The Wii is also the most powerful console I own, as I'm primarily a PC gamer as well. In fact, I only have a Wii because my wife wanted it for the balance board fitness games. I couldn't let that stand, though, so I bought Metroid Prime Trilogy, Zelda Twilight Princess, New Super Mario Bros Wii etc., and recently I soft-modded it and added a 500GB USB HDD to run homebrew, disc backups and emulated NAND (for WiiWare/VC).

As for the other consoles that I own, most of which currently reside in plastic bins in a closet:

• Not counting a Pong console that disappeared when I was barely old enough to remember, the only console I had until around 1990 (and still own) was an Atari 2600 that my family got around 1980-81. That system, along with various computers and the fact that my dad was an electrical engineer, is what gave video games a place in my mind as something magical, and convinced me from a young age that I wanted to be a computer programmer when I grew up (and I am!). I actually bought an entire box full of additional Atari 2600 games for it around 6-7 years ago from eBay for ~$20 USD; all but a few Atari era games really don't hold up well for me these days, although people who enjoy modern casual games might get a kick out of them.
• Around 1990 my brother and I got an original Game Boy. I played that thing like crazy for at least 5-6 years (and occasionally for years after), and eventually had to buy a 3rd-party repair kit to replace the worn-out rubber contacts under the D-pad. I slowly acquired over a dozen games (many of which were good or great), including Tetris, Super Mario Land 1 & 2, Zelda: Link's Awakening and Final Fantasy Legend I & III (although the latter stopped working after it slid under the seat of the car and got lost for a couple months, much to my dismay). The screen got a ton of scratches, some cheap batteries exploded in its compartment, and eventually it developed some non-persistent vertical line glitches, but it still works to this day.
• My brother and I wanted a NES really bad from the time it came out in the mid '80s, but my parents had some strange hangup about letting us get one. This, of course, turned it into a bit of a holy grail for us. When we finally won the crusade sometime around 1991-2, we made the mistake of buying a TurboGrafix-16 (aka PC Engine) instead because it was a 16-bit system for the same price. Little did we know that the system literally had only a dozen or so games (without the CD-ROM addon that was out of our price range), with only a precious few being any good. Fortunately we did get Bonk's Revenge, which is considered one of the best for that system, but a couple years later my brother wheeled-and-dealed a friend into taking the TG16 in trade for his NES (with a couple of G.I.Joe toys thrown in to sweeten the deal). I still own that NES, along with another one acquired in one of several NES game auctions I won on eBay around 6-7 years ago while building a modest collection. I took one of them apart a couple years ago with the intention of implementing the stereo mod, but eventually aborted the project after deciding it would compromise the sound quality too much (it taps straight off of the NES' CPU's audio output pins and bypasses the amplifier circuitry that normally raises the output to line level); that console is still in pieces on a shelf next to me 🙁 I briefly hooked up the other one to a small LCD TV(*) while my laptop was in the shop a year or so ago, and I manager to finally beat Dragon Warrior 1.
• My brother eventually bought the family a PlayStation (the original, although not the oldest revision of the original model) near the end of the '90s because Metal Gear: Solid was awesome at the time. We acquired a few more cool games (and a couple mediocre ones) for it, including FF7 and Armored Core. I took it with me to college a couple years later, put a modchip in it, and sampled a wide array of crappy JRPGs that soured me on the post-16-bit era of the genre (haven't been able to stand a single one - including FF7 - until I recently played Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii). I also made some other silly hardware mods, including removing the lid (although I never rigged it to be usable with multi-disc games) and replacing the power light with a blue LED.
• My brother also picked up a second-hand SNES that he left with me at some point and never took back. I've never done anything with it, though. I should probably buy Super Metroid for it, but I have that in other forms now. Someone gave me a Super Game Boy at some point that I've also never tested with it.
• My roommate bought me a GBA SP as a birthday present around 8 years ago. I bought GB/GBC and GBA flash cartridges for it and played the crap out of it long past the end of its general popularity. Unfortunately it got stolen by movers around 4-5 years ago, along with the effectively irreplaceable GB/GBC flash cart that I was using with it at the time, but my wife (then girlfriend) bought me a replacement not long after along with a few more games. I still play it occasionally, and am in fact I'm playing FF6 on it now.
• Just under a year ago, I purchased a GP2x Wiz because I felt that what I really wanted was a handheld that was good at running 8- and 16-bit console emulators. I've been having a blast playing NES, Genesis and Game Boy games on it, although I'm disappointed that it's not quite up to emulating Super Metroid without some noticeable framerate loss in some situations. Unfortunately the scene for these homebrew-focused open handhelds is heavily fractured right now, so there's not a lot of actively developed stuff for any one system; however, things are in a good enough state for me to get a lot of enjoyment out of my Wiz until something with significantly better value comes along.
• A colleague from work was de-junking his garage a few months ago and gave me his entire N64 collection, including over a dozen games and strategy guides. I don't know that I'll ever get around to hooking it up, though, especially since most of the good games are among the Wii's Virtual Console selection. It's still a cool thing to have for collector purposes, though, especially since he had both Zelda games (which I've never played).

