#TRINITRONS ARE REALLY GOOD | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icarusthelunarguard · 2 years

Text

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

(Sorry I’m running a little late this week)

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter.

Aries

You need a moment of musical W-T-F this week. Go find your copy of 1994’s album, “Out in L.A.” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and put on “Flea Fly”. It’s only 40 seconds long, sounds like it was recorded with a couple of Radio Shack Hi-Ball Mics on Irish-Brand Cassettes tapes… but you’re still going to have your face scrunched up while wondering what the HELL did you just listen to!

Taurus

There are lots of musical groups out there with pretentiously long songs, or pretentiously long song titles. You don’t have to be that way in business. If you have a business card, have it turned sideways and see if your information still fits without wrapping. Regardless, do that anyway. If people still use Rolodex filers, they’ll just punch holes in the bottom, cutting off important information. Invest in new business cards anyway.

Gemini

Time to learn some Film History! In the Silent Era, movies were usually delivered at 16 frames per second. Once sound was delivered on the film itself, 24 frames became the norm because that was the lowest rate you could get good audio out of the machine. That’d been the standard for nearly a century - including all those cartoons you remember like the Warner Brothers’ stuff. Well, someone took 3 minutes of a Tom and Jerry cartoon and upscaled it from 24 to 60 frames per second. We’re warning you now: just because you CAN upscale something doesn’t mean you SHOULD! You have some old stuff - leave it alone!

Cancer Moon-Child

Today we think of the term “Pixel” as a relatively new thing. Maybe from the start of digital monitors in the 90’s? Nope. Maybe the 70’s and the SONY Trinitron color TV’s? Still no. "Bildpunkt", the German word for, literally, 'picture point', was used in the 1888 German patent of Paul Nipkow for a Mechanical Television. Yeah; the term “Pixel” predates an actual functional electronic display as we know it. This week, learn some more German terms.

Leo

Your dreams are going to be stranger than normal this week. Set a pen and paper next to your bed and plan on writing things down quickly. You could also get a sound-activated sleep recorder for your phone; not that that isn’t a creepy idea, though. Some great ideas come to us at night; embrace your subconscious!

Virgo

This week we’re telling you what to do first: go online and find an older cell phone, like the Samsung S5; specifically something with an Infrared port on it. You’re going to be visiting folks, have dinner in a restaurant, and the TVs will be tuned to a local Sports-Ball game… and it’s YOUR job to use your new device to turn off the TVs at the most inopportune moment! Because this week, you’re on a mission from god; specifically the Great God Murphy. Glory Be his angst.

Libra

You want to be self-reliant, but there are some jobs better done by several people instead of just one. This week identify the job, enlist assistance, and get a large Sicilian Meatball Pizza delivered to thank people with. Why Sicialian specifically? There won’t be any Pizza Bones left at the end.

Scorpio

You remember the song, “Baker Street” from 1978 by Gerry Rafferty? Something you might not have known - he wasn’t, LEGALLY, allowed to release any music for three years before then. He was part of Stealers Wheel, the group that performed "Stuck in the Middle with You". Well, Stealers Wheel broke up in ‘75, and for THREE SOLID YEARS Gerry was fighting his way out of the contract with their music label, A&M. So whenever people remind you that The Internet is The Great Equalizer for talented people, believe them!

Sagittarius

You’re right - toys aren’t built the way they used to be anymore. They don’t have lead in the paint, fabric-wrapped electrical plugs, ungrounded heating elements, and they sure-as-hell don’t have skull-impaling aerial daggers being sold anymore. The only toys you can still depend on are Tonka! You can STILL beat someone into a coma with them. –NOT THAT YOU SHOULD DO THAT!

Capricorn

Color-blindness isn’t what you think it is. That’s why you’re not an Opthamologist. Centrifugal Force isn’t what you think it is. That’s why you’re not working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. And lastly you don’t understand that on movie credits, the Best Boy might be the Best Girl - neither of which would be a minor. This week, actually read the credits at the end of a movie for once.

Aquarius

We don’t mean to pick on you, Aquarius. Really! It’s just that you’re the youngest sibling in the Astrological group. Yes, Pisces is next and actually last, but they’re hooked up with the Mafia. Do you really want us to piss THEM off over you? HELL no! So this week… Uhm… How about this: The last open weekends are happening for amusement parks before Halloween. Take in a roller coaster before it all shuts down.

