA2/mus...les/Track01.cda
http://www.rit.edu/~wqd9695/HA2/mus...les/Track04.cda
http://www.rit.edu/~wqd9695/HA2/mus...les/Track17.cda
http://www.rit.edu/~wqd9695/HA2/mus...les/Track20.cda
http://www.rit.edu/~wqd9695/HA2/mus...les/Track29.cda

graphic wise it is 2gb of pure 2D graphics. I would show some frames, but I can't seem to get this tool working right, so maybe at a later time.

Battle system wise it is also quite different from many of the traditional rpg battle system. Each character has special moves that takes up SP(SP can only be gained from being attacked) and then each takes a certain amount of time and when u select a move it is allocated onto his or her action bar; certain moves take alot of the time and certain takes very little and you can do this for all characters and these characters will excute all the list of actions you have allocated onto their action bar. So timing is definitly a very important element in this game, it could mean wining and losing an important mission. and all the characters can be attacking at the same time causing an effect of linear motion battle system like Tales of Destiny. Once a characters action has ran out you'll be prompted to select more actions. Character placement are also up to u, u get a 3X3 grid to form your formations. Characters in the front actually do get attacked more than characters in the back and also ur spell has ranges so how u place ur character can also mean whether or not ur spell will effect them in battle to save them.

Magic system is also quite interesting. Through out the game you find rune stones that has certain vocabulary attached to them individually. To create magic spells u need to learn the enchantment of it to get the spell to form properly. You can also form summon spell, which I've yet to be able to do so, since u can only learn certain enchantments at a certain stage of the game.

Cutscenes in this game is done with real nice anime and decent CG and converted into Bink Video. Some reason WindThunder never makes HIGH res CGI movies for their game, so some of the movies seems blocky. I guess the intention is let the game speak for itself rather than having high res cutscenes to speak for it.

here is one movie. u need divx to watch it, quality is bad but I'm no coding expert so there
Gameplay movie for HA2 FEAST YOUR EYE ON THIS BEAUTY!

And the second game I'm here to present is a game called Fantasia three kingdom!!!  losely based on the story of Romance of Three Kingdom several important events of that story were taken to formulate this amazing game. I wrote a review for it but the site is under construction so I'll link it when its back!!! :p

here is a preview for you all who loves RPG

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

FIGHT‼

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Emerald Dragon Localization Project!]

Hey Tom, good to see an OG PCEFX veteran stop by our fledgling "PCEFX 2.0" reboot! ; )

- Legend of Xanadu I & II: These projects are inactive/hibernating, nothing new to report. Sam went on to have a family, still wants a 100% day-one localization patch with dubbing, and since that's on hold the team won't release a text patch (which they said they finished). elmer fudd did say if enough years/time go by and no movement on dubbing happens, he'll go ahead and release said text patch.

- Emerald Dragon: Same. I don't have any active fan/hobby projects at present.

About the only occasional hobby project I sometimes work on if I power on my desktop PC (I mostly migrated to my Android phone for all social media/video consumption) is this: "PCEFX 2.0" I'll recover images or upgrade the CSS to make sure this forum is readable on a phone's resolution/constraints.

* Just the other day I recovered 2+ image(s) here thanks to Wayback (it's the classic thread of Saber Riiiiders...ridin' off with all yo money cuz riders gonna riiiiide! ):
pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?msg=488647


* And if you look at a PCEFX thread on a phone, the posts now show the avatar and I eliminated excess spacing, so more posts can be seen vertically.



Still not as good as Facebook or XenForo forum software, but quite a bit of improvement for viewing old threads.

Anyway, it's hard to justify all the time needed for a localization project and I just have other priorities, so I dunno when I'll resume. I actually thought maybe this winter but I was tied up with offline projects/work.

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Made from a deleted YouTube video I extracted out of WayBack.
See: pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?msg=208700
(ep: Retro Hardware - TurboGrafx-16 via youtube.com/user/TheGameStation)



Big Wayback TurboGrafx-CD Surprise! ; ) To illustrate how big the original TurboGrafx-CD box was, I guess this YouTube content creator had a friend hide behind it and then stand up to say "Surprise!" Unless he found the clip from someone else. And I dunno why he deleted the video, pretty well edited and short, to the point about Hudson/NEC legacy...

[News / Re: The Brothers DuoMazov 2.0 Returns - 100% Rebooted/Restored!!!!]

pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/
pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/ys-book-i-and-ii.html
pcengine-fx.com/reviews/duomazov/ys-iv-dawn-of-ys.html


I took a quick excursion tonight to make my small collection of DuoMazov reviews format better on mobile (Android phone in my case). : )

Here's how it looks on my Samsung Galaxy OLED. Quick'n'dirty CSS dynamic media resizing I learned, good enough.

The way that Nat coded the pages made it pretty easy to work something up in a few hours. So the width is changed to 100%, all images to 49%, and the title & side bars made invisible when the window/screen width is < 720-860px using dynamic support in CSS (JavaScript not necessary).