* - This reminds me: Gemini, you mentioned wanting to upgrade our TV. I highly recommend either keeping your existing CRT as the TV for your older consoles, or upgrading to a nice late-era CRT (or maybe even a rear-projection TV?). The NES (and likely other consoles as well) just doesn't work quite right on LCD TVs; specifically, many blinking effects get lost in the digitization and/or deinterlacing process, and of course light guns aren't compatible at all. For this reason, I won't let my wife throw away her ridiculously heavy big-screen, late-era CRT that currently serves as a guest room TV.

HunterZ wrote:

* - This reminds me: Gemini, you mentioned wanting to upgrade our TV. I highly recommend either keeping your existing CRT as the TV for your older consoles, or upgrading to a nice late-era CRT (or maybe even a rear-projection TV?). The NES (and likely other consoles as well) just doesn't work quite right on LCD TVs; specifically, many blinking effects get lost in the digitization and/or deinterlacing process, and of course light guns aren't compatible at all. For this reason, I won't let my wife throw away her ridiculously heavy big-screen, late-era CRT that currently serves as a guest room TV.

I have extremely few light-gun games and I don't really play them anyways. :P

But, I have noticed that while it is true that a lot of LCD/Plasma panels nowadays do lots of stuff to filter the signal and whatnot, many do have a Game Mode, and some of them while in Game Mode do actually perform perfectly fine, granted not all of them. A friend of mind has a 37" Toshiba LCD TV that, when in Game Mode, functions pretty much perfectly for gaming. I had brought my SNES over to test some games and actually got all the way up to level 5 in Gradius III on Arcade Skill without losing a life after having not played the game at all for months! This is in contrast to another friend of mine who has a 47" Toshiba LCD TV that, even in Game Mode, still has a couple frames of delay and still doesn't look quite right.

My intention when I'm in a position to actually afford a new TV is to take one of those battery-powered retro gaming controllers with me and ask the salesman to allow me to test it on specific floor models that I have an interest in to see which ones perform good with retro equipment. Considering how much money is on the line for the person making the sale, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind such testing, otherwise they won't have a sale. :P

This is speculation for the moment though. It's gonna be quite awhile before I can afford a new TV at all. :/

Gemini000 wrote:

My intention when I'm in a position to actually afford a new TV is to take one of those battery-powered retro gaming controllers with me and ask the salesman to allow me to test it on specific floor models that I have an interest in to see which ones perform good with retro equipment. Considering how much money is on the line for the person making the sale, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind such testing, otherwise they won't have a sale. 😜

Nice idea, I never would have thought of doing that!

Well, when you finally go LCD, it would perhaps be a good idea to check this out first

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JbpSlRhv2Q

Before you change. Cause this is Yakumo-samas video about an
Up Scan Converter

Gemini000 wrote:

This is speculation for the moment though. It's gonna be quite awhile before I can afford a new TV at all. 😒

Looks like everything you have (so far) was designed for SD anyway, so I don't see a reason to switch. If you just want a bigger screen, I often see 32" & 36" CRTs on Craigslist for super cheap (maybe this isn't the case for CL in Canada). You might have to recruit some help carrying one of those behemoths, though.

Stull wrote:

Looks like everything you have (so far) was designed for SD anyway, so I don't see a reason to switch.

Widescreen and movies. I think a widescreen image is LARGER on my 23" 16:9 computer monitor than it is on my 27" 4:3 TV. :P

Also, most Wii games and some Gamecube and PS2 games are capable of 480p and widescreen. My current TV is not.

Plus, if I ever have the money to upgrade, I'll also have the money to equip myself with Blu-Ray among other things, such as new consoles in the future; I'm thinking VERY long term here. I doubt I'll have a new TV for at least another year, probably more like two or three, and that's presuming my game making plans work out and ADG viewership continues to rise at the rate it has been for the past year. (Currently up to 11,000 views a month! Yeah, I know, Clint's got like, 6,000,000+ total views, but there are some web show artists who barely hit 11,000 a year. ;)

TBH though, it's far more likely I'll inherit someone else's high-end TV.

Ancient DOS Games Filler #12 - Gemini's Portable Systems is online!

