Carlos Rodrigues 🪣

By day, I'm a systems and software engineer. By night, I'm curious about the history of computers. Posting from Lisbon, Portugal. 🇵🇹🇪🇺

Lately I've been exploring 16-bit and later 8-bit gaming — something that passed me by as I was never much of a gamer back then. Expect regular posts on these subjects.

#retrogaming #retrocomputing #computing #history

Website: https://www.carlos-rodrigues.com
GitHub: https://github.com/carlosefr

Public Key

npub1zmsj7p5wu7t4dgscetdsz9yuayrge5mexlft20r6sekkkqhrlarqzg4eph

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carlosefr_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqspdcf0q68w096k5gvv4kcpzjwwjp5v6dun054483agvmttqt3l73syhv73g

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npub1zmsj7p5wu7t4dgscetdsz9yuayrge5mexlft20r6sekkkqhrlarqzg4eph

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Last Notes

2024-07-09 19:20:05

C'mon ESA, character encoding errors in 2024? I mean, failing to display a "ç" when we're hearing french in the background?
#ariane6 #esa #europe
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2024-07-08 23:30:32

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Finally, for completeness, here's what "crt-easymode" looks like at its defaults, with games meant to be played on a TV.
Of course, no TV was ever this good. But at least the sharpness is muted and the soft scanlines are there.
4/4 🧵
PS: All the games shown in this thread are from 1993. Notice how the Amiga and Mega Drive ones looked so much better...
#retrogaming #emulation #crt #amiga #megadrive
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2024-07-08 23:18:21

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Another challenge is having enough GPU horsepower to run complex shaders.
The 16-yo ATI Radeon 2600 XT in my emulation machine is good enough for the average shaders I use for arcades ("crt-caligari") or consoles ("crt-easymode"), but not for shader stacks or very complex shaders.
I ended up using crt-easymode" with just a few changed parameters (see alt text), and even that consumes above 80% of the poor GPU's shader engine.
3/4 🧵
#retrogaming #emulation #crt #msdos
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/753/339/461/909/604/original/ba156022bed3b49e.png
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2024-07-08 22:07:02

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I don't have any CRT monitors handy, so I used this capture from an LGR video as a reference – and it really shows how inaccurate my final result is, but there are a few challenges here...
The main one is that most (if not all) CRT shaders are meant to simulate TVs or arcade monitors. But PC monitors where always much sharper, much dimmer, and had much finer pitched shadow masks.
Also, VGA 320x200 draws each pixel across two scanlines (double-strike), and no shader seems to allow this.
2/? 🧵
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/753/099/645/315/910/original/0be7a87a550b082a.png

2024-07-08 21:40:33

I spent too many hours in the last few days selecting and finetuning one of RetroArch's (libretro) CRT shaders for use with DOS games.
But, in the end, I think I have something that feels reasonable – which in no way means accurate.
Isn't the improvement glorious? 😎
...
Yeah. It's subtle, and you need to zoom in on these captures to see it. But it feels quite different to me. I don't like crisp pixels and perfectly uniform color areas in old games.
1/? 🧵
#retrogaming #emulation #crt #nerd
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2024-07-07 00:38:49

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This excerpt from an LGR video from 4 years ago shows Jazz Jackrabbit tricking the CRT into changing aspect ratio when starting levels:
✂️ https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxIpOb2sanGeuJBP6UNa5CtCt2LbUykJSd
2/2 🧵
#retrogaming #pc #msdos #crt
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2024-07-07 00:28:27

Jazz Jackrabbit (MS-DOS, 1994) impressed me back in 1995 when I first played the shareware version. The speed, the music, but especially how smooth it ran. 🧈
🕹️ https://archive.org/details/msdos_Jazz_Jackrabbit_1994 (not as smooth in the browser, alas)
Fun fact: 320x200 is supposed to be 4:3, but these screenshots aren't 4:3, and look correct. What gives?
Turns out the game uses 320x199 instead, triggering CRTs to squash the image vertically for an effective aspect ratio of 16:10. 😲
1/2 🧵
#retrogaming #pc #msdos #graphics
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2024-07-05 10:56:02

