The Official Pioneer LaserActive Player thread-

[laseractiveguy]

I dont own an LD burner, but I know somebody who does!  The only problem is, he only has 3 blanks.  I'm in negoations right now to buy it, and a computer system it goes to.  I've read on a bunch of fourms where people picked up 10 or 15 LDs here and there... and have them in their garages.  I'm sure they can be 'conned' out of them for lots of cash.  Soon I'm going to be making lots of accounts and practicaly beg them to sell.  They probley wouldnt if we were going to use them for video productions, but they might just be facinated that 'new laseractive' titles could be made!  Thats what i'm hoping on.

Hardware wise, I dont think its a problem.  I know a person or two who can extract code from LD discs, so theres the boot code.  From there, its simple programming in old sega genesis fashion (plus LD stops/seeks ect).  I've got 3 brilliant artists willing to help (for money of course) and they are already working on some stuff for me. 

Cost... aint going to be cheap.  I have an incredibly hard time keeping secrets, but I was going to use the burner to release 'reproductions of Myst' in early 2014 to help pay for the new game, (This is WHY I had to have it, another reason for the Cover Art Contest at LaserActiveGuy).. and the new game which would be released in 2015.  Again, production numbers would be 20-30 a peice.  I dont there there would be demand for much more than that at the prices they would have to sell for (to break even).

A lot of this is in the very early stages, but I am fully confident it can be done.

[SignOfZeta]

You have a very long road ahead of you. I really hope it can work...but I honestly think there is about a %1 chance. Getting hardware to burn formats it was never designed to burn isn't easy without serious expertise (nobody has ever burned a CDV, for example, which would be way easier) and you're dealing with hardware that was never even popular in the first place.

I realize you are willing to spend every cent you have on this project but unless you can hire someone like TheOldMan to come work full time for you I think you're screwed.

[SignOfZeta]

Too bad no one presses Laserdiscs anymore... maybe Pioneer Japan?

As far as I know it's been over a decade since Pioneer pressed an LD. I'm sure they have a machine laying around somewhere but they aren't going to be taking orders.

It's possible there are working presses out there. It's been learned that a company was pressing 8" music video LDs for LD jukebox machines long after most people though LD production had stopped. That company doesn't do it anymore either, but they did keep going longer than the others, I want to say maybe 2007 (?) so it hasn't been quite as much downtime for them.

[laseractiveguy]

Its funny you mentioned 8" LDs... I so wanted 'something' to go on the smaller discs instead of using full size ones... but i cant find any mention of them being able to be made!  Theres a long road, I admit, but my chances are much greater than 1%.  Everything that exists started with a dream, and my favorite game says "Dreams are a Reality!"    I hope its true in this case.  If you ever read the orginal 'press release', even as the machine was being launched, it does mention percisely what I propose.

[Psycho Punch]

By the way Laseractiveguy, if you have a legit company, you could talk to Pioneer US/Japan and buy some blanks for cheap, I'm sure that they must have at least ONE blank in stock, locked in somewhere dusty.

It's worth a shot, don't you think?

[SignOfZeta]

Its funny you mentioned 8" LDs... I so wanted 'something' to go on the smaller discs instead of using full size ones... but i cant find any mention of them being able to be made!  Theres a long road, I admit, but my chances are much greater than 1%.  Everything that exists started with a dream, and my favorite game says "Dreams are a Reality!"    I hope its true in this case.  If you ever read the orginal 'press release', even as the machine was being launched, it does mention percisely what I propose. 

Making an 8" LA back in the day was certainly possible. There is no technical reason why it couldn't be done. Making an LA game on a burner that only knows how to do video is a million times harder.

[BlueBMW]

Well I cerntainly see a lot of passion in this project.  As always Ill help any way I can with anything homebrew related.  Certainly sign me up for one of the new games unless you think its cost is going to be in the four figures... even then I might consider it. 

[laseractiveguy]

My figures would be similar to...  Myst Reproduction apx 400... it could be cheaper, but its purpose is to generate cash to 'help' complete the real game.  The Real game would be somewhere around 600-750... again this is to cover costs and NOT to make money!  Insane prices, but then again some of the real discs go for that much anyway.  With a low production run like this... the cost can not be spread out over 'many' copies.