Pisces

Time to kill you with My Little Pony trivia. In Today I Learned… Equestria was breaking the Geneva Conventions and was told to cut it out! Apparently the symbol we all associate with “Health” and medical stuff, the Red Cross on a White Background is actually internationally reserved for the Red Cross. In Friendship is Magic Nurse Redheart’s cutie mark was a white hide with a red cross with four pink hearts in each corner; enough for the Red Cross to get in contact and get the mark changed. So, yeah! My Little Geneva Convention.

And THOSE are your Hobble-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Discord.

#horrorscope #parody #humor #funny #I still miss the Mid-80's Z-Morning Zoo

0 notes

nintendo-and-chill · 2 years

Photo

Indy Racing 2000 276/296 I'm still solidly amazed by how good this game looks, runs, and handles. Really don't think it gets talked about enough as far as early Sim racing. Follow me on my little collection journey! ❤️ #nintendo #nintendoswitch #n64 #nintendo64 #funtastic #collection #legendofzelda #zelda #mariobros #mario #kirby #pokemon #gaming #gaminglife #gamingcommunity #retrogaming #lego #legostagram #legofan #legostarwars #legoharrypotter #sony #trinitron #crt #bulbakushgang https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce7Oq1fJo1g/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

0 notes

queenpike3 · 2 years

Text

Sony Portable Cassette Recorder

Others buy cassette recorders because they like listening to their music on it. A cassette recorder brings you back to a time when things were simple and you didn’t have anything to worry about but living and listening to music. As cassette recorders become less popular, it can be challenging to find the one you truly want. However, there are ways to research and find the cassette recorder you desire. In this article, we will dig deeper into the many ways you can find the cassette recorder of your dreams. We will look at budgets and the many features that make cassette recorders unique.

This is an incredibly thoughtful addition on the company’s behalf, and we feel it is a marker of a good product.

The single motor Sony decks have electronics that are generally reliable, and with heads in good condition, the fidelity of even the oldest machines is good.

In addition to radio and cassette listening, you have access to weather channels and TV.

We decided to gather informartion all around the internet and present you a list of helpful, external links to interesting reads about reviews, pros & cons and similar products.

The idlers lose their grip, resulting in slow playback speeds and slow/non-existent rewind and/or fast forward.

The Sony CFDG770CPK Xplod CD Radio Cassette Recorder from Sony adds exceptional style, fun, and big bass sound to your listening experience. Equipped with MP3 playback and 30 AM/FM station memory ... Working, in very good condition SONY DVD player and VIDEO cassette recorder COMBO with original remote and component cables. Interested in an intimate, secluded listening session. That’s where the Jensen SCR-75 Stereo Cassette Player comes in. It is a handheld cassette player that truly lets you escape to another world.

Vintage Sony Bright Yellow 12 Tape Cassette Plasstic Holder With Clear Window And Carrying Handle **free Shipping**

The number one reason many people use cassette recorders is to record music and news shows from AM and FM radio. In many cases, when a person’s favorite song would come on, they would put a cassette tape in the recorder and press record while the song is playing. After, they have a song on their cassette tape that they can listen to for a long time. Auto stop is an awesome feature that can really protect your cassette tapes from damage. When you reach the end of a tape, the player will notice and will stop reading the tape immediately. This will prevent it from eating the tape and causing irreversible damage to your cassettes. (Adjusted for inflation that’s $78 and $445.) It even specifically avoided airing commercials on Saturday mornings, since only kids would be watching at that time and not their mothers or fathers. Sony TC D5M , cassette recorder, Dolby B , 2 heads. When you need a boombox to make a statement for the ages, this SuperSonic model is up to the task.

Enjoy convenient, full-function, portable audio anywhere you go. Still in low volume, when it marks the new sounds like this of the speakers have been blown was. Sony launched in 1960 a first portable transistor television, the TV8-301, equipped with an 8-inch screen. Eight years later, the Japanese giant will market a color television – also the first – named Trinitron, the patent of which was bought from the French Television Company. Sony has been known around the world for its televisions for decades.

