Jolt Country

Flack wrote:Once you get it all up and running, I would like to see video of the real Qix

I'm also interested in seeing the difference between the video game version and the one that became available on PCs. You might want to upload it to YouTube.

Here's one someone ran in emulation, so then if you video one we can see how it compares.

[youtube][/youtube]

AArdvark wrote:Anybody that can burn rom chips has to be cool!

It's not that hard. Almost 30 years ago I was working a place where we were designing an electronic time clock (cute toy; when you swiped your employee card through the reader, the machine said "Hello, " and your first name; when you signed out, it said "Goodbye," and when you signed in on your birthday it sang "Happy Birthday To You." ) and whenever I'd finished a new segment of the program I'd burn a rom of the code I was creating for it. Later I discovered it had an emulation mode that allowed code to be loaded into it without needing to burn a rom to test it, so I could do tests a lot more frequently than I could when you had to burn a $20 rom chip each time.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Someone did make a Taito multigame board. I have to imagine it being lame because Qix and Arkanoid are vertical games, and so many other great Taito games are horizontal.

When you say some games are "vertical" and some are "horizontal" do you mean the vertical games play with the equivalent of the monitor in landscape orientation and horizontal are the typical portrait orientation like (non-HD) televisions?

Tdarcos wrote:

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Someone did make a Taito multigame board. I have to imagine it being lame because Qix and Arkanoid are vertical games, and so many other great Taito games are horizontal.

When you say some games are "vertical" and some are "horizontal" do you mean the vertical games play with the equivalent of the monitor in landscape orientation and horizontal are the typical portrait orientation like (non-HD) televisions?

Yeppers. The monitors themselves all assume they are being used in horizontal mode, so you get into fun situations where the writing on the monitor's adjustment pots say "vertical hold" but it's really adjusting what you view horizontally when the game is running.

Apparently my Digital Rebel XT can not shoot video. So I have no way to make videos at this time.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:so you get into fun situations where the writing on the monitor's adjustment pots say "vertical hold"

"Vertical Hold? Isn't that when you try to be the guy on top in Joust?"

That brings back memories. Once TVs started to be made with computers they could get rid of most of the adjustment controls and now you make adjustments to virtual controls in software - like any widget in Windows, e.g. scroll bar or spinner - via the remote control

Do you remember when they actually had a (recessed red) reset button (actually a degauss button) in the back of a console TV? I suspect that eventually someone will mention the dials for tint, vertical hold and so on, and kids growing up today won't have a reference to it, the way a lot of kids are so used to digital clocks that they can't read an analog clock.

Tdarcos wrote:

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:so you get into fun situations where the writing on the monitor's adjustment pots say "vertical hold"

"Vertical Hold? Isn't that when you try to be the guy on top in Joust?"

Now you're quoting things that nobody has ever said, or even thought. Things are POPPING INTO YOUR HEAD, and you're putting quotation marks around them. That is what is happening now.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Apparently my Digital Rebel XT can not shoot video. So I have no way to make videos at this time.

Do you have a webcam and a laptop? Or a webcam connected to a computer you can move near the machine? I can e-mail you the software if you don't have the means to save your webcam's output.

I bought two. I first bought a refurbished webcam for $5, and later I bought one at Radio Shack, new, for $20 because it guaranteed no software install required, and it worked without installing anything (ran Skype and it recognized it immediately, I could see myself), although they give you a disk to install optional software like, well, the program to capture the web cam's output.

pinback wrote:

Tdarcos wrote:

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:so you get into fun situations where the writing on the monitor's adjustment pots say "vertical hold"

"Vertical Hold? Isn't that when you try to be the guy on top in Joust?"

Now you're quoting things that nobody has ever said, or even thought.

"Here's something no one has ever heard, ever. Ever: As soon as I put this hot poker in my ass, I'm going to chop my dick off. You know why you never heard that? Right! No one ever said that! Which is the more amazing thing, no one ever thought to say that until tonight."
― George Carlin, Things You Never Hear.

AArdvark wrote:
Anybody that can burn rom chips has to be cool!


Tdarcos wrote:

It's not that hard.

What does the difficulty quotient in burning ROM chips have to do with my estimation of someone's 'coolness'?

and...

Why did you wait five months to respond to that offhand comment?


THE
LATE TO THE PARTY
AARDVARK

Tdarcos wrote:Do you remember when they actually had a (recessed red) reset button (actually a degauss button) in the back of a console TV? I suspect that eventually someone will mention the dials for tint, vertical hold and so on, and kids growing up today won't have a reference to it, the way a lot of kids are so used to digital clocks that they can't read an analog clock.

I don't for televisions, but of course, virtually all my CRT monitors have a degauss button.

The expected way to degauss most of the early 80s monitors I have around here is with a fricken magnet.

:(

Can't remember if there was a degauss button on the modern arcade CRTs I bought, but I don't think so. (Thankfully, those have a circuit board on a wire to adjust hold and tint and focus and so forth. So you can take it, walk around to the front of the monitor, and adjust away.)

The battery was said to be good for about a year.

It just died. It was good for about a year?

This is the one I need, so I don't have to look it up again:

3.6V 1200mAh NiMh battery for Cordless Phones

Ordered a new one from Amazon. Rats!

I sold Qix just now for $150 and $150 of RoadBlasters parts.

I regret selling it. But the way I look at it, Food Fight is going downstairs and Qix is the one coming up. I will get a Qix again one day.

Exchanging games keeps things FRESH. At some point I would like Defender, RoadBlasters and Paperboy down there. Centipede, the Polybius multigame and probably Elevator Action would leave. But that's a ways off because I remain as broke as shit.

I really need to quit reading this thread. Mentally I have already been figuring out where I'm going to put that Polybius cabinet and now I'm dreaming about owning Elevator Action.

From a game play perspective there is no reason to own a dedicated Elevator Action cabinet (four way stick, two buttons). That being said, all my high scores have been achieved on a dedicated cabinet. I've never done quite as good in MAME for some reason.