Contacting Pioneer for LD blanks... unlikely.  Novel Idea.  People I have come into contact 'on the inside' say Pioneer does not keep a museum of items they make or warehouses full of products for obsolete stock.  An example,  Its just like the Zoom Discs... they do not have ANY of them, and disposed of them quickly after Zoom Magazine was scrapped in the mid 90's...  practicaly throwing away BOX loads of brand new sealed Zooms they didnt distribute to dealers...  this is where I have gotten access to all of the editions!!!  Even LA Discs in 1996 were advertised for $9.99 in Pioneer Catalog to get rid of overstock.  Unheard of to think Don Quixote, Road Prosecutor, and mabye even Time Gal discs in Japan going for that low at one time. 

Its up to you, I was hoping to get a couple people on-board to help with the project.  If most of you think this is pretty futile.. I can disapear and 'reappear' in the future when I have something concrete and sellable?  I was just trying to generate excitment in a 'otherwise' dead LaserActive world.  However, I'm not just saying something I thought up one bored afternoon...  there is a lot of passion behind this and I have given this a lot of thought for just about a year now.  Instead of just dreaming... it time to actualy try it out!

[SignOfZeta]

Pioneer sells shit like spindle motors for LD players that have been out of production for 25 years. They're absolutely incredible about parts support for LD stuff.

The thing with blanks though is that they probably haven't sold one since the late 80s. They might keep that stuff around, they might not. Even the Laseractive was more popular than any form of writable LD.

Which type of blank LD do you have? What is the system called? This is important because the machine has to give you access to very low level machine operations to work. The ones I've seen only have things like composite, Y/C, YPbPr etc for video, some audio inputs, and nothing for data. You said there is a PC that controls it? Can you write TOC code directly to the disc? If so, it's technically possible. However, if the machine predates Laseractive (I think it does) then you're going to need a really smart dude to make something a LA will actually recognize as a game.

[SignOfZeta]

From what I'm reading the only system that recorded discs that could be read in a conventional LD player was the RVL system by ODC, and that system predated digital sound, and LA games require digital sound so...

[Vecanti]

I think Zeta is correct. AFAIK Pioneer never made blank "LaserDiscs".  They made a system based on similar technology but it was cartridge based and I believe those were a random access type(re-writable) where it wrote to the disk more like a hard drive not in sequence like a typical LaserDisc and could be used even for Non-Linear editing, using multiple lasers even to write. So even if you could remove the disc from the cartridge you could never use it in a LaserDisc player.

ODC made a LaserDisc writer. Similar to CD-R where you burned a LaserDisc and it could be read on basically any LaserDisc player.

A few problems, I don't believe anyone has ever seen an ODC machine.  The information looks like they were HUGE, the size of a Washer and Dryer put together.  These were not home or small business machines. These were industrial machines. 

The other problem is there seems to be no information on how they worked. Did they even record digital audio? These things came out in like 1988 so the system would have had to have the computing power to do CD quality audio digitizing/recording/mastering. Which in 1988 was a huge deal. Or were they completely analog video and analog soundtracks?  Which seems more likely.  In which case these machines would be useless I would think for LaserActive game making. There seems to be no way to know how you could use an ODC machine to write digital LaserActive computer data onto a LaserDisc with out actually playing with it/testing.

So even if you somehow found an ODC machine and got one working I would think there would be a lot of trial and error which means a lot of blank LaserDisc coasters.  So just the idea of throwing away $1000s of dollars in blank discs (if you could find any) to test writing data is frightening.   

But again, my knowledge is limited on this so I could be completely wrong on any or all of this.

[SignOfZeta]

I think digital sound was available on LD in 1986, but didn't really start going strong until 1988 or so. I have discs made in the 90s with no digital sound. This recorder from ODC, from what I understand, did only analog sound with CX encoding. It also only did 30 minute CLV sides so...it was probably fucking terrible, in all honesty.

[laseractiveguy]

Your right... I have done some research into the 'claimed' model that can burn normal LD's... its not the case...   it was a Sony Laser Recorder LVR-3000N.

I'll have to get ahold of that OCR unit somehow.