Portable Cassette Player Comparative Table

Generally this isn’t hard to do, but can consume 2-3 hours of time, resulting in an expensive repair bill. Around 1973, Sony switched from their soft steel heads to Permalloy heads, which were much longer lasting, most lasting the life of the deck. This improved longevity and reliability significantly. Maserati took the wraps off its new Grecale sports utility vehicle on Tuesday, marking another step in the promised expansion of the automaker's range as part of a turnaround strategy. Initially planned for November last year, the launch of the new model had been delayed due to a global chip shortage. Damage, ranging from melted cassette players to damage to the house itself. NuTone is not aware...to the left of the radio dial. The cassette deck is located at the lower right corner. The cassette players ...stereo-cassette players were also installed in newly constructed homes during the same time period. Sony TC-758Given the vast size of the Sony corporation, Sony was massive in the consumer market, and developed some reel to reel related technologies that didn’t last the test of time. This included the Elcaset, an oversized cassette tape, ¼” width, running at 3 ¾ IPS, promising the fidelity of reel to reel, in a convenient cassette format. This the difficult fact to touch/finds the together sure of songs. It has not seen any way to habe the playlist neither. It has bitten Of the bummer, but am still happy with a unit. Bite Of the bummer, but am still happy with a unit. Due to the above examples that plague all single motor Sony reel to reel decks, I no longer accept them for service at this time. Do you want to know more about cassette recorders? Check out the links below to gain knowledge about the whole topic of cassette recorder products. To help you find the perfect cassette recorder, we continuously put forth the effort to update and expand our list of recommendable cassette recorders. Setting on a radio presets has taken so only the pocolos second and a player of CD READ are disk of Mp3 without any questions. I have found that reading of the clave of USB has not been like this easy this in spite of. There is not any function of file or ordering of any class. https://bestreviewsca.com/sony-portable-cassette-players-recorders_48992/ Do-it-yourself investors can actually outperform big-time money managers. Here's one Canadian stock that could help you do it. The post 1 Top Canadian Growth Stock for DIY Investors appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada. If the seller cannot or will not meet you in person, be suspicious. Always inspect and/or test the item fully before paying for it. If it can't be inspected or tested before the sale, just say "no."

#sony portable cassette players recorders

2 notes · View notes

videostak · 3 years

Text

Ok I sold all that stuff and now my room is more spacious lolol and I’m p good on money :) I’m gonna try to not waste any til I go to book off and look for genki there and then I might just buy a trinitron remote on eBay after genki and hopefully that’s all really... really gonna actually try to not use any of my money online for real this time.... fingers crossed

#I feel p confident abt it so I prolly can easily do it #I just have to keep myself busy with things like reading and stuff like that

2 notes · View notes

thelaserdiscfiles · 5 years

Text

DVDO Iscan HD, Or: To upscale or not to upscale.

Spend any time on a laserdisc related forum or facebook page, and you're bound to hear the buzzword "upscaler" or some permutation of it. It's a hotly debated topic amongst us laserdicks, and there are two main camps; those who believe in watching as intended, and those who believe in wringing every drop of potential out of what is, at the end of the day, a moderately mediocre video signal. And these two camps will go to war over their views.

Each school of thought has it's main weapon of choice. In the purist corner, the Cathode Ray Tube display, or the big boxy CRT. In the opposite end is the video processor, namely, the upscaler. Each works differently. Laserdisc is a late 70's analog technology. Yes, advancements were made in the players and mastering of discs up until roughly the new millennium. Given the age of the tech, it goes without saying that LD was designed to be viewed relatively small (back then 28inches was consider a pretty big TV) standard definition sets. And this is where camp A lies firmly. The tube tv is THE definitive, and to some, the ONLY real way to view that awesome Alien box set you bought at Suncoast Video for an obscene price in 93'.

Upscalers, such as my own DVDO Iscan HD+ (a mid 2k's model made by Anchor Bay Technologies.), usually take the SD video signal, either from a composite or S-video output on a player, and, though some magic I don't clearly understand, crank up the signal's resolution to make it more visually appealing on a display of an HD nature. They usually output though HDMI or component, though my Iscan uses DVI.

Now, for where I weigh in....I'm the rare proponent of both. They each have their merits, and each have very valid points against them. A well mastered disc on a high grade consumer CRT...if you're able to put yourself in a historical mindset, it's mind blowing to think that it was that good waaaay back when. Even today, some will give a DVD a really good run for it's money. Now, that said, when my CRT died, I had NO INTENTION OF REPLACING IT WITH ANOTHER. Why? Because good ones, such as the coveted Sony Trinitron, are becoming rarer and rarer. When you find one, it's usually possible to get it for next to nothing, if not nothing. However, by that time, I had my Iscan, which I'd gotten to make LD look good on a LED projector. With the tube out of my office and my Toshiba DLP set up in its stead, I hooked up the player and scaler, and this has been my main workhorse laserdisc rig.

