Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 2d

Yeahhh! I was playing through some FDS games randomly for an hour and popped in Gyruss FDS. I got a good stock of about 7 extra ships without dying once, then those damn random tentacle etc bosses came in. But I held out to the end and finished the game with 1 ship in reserve. 👍

Gyruss cover art and ending/title screenshots

2 17

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 2d

1983. I always see the most beautiful styles and designs in TVs, stereos, appliances, etc., and I always peg it at '83 and I'm usually right.

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 3d

a big Arlo Guthrie fan...?

1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 4d

Hopefully "LDAIM 100" doesn't default to meaning Octal... 🤢

1 2

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 5d

Hey, you can get more of the original design with a little re-jigging. Here is a mock-up that should fit in the NES' constraints -- you can use sprites to touch up other areas that stand out.

BG tiles only - snapped into a 16x16 grid for palette control

Sprite tiles, with 2 palettes to spare. Should not overflow the 64-pixels per scanline sprite limitation

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 7d

1) Begin video on a well-researched topic guaranteed to appeal to subscriber base
2) subtly change tone and start to tell a story that reveals a time of personal weakness or inadequacy
3) launch into promotion of today's video sponsor and how they can magically solve your failings too.

3

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 7d

Oh, you don't know EGM's difficulty rubric, then:
Hard = Ed Semrad fobbed the review off to a reviewer who doesn't like that genre
Avg. = Each reviewer played the game for less than 5 minutes
Easy = Review crew was given evaluation copy from publisher that came with full cheat codes

2

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 10d

Laid up at home with a cold so I thought I'd play around once again with communicating with PC-Engines and Famicoms through RS-232/UART and doing fun stuff.

Downloading VRAM and disassembling code directly from a running PC-Engine using PCEMon

TapeDump on the Famicom/NES, which also allows RS-232/UART connections

1 22

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 11d

His is the attitude that keeps the phrase "pearls before swine" relevant today.

Also his spelling and grammar suck and are driving me crazy!!!!!!!!!!

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 12d

But then you'll get guys like Snake Plissken saying "President of what?" 😄

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 18d

Beware translation apps a bit. They have recently been giving translations based on past common similar phrases, rather than accurately looking at the text in front of them. (ie: conflating "Joe" and "show" or "Bic" and "Big"; that sort of thing)

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 18d

A cool information page! Those B-album hints seem to have punny names. Gakkouski = "I like school", as that's a little daily planner; Slide Joe (not "show") for a similar(?) reason.

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 21d

Thanks for the scans. I love those late '90s GLs with devcarts, hacking hardware, etc. This one has a 60-pin Game Genie released by Realtec in Hong Kong.

3

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 22d

I think I can actually make it this Friday! Looking forward to it.
今週、行けると思う！

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 22d

I bought Puzzle Boy for the GB recently, so here is a box scan, plus some of the art minus the hero, Poterin (ポテりん) in this Japanese version of Kwirk. The other characters are Nasubi-Kun (ナスビくん), Carota (キャロ太), P-Man (Ｐマン), and Tomato-Chan (トマトちゃん).

Puzzle Boy box artwork with a character hastily removed. If you can do better (and I'm sure you can) go ahead.

7

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 22d

Wheee! It is nice to be able to create your own custom colours. Some weird things about it is that the Red and Blue channels are 5-bit (0-31), but the Green is 6-bit (0-63). And the brightnesses for those channel values seem to be logarithmic. 🤔

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 24d

They're only worth keeping if they're foldable and super compact, or if they have wild theming, like the Bakabon one I have.

1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 24d

Also here's a chart illustrating the curious situation I've found myself in:

A bar graph showing no 110 film camera ownership since 1988 (bought it as a novelty) and then suddenly having four of 'em this year!

1 8

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 24d

I managed to find cheaply a 110 film camera in a beat-up box that came with actual Kodak 110 film in its own beat-up box. Let's slot this thing in and see what shots we can get!
... (says here I'd better develop my prints before May 1988.)

1 18

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 26d

A little drawing from the instruction manual of Puzzle Boy (US: Kwirk) on the GB.

A drawing of various anthropomorphized vegetables (well, technically more fruit than vegetable...)

9

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 27d

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and the TurboGrafx was pretty widely available: the Bay had a playable display unit, and Radio Shack always had a good selection in each store; a godsend when the TG was being discontinued and RS had lots of stock heavily discounted. 😭😌

1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 27d

I apologize fully for not posting my opinions sooner about the rips V5 kit. If you've never owned an original GB retrofitted with a better screen, then you'll be thrilled by it, I think. We'll see how you like the TV output & if it fits the bill.

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 28d

I should add that I own a GB with this, and though it's a nice option, you still have to go to the LCD menu and get into TV mode every time you cycle the power. Video is interlaced and has filtered upscaling. That YT by Tito was pretty complimentary about it and didn't talk about the screen quality.

1 1

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 28d

The rips V5 IPS kit for original DMG has a TV-out feature: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uo6...

EASY TV-OUT IPS KIT FOR THE DMG! | RIPS V5 IPS

YouTube video by Macho Nacho Productions

www.youtube.com

1 3

Chris Covell @chriscovell.bsky.social · 29d

Psst... it might not be a complete map, but...

1