[SignOfZeta]

I think you're better off trying to press LDs than getting than trying to get the ODC unit to make LA games. If these units even exist anymore at all it's going to take some incredible expertise to make something like that work. Making hardware and software modifications to a unit nobody can even find a photo of isn't a realistic goal, IMHO.

[TheClash603]

Hypothetically, you could make a Mega LD game on CD right?  It would obviously be very short, but would it be possible?

Seems like a good way to test some of your programming out on the cheap, before going through the expense of LD pressing?

Just make the game a 10 CD epic saga if all else fails

[SignOfZeta]

Hypothetically, you could make a Mega LD game on CD right?  It would obviously be very short, but would it be possible?

It....might be possible. It would require some SERIOUS hardware expertise. Nobody has yet figured out how to burn a CDV. It might (might) be possible to make a MegaLD game on a CDV. It wouldn't be something that was ever designed to be played (there are, AFAIK, no retail CDV LA titles) but if you could get the player to recognize it it might work. This would require hacking a CD recorder to the extent that it would burn analog video. That shit ain't easy.

[laseractiveguy]

I have to admit, this 'Might' be possible... and even if the game spanned 5 cd's or so (apx length of a 30 min LD)... it would be loads cheaper.  However.... now I know 'exactly' what kind of hardware I need for LD's... i am VERY good at tracking down stuff.  Before I purchased my copy of Myst... I located 3 different people who (currently) have copies within about 8 months.   Unfortuantly... one of these 3 people's Myst appeared on ebay... without his knollege.  I'll have more details in the official video.  Then, after aquiring my copy... another person with one contacted me, with some interesting and distrubing news!  No more hints... gotta keep 'something' to myself at least for now.

Searching for a way to make CDV's is top of my priority list.. at the very least it will 'help' keep costs down development wise.  I still and trudging forward (not detered) towards new LA titles.

[SignOfZeta]

You'll have to figure out if its even possible for an LD game to exist on a CDV. CDV's aren't just tiny LDs they are their own special format and it might not be possible for a disc to be a CDV and a LA game at the same time in the opinion of the LA itself. It might only recognize one or the other.

I guess you'll have to figure out what the TOCs look like.

Of course, the LD community would be extremely please if someone could figure out how to burn a CDV even if it wasn't an LA game.

[xcrement5x]

I do wonder if it's possible to use a Genesis flashcart or something to boot a CD as a LD with some trickery.  The stuff people have been able to accomplish with those is quite amazing.  I remember the person who made a version of Road Prosecutor for the SNES using a specially made flashcart.

Laseractiveguy, are you the one who picked up that PC PAC which ended on YJA a month or so ago?  It went relatively cheap (under 20K) if I remember correctly.

[SignOfZeta]

I do wonder if it's possible to use a Genesis flashcart or something to boot a CD as a LD with some trickery.  The stuff people have been able to accomplish with those is quite amazing.  I remember the person who made a version of Road Prosecutor for the SNES using a specially made flashcart.

I've played Road Prosecutor for SNES and its pretty impressive. The thing is though...its still all computer code, well that and a special DSP in the flash card. Getting a CDR drive to burn analog video requires that something physical be done and it would require serious firmware expertise.

If it can be done, if making a CDV is possible, then a MD flash cart would be the key to actually running it as an LA game.

[laseractiveguy]

The Computer Pac is not required to make LaserActive games, I am almost certain.  The only reason developers had such machines was to see the different fields if the disc was multi-layered.  They used it to help 'line up' programming cues.   I was so close to buying (that one)... but financials are a huge problem at the moment.   I will be buying, probley the next one that comes up.  But I DO already have the floppy discs, or at least the data for them.  I was the supplier, if you remember 'Max' behind the LA Preservation project, he may have distributed a copy or two. 

Road Prosecutor for SNES?  Wow... the FMV one?  I bet its just as grainy as the Sega Cd version... but who knows, the technology from 'the future' aka now is amazing compared to stuff of old.   Theres even a Sega Cart game that can utalize the Sega CD for background music...

I have done hard core thinking on cdv...  it might be just that in name... do you suppose it is digital, or analog format?  If its digital, couldnt the person with the Sega link cable just 'download' it?   If you need a disc, I have one.... albeit its Frank Sinatra and Madonna...lol

[laseractiveguy]

Ohh... that just gave me an idea....  making a LD with video is NO problem.   However, the problem I have is making it a digital LD. 