Future: Yeah, I'd still like to build a script to download/process the whole site some day from WayBack, or if Nat has all the files in a local HDD to share, that'd be nice too!

P. S. In case I didn't mention here, I did start a preliminary Perl script for such a purpose to work with Wayback and used it to download the TurboStation-16 PCEFX section that Aaron deleted in 2003:

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


Also, try the "?dir" command option I added to the site to access all media/images:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/TS/?dir

Not everything was saved in Wayback, most of the videos and audio files were lost unfortunately. But lots of manual scans were recovered, nearly all - I patched some missing ones and ~2 Falcom audio tracks.

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/TS/mp3_selections_-_ys_collection.html

_{► /mp3/Ys Piano Collection 2 - 06.mp3}

_{► /mp3/TOWER OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH-04.mp3}

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: NEC PC-FX Homebrew (Alpha) - Cascade FX (3D graphics !)]

Hey @gameblabla, thanks for stopping by and sharing your PC-FX work!

For some reason I actually didn't see this thread till a week later! I need global email notifications turned on as admin to know if ANY post is made since our forum here is slow and I don't check up on it as often.

Anyway, yeah, I remember this demo from the discord, it's PCFX 3D Tetris!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Joined the Duo club.]

Re: Joined the Duo club.
WELCOME!

https://www.foromtb.com/attachments/clubduo-jpg.1702681/
_{disco-insider,de/images/locations/ClubDuo.jpg}

Special Thanks to @Tak-MK for figuring out how to get activated in this random Spanish forum (foromtb.com) to save/recover this particular "Club Duo" image (the LAST one!) that served as a "PCE Turbro" meme, so to speak, when @turboswimbz shared it!

This happened a few months ago when I wandered into this thread as part of my PCEFX image-recovery task/project which I believe has now saved/preserved 20,000+ PCEFX images from its ~20-year history mostly with Wayback, and a custom caching system for Photobucket and 2 other hosts (I'm considering caching IMGUR also before it's too late but I need a .webp image conversion layer)!

So the story around "Club Duo" is it was a night club in Munich Germany, but as best as I can tell it was closed during COVID-19 lockdowns and subsequently went out of business, so its websites expired and most of any shared images were lost. Another casualty of lockdowns... The image was shared from a general club website, link below, that showcased billboards/photos of many clubs in general, but it too was expired and Wayback didn't save the particular image:

_{disco-insider,de/images/locations/ClubDuo.jpg}

Anyway, as you can discern, it doubles in usage as a "Club [Turbo] Duo" in this context/forum, and with the extra work/help put into obtaining the ONLY copy of this image left on the Internet, I logged the story. I have manually rescued dozens of images like this when my automatic Wayback plugin can't help, so I don't bother to log the work, but this is the one I wasted the most time with waiting around for another forum admin to approve my account, and finally getting help (from Tak-MK who is Spanish) to make progress.

I can't believe I finally wrote this post, I really didn't feel like it, it's just one image, but it became something of a little hobby of historical excavation to find lost PCEFX history/images like this! Most forum archives/rebuilds have lost their images/assets, so I wanted to do a better job if at all possible with my PCEFX clone.

[General Gaming / Re: VG Box Art Dejavus]

Bloody Wolf was more "inspired" (AKA ripped-off) from Arnold's 1985 Commando. I honestly didn't make this exact connection all this time, I figured general 80's action muscle-bound movie star influence, sure, but that they literally stole the EXACT pose/copycat from a movie poster/promo I really didn't expect!



I made this one for fun, sized-up side by side after reviewing these threads some more and patching a few lost images. I'm not sure there was a fuller poster of Arnold where his arm isn't clipped off or I would've used that instead.

A more extensive collection happened in another thread by @Tatsujin:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=8501.0

And HG101 has the most here:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

Before I forget, I asked a very talented Bloody Wolf fan to make this for me to illustrate the point because he made some similar animated Bloody Wolf covers in the past. This was supposed to be included in the original post, I waited until I could try/learn to do the animation better, but I guess I didn't find the time/motivation to try, so might as well share his original before it's lost/forgotten. I compressed it to the modern/superior .avif format which is a high-color GIF alternative to animate images (a GIF would be 1.7MB while this is only 62KB!):



Thanks again to castle_zotz.

When there was confusion about the source of Arnold's pose being either from Predator or Commando, he made this too (but it's Commando, so this mockup is inaccurate):



Henceforth let it be known as "Bloody Predator".

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TG-16 Manual Scans]

Did you guys ever notice that New Adventure Island's manual has some strange typo and grammar issues?

Check out page 8-9, the heading reads "Be Sure You Know How These Items"

That's it. Hahaha! Was there a slip in quality control? This late into the conversion efforts, did TTi staff start getting sloppy? Hahaha! That heading ends so abruptly.

Huh, you're right, never knew about it! The correction would be something like, "Be Sure You Know About These Items" or maybe with more words, "Be Sure You Know How To Use These Items" ?

And then at the back cover, the word "Adventure" is spelled "Adventyure".
 

Hm, another one...

