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[#] Wed Dec 23 2020 18:14:24 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Also - if you gave me a Jaguar CD, not only would I let you in the house, we would hook it up, play some games, have some drinks, and do it without masks. 

Worth the risk. 

 



[#] Wed Dec 23 2020 19:15:39 EST from Nurb432

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:)

It wasn't offered, just a remote thanks..

Several CD games, carts, extra controllers.. original boxes

Was mine new, it saw a lot of pay time. I have the voice from cybermorph drilled in to my head.

Wed Dec 23 2020 18:14:24 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Also - if you gave me a Jaguar CD, not only would I let you in the house, we would hook it up, play some games, have some drinks, and do it without masks. 

Worth the risk. 

 



 



[#] Sat Dec 26 2020 18:06:48 EST from Nurb432

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I guess i lied. i do have a 2nd old 'game' ...  found it out in the garage in a toolbox.. a bit worse for wear.  Was an xmas gift when it was new.. perhaps 1976.. 

 

Doubt it works at this point.

 



[#] Sun Dec 27 2020 19:12:03 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Can't view the image - but these days, even if it doesn't work, it has value - whatever it is. 

The old stuff has become remarkably easy to repair. 

 



[#] Mon Dec 28 2020 11:03:51 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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This is my current collection/display/museum

I see you have an Atari 5200.  For some reason, that was one of my favorites, even though it seems an unremarkable system in hindsight.



[#] Mon Dec 28 2020 13:08:27 EST from Nurb432

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattel_Auto_Race

Sun Dec 27 2020 19:12:03 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Can't view the image - but these days, even if it doesn't work, it has value - whatever it is. 

The old stuff has become remarkably easy to repair. 

 



 



[#] Mon Dec 28 2020 23:44:55 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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It is my favorite console of all time, hands down - and I'm somewhat of an evangelist for it. There are more and more of us, as time goes on. 

I've got 4 of 'em. Maybe 5. Not including FPGA and emulation. 

I had a Coleco and a 5200 back in the day. I always preferred the A5200. A lot of people recognize it was the prototype for a lot of things that came later, like the original Xbox - even if it isn't obvious. The controllers, with their analog sticks, were the precursor of d-pad analog thumbsticks. The design was intended to look at home in an adult entertainment center. Among fans, it is referred to as "Big Sexy". It was an Atari 400 without a keyboard, basically. 

It had some of the most innovative console games of the day - and the equipment was all actually super durable - even those sticks. They're fairly easy to repair and the mechanicals take tons of abuse - it was the emerging flex-circuit carbon dot technology in the controllers and the non-centering sticks that were just *too* innovative and different for the mainstream market that was the undoing of the Atari 5200. I'd say a significant number of original Atari 5200 controllers are still in active use today because they are actually remarkably difficult to ACTUALLY break and easy to maintain and keep in working order. 

The graphics and color palette of the Atari 8 bits was more... dynamic... more electric and vibrant - than the washed out pastel color scheme that the Coleco, NES and C64 were capable of. 
Back to games - often the Atari 8 bit versions of games weren't necessarily arcade-accurate - but they were often more fun than the actual arcade versions. In particular Donkey Kong on the 8 bit (which wasn't ever released for the 5200, but is available today as a port) is the BEST version of that game anywhere, including in the arcade. But games like QIX and Space Dungeon and Robotron 2084 also became cult classics more popular on the Atari 5200 than they ever were in the arcade. The latter two both used a novel approach where the P2 joystick snapped into a holder with the P1 joystick to become a dual-stick game with one controlling movement and the other controlling fire. 

The Atari 5200 is probably the most unsung and influential console in console gaming history *ever* - although the NES was arguably super important too... 


Mon Dec 28 2020 11:03:51 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I see you have an Atari 5200.  For some reason, that was one of my favorites, even though it seems an unremarkable system in hindsight.



 



[#] Mon Dec 28 2020 23:49:32 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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And titles like Countermeasure...  tanks and euro-theater cold-war mastermind code breaking with global thermonuclear war... 