Would it be possible to make the game on a real LaserDisc using only footage.. and adding a Sega Gen cart to control the handling of LD video?

[xcrement5x]

Road Prosecutor for SNES?  Wow... the FMV one?  I bet its just as grainy as the Sega Cd version... but who knows, the technology from 'the future' aka now is amazing compared to stuff of old.   Theres even a Sega Cart game that can utalize the Sega CD for background music...

A bit off topic, but it looks pretty nice: http://www.destructoid.com/super-road-blaster-the-impossible-laserdisc-to-snes-port-228189.phtml
The larger color palette of the SNES may have something to do with that though.

I understand what you're saying now Zeta, I'd forgotten about the digital/analog difference in the video.  You could probably burn something in a modern burner that looks like a CAV disc or something, but there is still no information on what the formatting for an actual LD is?

[SignOfZeta]

I've played Road Prosecutor for SNES. The video is extremely good. It's made specifically for a certain type of flash cart with a powerful DSP chip that is probably more powerful than every chip in a SNES by several orders of magnitude. I don't remember which flash cart it is exactly, but my friend brought it to my house and we both played it. Its way beyond anything the SNES could do on its own, especially contemporaneously since the cart size would have been ridiculously huge by the standards of the day.

Regarding the whole idea of making LDs:

You aren't the first person to want to make LDs. There are many fans of LD in general (a surprising number of them didn't get into LD until it was dead for a decade) who want LDs. There has been a fair amount of discussion about this at lddb.com with some quite knowledgeable people contributing. The consensus is that the most realistic goal, but still quite difficult, is to press a CDV. The reason this is realistic is because if you can just get the stamper made then it can be pressed any anyplace that makes CDs, DVDs, and Blurays. Pressing a 12" disc is way more difficult because there probably isn't a single functioning LD press in the world and building would cost several hundred thousand bucks.

As for CDV, yes, its analog video. Its LD video. If it wasn't analog LD video then they wouldn't play in LD players from the 80s. The format is unique in that the center portions of the disc, the ones that would be where the label is on a 12/8" LD, are CDDA audio so the disc will play like a regular CD in a regular CD player. The video portion is only useable on a LD player. In an LD player the video plays first even though it's second physically. There is also an all video 5" format known as VSD which only has the video. I've never seen one of these but they must spin at a RPM that is fucking ridiculous at the center because a CDV hauls major ass and often vibrates the shit out of players and those play 2cm more outbound than VSDs do.

So anyway, getting a CDR drive to burn analog video is technically possible but requires a very high level of expertise in how CD drives work. CDR drives only burn set lengths of pits and lands corresponding to digital ones and zeroes. LDs use constantly variable lengths to generate a sinusoidal wave which represents composite video but also has modulated within it analog video, digital video, digital frame information. Encoded into the analog audio part of the signal sometimes is a further disguised, AC-3 encoded, Dolby Digital 5.1 audio stream. When hacking, changing, making, digital shit the task might be difficult but its also a bit straightforward. There are things like error correction, header tags, obvious file structures, etc. With analog video everything is in flux. There are no absolutes. LD video was around for 25 years and while some perfect discs were made by the early 90s it was never really perfected industry-wide. There were always random quality fluctuations and bad decisions even on discs made by multi-million dollar companies in 2001.

Many game projects were difficult to pull off. Decrypting CPS2 for example, or figuring out all the memory mappers for Famicom. However, Famicom carts only do one thing; play Famicom games. Their construction betrays their function and once you correctly dump the ROM its all downhill from there. LD and LA are a whole different animal. You can't make a flash card for it. You can't edit a portion of it and run it to see what happens. LD was a decades long format that was constantly changing and heavily invested into by really really smart dudes at Pioneer and purchased by customers well off enough to fund all this work. Some things are easier to replicate with todays tech but a lot of it is nearly impossible for even the smartest dudes. The dudes that made a FC game knew or had understanding of every single bit of data that ended up on the cart. With analog formats you can record things even if you don't have equipment sensitive enough to see every aspect of the signal. You debug it by watching it on the TV.