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working]

Dude, you're here! OMG! That's gonna ruffle some feathers, hint hint!

Sorry to say the incel "DarKKKobold" still stalks me/this forum although if I catch it he gets "special horse " redirects, lmao! I even caught him spying on your profile ~2 years ago (according to @Sarumaru he had a full psychotic breakdown, spent thousands of work hours coding a videogame about me/banning his psycho gang!), his stalking log is massive - total unhinged creep! DildoPhiles still don't take 'no' for an answer (never understood no means no...), imagine that!




Anyway, I didn't think you'd ever stop by again given that whole ordeal from those destructive nutjobs... I still talk to Steve (retired from repair biz) and Chris Courage (who still is active in the repair business) on Facebook, so I can reach them for this if you can't fix it on your own.

[Off-Topic / Re: What are YOU watching on YouTube.com?]

News: Dracula X [PC Engine CD] gets a little review from James Rolfe / Angry Video Game Nerd this time (he laments not taking the opportunity in the past). So he's trying to decide if Super Castlevania IV [SNES] is still his all-time favorite though mostly against Symphony of the Night [PS1] by the end. Anyway, pretty good 25-minute retrospective of Castlevania legacy.

On the other hand, the opening vampire skit REALLY sucks... I wanted some kind of joke out of this like "AVGN 2024 version updated for modern audiences..." It validates typical trends that everything sucks nowadays (mediocrity is the default), haha. Funny enough, I didn't realize the obvious vampire/sucks pun in my first post draft, had to edit it in, *I* suck!

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Hahahahaha!!! Does this remind you of anyone ??

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: (Homebrew/NSFW 18+) Kidnapped Innocence]

So @gameblabla went all in with his PC-FX homebrew game: ports to GBA and N64 being worked on and actually pursuing physical copies. I didn't expect you'd go that far!

[General Gaming / Re: VG Box Art Dejavus]

Bloody Wolf was more "inspired" (AKA ripped-off) from Arnold's 1985 Commando. I honestly didn't make this exact connection all this time, I figured general 80's action muscle-bound movie star influence, sure, but that they literally stole the EXACT pose/copycat from a movie poster/promo I really didn't expect!



I made this one for fun, sized-up side by side after reviewing these threads some more and patching a few lost images. I'm not sure there was a fuller poster of Arnold where his arm isn't clipped off or I would've used that instead.

A more extensive collection happened in another thread by @Tatsujin:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=8501.0

And HG101 has the most here:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

I'm with Tengai Makyou, using v1.2 translation now that I know it exists... Before that I abandoned the game a week before because of the v1.0 issues with loading from real hardware 

I was actually looking forward to break in my new Analogue Turbo Duo clone using Supper's localization patch for Ziria, but it's on the backburner after being very disillusioned with the buggy state of the firmware/product... Hopefully the jailbreak redeems it.

Incidentally, Analogue released a new firmware v1.2 [2024-03-15] today actually. But this presents a hard choice to the user: get the bug fixes, but go back to being a normal Duo again, so no CD/ROM image support from the SD card, resume using CD-Rs for localizations... Just gotta wait some more until the jailbreak firmware is synced.
https://www.analogue.co/support/duo

If an updated/synced JailBreak is published soon this is the link to keep watch of:
https://github.com/analoguejb/Analogue-Duo-JB

[General Gaming / Re: Retro VGS Game Console]

While patching some images, clicking around, eventually being led to AtariAge, I realized our PCEFX thread on this "RetroVGS Coleco Chameleon" scam/fool's-dream never really got official closure, like where is Mike NOT-THAT-Kennedy nowadays, and did he ever apologize, acknowledge/face the debacle he led, level with the public or just disappear as I had thought ??

So yeah, as far as I knew, Kennedy had just disappeared, went dark and wasn't seen/heard from again, if at all. That's how I thought the story had ended, but having wandered over at AtariAge today I learned that he showed up there with a "Parrothead" account which is STILL active today and addressed the issue in some detail after heated confrontation...

Let's take a look at these posts so this thread/chapter finally gets closure here, shall we ?? 

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/274244-pac-man-suit-kohls-25-clearance/
I know you all hate my guts but I cant help but share this. $25 Clearance Pac-Man Suits at Kohls. Normally $120. Find one if you can! I found one tonight. Google Pac-Man Oppo Suits to see what it looks like. Includes Sport Coat, Slacks and Tie. Super high quality. Good luck!

Some were willing to forgive/forget and participated in his thread as if Mike was an average/regular member. Others not-so-much.

I know you all hate my guts

Mike, this is the first time in many years I've seen you speak about gamey things in a way that wasn't trying to sell something. It's a good look for you, please keep it up.

Welcome back to the human race.

I think you will find forgiveness in the community if you can demonstrate that you've given up the get-rich-quick schemes, and always speak the truth. If you don't know something, say so or STFU. No one wants to hear any more lies.

	I'm not buying that tickytack suit, because I'm not The Riddler, nor am I Billy Mitchell. But seriously, it's nice to see you above ground again.

