Sins of the Silicon and Console Curios - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

retroking1981 wrote:

@Blue Swirl regarding Amiga CD32 - most were ports of Amiga 1200 games with added bells and whistles ala Mega CD afaik.

Liveinadive wrote:

Yeah I just watched a "My top 10 CD32 games" and almost every selection was a 1200 port, to the point they just stuck an Amiga CD32 sticker over the Amiga 1200 logo on the boxes and included an extra bit of paper for the CD32 instructions.

Ah, fair play.

cockbeard wrote:

I had a similar thing with the MultiMega, they were in Curry's for about £25, so wish I'd grabbed a couple.

Damn, now there was a bargain. IIRC they were something like 400 quid at launch.

[Deleted User]

I just thought the sticker thing was amusing.

Imagine if Nintendo got a load of WiiU boxes, put a sticker with the Switch logo on top and shipped the boxes with a loose cartridge rattling around.

RedDave2

Jaquar design always struck me as one of the lesser ships on stat trek TNG. Especially with the cd toilet seat attachment.

And clearly the controller needs more buttons.

TheBoyRoberts

I won a ACD32 in the second national video games championships (organised by Virgin Megastores) - man what a pile of shite that thing was.

I believe it was a Amiga 1200 with a CD drive and controller (which was also shite!) - i had pinball fantasies which constantly crashed.

Managed to sell it to a little games shop in Durham and I used the money to go to London and visit Alien War.

Happy days!

Blue Swirl

TheBoyRoberts wrote:

I believe it was a Amiga 1200 with a CD drive and controller (which was also shite!)

It would seem the world agrees with you, the units I can find on eBay mostly have 3rd party pads with them rather than the original boomerang/dog bone thingy.

What games did you have to play to win the CD32?

TheBoyRoberts

I managed to win the regional finals twice - both times I got mega loads of consoles!

In the qualifying rounds were held at Virgin Mega Stores, were held over a week and there was a choice of three games.

In 1993 (I think!) the selection of games was: James Bond Aquabatics on the Mega Drive (my qualifying game), UN Squadron on the SNES and Zool on the Amiga 600.

From each game 3 people went into the finals at the end of the week and the highest scoring contestant from each system entered into the final where you had to play all three. Managed to win and the prize was a SNES, Mega Drive and an Amiga 600 plus a trip to London for the finals at the Future Entertainment Show where there was a chance to win £10,000!

In 1994 (again I think ) the selection of games was: Mario All Stars - Lost Levels on the SNES (my qualifying game), a Mega CD shoot em-up that I can't remember the name of and Pinball Fantasies on the CD32. Same format as the previous year and I managed to win SNES, Mega Drive (no Mega CD) and a CD32 plus another trip to London.

Other than winning another Mega Drive at the first future Entertainment Show, the winning streak ended. In the first year I came 3rd (£10k for first, £4k for second and nowt for 3rd) and in the second I came 4th.

Never since have I reached those lofty heights!

hunk

Come back to me gamegear!
I still love you...

hunk

In other news, the neo geo still wins best design ever.

davyK

I was aware of the Jaguar but it never occurred to me to get one despite me being as close to being an Atari fanboy as it was possible. I knew their day had gone.

Defender 2000 could have been brilliant only management insisted that Minter make the ship bigger to show the console off. This resulted in the game becoming broken. Tempest 2000 remains the reason to get one - although there's a comparison video of it and the Saturn version which does the job just as well.

Blue Swirl

TheBoyRoberts wrote:

I managed to win the regional finals twice - both times I got mega loads of consoles!

Nicely done, sir. The jewel in my gaming crown will probably remain forever winning every race in a Mario Kart 7 tournament and coming home with a Nintendo-approved trophy.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

Tempest 2000 remains the reason to get one - although there's a comparison video of it and the Saturn version which does the job just as well.

I played Tempest 2000 on a Jaguar at PAX AUS, it was top. Probably not worth tracking down a Jaguar for, but hey ho.

davyK

Blue Swirl wrote:

davyK wrote:

Tempest 2000 remains the reason to get one - although there's a comparison video of it and the Saturn version which does the job just as well.

I played Tempest 2000 on a Jaguar at PAX AUS, it was top. Probably not worth tracking down a Jaguar for, but hey ho.

Yup.

There's the Saturn version and PS1 also got Tempest X3 which has an unlockable T2K mode. Not to mention a very good PC remake.

Blue Swirl

More random discoveries, this time thanks to the Dreamcast Junkyard.

SEGA were planning on quite a few uses for the VMU, it seems, including being plugged into mobile phones and hi-fi systems. I already knew about their plans for arcade games with VMU slots - didn't that actually come to fruition, but only for a handful (if that) of titles?