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That copy protection sheet was for Codemaster's Psycho Pinball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTcN6WfvNJ4 🕹️📹
It's one of the best pinball games for DOS and definitely my favorite. I especially like the menu screen music. 🎸
The game is roughly the same on the Mega Drive but, sadly, the creepy clown is missing. I wonder why. It doesn't even feature as a 2D sprite. 🤡 💔
PS: Sega Retro has some screenshots of the complete table playfields: https://segaretro.org/Psycho_Pinball
#retrogaming #msdos #megadrive #pinball
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2024-07-04 18:29:36

Found this in a drawer at my parent's apartment. Any guess as to which 1994/95 game (MS-DOS version) these copy protection codes are for? 🤡 🇬🇧
In the original these codes are in the back of the manual. The manual for the MS-DOS version doesn't seem to have been preserved online anywhere.
Edit: Technically the DOS version says 1995, while the Mega Drive version says 1994. Sources vary on which was the actual release date.
#retrogaming #quiz #copyprotection
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2024-07-02 15:45:03

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Across the street from the LOAD ZX Spectrum museum, some retro in the wild. :pika:
Went to draw some old-fashioned money, and caught a Windows NT boot error nearby, on a machine used to update (print) account booklets, still used by some (older) customers of the state-owned bank CGD.
I guess they don't go to great lengths to keep them updated. Not only are they still using something predating Windows 2000, but it still uses a CRT.
#retrocomputing #banking #windows #crt
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2024-07-02 14:08:50

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One of the objects on display in the LOAD ZX Spectrum museum in Cantanhede, Portugal, is the "Cheetah Tortoise" joystick. 🕹️🐢
I remember a friend having one back in the day, although I never saw him use it. What I didn't remember was how large this weird game controller is.
Too bad I hadn't a banana for scale. 🍌
Video review by @npub1fll…ut6u, if you're curious about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kYHXvWwkO0 📼
#retrocomputing #retrogaming #zxspectrum #museum
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2024-07-02 13:49:12

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One hour drive later, a visit to the LOAD ZX Spectrum museum in Cantanhede.
⌨️ https://loadzx.com (check out the 3D tour)
The museum is small in footprint, but packed with all sorts of stuff from Sinclair and a few of their competitors.
You can easily spend a few hours there. I arrived just under two hours before closing time, and I was left wishing I had more time. 👌💯
If you're travelling between Lisbon and Porto, it's just a small detour. 😉
2/2 🧵
#retrocomputing #zxspectrum #museum
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2024-07-02 11:51:35

Went to a wedding 350 Km away in the north of Portugal this weekend, and the way there turned into a retro road trip... 🚗
The first stop was to pick up a Model 1 Mega Drive (VA6.5 PAL, 1992) and some games. 🕹️
It's in good condition, aside from the yellowed trim and a few scratches. I don't mind the yellowing, and the scratches can be disguised if I decide against the "patina" look.
Now I'm already starting to fall into the accessories rabbit hole...
1/? 🧵
#retrogaming #megadrive #hardware
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2024-07-01 09:37:15

Portugal reached peak Dragon Ball Z in 1997, when entire schools stopped to watch the daily episode, uniting disparate tribes around the cafeteria's TV.
We craved for tie-in games, but the only one being passed around was "Dragon Ball Z: Buyū Retsuden" (1994) for the Mega Drive – and it was in japanese, which gave me an excuse to learn the basics. 🇯🇵
One thing that bugged me (still does) is how un-DBZ the music sounds. The game is otherwise OK. 🎵
#retrogaming #megadrive #dragonball #portugal
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2024-06-28 23:23:37

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But the standalone screenshot is from the Mega Drive, not the SNES — from the same "Special Champion Edition" as the one in the previous group of four.
That port is a hybrid between the arcade "Champion Edition" (March 1992) and "Turbo: Hyper Fighting" (December 1992) releases, and lets you choose between "champion" and "hyper" modes. In the first mode Zangief's shorts are red, in the second they're blue, approximating the colors in the respective arcade releases.

2024-06-28 13:56:37

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Well... on closer look there are other differences, like Zangief's skin tones and Ryu's name under the power bar.

2024-06-28 13:52:06

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It's still the same game. The only difference I notice is the blue on Zangief.