You have a lot to answer for, Mike. If you're going to want to join the social circles of the hobby, you'll need to answer a lot of questions you don't really want to answer.

I appreciate the comments and don't take them for granted. Believe me, no one wants to forget the past more than I. And you can be assured I won't be attempting any more gaming ventures. I woefully mismanaged things the past few years and paid the price, in more ways I can count. And, it will take a few more years for me to recover from that debacle financially. It's true that turning your hobby into even a part-time profession is a sure-fire way to enjoy your hobby less and stress yourself half to death. Especially, when you make the mistakes I did. I nearly lost all my love for gaming and regrettably did lose a handful of great friends in the hobby.

Over the past year, I have played more video games than I have played probably in the past 9 years. I've rebuilt a small collection of consoles that are all out and playable including an Atari 2600, 7800, PS1, Timex Sinclair 1000, Apple IIc and Commodore 64 -- oh, and my original Sega Genesis I had growing up and all my original games (I gave it to my cousin way back when, he kept it and recently found it and shipped it back to me).

In any event, I'll take what I can get but don't expect anything when it comes to being completely forgiven for what I put everyone through the past few years.

I can't speak for everyone, but I do think getting some full and honest answers to what happened might go a long way toward bringing your credibility out of the negative range. Over the past few years, you've been characterized as ducking any question you don't feel like answering. Now that you're not selling anything, you don't owe anyone any answers... but if you're wanting to be on good terms with the community, you will need to offer SOMETHING up. The truth, and I mean the ACTUAL truth, not the "Whatever makes me look better" spin, would be something of value you could extend.

I don't hate you, Mike. But you've hurt a lot of my friends, and I do not take that lightly. Some of these people I know by reputation only, some I have literally broken bread with. Your lies and screwups affected them, and so I'm going to suggest the truth would go a long way toward building that bridge.

I sincerely DO regret how things were handled by me. One thing I'd like to explain is that I ended friendships with some great people in the hobby. I really did this as I didn't want their friendship with me to jeopardize their friendship with others and their reputations. I was (maybe still am) toxic and wanted to remove myself from their equations for that reason. Maybe it came across as I didn't like them anymore, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. I really miss the gaming friends I had prior to that mess. Had some of my best times with them -- they all know who they are And, I will say again, I will not be starting any more gaming businesses personally.

I will not overstay my welcome here but might post occasionally if I come across something cool in the hobby to share.

And now we get to the juicy stuff, @famicommander is not have ANY of it!

What a cop out.

You're a scam artist, no better than a common thief, and you deserve to be treated as such. And worse than that, you still won't even own up to what you did.

Others here may be willing to mince words but I'll call a spade a spade. Or a lying, thieving, scamming scumbag as the case may be.

I can't say the man isn't trying. If you don't have something nice to say...

I can say he isn't trying. It's obvious he isn't, because he's still not admitting what he did. He just tried to slink back into this community as if he didn't attempt to swindle thousands of dollars out of it, all the while lying through his teeth and refusing to accept responsibility for his actions.

I don't have anything nice to say about him because there is nothing nice to be said. He's a scammer. Actually, he's worse. He's a failure at scamming. He's morally bankrupt AND incompetent.

Among a laundry list of other things, he tried to pass off a Super Nintendo crammed into a Jaguar case as a working prototype. And later an off the shelf PC capture card crammed into a Jaguar case.

He tried to get 2 million dollars, and may indeed have if not for the diligent detective work of other members of this forum and the community at large. He raised over $80,000 via crowdfunding. He said he would offer refunds, and may indeed have (I haven't heard either way). But the issue is he accepted people's money after knowingly deceiving them in the first place. Whether he refunded them or not, he knew he was lying to people when he started taking the money. And he has still not admitted this. He lied in his crowd funding pitches and when they failed he started trotting out fake protos.

with all due respect, this is not the time nor place to discuss your grievances with Mike Kennedy. He needs encouragement right now more than anything. You are providing the exact opposite right now.

Why would I care what he needs? He tried to rob us blind and you're telling me to consider his needs?

He did something wrong and has made no effort to correct it. He hasn't even admitted it. He doesn't deserve encouragement.

The "retro Chameleon" provided me with hilarious entertainment for several months. It was always pretty clear that they lacked the competence to deliver on their poorly-conceived dream. It was always fun to watch. No one did it better (worse) than Mike, and we've seen several people try.

He didn't say it in the most articulate way, but it's true that Mike himself was hurt a lot more than anyone else, except perhaps the Coleco brand. He lost money, friends, reputation, and dignity. What did we lose? Time spent on a message board? Speaking for myself, that was mine to waste, and a moment enjoyed is not wasted.

I believe in forgiveness. Why should he serve a life sentence for attempted tomfoolery? It's been two years. His reputation is in the toilet and no one with two brain cells to rub together would give him any money. I'd love to see him back in the community so long as he gives up any ideas about trying to make money from us.

We don't need a confession. We all know what he did. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Then again, maybe he should be forced to wear that ridiculous Pac-Man suit, all the time, wherever he goes, as long as he lives, forever walking the earth as a Shatnerian parody of himself, cornering the market on retro gaming.