I still haven't resolved the widescreen downscaling issue with Blip so today's episode is presented at 4:3 ratio, though I DID record it at 16:9 as well, so if I do get these issues resolved I'll get the widescreen version up later on. ;)

Other than that, I don't have too big a selection of portables, though I do have something very unique amongst them (at least, for an English-speaking gamer) so a good chunk of the episode is dedicated to it. :)

And of course, Merry TomorrowChristmas everyone! (Or Happy Holidays if you prefer, or WTFareyousoannoyedbyhappygreetingsday if you're angry like that. :P )

Gemini000: Good Yule, and I wish it to all the members here 😀 Oh by the way, great filler 😀

pretty cool remix, too - was a blast seeing good old Impulse Tracker playing it "live" at the end. IT FTW! 😏

Just watched your Dr. Sbaitso video. I love that you started to type "The ans..." then switched to "The meaning of life." Obviously going to go with the Hitchhiker's Guide reference, weren't you?

Actually, I wanted to type: "The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything" but my brain wasn't working fast enough and I couldn't remember the right way to say that so I had to compromise. >_>;

Ancient DOS Games Filler #13 - Gemini's Computers is online!

Just in time for the end of 2011! :D

Yeah, I know, my computer collection is pretty tiny, but hey, it's still more than the average person. ;)

Once again I recorded this in both wide and standard formats so if I ever get the widescreen issues solved with Blip, I'll replace the existing video with the widescreen version. Apparently, someone there marked my issue as solved without telling me anything and without actually solving the issue, so I had to open another support request. >_>;

Until the widescreen issues are resolved though, there was a point of interest that got chopped out in the 4:3 conversions. Downstairs next to my main computer was my old Sidewinder Precision Pro joystick, which still works despite its age, mind you, it's the first revision of the joystick so it has some nasty centre drift. Well, just as I was starting the rendering for today's filler I heard my doorbell and my new joystick had arrived. It's one of these: http://www.thrustmaster.com/products/tflight-hotas-x

I've only used it a little bit so far but for a $50 joystick, it's simply awesome! X3

In any case, the reason I brought this up was because, had it arrived one day earlier, it would've been sitting at the edge of the wide-angle shot instead of my old Sidewinder joystick. ;)

your Tandy should read low-density floppies from your Pentium just fine, if you format and write them on the HD drive first - as long as they haven't been formatted or written to on a low-density drive prior to that.... unless (for some crazy reason) you have access to equipment that can degauss the disks. 🤣

Also, it's not as if you need to justify owning a laser printer as opposed to an inkjet - the difference in quality, cost-effectiveness and longevity is like night and day. Inkjet cartridges are famously overpriced and rigged to falsely report depletion, and I'm never gonna pay for one again myself.

VileRancour wrote:

your Tandy should read low-density floppies from your Pentium just fine, if you format and write them on the HD drive first - as long as they haven't been formatted or written to on a low-density drive prior to that.... unless (for some crazy reason) you have access to equipment that can degauss the disks.

Intriguing... I'll have to try that sometime. From what I originally read about 5 1/4" drives, because the read/write heads on a low-density drive are larger than on a high-density drive, writes made by the high-density drive are not large enough to be picked up properly by a low-density drive... but it kinda makes sense that if the disk has been completely formatted ahead of time that there wouldn't be any left over residuals to confuse the low-density drive head.

VileRancour wrote:

Also, it's not as if you need to justify owning a laser printer as opposed to an inkjet - the difference in quality, cost-effectiveness and longevity is like night and day. Inkjet cartridges are famously overpriced and rigged to falsely report depletion, and I'm never gonna pay for one again myself.

Well, how many people do you know who own a colour laser printer? ;P

As for inkjets, it really depends on the brand and even the model. My previous HP inkjet printer was really quiet and tended to run out of ink in an instant, rather than gradually losing quality, whereas a friend of mine used to have a Lexmark printer that was loud as Hell and tended to lose printing quality when the ink cartridges were only half-empty. :/

Portables: Nice filler, thanks for the cool look at the WonderSwan Color. I'd heard of it but never seen a picture of it, nor video of gameplay. Impressive system.

PCs: I think your current PC is similar in specs to my old desktop, which is currently still in service as a headless Linux workstation/server that lives in the guest bedroom. I quickly regretted building an Athlon 64 X2 system because it was at the end of the line at the time, preventing me from upgrading the CPU later (which was the weak point of the system, at least for WoW). It had two 7800GTX GPUs in SLI, but I took one out because it was causing problems with installing Xubuntu 11.10 and it's mostly a headless system now anyways. It's still a nice box for what it is, though, and I get a lot of use out of it.

Printers: My wife and I got a really good deal on Amazon for a Brother wireless color laser printer a year or two ago and have been quite happy with it. Inkjets are definitely a ripoff, although they are the only way to go for printing photos on photo paper.

I've never tried running photo paper through my printer, except that it actually came with a number of sample sheets of the stuff at A4 size.