2024-06-28 08:48:37

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The SNES version is the "Turbo" edition (no "Champion Edition" on there), and the character colors match that arcade version.
The Mega Drive's "Special Champion Edition" has a similar palette when you choose "hyper fighting" (which makes it closer to "Turbo"). Confusing.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/693/403/998/980/014/original/f3384aa578fb1521.png

2024-06-27 22:28:51

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Here's "Street Fighter II' Champion Edition" for the PC Engine compared with the arcade, SNES, and Mega Drive versions.
The PC Engine holds up pretty well, even though it's obviously missing the topmost fence layer.
The arcade version ran on Capcom's CP System (CPS-1), which used a Motorola 68000 plus a Z80. A combination also used on the Mega Drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_System 🔌
5/5 🧵
#retrogaming #arcade #snes #megadrive #pcengine
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2024-06-27 17:32:06

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In Europe, most people would never have heard of NEC's PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16. But it was big in Japan.
And even though it used a 6502 CPU, it was a very capable system. Much closer to the capabilities of the "16-bit" SNES/Mega Drive than the "8-bit" NES/Master System.
I recommend reading Rodrigo Copetti's overview of the PC Engine for the technical details:
https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/pc-engine/ 👌
But we only need to look at a few games to be convinced. 🤩
4/4 🧵
#retrocomputing #retrogaming #pcengine
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2024-06-27 16:52:48

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Meet the TurboGrafx-16. It's based on a 6502, so it should have been called the TurboGrafx-8. 🤨
But, since it was released in North America (1989) after the Mega Drive had been released in Japan (1988), I guess they had to preempt it in the american market and instead used the width of its video processor's data bus.
To be fair, in Japan it was called the PC Engine (1987), a much more sensible name that doesn't mislead. And it sounds better.
3/4 🧵
#retrocomputing #retrogaming #pcengine
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2024-06-27 16:23:47

Take the Intel 8088... 16-bit registers, but with an 8-bit data bus and 20-bit address bus.
Was it an 8-bit CPU? Does anyone consider the original IBM PC an 8-bit machine? And would that have been 16-bit if it had used an 8086 instead?
What about the Z80 and the 6502? Both had an 8-bit data bus and a 16-bit address bus, but only the Z80 had 16-bit registers.
At least we can agree that no system using either a Z80 or a 6502 ever called itself 16-bit, right? 🤔
2/4 🧵
#retrocomputing #cpu

2024-06-27 15:50:41

As a kid, I didn't understand what exactly 8-bit vs. 16-bit vs. 32-bit meant, but I got the message that more bits were better.
As an adult, I understand those labels were arbitrary at best, if not misleading.
Today we kind of settled on address size – e.g. we take x86_64 to be 64-bit because it uses 64-bit addresses (even though its physical address width is less than that).
In the past, it might have been register size, data bus width, address bus width, ... 🤷‍♂️
1/4 🧵
#retrocomputing #cpu

2024-06-22 23:19:58

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I once got a DOS version of AutoCAD from a friend whose dad worked at a heavy machinery manufacturer. Just a couple of floppies, no hardware key required.
Out of curiosity, I played with it for an afternoon and promptly put it aside. It was way over my head, but I found it intriguing that it favored programming over drawing shapes with the mouse.
Up to that point, GUIs and CLIs had seemed like opposing concepts to me.
#retrocomputing #software #piracy
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2024-06-22 19:39:26

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When I was a kid, most couldn't afford software. Buying a PC was a massive financial effort. With the added cost of software, an impossible one. Buying a PC and having barely any software... a waste of precious money.
Piracy was unavoidable.
We didn't feel pirating software was some kind of moral right, but we didn't feel like criminals either.
We had no money, we wouldn't have bought it anyway. Heck, in most cases we didn't even use it for long.
3/4 🧵
#software #piracy

2024-06-22 19:04:00

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If you read "going around the school yard" as "pirated floppies", you're not wrong. I still have the photocopied code wheel. 🏴‍☠️
Software piracy is a messy topic, but one that cannot be left aside when looking at personal computing history.
Let's skip for-profit piracy. There was plenty of that, but not in the school yard. Plus, hardly anyone would find it morally defensible regardless of context.
Instead, let's talk about casual piracy...
2/4 🧵
#retrogaming #monkeyisland #software #piracy
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2024-06-22 18:16:29