Amen brother. Well said. Take away the "businessman" nonsense and he's just another game dork like us. Well, maybe he talks a lot more than some of us, but it takes all kinds.

How many other people on this forum tried to steal from the rest of us and then lied about it and continues to lie about it? I'll wait.

I was refunded by the campaign. Aside from kicking me to the curb, its all water under the bridge now. He did a lot of good before the CC situation. He was not always like he was during the CC situation. I agree with Pipercub, I welcome him back but in a guarded fashion I miss talking with him on our latest retro finds and talking about things like friends did back before the CC situation.

By all accounts, OJ Simpson was a nice guy before he killed those people. And no, I am absolutely not saying that what Mike did was anywhere near as bad as what OJ did. But the point is, the bad things you do in life can't always be eclipsed by whatever nice things you did beforehand. OJ was a great football player and he was in some awesome movies, but so what? All that good will is gone forever.

I think a punishment should fit the crime. Does him losing GameGavel, Retro Magazine, the Jag shells, etc. along with our trust with future attempts at similar things fit? Yes. Does him getting a life sentence away from the hobby and community to an extent that he isn't even welcome to discuss a Pac-Man suit fit? No.

He lost all of his businesses because he is incompetent. That wasn't a punishment for his attempted thievery.

Once you try to steal from me or my community, that's it. You only get one chance. I don't care where else he goes or what else he does but if he is going to show his face around here, especially without admitting what he did and sincerely apologizing rather than deflecting blame and changing the subject, then he is going to hear about it. I'm not suggesting we cut the man's hand off or lock him up for the rest of his life. But he doesn't deserve to interact on level ground with members who didn't try to run a million dollar scam.

From my understanding Vaporware is something of a problem here. Not too mention certain modders here who takes people's money and systems. None have been bashed as hard as Mike.

I see way more hate towards someone who wanted to make something happen but could not, then he tried to save face but that was a mistake. At the end of the day it appears he did not actually take anyone's money. However other people on this forum have been promising certain items for years and HAVE taken people's money, yet they don't get hammered nearly as much as Mike.

Nobody gets bashed as hard as Mike because nobody else tried to scam people on one tenth this scale.

He knew when he started his crowdfunding that he was lying. He didn't over promise and then, in good faith, fail to deliver. He made an active effort to deceive people from the outset and then repeatedly lied directly to our faces about. Over and over again for a period of months, until he disappeared entirely because he's a coward.

He knowingly tried to defraud people for large sums of money and to the only reason he didn't suceed is because he was exposed before his scam was complete. And then he continued trying to steal and scam for months after the fact.

Mike DID run a scam. He just failed at it because people on this very forum pointed out what a fraud he was.

And nowhere did I say anyone else should get a free pass for the same behavior.

Some of you really want your pound of flesh out of Mike. He tried to do something, it didn't work, he admits that he made mistakes that he regrets, he is paying a personal and financial price for those mistakes. What more needs to happen? Frankly, the worst thing that he could do is to start trying to explain anything, which by the way none of you are owed unless you were PERSONALLY affected by the CC debacle. Those of you who have already gotten your torches and pitchforks back out of the closet obviously have too much time on your hands.

OK, that's a good enough quote collection to give you an idea, the thread was subsequently locked after @CGQuarterly's chastising of Mike's critics by the admin/owner Albert.

So I'll wind down to my final thoughts. I'll close by listing my favorite quote from Mike which is "And you can be assured I won't be attempting any more gaming ventures." or "And, I will say again, I will not be starting any more gaming businesses personally." I hadn't seen that before. So the experience and community extracted a "promise" by him to never again engage in gaming-related businesses, haha! That's good to know I guess.

Now we'll see if Tommy Tallarico has a similar come-to-Jesus moment with the Incellivision Amico scam which has also cost him his reputation, and now home! Incidentally, there IS a connection between the two situations few would know: Mike Kennedy once launched a reasonable Kickstarter idea to buy the Intellivision IP and port all the games to Windows PC AND Tommy Tallarico actually backed the project! It failed to reach the funding goal, BUT Tommy effectively stole the idea years later, bought the IP himself, and then proceeded to try another RetroVGS console idea (The Amico) only this time JUST with that limited IP of retro games!! CRAZY!!!

Anyway, if Mike's truly sorry/repentant for this disaster, and keeps his vow to never again try to sell gamers on boneheaded "retroland" projects/ideas, then that is a good ending to the saga I guess, haha. Everyone knows not to give him a single penny again, so no worries on that front.

Poor Million Dollar Mike, he had a dream...a dream to scheme...

And with that, one last bit of nostalgia I once named "The Winning Team" to truly say good-bye to this thread. They had such promise, such potential, such...passion, but alas, it ended in miserable failure... Au revoir boys.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Some important NEWS about the PC Engine!]

Thread image patch/recovery: 90% of the lost Image Shack images have been restored! This thread was especially worth the time/effort to preserve, and later submit to WayBack. I also made it sticky/pinned. Not sure if it was or not before.