It's a fairly expensive commercial-level printer so many of its features revolve around the idea that it will be used an extreme amount. In fact, almost every individual component can be independently tested to ensure it's working properly and almost every part can be replaced by the end-user if necessary. It didn't even come with any of those annoying software packages that try to pretend to make life easier, and instead, all it installs is a few drivers and there you go. Everything is handled at the driver level or on the on-screen display on the printer itself.

...if you can believe this though, for what was originally a $700 printer, it STILL didn't come with a USB cable. >_>;

Gemini000: if the printer suddenly crashes without any kind of real explanation, then try to see if there is a program that can reset the counting chip inside the printer. Before you chug it out mate, but anyway happy new year 😀

Gemini000 wrote:

Intriguing... I'll have to try that sometime. From what I originally read about 5 1/4" drives, because the read/write heads on a low-density drive are larger than on a high-density drive, writes made by the high-density drive are not large enough to be picked up properly by a low-density drive... but it kinda makes sense that if the disk has been completely formatted ahead of time that there wouldn't be any left over residuals to confuse the low-density drive head.

I think that's more or less it. There's also the issue of subsequent writes - if you do get such a floppy to read on the DD drive, you still shouldn't let that drive *write* on it afterwards, since the tracks produced by a HD drive have stronger magnetization, and a DD drive can't completely overwrite them... (or something like that).
I'm not 100% sure about all of this, mind you, but basically if you consistently format/write to a floppy only on one kind of drive, then the other kind would be able to read it just fine. At least, that's what I remember from the "field tests" my friends and I used to do (alongside other, more fun tests - e.g., "find new an exciting ways to mutilate a 3.5" floppy"... you gotta test a device to its limits, yes?) 🤣

Well, how many people do you know who own a colour laser printer? ;P

at least one... his printer is also a copier/scanner and even more of a bulky behemoth than yours seems to be, but he gave me his old B&W laser for free when he got it, so what do I care. 😜
in the rare instance that I do need to print something in color, a print shop does the job much better than an inkjet ever could.

Ancient DOS Games Episode 71 - Star Wars: X-Wing is online!

Yeah, it kinda shows I haven't made a real ADG episode in over three weeks... and I just had to start off with something super-frustrating... ^_^;

Oh don't get me wrong, X-Wing isn't a BAD game, far from it, but it's not something you can just sit down and play so I really wasn't able to go into it as much as I wanted to and ended up frustrated from constantly failing missions after playing them for lengthy periods of time. :/

Then again, I'm playing the floppy disk version... yeah...

Anywhoo, more ADG episodes to come. Enjoy! :3

Gemini000 wrote:

...ended up frustrated from constantly failing missions after playing them for lengthy periods of time. 😒

That's by far my biggest complaint with the floppy disk edition of X-Wing. Some missions require you to things so precisely, if you do ANYTHING differently, you're going to fail the mission. One mission which is plagued by this issue is Tour of Duty 1 Mission 4. What a nightmare! Fortunately, I have a program(XWEDITS) which allows me to bypass missions by altering the pilot profile to start at a different mission in a certain Tour of Duty.

The Collector's CD-ROM edition is a lot more refined. It's got a better flight engine(no drift, which oddly enough, only affects movement along the X axis in the floppy disk edition, not the Y axis), TIE Fighter's gouraud-shaded graphics, many more sound options(though I prefer the floppy disk edition's OPL2 music) and it also includes the Imperial Pursuit and B-Wing expansions on the disc. Problem missions are A LOT easier(I can easily beat Tour of Duty 1 Mission 4 with the Collector's CD-ROM edition), but if you're crazy, you can play the same ridiculously difficult missions like in the floppy disk edition.

Oh, and another thing which is just retarded with the floppy disk edition of X-Wing is the Death Star trench run. Some of the obstacles in the trench have HORRIBLE collision detection! You're about halfway down the trench, yet your ship explodes just because it supposedly hit an obstacle that's AT THE COMPLETE TOP of the trench! Needless to say, you'd do best to reduce the graphical detail of the Death Star as much as possible to avoid this stupid collision detection error.

Another thing: you should make note of one MASSIVE sound problem this game has for those who want to run the floppy disk edition of X-Wing on a real DOS computer. On many computers running something faster than a 133MHz Pentium or equivalent, the sound will either be wrong or output as a scrambled mess of garbage FM Synthesis notes, especially on sound cards with true OPL2 or OPL3. If that happens, there's a fix VOGONS user Dvwjr made to fix this problem, but it only works on the SoundBlaster and SoundBlaster Pro and Compatibles sound options.

Now, you did make mention of the DOS Collector's CD-ROM edition and SVGA. It does not support SVGA at all. It's 320x200 just like the floppy disk edition. Speed matching is non-existent as well. Pressing the Enter key like in TIE Fighter fires your weapons instead just like in the floppy disk edition of X-Wing. It does not match your speed with the ship you've targeted.