I like old games, but it's rare that a game makes me feel nostalgic.
The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) does. The spanish VGA floppy version in particular, because that's what I played back in the day. With PC speaker beeps, because I had no sound card.
No, we don't speak spanish in Portugal. But that was the version going around the school yard.
I'd have preferred english, but I guess other kids felt spanish was easier?
1/4 🧵
#nostalgia #retrogaming #monkeyisland
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2024-06-21 18:50:30

Time for some jousting before dinner. 🍗
When I first tried "Joust" (Williams, 1982), I didn't think I'd like it, but was pleasantly surprised.
The premise is a bit strange: you're a knight riding an ostrich, flying around inside a cavern, bumping into other knights. The one highest upon impact wins. 💥
https://archive.org/details/arcade_joust
The left/right arrow keys and Ctrl (flap) are all you need. But first, F2 to go past "factory settings restored", 5 for coins, and 1 to start.
#retrogaming #arcade
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2024-06-20 16:43:59

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The PC Engine had a narrower pixel aspect ratio than the SNES. Having assets account for 4:3 stretching would be even more important, yet...
Look at squares in Metal Stoker (1991), but especially the screenshot for Devil's Crush (1990): the pinball will clearly not be a "ball" in 4:3 (and I can't unsee it).
Once again, I wonder what it means to have a proper experience under emulation. Choosing 4:3 and have obvious distortions doesn't seem to be it. 🤷‍♂️
2/2 🧵
#retrogaming #emulation #pcengine
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2024-06-20 16:01:54

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You'd expect home consoles to pose no issues regarding aspect ratio. After all, everybody had 4:3 TVs. 📺
But look at these SNES games...
With square pixels (8:7), the moon in Metal Warriors (1995) is distorted – clearly meant to be stretched horizontally upon display. 🌑
Strike Gunner S.T.G. (1992) doesn't account for stretching, though. The helicopter blades will be oval in 4:3. 😢
I guess, between cheap TVs and composite video, few cared about this.
1/2 🧵
#retrogaming #emulation #snes
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2024-06-17 12:00:52

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The rotoscoping bits come from this short documentary made in 2006 for the 15th anniversary of Another World:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0gv2bV9ok4 📼
Curious post-credits bit about the US release:
"In one scene, there are water nymphs having a bath. [...] I had to remove the cleft between the buttocks so it looked like a bathing suit."
#retrogaming #gaming #history
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2024-06-13 16:57:11

Prince of Persia (1989) by @npub1elp…5fw6 is probably the first game that comes to mind when mentioning rotoscoping in a game.
But Another World (1991) by Éric Chahi also made heavy use of that technique (creating graphics assets by drawing over frames of video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEjq_arY6Pw 📹
1/2 🧵
#retrogaming #graphics #history

2024-06-08 20:34:42

If you've seen the inside of a ZX Spectrum, you might have come across the Ferranti name – it was the manufacturer of the Spectrum's ULA (and others').
Here's a rather zany documentary (the best kind) from ~1983, where a very british narrator explains chipmaking to the ghost of Sebastian Ferranti:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJtCXMESWag
It seems to be missing the last few minutes, but don't mind that. 👌
Are they talking about FPGAs near the end?
#retrocomputing #history #zxspectrum #bbcmicro #documentary

2024-06-08 15:36:52

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If you're a child of the 80's, you might recognize the title screen for Thunder Blade. It's a still from the movie "Blue Thunder" (1983).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WAp0ABNta0
When I was a kid, that helicopter was very cool, and I was disappointed when the spin-off series was canceled without even a full season. 😔
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROZpwD7kQys
Oh, and though it looks like an Apache, Blue Thunder was actually a modified Gazelle (first helicopter with a fenestron). 🚁
#retrogaming #sega #megadrive #arcade #80s
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2024-06-08 15:03:32

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Sonic became such a strong icon for the Mega Drive that I bet if you ask random people what games were available at launch, most would answer "Sonic 1".
Yet the Mega Drive came out in October 1988 and "Sonic the Hedgehog" was released in June 1991, a whole 2.5 years later.
The actual 1988 launch titles were "Space Harrier II" and "Super Thunder Blade".
#retrogaming #sega #megadrive
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2024-06-07 21:27:04

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Here's an idea for a thesis and/or art project if any data-inclined art student is reading this...
Collect the palettes from all games across a set of 16-bit era platforms (using emulation or longplay videos), weight them according to metrics that affect perception (e.g. the game's popularity, score, first vs. deeper levels), account for the development team's country, the region of first release, etc.
What trends emerge, in what context?
#art #retrogaming #datascience

2024-06-07 20:42:07

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It also isn't so much about dark itself, but the overall combination of colors and how predominant pure hues aren't.
I don't see quite the same trend on contemporary systems. Sometimes even the opposite (e.g. the PC Engine).
Also, not all games are equally impactful (in other ways besides visuals), and that affects how trends are perceived.