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There was also plans for an MP3 player VMU, with some sort of satellite dish looking thing attached to the controller - I swear I've seen that before but I can't remember what it's for. The MP3 player looks like it got fairly far in production, with ads appearing in public.

From the same article, SEGA had plans to get the Dreamcast online via a variety of methods - this cable would allow the DC to connect to the PHS wireless phone system that was briefly popular in Japan and other Asian countries around the turn of the century.

Apparently this cable, the Dreamwire, is super rare and went for over £500 in a recent auction. No idea what it does - it looks like USB to VGA, which seems pretty useless to me.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

There's the Saturn version...

Until this page of this very thread, I had no idea there was a Saturn version. I thought it was a Jaguar exclusive. I wonder which goes for more money, and which plays better.

Jaco

hunk wrote:

In other news, the neo geo still wins best design ever.

Yarp. If only today's machines were as achingly cool as this...

davyK

Blue Swirl wrote:

There's the Saturn version...

Until this page of this very thread, I had no idea there was a Saturn version. I thought it was a Jaguar exclusive. I wonder which goes for more money, and which plays better.

Check that video out which is a comparison of the two. According to that the Saturn version has a better framerate and the music is CD audio (though some prefer the grittier sound of the Jag version). I'd be surprised if the Saturn version was expensive.

EDIT: looks like it garners decent money - 20-30quid (my effing pound sign doesn't work since Windows 10)

cockbeard

Localisation settings for your keyboard?

Yossarian

Hari kiri to preserve some honour in the face of its value tumbling as a result of Brexit?

Blue Swirl

Oi. Keep your politics out of my thread.

davyK

cockbeard wrote:

Localisation settings for your keyboard?

Yup.. However I've messed about with those settings and it hasn't made a difference. I also hate how the Control Panel is hidden away between wizard style screens - a fucking pain in the arse.

retroking1981

Download classic shell mate.

Blue Swirl

Another random discovery of the day, found whilst link hopping on Wikipedia. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing this before, but I'd totally forgotten it existed. Behold, the snappily-named CSD-G1M. While the Multi-Mega was a personal CD player/MegaCD combo, this is a portable CD player with MegaCD functionality.

The unit can also play MegaDrive games, via the slot at the bottom. Because of the position of the slot, it's not really feasible to attach a 32X, however.

Pretty neat, huh? Well, Aiwa made a rather clumsy job of the clumsily named CSD-G1M. For some arcane reason known only to Aiwa, the cart section of the machine is a separate part to the rest of the unit.

Rather than being connected by a unit-to-unit connection (e.g., the MD2/MCD2, GC/GBP, N64/DD, etc.) there was a cable between the two halves of the machine.

Yeah. Slowclap.gif. To top everything off, Aiwa's timing wasn't great, as they launched the system six years after the MD, three after the MCD, and in the same year as the Saturn.

On the upside, the machine did come with a rather natty blue controller.

Aiwa also released a non-MD version of the same stereo. This was the equally boringly-named CSD-EX80.

Further information at (and images stolen from) Sega Retro.

There must have been more bits of hardware with MD/MCD functionality than any console in history.

davyK

Read about this one today. The Sega SG-1000 which console tech-wise which is the missing link between the 2600 and the NES.

I find it pleasing looking. Architecture-wise it's really an 8-bit micro but was also skinned as a console.

Diluted Dante

All the games for that run on the Master System by the way.

davyK

Really? Didn't know that. I wasn't really into Sega until the Saturn came along.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

Read about this one today. The Sega SG-1000...

This month's retro gamer?

I love the SG 1000. Apparently the computer version, the SC 3000, sold well in NZ schools. Their equivalent of the BBC Micro. The Mark III is a fabulous looking machine.

Blue Swirl

Diluted Dante wrote:

All the games for that run on the Master System by the way.

No region-locking? Huh, that's cool. I knew SG-1000 software runs on the Mk II and III.

davyK

Blue Swirl wrote:

This month's retro gamer? I love the SG 1000. Apparently the computer version, the SC 3000, sold well in NZ schools. Their equivalent of the BBC Micro. The Mark III is a fabulous looking machine.

Yeah. I still sub to it though I'v had enough of subbing to magazines and I'm going to cancel them all. Retro Gamer is OK in bits but I don't get enough reading out of it to justify it. That article was the first I've read in it that was genuinely informative. (Actually the other one about Okada - Gunpei Yokoi's right hand man was an eye opener too).

retroking1981

I might be wrong but isn't MKII software what The Master System Card games were?

It was essentially backwards compatible. In Japan that made sense with those consoles being the MKII and MKIII. To us in the West we just thought MS games came in two forms.

Blue Swirl

The Mark II used both carts and cards, too, same as the III. It was SEGA's attempt at competing with the Famicom Disk System. There were even re-writable cards for use with special kiosks in Japanese corner shops, according to Retro Gamer magazine.

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