Appending worthy additions while I'm at it:

It's all about the gaming experience! Truly hating a system only limits your own gaming experience...and usually bores the hell out of everyone else.

That being said...

Thank you so much!

https://technoviking.ytmnd.com/

https://www.gamerz.be/t/prosternez-vous-devant-le-techno-viking.73391/
I will be looking into this game seems like a fun time, thanks!

Comrade, I'm sorry. When I re-read my post, it sounded pretty abrasive. Sorry. I was really just venting, I did not mean to direct it at you (100%). Maybe 30% was intended for you, ha!!!

Hey no issues here, I didn't take offense or anything like that, I just wanted to make sure I was clear about what I said since it looked like I might have thrown some people off. I just wanted to explain that I'm a pretty serious Xak fan and collector, and I do not see value in what Tobias has because it's fake. For something like a pressing of Xak III to have real value to me as a hardcore collector, it needs to be from a project that has the original team's blessing...

Hmm, that could make a funny "Obey"picture actually. A Pope or Archbishop giving a pressed PC-Engine disk a sign of benediction / blessing it...

Edit: It shall be done!



-Thomas

NO TV SPORTS HOCKEY THOUGH??? FOR SHAME!

Uh-oh, who do we have here, The Ultima of Obey ?? Keith/Chris has officially won the thread!

In the Halloween spirit Donald Trump says everyone must "obey" the pc engine.

This one comes from @csgx1 via the sega-16 forums:

wth?   First of all, probably not too many Subaru owners that also share a passion for the PC Engine.  I love the PCE and Subaru (I own a Impreza) but what kind of Frankenstein idea are you thinking of?  You planning on modding your Forester to look like a PCE?  Instead of the PC Engine Shuttle may be create PC Engine Subaru Grafx where the hucard slot is where the hood scoop is?  lol...

Notes: sega-16 forums is being upgraded; it's been in a state of disrepair for some months, and its gallery attachment image links are broken! They require the domain to be replaced with an IP to retrieve them, others are missing. So the car/pce meme came from csgx1's profile gallery, but you can't use www.sega-16.com to get it, replace it with the IP 169.45.167.69:

https://www.sega-16.com/forum/member.php?27336-csgx1
https://169.45.167.69/forum/member.php?27336-csgx1

Eventually if you browse his profile you can find it:
http://169.45.167.69/forum/album.php?albumid=183&attachmentid=5424
https://169.45.167.69/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5424&d=1348955442

csgx1 shared direct attachment links such as these from that neo-geo.com hellhole too, which was also VBulletin, but after it was upgraded to XenForo all of them were broken & lost unless Wayback captured some. Also, it's very much possible his meme came from here/PCEFX, but if it was hosted with Image Shack it was long gone. I only ran into it from sega-16.


UPDATE: So in thinking about this impending image loss, I searched the forum for "attachmentid" to preserve other images and voila, I found that csgx1 had shared it here right after posting it on sega-16!!! I'll attach the recovered photo in place / overwrite the bad link!

Funny enough, I thought I had seen this meme before, felt a vague memory of it, turns out I HAD: I'm in that thread and reacted when csgx1 posted it! It technically just needs "OBEY" slapped somewhere on it to truly fit in this thread's gallery/purpose.

I was just reading Melf - the sega16 owner/admin - to learn what's going on exactly with their forums and it seems he was ready to close down, but settled on archiving/preserving the forum for memory browsing/nostalgia. That's sort of the position I found myself in, was really saddened how it all worked out with Aaron and then his official closure. I felt PCEFX deserved a lot better, it could've been a small-scale Atari/NintedoAge with enough money/management for PCE fans, right place/right time, but the resources/time/money wasn't there; it's not just about bitter/raging psychos/saboteurs, a vulture/parasite faction, that tore the place apart for their own pre-planned agendas (i.e. revenge and for their own PCE groups)!

Be that as it may I've accepted/realized that the best days of PCEFX are behind it (I enjoy Discord/Twitter a lot more nowadays myself which Melf acknowledges have taken over), and about all I can do is maximize image/photo preservation/archiving since every other case I've seen it's been the most neglected/lost aspect. So, eventually I intend to install a grand marquee, what I'd call the 20-YEAR PCEFX HISTORY randomizer/gallery at the top of forum after the news block. But first I have to finish recovering as much as I can, a random/ongoing on/off process in the last 2 years, and once I'm satisfied begin working on that feature to showcase it all. Wayback is doing exactly this actually: scrolling a random photo list of captured websites to browse as you would a museum! You gotta show off your best assets, what's left!

I've added an example/demo to show what I want exactly:

That's from macross.fandom.com. So imagine the 20-year PCEFX history of 20,000+ images being displayed/filtered like that at the top of the forum, randomized order every time you refresh, and if you click on one it takes you to the thread/post, etc. It'd be a 20-year walk down memory lane for random OG veterans/visitors. That's what we can do to celebrate/preserve!