2024-06-07 20:21:19

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Yes, it does look roughly the same across platforms. But it would have looked different than the final game (but still the same on all platforms) if they had kept the SNES as the priority platform.
Clearly the choice to change the visual style of the game wasn't technical. Maybe they perceived the Mega Drive audience to be different. Or maybe someone just took the chance to make changes. Who knows. We also don't know how it looked before.

2024-06-07 10:51:25

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I'm usually OK with dithering in small patches, but I'm also bothered by it in some games where it's very visible, like Super Skidmarks.
Pitfall was indeed multiplatform, but wikipedia has this to say:
"Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure initially featured a different visual style and was being developed for the Super NES before transitioning to the Genesis with a new visual approach."

2024-06-06 15:58:56

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Even though one of the more recognizable games on the Mega Drive — "Sonic the Hedgehog" (1991) — is very colorful, that's not how I imagine the average game on the system.
In my mind, Mega Drive games tend towards earth tones and less contrast. I wonder why?
Maybe it's a bias of mine, and others exposed to different games back in the day have a different perception.
Nevertheless, these four examples illustrate what I mean...
2/2 🧵
#retrogaming #color #sega #megadrive #genesis
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2024-06-06 15:46:35

C64 games have a common look to them, color-wise. This results from its limited palette, and systems with different palettes get their own distinctive look as well.
The Mega Drive has a 512-color palette, 61 of which can be displayed at once. These can be tripled with shadow/highlight, and even further with additional trickery.
https://segaretro.org/Sega_Mega_Drive/Palettes_and_CRAM
With this number of colors, games should no longer have a natural common look, right?
1/2 🧵
#retrogaming #color #sega #megadrive #genesis
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2024-06-01 21:28:10

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Interesting enough, Lucasfilm Games didn't have a license to do Star Wars games until the very early 90's.
This is often cited as a good thing by former employees. If they could have done Star Wars games, things like Loom, Maniac Mansion, or Zak McKracken might never had happened.
Even later adventure games might not have happened, as it was the success of their earlier titles that made them the genre's finest creators.
2/2 🧵
#retrogaming #lucasarts #starwars

2024-06-01 21:21:17

Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts) is best know for their point-and-click adventures of the late to mid 90's, and Star Wars games.
Here's two of their games in neither of those categories for the SNES. Both well worth playing:
• Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993)
• Metal Warriors (1995)
The first features the type of humor we associate with LucasArts adventures, while the second could very well be japanese. Both were developed by roughly the same team.
1/2 🧵
#retrogaming #snes #lucasarts
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2024-05-28 18:23:43

TIL that "Tyrian" (1995), one of my favorite games back in the DOS days, has a set of hidden mini-games reachable by typing "destruct" in the main menu. 💡
Tyrian is available as open-source, as a C rewrite of Tyrian v2.1's Pascal source released back in 2007:
https://github.com/opentyrian/opentyrian
Tyrian 2000 (v3.0, with an additional level) is playable in-browser from the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/Tyrian2000 🎮
"Good luck..."
#retrogaming #dos #easteregg
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2024-05-28 12:26:30

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In the case of "Gauntlet" (1985) there seems to be little disagreement that it is a classic. It has a 7.5/10 score on Moby Games and it's a source of inspiration for many later games.
But... I find it boring, and oddly unsettling. Perhaps it's the lack of music, or the creepy synthesized speech announcements (that pause the game), or something else that I can't quite put my finger on, but I don't like it. 😕
Maybe I'm missing something and need some enlightenment?
2/2 🧵
#retrogaming #arcade
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2024-05-28 12:03:28