[SignOfZeta]

Ohh... that just gave me an idea....  making a LD with video is NO problem.   However, the problem I have is making it a digital LD. 

Would it be possible to make the game on a real LaserDisc using only footage.. and adding a Sega Gen cart to control the handling of LD video?

You could put crappy Sega CD video on a CDR and then use a flash cart to control it...but if you think about it, that's about totally pointless. Aside from it looking like shit, the same thing would also run on a Sega CD...or you could just make a huge flash cart and skip the disc part of it all together.

The whole point of the LA, the crux, is that it plays LD video and combines MD/PCE graphics. The only way the overlay system will work is with analog video. There is no way for a LA to play digital video unless it comes from the MD/PCE PAC and if its coming from the PAC in the first place then why have any overlaying going on at all? Why not just have the PAC generate the complete final product? And at that point, why use an LA at all?

[SuperDeadite]

I have a couple VSDs.  They are exactly the same as CDVs, just no audio tracks.  The video is in the "outer" portion of the disk just like on all my CDVs.  They should spin at the same speed.

[SignOfZeta]

So they are half blank? Hilarious.

[laseractiveguy]

New Scientist March 19, 1987
Snippets..    Philips also sees CD Video as a way of relaunching the technicaly acclaimed but commerical unsuccessful Laservison videodisc system.  A conventional compact disc record the sound as 16-bit digital code...yada yada...  so this is nowhere near fast enough for moving video pictures in digital code, unless comlex and expensive circuitry is build into the player to compress the digital data.  So the CDV system compromises by recording moving TV pictues as an analogue waveform.  The disc also spins faster while the video pictures are playing, around 2000 times a minute.  The Laser then tracks the disc surface at a linear velocity of around 10 meteres/second.  The high speed is a cheap way of providing clear pictures, but it limits video playing time to around 5 minutes.

The old Laservision videodiscs had analog sound, but the new CDV discs will have digital sound to accompany the picture.  In the NTSC television system, there is room in the recorded video signal for both analog and digital soundtrack.
----------------------
In a later artical in the same magazine, it actualy talks about Video CD technology, at least in prototype stages.  It mentions that General Electric's RCA Labs can get about 70 minutes of video out of cd's (which were original designed just for audio) and that it could have great potential because it does not have the HYBRID nature of CD Video... as its all digital.  It however, says dedicated 'chips' are needed due to its slow access speeds of 1500kb/s  ...which people have since developed faster 'drive' motors... lol.  52x anybody?

I also found another website going into details about nessasary wave-lenghts of 'pressing' CDV's... but its pretty technical.  Useless unless you had equipment you could modify to accomidate such adjustments.

Now, having said that, I dont think a CD burner could make CDV's... but could a LD burner do it?  Would really sensative 'cd-r's take the 'burning' signal?

Also.. are your VSD's... the mini-laserdiscs that have CDV format?  I have one of those... its a 'single sided' LD... but it doesnt make any sense to me why they would make such a thing... I'd just burn it in normal LD format?  My 'only one' has both a digital and analog soundtrack.  (It does say CD Video...not LD)

[SignOfZeta]

The "CD Video" logo is used sometimes on things just because they have digital sound. When I say "CDV" I'm talking about 5" CDs with an LD video portion on them.

And no, you aren't going to be able to make one in an LD recorder since there is basically no chance that an LD recorder would even physically mount a 5" disc.

[DragonmasterDan]

Just a side note on LaserDisc replication. Around 11 years ago a gentleman named Michael Fox got the rights and master tapes to the Dragon's Lair arcade game from Don Bluth/Dragon's Lair LLC for the purpose of making a reprint laserdisc capable of being played on the original arcade hardware to replace old and rotted copies of the disc.

He went around to various companies that could produce recordable laserdiscs (I believe these were called stamped or pressed) rather than going through the trouble of making a glass master. The problem with the pressed/recordable copies were that they were far too difficult to read on most LD players. He eventually wound up getting a glass master and made 400 of these discs and according to LDDB it was the last LD produced. I know imitation apparently got rid of the equipment shortly thereafter.