But yeah, first I need to finish disabling broken/lost images where there's no hope, and finish repairing the ones that are recoverable, mostly thanks to WayBack, or manual detective work like you saw in this example with expiring Sega-16 links. Melf lost his webmaster and that's part of why he's ready to say good-bye and go archive mode, but I can do my own IT from 25 years ago, so I don't have to pay anyone else, I just need hosting/domain costs, then time/motivation.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: PC Engine Pixelization]

Saw these on Reset Era.

Legend of Xanadu


Sol Moonarge


Cotton

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Made me laugh. I didn't get the joke at first, other than Gandalf the Grey/Pimp likes Asian ladies ? Or, watch this magic trick as he empties out an ATM to spend on hookers ?? 

So now that the forces of evil had been conquered, the war had been won, Gandalf returned home to retire to a life of leisure, cruising the neighborhoods, occasionally using his magic tricks to empty out ATMs to spend on hookers ?? Pretty good meme, I like it!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

L-DIS and Gradius 2

The last of the higher rated shooters I've played for the system. A delight to play. I haven't beaten it either but I'm working on it.

I bought L-DIS new in the 90's because it was so cheap (for an import!) in the back of gaming magazines (I think $15??)! Not bad for a cute'em up shooter I guess, but Star Parodier is best in that area. Its cover was so unusual!

https://catalog.pcengine-fx.com/#cd1970


I was meaning to buy a real copy of Gradius II too when they were going for $20-ish on eBay (I loved that Konami shooter era and I finished the Gradius/Lifeforce ports on NES), but I think I'm too late and no biggie, I'll eventually load it on my Analogue Duo (or one of the Konami PCE minis!) some day when the mood strikes to finally take it off the backlog.

P. S. Thanks for remembering the forum, haha! Needs to earn back membership every little bit!

While I'm at it, I was reminded before Aaron closed OG PCEFX I was working on my catalog jukebox player as a replacement for PCEFX Radio, and I had encoded the 2 best tracks from L-DIS to MP3 though I never uploaded them anywhere until...today!

_{► /audio/L-Dis-13-Stage-3.mp3}

_{► /audio/L-Dis-37-Stage-6.mp3}

They can randomly be played 24/7 either at:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/main/radio.html
https://catalog.pcengine-fx.com/

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Analogue Turbo Duo FPGA clone - preorders began May 19, thousands of units left!]

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

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

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

Picked 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.

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:

_{► /audio/Legendary-Axe-II-06-Stage-3.mp3}

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.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Dead CD Spindle Motor? How to Replace?]

Hey Great Hierophant

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



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).

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TurboGrafx 16 Employee Scans & items (Archive.org)]

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.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Introducing myself and Turbo Views......]

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


Nice DVD collector's box being readied.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Scan: TurboExpress in Playboy magazine]

Once I got past the side boobage, something else caught my eye...

You can't create a more captivating reason to play KLAX than this. Seriously.

https://twitter.com/Playboy/status/1435665707962880008


Upon patching/embedding lost Image Shack 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.

So 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!



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.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Trade]

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...



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...

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: My progress on PC-FX homebrew development]

I 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.



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.

[PC/Console/Mobile Ports / Re: "Lords of Thunder: PC" (Updated 1/23/2022 - v.3 released)]

Back in the day I worked on a PC port of Lords of Thunder - recently I've had the desire to revisit it again with modern day tools. If you'd like to try out how far I got, link provided (no install needed). Screenshot of said build. pic.twitter.com/9yjwxrND2V

— Aaron Nanto (@pcenginefx) January 24, 2022

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.

https://youtu.be/YBXYdvG0YIM

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Marshall's PC Engine emulator for the PC-FX]

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."



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!

[Off-Topic / The “What-Did-You-Buy-Today?” Thread]

Special PC Engine mini sale on Amazon Japan, 25% off!!!



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!!!!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: My Great Yard Sale Find!!]

I even talked the seller down to $20.

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.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: The first of Many! (Grabbed my first TG16 game since I sold off the collection]

Can Keith Courage still be bought for $10 these days ??

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PCE Duo-R Won't read hu cards? What could be the cause?]

Welcome back, you were one of my account-undelete/rebuild experiments (about ~30-40) which works 100% now...

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



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.

[General Gaming / Pixelization/Animation Perfection]

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:

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Question: Wave-phasing on the PC engine, how feasible is that?]

shape___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...

_{► /8/shape___artillery_wip_mednafen_by_michirin9801-dauhpi7.mp3}

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.

_{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...}

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Ready for the sequel?

Dear lord... I don't think we'd survive it!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: PC Engine Pixelization - Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys]

Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys | Falcom & Hudson Soft | PC Engine CDRom² | 1993








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/*


And while not pertinent to the exact purpose of the thread (pixel animations), pretty Ys IV portraits/eye candy get thrown in while I'm here just for the heck of it:

[Off-Topic / WayBack Runtime Lost Photo/IMG Retrieve Plugin/Patch/Fix]

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();
}
}
}


[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Introducing myself and Turbo Views......]

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. ; )



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!