Yeah, baby... 

http://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/countermeasure/countermeasure.htm




[#] Wed Dec 30 2020 21:06:52 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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So, I have an HDMI upscaler - and it creates artifacts and ghosting - and HDMI tends to have inherent issues with lag because of the digital handshaking and encoding. That is really a problem with HDMI - and why so many HDMI screens have a "game mode" that tries to shut down the overhead and speed things up.

It is pretty cool to see an Amiga on a 46" LCD TV... but after the novelty wore off...


I went to a Amiga DB23 to DB15 VGA adapter that costs about $20 and picked up a 15khz capable LCD. It is the easiest, least expensive, and best set of trade offs to get an old Amiga displaying on a modern display, in my opinion.

Amiga hooked up to a 46" HDMI TV


Wed Dec 30 2020 11:19:14 EST from zooer

Upgrade your old Amiga with an HDMI port.



[#] Wed Dec 30 2020 21:08:28 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Vs. a DB23 to DB15 with a 15khz LCD



[#] Fri Jan 01 2021 13:53:33 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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It used to be that we were so busy with our real lives, that on holidays BBS traffic would spike because people had leisure time to log on and burn.

Now, we're so busy being connected 24x7, that when we have a holiday, BBS traffic drops.

I liked the old way better.

 



[#] Fri Jan 01 2021 14:02:55 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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The article that zooer posted does not appear to be "just" an upscaler ... it captures the digital signals from the Amiga video chipset before they are converted to analog. That would probably do very well to eliminate ghosting (but maybe not artifacts).

I can only imagine what an Amiga video signal might look like on a good quality VGA monitor from the late 1990s. For that matter, even the IBM 8530 monitor from the original PS/2 line would probably make an insane Amiga monitor, since it had a reasonably high persistence phosphor, and looked nice and sharp because it was smaller than most monitors (the old Mac trick).

[#] Sat Jan 02 2021 14:10:33 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Oh, I realize it is more - or different, than an upscaler. 

But there are such inexpensive, low-tech, more native methods to achieve the goal - and to me, the less complex solution is almost always the superior one - especially when dealing with retro-platforms. 

People seem to struggle with the 15khz systems too. In the communities - there are constant flame wars over CRT vs. LCD vs. HDMI upscalers and "authenticity". 4:3 vs. 16:9, and all the different interfaces that might get a signal from a classic machine into a display. 

A lot of people insist on a Sony BVM/PVM for retro-gaming - or at least a very nice VGA multi-sync non-fixed sync capable of variable frequency ranges. A *lot* of them actually don't understand that a super crisp .25 trinitron is as useless on a CGA PCA as a modern LCD when it comes to pixel-art and allowing color bleed to create "analog" palettes and make indistinct figures and sprites and graphics look MORE complex than they look on a pixel-perfect modern display. 

So there are all these convoluted ways - SCART to HDMI adapters, DVI solutions, S-Video solutions, those RCA cables with BnC connectors... that people are using for systems that do 320x200x16 colors and actually look BETTER in games on something with a .38/.48 dot pitch CRT with bad convergence. 

When HDTV came out, we were watching an episode of Friends on DVD, and I noticed that you could see the TOP of the sound-stage, and the brick backsplash of Monidca's kitchen had peeled and was hanging down. 

These are things the original standard def broadcast didn't have to worry about - you would never see it. There wasn't enough resolution and your 4:3 broadcast was in overscan so the soundstage being visible was off the edge of your TV. 

It is like putting a modern twin turbocharged multivalve engine in a Ferrari from the 60s without making any other changes. It is going to be horribly mismatched and things are going to break. 

The *best* solution is a matched CRT that was appropriate to that Amiga as configured back in the day. That isn't the most practical one, though. They're hard to find, generally have problems, and dangerous to DIY fix, and difficult to find anyone who knows how to or wants to work on. The DB23 to DB15 adapter with a modern 15khz capable LCD is the most practical one with the best trade-offs and sacrifices at the best price. 

 


Fri Jan 01 2021 14:02:55 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
The article that zooer posted does not appear to be "just" an upscaler ... it captures the digital signals from the Amiga video chipset before they are converted to analog. That would probably do very well to eliminate ghosting (but maybe not artifacts).