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/43726/---/Dragon%27s-Lair-%281983%29

While recordable laserdiscs are out there, how well they'll actually play on Laseractive hardware is another matter entirely.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm pretty sure that many many LDs in the Laserjuke (or whatever its called) line were made after the Dragon's Lair repress. These were music videos on 8" LDs than ran in juke boxes in Europe. I think these were made as late as 05 or maybe even 07.

[DragonmasterDan]

I'm pretty sure that many many LDs in the Laserjuke (or whatever its called) line were made after the Dragon's Lair repress. These were music videos on 8" LDs than ran in juke boxes in Europe. I think these were made as late as 05 or maybe even 07.

Interesting, I was unaware those existed.

I'm curious who was manufacturing the discs for them.

[SuperDeadite]

For fun, here's a pic.  VSDs are on the left, CDVs are on the right.  As you can see, they are really the same thing, I have a feeling an LD player is not possible to spin fast enough to have video on the inner portions of the disc.  But curiously all my CDVs are gold, while the VSDs are all silver.  My LA will play both formats fine, but my old cheapo player won't play the VSDs (it does play the CDVs)

[SignOfZeta]

I want that Best of BGC Vol. 1. I have the second one but the first seems to be much more expensive and hard to find.

[BigusSchmuck]

I just want a Laseractive without paying the gouger price.

[laseractiveguy]

I see all the time on forums people picking up LaserActives for 20-50 bucks in pawn shops...  but they are just LUCKY!!.  Then, most of those people only use it for Sega games and LDs... not even knowing theres a whole selection of 'real' titles for the sytem, or dont want to spend money to get them.  I was on a LA kick (still really am to be honest) when I first got it, but a few months later, went back to more modern systems.  No matter how advanced LaserActive was in its hay-day, todays systems and a $20 game just blow it out of the water.  I'm not even sure why i'm devoted to such expensive antique equipment... but I do admit its cool-as-heck!!   Part of the problem as to why its typicaly isnt cheap today... is because it wasnt cheap back in the day.   In fact, except for the elite title game group... were getting quite a bargin compared to original prices!

[TheClash603]

No matter how advanced LaserActive was in its hay-day, todays systems and a $20 game just blow it out of the water.

From a technological standpoint, you can say that new $20 games are better, but this is also nearly 20 years later.  From a gameplay standpoint, I think it depends on the games obviously.

However, either way, I think you are missing the point.  There is no other home entertainment device that was released in the U.S. that had the format and capabilities the LA did.  The uniqueness of the system is why it is so cool.  There was not before and there will never be any replication of the device, which is the allure.

[Bardoly]

So, is this auction a decent deal?

[xcrement5x]

I picked up my second LaserActive for $30 locally.  Before I really got into it there were several in the Colorado Springs/Denver area that were selling for around $150 or so with a PAC and a bundle of LDs and/or Genesis stuff.  They seemed to have all dried up now though, I bought in at $170 for a unit with PAC-S10 the guy drove down and delivered to my door.

I agree with TheClash they they're a crazy product of the 90s, that's one reason I enjoy it.  Also, it's like the second most expensive video game console ever released.  It's cool to own something that would have cost as much as (an admittedly crappy) car at one point. 

Modern collectors are getting a heck of a deal on most games.  A lot of them were 7000-9000 yen at least back in the day from what I see on the jackets, others like Time Gal and Road Prossy have really gone up though.

[laseractiveguy]

No matter how advanced LaserActive was in its hay-day, todays systems and a $20 game just blow it out of the water.

There is no other home entertainment device that was released in the U.S. that had the format and capabilities the LA did.
  /
- I beg to differ.  I present to you the PlayStation 3! - Granted, the 1st version!

[SuperDeadite]

Backwards compatibility and new media for movies?  That's exactly what the PS2 was, I don't see anything special about the PS3 in that regard...

No matter how advanced LaserActive was in its hay-day, todays systems and a $20 game just blow it out of the water.

There is no other home entertainment device that was released in the U.S. that had the format and capabilities the LA did.
  /
- I beg to differ.  I present to you the PlayStation 3! - Granted, the 1st version!

[laseractiveguy]

If you wanted to get into it just a little bit... even though LA played 'movies' of its time... the Playstation was pretty much only backward compadible.  The LA played its Own games, plus a bunch of other consoles games, making it superior in that regard.