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

#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

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Ys History: Ys Book I & II VA dub features Hollywood stars!]

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! Take a look at this credits roll:



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, leader of the Thieves' Den
Ys Book I&II ADPCM Track #02 "Oh I have heard about your bravery... You're going to Darm Tower to the find book, aren't you? ..."

How about that ? I was pretty surprised when I first learned about it! In addition to a high-quality dub, Ys Book I & II sports one of THE greatest soundtracks in videogame history (as does Ys III to Ys IV!) which is mostly thanks to legends like Yuzo Koshiro and Ryo Yonemitsu's post-arrangement magic which 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 and for better or worse it's what also led me into fan localization projects like the final "Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys" sequel! The partnership of Hudson Soft and Falcom led to some great things in gaming history, but it's too bad Hudson is no longer with us having been absorbed by Konami and mostly sidelined thereafter (not until the PC Engine/TurboGrafx minis at least)...

References:
https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/Ys-Book-I-and-II/




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/


I just remembered my side project of extracting some of these voice-acting recordings/dubs.

-The TurboGrafx CD Ys games are better than anything XSEED Games has put out.

Ha, I wouldn't know boycotting all their product, but funny to hear you say that.

As to the question, because I grew up with "Ys Book I & II" after I bought a Turbo Duo and it's what made me a lifelong Ys fan, I pronounce "Adol" the way Lilia/she (Mea Martineau as Lilia) says it here:

1)

_{► /audio/YS12_01_005E0000.mp3}

Or, here she is again from the redbook audio track 37:

2)

_{► /audio/37-YsBookI&II.mp3}

3) Incidentally, here is Thomas Haden Church's raw ADPCM clip extracted and converted to MP3 below. I wanted the best possible voice-acting samples for my dub research project (which I still wanna finish).

_{► /audio/YS12_02_00620000.mp3}

(His only recorded line in the game BTW.)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Finally picked this up, what took me so long?]

Best 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!

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







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!

[Feature/News Archive / Kickstarter-triumph Battle Princess Madelyn Released - (posted Dec 6, 2018)!]

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.  <<

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

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!

[Off-Topic / Re: What do you depise AT THIS MOMENT, literally....]

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...

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Third party TG16 pad, has anyone tried it?]

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!"



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!

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys Project Origins: My 2nd PC Engine CD Import Purchase!]

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!!!!

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!

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: System Card Font Fix]

I'm not familiar with English systems, but AFAIK they also play Japanese games without any problem(or so I've heard), so the Japanese font should be included in the western system cards as well.
So, does it mean that the western system cards included the original Japanese font, but somehow changed the English font for whatever reasons (copyright issues, maybe)?
Edit: Or do you mean that the English fonts in the system cards suck (regardless of region), but it's only less annoying when most of the text are in Japanese?

The PCE/TG-16 System cards all have the S-JIS character set but only up to 0x9872, which covers about half the possible Japanese Kanji representation (JIS Level 1).

See: https://www.ysutopia.net/projects/s-jis/

If you look at the above S-JIS guide I left around when I first started the Xak III project in 2001, you can click on the 0x97-0x98 range to see where it ends.

S-JIS also has English, Greek and Russian characters covered, but in the case of the System card, they're stored in a really ugly 12x12 & 16x16 font as Dave demonstrated below with Exile which used 12x12.

Here's a snapshot ripped directly from a System Card 3 ROM (using fedian) below:

Cmd: "php feidian.php -r 12,12,10,7,0x30998 syscard3.pce S-JIS"

For comparison, here's the even uglier 16x16 font:

Cmd: "php feidian.php -r 16,16,16,15,66048 syscard3.pce S-JIS"

Dave's idea here is simply based on what if you just overwrite those English alphabet tiles in the System Card 3 ROM with a better looking font and boot a game with it ??

Before/After Results:

In the early days, you were limited to emulators, but now you can take an edited ROM file to real NEC hardware using a Turbo Everdrive flashcart which is pretty standard nowadays, and voila, you'll get to play a game with a slightly better font or even other possibilities...

Unfortunately, as you can see, there's only mild improvement, only so much you can do for a fixed-width 12x12 (or 16x16) English font, it'd be more ideal to switch the game over to an 8x12 or 8x16 font, but that would involve extensive hacking work on the ROM of the game itself...

This is a bit of a tangent, the Xak III tangent if you will, but same concept that can be applied to *SOME* PC Engine CDs and HuCards if-and-ONLY-if the font tiles are not compressed as is the case for the System Card ROM! You must find the offset in the data track where the font tiles are and simply overwrite them with other font tile sprites and voila, you can change the font into something better!

Xak III was the perfect candidate because it was ready-to-go with nice English 8x16 font support built-in with no font compression, no expert hackers necessary! Just take tile data from one game, even SNES, and overwrite it at the correct offset(s) and you can accomplish this:

https://www.ysutopia.net/images/xak3/font.html

Lufia [SNES] 8x16	Lagoon [SNES] 8x16	Neutopia [PCE] 8x16

Es magnifique my friend, es magnifique!