I can only imagine what an Amiga video signal might look like on a good quality VGA monitor from the late 1990s. For that matter, even the IBM 8530 monitor from the original PS/2 line would probably make an insane Amiga monitor, since it had a reasonably high persistence phosphor, and looked nice and sharp because it was smaller than most monitors (the old Mac trick).

 



[#] Mon Jan 04 2021 10:28:49 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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The *best* solution is a matched CRT that was appropriate to that
Amiga as configured back in the day. That isn't the most practical

Right. I didn't even have an RGB monitor on my Amiga. A repurposed composite monitor was what I could afford at the time so that's what I used. I always seemed to be a generation behind when it came to monitors ... my C-64 was connected to a television.

[#] Mon Jan 04 2021 14:09:51 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Retrocollecting is full of a bunch of - what at this point I assume are mostly Millennial and younger collectors - who've read a bunch of opinion blogs by and pieced together that the BEST display for an 8 or 16 bit classic system is a high quality broadcast multisync display with a Trinitron tube. 

They use them for their Sony PSx, for their NES systems - for their FPGA devices - and the swear up and down that it is the BEST solution possible. 

But there is an obvious dichotomy there on why they want these things. They want the CRT for visible scanlines and 4:3 ratio and the glow of the guns hitting the phosphors on the tube. 

But they want the super-fine dot pitch of the Trinitron for ultra crisp text. 

They simply don't understand that part of what early developers leveraged was pixel bleed and large dot pitch shadow-masks and that you can't get both. If you want pixel-perfect, super crisp text - an LCD gets rid of all of the artifacts of CRT raster technology that cause blurriness and color bleed. 

If you want the color bleed - anything approaching pixel perfect, including a Sony PVM/BVM - are going to reduce that to a "paperfine" SVGA display quality. 

You've got to pick one. 

But a lot of people are selling PVMs and bother broadcast monitors for nearly $1000... so... you know, fools and their money... 




Mon Jan 04 2021 10:28:49 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
A repurposed composite monitor was what I could afford at the time so that's what I used. I always seemed to be a generation behind when it came to monitors ... my C-64 was connected to a television. 

 



[#] Sun Jan 10 2021 08:28:21 EST from Nurb432

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Which to be honest i have never understood. None of them lived thru those times. They cant comprehend WHY they were special ( or not, depending on model and era ). At least when some of us old folks do it there is actual sentimental value of the objects, and true understanding of what they are.

Not real fond of the 'retro emulation' movement either ( beyond the idea of learning/engineering of simpler tech.  If you want an ST go get one..  Pretending you have one isn't the same as holding it in your hand, mashing the keys, the feel of the plastic... Its like putting a pinto logo on your Porsche and just driving slower.. its not the same.     I do see reasons to "emulate" for dev and experimental work, ( both software and FPGA ) but not the retro side of things.

Would be like me going out and getting a bunch of new furniture and appliances made to look like the 50s and convert my house into a mid 50s home...  i wasn't there. its silly. Sure, looking at some old movies at how it was from the angle of where did we come from, cool, but living like that 'because its retro'? 

And this is of course coming from a past collector/hoarder as you know...

 

 

Mon Jan 04 2021 14:09:51 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Retrocollecting is full of a bunch of - what at this point I assume are mostly Millennial and younger collectors - who've read a bunch of opinion blogs by and pieced together that the BEST display for an 8 or 16 bit classic system is a high quality broadcast multisync display with a Trinitron tube. 

They use them for their Sony PSx, for their NES systems - for their FPGA devices - and the swear up and down that it is the BEST solution possible. 


 



[#] Sun Jan 10 2021 08:29:07 EST from Nurb432

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Which to be honest i have never understood. None of them lived thru those times. They cant comprehend WHY they were special ( or not, depending on model and era ). At least when some of us old folks do it there is actual sentimental value of the objects, and true understanding of what they are.

Not real fond of the 'retro emulation' movement either ( beyond the idea of learning/engineering of simpler tech.  If you want an ST go get one..  Pretending you have one isn't the same as holding it in your hand, mashing the keys, the feel of the plastic... Its like putting a pinto logo on your Porsche and just driving slower.. its not the same.     I do see reasons to "emulate" for dev and experimental work, ( both software and FPGA ) but not the retro side of things.