How do you define a bad game?
Rise of the Robots (1994) is generally regarded as a bad game. Its claim to fame is how overhyped it was, and how hard it failed to meet expectations. 💩
Xenon 2 (1989) has a 7.34/10 score on Lemon Amiga. That's a good score, yet many consider it a bad game beyond its graphics and music. 🤷‍♂️
I'm on the fence about it. Mainly because of how sluggish it is – perhaps I'm missing the point and the ship is supposed to be moving underwater?
1/2 🧵
#retrogaming #amiga
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2024-05-26 10:50:55

"Alien" turned 45 yesterday and I totally missed it. It's one of my favorite films, and still holds up today.
Released in May 1979, it's just a few months older than me, and I've been naming every personal computer, network device, and wireless network based on characters, ships, and locations from this universe since I can remember.
"This is Jonesy the cat, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off." 🐈
#alien #snes #retrogaming #computing
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2024-05-25 20:30:25

Maybe today is a good day to start?
#infocom #towelday #hhgg
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2024-05-25 10:53:58

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Sensible Software's "Cannon Fodder" (1993) was meant to have subtle anti-war vibes, but instead it sparked controversy even before its launch. 🥀
Got 10 minutes? Watch this very nice recount by Stuart Brown (Ahoy):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPnOVK1766E 📽️
I couldn't find a browser-playable Amiga version of Cannon Fodder, and the DOS version just doesn't sound the same. So, if you've never seen it, here's an arbitrarily picked gameplay video instead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XUqK4l3VAU 🎮
#retrogaming #amiga #history
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2024-05-18 00:53:17

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As a side-note, VGA's 320x200 was actually 320x400 on screen.
Each line of pixels was drawn as two CRT scanlines – called double-scan. You can say it made the picture look "chunkier" with scanlines less prominent.
Not to be confused with double-strike, which was using the same (even or odd) scanline in consecutive half-frames (fields) on a CRT meant for interlaced video. This allowed for full 60/50Hz frame rates, at the cost of making scanlines more prominent.
3/3 🧵
#retrocomputing #vga #crt

2024-05-18 00:14:46

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For Ghouls'n Ghosts we can check service mode. The pattern there doesn't look like squares at all in 4:3.
In this age of flat screens, we're used to aspect ratios being a definite thing and pixels being squares on a grid, but things were fuzzier in the CRT world. 🥁
And one person may have adjusted the picture based on the test pattern, while another by eyeballing the game, or not at all. With this, what does a faithful experience even mean under emulation?
2/3 🧵
#retrogaming #emulation #crt
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2024-05-17 23:50:01

These three pictures assume square pixels, which is wrong. Instead, they should have 4:3 aspect ratios, right? 📺
Day of The Tentacle, yes. 320x200 on the PC is expected to be 4:3, and it's pixels are not square.
The other two are debatable. Their arcade cabinets had 4:3 CRTs, but neither look right in 4:3. Street Fighter looks better close to 3:2, and Ghouls'n Ghosts looks better around 16:10. In both cases, their pixels aren't square either.
1/3 🧵
#retrogaming #emulation #crt #arcade #pc
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2024-05-05 20:37:31

"If your computer is turned on, turn it off. Wait for at least thirty seconds before turning on your computer again. This will remove any virus which may be present and so minimise the risk of infecting and possibly destroying your Cannon Fodder disks."
#retrogaming #amiga #advice
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2024-05-01 21:07:41

BASIC turns 60 today. About it, Dijkstra once said:
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
Yet, BASIC was key to luring many young home microcomputer users into programming during the 80's.
To celebrate, open the C64 emulator at https://ty64.krissz.hu and type...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1));
20 GOTO 10
Then RUN, and rejoice. 🍺
#basic #c64
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2024-04-19 12:32:09

Zilog Z80, 1976 – 2024.
https://www.mouser.com/PCN/Littelfuse_PCN_Z84C00.pdf
Over its 48 year life, the Z80 found its way into inumerable devices.
It's perhaps most famous for being the CPU used in the ZX Spectrum, but could also be found as a sound co-processor in the Sega Mega Drive and SNK's Neo Geo arcade boards, among others.
I remember finding one inside my first HP inkjet printer back in the late 90's, and my parent's Sony Trinitron CRT, handling the on-screen menus (and teletext).
R.I.P. 💀
#z80 #retrocomputing
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