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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 2h

Weird.
The card clearly does something since it gets warm, but NOTHING outputs.
Even when I switch MIDI to ESFM, still no luck from playing a MIDI file (or basic Windows sounds anyway).
I finally had the sound card of my dreams, it can't end like this 😭

Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 2h

In a desperate troubleshooting attempt, I looked at the ESS and dream chips' legs with my phone's macro function but could not find legs touching each other.
Magnification's not strong enough to tell if they're still fully soldered.
Chips get warm, but not suspiciously hot.
No sound on any channel.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 2h

Oh and I should probably add that this is on a 100% clean Windows 98 SE install, no other software or drivers installed.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 2h

Before taking the card out, touching the chips and putting it back in, there was no error message regarding the MPU-401, but the sound was missing all the same.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 2h

In a desperate troubleshooting attempt, I looked at the ESS and dream chips' legs with my phone's macro function but could not find legs touching each other.
Magnification's not strong enough to tell if they're still fully soldered.
Chips get warm, but not suspiciously hot.
No sound on any channel.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 3h

Lifehack: have twice the fried food and beer on Saturday while also enjoying Quest 64 and Codeine, then sleep through Sunday and your weekend calories are still fine.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 7h

Slept over it, will contact the guy now.
It has HDMI, VGA, component, composite, SCART, Antenna, can read files from USB and has a VESA mount, all in that tiny package!
Might not be the greatest in terms of reaction time, but will surely do for RPGs and adventures.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 10h

That is a damn fine board for DOS + Win 98 builds. AGP graphics card but still two ISA slots, likely works with a VIA C3 out of the box? Sign me up!

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15h

Anyone using ChatGPT should just ask me instead.
Yeah I take longer to respond but I am hallucinating less than monthly and I run on biodegradable fuels (meat and cola, mostly).

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 15h

Damn, this 15€ Tokai LTL-1406CK 13.5" TV is mighty tempting.
Just look at all these inputs!

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

But why are there no savegames?
The PS1 had memory cards from day 1.
Were the files to big? Then maybe just saves between missions that would not need to save the complete state of a mission?
But if you choose a password system make it buttons, not alphanumeric that has to be entered via controller.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

The easiest solution would've been to have a button pause the game action while you're still able to issue commands (that would then be executed when you resume), or if the game had the option to slow down game time like the PC has.
There's no way to make the same actions per minute as with a mouse.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

I like Command & Conquer and I like the PSP but frankly the Playstation 1 games, both on the original PS1 and the PSP, suck.
It's not just the controls, it's harder to produce units, you can't save, you can't adjust speed or difficulty to make up for how horrible the controls are, it's just a mess.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

"Cinematic" 🤣

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

I'm actually taking as many pictures as any other annoying parent, just not uploading them because if he ever decides he doesn't want that, I couldn't get them off of the internet and out of AI training databases again.
But he's plenty cute, like if in an alternate universe I was handsome.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

Lol our baby will get his first teeth at the upper jaw instead of the lower, so he'll look like a rabbit for a few weeks, can't decide if that's cute or dumb but I'll do my job as a parent and make lots of pictures to show to him and his friends once he gets to the age where that embarrasses him 😂

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

Ha, I remembered there was this gameshow on television where kids would call and move that Troll via telephone button, probably with horrible input lag so they rarely got far.
You could also buy the games, I had one of em too, but when played via mechanical keyboard locally it was too easy.

NoSoloBits @nosolobits.com · 3d

📰 Retro Review de Hugo

Jugando en el Telecupón

Puedes leerlo aquí 👉 https://www.nosolobits.com/es/publicacion/1443/recordando/retro-review-de-hugo

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

But it does get detected somehow, it even gets a DMA and IRQ assigned, and it's a fcking rare piece, too.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

My GF had a headset with only a single 3.5mm jack - I plugged it in both the Line-In and Mic connector, blew into the mic as hard as I could but nothing seems to be picked up.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

I don't have a 3.5mm connector mic, only USB mics, so I can't.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

I've been trying and giving up frustrated for weeks, this would be practically my dream sound card if it worked.
I can only imagine that something very basic is cooked on a hardware level, or this is the worst driver issue ever.
But it installs clean and accepts resources.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

When I play a MIDI file (or an MP3, doesn't matter) on this sound card, the UI shows me that time is passing in the song (both the horizontal scroll thing and the minute:second thing), but that visualizer for current loudness stays "empty".
Sorry for the bad description, I lack some terminology.

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

Tried the Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 Dynamic 3D again, freshly installed drivers, no conflicts, but also no sound.
I set the MIDI device to ESFM synthesizer and played a MIDI file through Winamp & noticed it shows no frequency activity when playing the MIDI file (pic shows how it is supposed to look).

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

I'd be genuinely interested in seeing that, but am at least 6 hours in a different time zone, maybe you could record and upload a short level as a teaser?

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Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 1d

Regt mich bei der Tagesschau schon seit Jahren auf.
Ständig Schlagzeilen wie "Warum XYZ soundso ist" oder "Ist XYT etwa soundso?" (spoiler: immer nein).
Bei privaten Nachrichtenportalen verstehe ich ja wofür das Clickbait notwendig ist, aber im ÖR braucht man doch keine Klicks für die Finanzierung.

Mancomb Seepgood, Internet Pirate @16bitmanfred.bsky.social · 2d

The typical CoD player is probably the most likely to accept AI slop for a game, them or FIFA players. 🤷

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