The Playstation 3... It only Does Everything!
The LaserActive...  It only Did Everything!

Lets get back to figuring out how to make a game!   Is it possible for a Mega Drive cart to control the LD functions?  If so, were home free!  I'll worry about making the non-digital discs.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm sure it's possible for an MD (or PCE) cart to control LD functions. I don't think "home free" is very accurate though since nobody has pressed an LD in ages and nobody knows how.

An idea: make a game based on an already existing LD. Port Dragon's Lair by combining custom MD/PCE data on a flash card with an actual Dragon's Lair arcade LD.

Or maybe something more original. Something like the Gunbuster PCE games where they gives you a digital comic that relies on footage of the show. Make a Hunt for Red October digital comic that uses actual Red October discs for footage. That could be pretty fun/hilarious.

Maybe someone could code a LA version of HyperCard, essentially, allowing anyone to make games like this if they have a flash card.

[Vecanti]

I'm sure it's possible for an MD (or PCE) cart to control LD functions. I don't think "home free" is very accurate though since nobody has pressed an LD in ages and nobody knows how.

An idea: make a game based on an already existing LD. Port Dragon's Lair by combining custom MD/PCE data on a flash card with an actual Dragon's Lair arcade LD.

Or maybe something more original. Something like the Gunbuster PCE games where they gives you a digital comic that relies on footage of the show. Make a Hunt for Red October digital comic that uses actual Red October discs for footage. That could be pretty fun/hilarious.

Maybe someone could code a LA version of HyperCard, essentially, allowing anyone to make games like this if they have a flash card.

Wow those are awesome ideas and could probably be pulled off actually.   I'd love to see a Blade Runner RPG.

[laseractiveguy]

Believe it or not, this is percisely what the PC pac allows a person to do.. by making LD discs readable, searchable, and perhaps put txt on screen, with user selectable options.  If software could be made that fits in a MegaDrive or PCE flashcard to do similar operations, it can easily be done!  Not original games, but some creative stuff could be done witha lot of 'fairly easy' to get LDs.   Now, I have heard that once 'cart' mode is enacted, it basicly locks down the LD drive.  That will have to be circumvented somehow.

[laseractiveguy]

What is the Blue LD-ROm disc on the left side next to Zoom 7?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SEGA-CD-LaserActive-GENESIS-Mega-Drive-KEIO-TurboGRAFX-Lords-of-Thunder-SNATCHER-/161028440357?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item257e0b0125

So, is this auction a decent deal?

[McKie1]

Looks like Dora Dora paradise

[laseractiveguy]

Your right.  Working too many hours to have missed that one... i gota go to bed!  Thanks

Looks like Dora Dora paradise

[SignOfZeta]

Believe it or not, this is percisely what the PC pac allows a person to do.. by making LD discs readable, searchable, and perhaps put txt on screen, with user selectable options.  If software could be made that fits in a MegaDrive or PCE flashcard to do similar operations, it can easily be done!  Not original games, but some creative stuff could be done witha lot of 'fairly easy' to get LDs.   Now, I have heard that once 'cart' mode is enacted, it basicly locks down the LD drive.  That will have to be circumvented somehow.

I think the PC PAC basicaly just gives you the serial port that many LDV series players have. This is nice, I guess, but you can't do much except control the disc transport. If a MD/PCE flash cart was used you'd be able to do that but also generate good quality graphics, score counters, etc.

[SuperDeadite]

Correct.  PC Pac was just to give the LA the only other function it was missing.  Hence nobody bought one.

Believe it or not, this is percisely what the PC pac allows a person to do.. by making LD discs readable, searchable, and perhaps put txt on screen, with user selectable options.  If software could be made that fits in a MegaDrive or PCE flashcard to do similar operations, it can easily be done!  Not original games, but some creative stuff could be done witha lot of 'fairly easy' to get LDs.   Now, I have heard that once 'cart' mode is enacted, it basicly locks down the LD drive.  That will have to be circumvented somehow.

I think the PC PAC basicaly just gives you the serial port that many LDV series players have. This is nice, I guess, but you can't do much except control the disc transport. If a MD/PCE flash cart was used you'd be able to do that but also generate good quality graphics, score counters, etc.