Would be like me going out and getting a bunch of new furniture and appliances made to look like the 50s and convert my house into a mid 50s home...  i wasn't there. its silly. Sure, looking at some old movies at how it was from the angle of where did we come from, cool, but living like that 'because its retro'? 

And this is of course coming from a past collector/hoarder as you know...

 

 

Mon Jan 04 2021 14:09:51 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Retrocollecting is full of a bunch of - what at this point I assume are mostly Millennial and younger collectors - who've read a bunch of opinion blogs by and pieced together that the BEST display for an 8 or 16 bit classic system is a high quality broadcast multisync display with a Trinitron tube. 

They use them for their Sony PSx, for their NES systems - for their FPGA devices - and the swear up and down that it is the BEST solution possible. 


 



[#] Sun Jan 10 2021 10:21:45 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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So, Minecraft, 5 Nights of Freddies, and Undertale. These popular mobile apps that decided to embrace simplicity by using 8-bit era graphics, themes and motifs. Kind of like Lucas and King leveraged recent history in their story telling. 

Evil Bel Aires became evil homicidal arcade animatronics. In the case of 5 Nights of Freddies, that created an interest in 80s era computing. You probably can add that among the oldest of them, they were there to kind of see it - but were so young they were told, "you're too little for this." Now there is no uncle or brother to tell them that. 

I know that in 2001 when I started - nobody was selling retro equipment. They were throwing it away. You had to scour thrift stores. There were very few retailers and very few people making retro oriented homebrews and new hardware. That stuff was *expensive*. 

Emulation was free, and offered to consolidate everything you needed on something you already owned, and the software was all out there. It seemed like a good way to see if it was something you were going to stick with, or if you just wanted a quick trip down memory lane that would pass after a week or so. 

Emulation has gotten much better - and a lot of new merchandise has been made to make it more authentic. USB joysticks, keyboard adapters, keyboard stickers. 

FPGA takes it one further. My best Amiga is a MiSTer, in much the same way that a Shelby kit car is probably a better vehicle than a real Shelby. More reliable, less expensive, easier to repair, and made with modern parts that are superior - with better performance - but yet retaining almost ALL of the characteristics of authenticity of a real Shelby. 

At this point, software emulation isn't what I prefer to *experience* retro computing on, FPGA is, and emulation is a nice "utility layer" to get things set up, configured, and tested before moving things to real hardware. It is convenient, but it is certainly a "shop tool," not something for every day use. 


Sun Jan 10 2021 08:29:07 EST from Nurb432

Which to be honest i have never understood. None of them lived thru those times. They cant comprehend WHY they were special ( or not, depending on model and era ). At least when some of us old folks do it there is actual sentimental value of the objects, and true understanding of what they are.

Not real fond of the 'retro emulation' movement either ( beyond the idea of learning/engineering of simpler tech.  If you want an ST go get one..  Pretending you have one isn't the same as holding it in your hand, mashing the keys, the feel of the plastic... Its like putting a pinto logo on your Porsche and just driving slower.. its not the same.     I do see reasons to "emulate" for dev and experimental work, ( both software and FPGA ) but not the retro side of things.

Would be like me going out and getting a bunch of new furniture and appliances made to look like the 50s and convert my house into a mid 50s home...  i wasn't there. its silly. Sure, looking at some old movies at how it was from the angle of where did we come from, cool, but living like that 'because its retro'? 

And this is of course coming from a past collector/hoarder as you know...

 



[#] Sun Jan 10 2021 16:14:46 EST from Nurb432

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Even tho im not a gamer, never was, retooling older games to run on current a OS, i fully understand the appeal.   Its the 'look i'm running TOS on a PI! Go me i'm cool!' crowd i just dont get.  It may be faster, cheaper, but its not the same.  They have never touched the real hardware. Deprecated it for what it was when it was new and cutting edge.. fought with limitations, and frustrations, ever experienced a 300 baud acoustic modem.  Hell, even a rotary phone.. ( or in my case, having to call the operator to connect you..never experienced that, but im not going to put a pretend phone on my wall, with the guts of a PI to turn it into a voip device, and be proud of it )

 

Perhaps its the "get of my lawn" in me, i just dont see it.

 

 

 

( assuming they even know what TOS is, or AES.. :) )



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