Ultimately, it boils down to personal preference, and what you're willing to spend. Decent LDP's and CRT's are still cheap, upscalers, however, well, the sky is the limit in terms of price. Gear made by Faroudja, and the Lumagen and Crystalio product lines in particular command damn near absurd premiums.

#dvdo #iscan #anchor bay Technologies #upscaler #dead tech #laserdisc #trinitron #crt

1 note · View note

britesparc · 3 years

Text

Weekend Top Ten #506

Top Ten Best-Looking Games Consoles

One of the fun things about gaming is how devices that were once considered extremely niche have become mainstream. Computers went from irregularly-shaped keyboards in the eighties through to the huge beige tower cases of nineties PCs, through the dark millennial era of subdued PCs and ubiquitous laptops, to the modern era of sleek Macbook-inspired designs and subtle reflective rectangles of power. And in the same period, bespoke games consoles have transitioned from bizarre collections of geometric shapes that would be stuck in the corner of a bedroom to huge focus-grouped pieces of consumer electronics that are designed to fit into a modern family’s lounge, either by being an ostentatious bit of attention-seeking or a machine that fits in with other anonymous boxes below the TV.

As such, I think it’s only relatively recently that anybody cared if a console was actually “attractive” or not. When I was a kid, consoles were seen as things for kids, more or less (to the point where sensible computer-using folk such as myself would dismiss them as “toys” – before, er, going back to our computers to play ports and adaptations and knock-offs of games initially published on console). Making it ungainly or irregular or wacky wasn’t a big deal, because it’d be in the kids’ room, or stored in a cupboard till needed, or just one of a number of crude lumps of plastic decorating the houses of parents across the land. That’s not to say these consoles weren’t good-looking, or had their own kind of charm, but I’d see genuine legitimate aesthetics weren’t really considered until gaming became “cool” in the late nineties. I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but for me it feels like the first console that tried to be genuinely sexy – in a kind of “posh hi-fi” sexy, the sort of sexy you’d see in glossy photospreads in Q magazine, detailing the latest in state-of-the-art Sony Trinitron CRT displays, colossal subwoofers, and dual-speed VCRs – was the PlayStation 2. After that, all bets were off, and consoles had to look like an otherwise-sensible adult would be happy to be seen alongside one. Unless they were made by Nintendo, they get away with murder.

Anyway, that’s enough preamble. All we have here are the ten best-looking games consoles, as judged solely by me according to my own wonky criteria. I have some rules, of course: they have to be actual proper consoles, so one-off special editions don’t count – and I’m including that fantastic transparent Xbox in this, as well as the weird silver DVD-playing GameCube that only came out in Japan or something. Iterations of a console are fine; slimline redesigns or enhancements that replace the main version. But no limited or special editions. And, yes, as you will see, handhelds as well as home consoles both fit the bill.

I’ve not really spared much thought for the goodness within, or even usability; controller sexiness was a consideration, but not how comfy the thing was to hold. This is an absolutely primitive, book-cover-judging, who-cares-about-personality visual appraisal. Let’s hit the catwalk!

GameCube (Nintendo, 2002): adorably friendly design, visually distinct, eschews cynical darkness or any perception of coolness to produce something entirely individual and iconoclastic. It has a chunky, almost preschool aesthetic, a delightfully Ronseal name, and a carry handle. It’s user-friendly, with its four front-facing ports and big clicky buttons. The controller, comfy and cheerful, feels halfway between the weirdness of the N64 and the commonality of subsequent basically-an-Xbox style of controllers. I’ve gone on far too much, but in short, it’s lovely, pretty, and weird.

3DS (Nintendo, 2011): it took Nintendo a couple of tries, but they really settled on a great design for the DS range in the end. Sleek and elegant, but also comfy and user-friendly, everything was in the right place and looked so much cooler than previous generations of handhelds, with its clamshell design feeling both innovative but also echoing past generations. The 3DS perfected the template with its metallic finish, range of cool colours, and an analogue stick thing. Still the prettiest handheld.

PlayStation 2 (Sony, 2000): the first PlayStation transitioned console gaming from the kids’ bedroom to, well, the club floor, and the PS2 solidified that, eschewing child-friendly curves or colours for a bold black design that echoes high-end hifis. The ridged sides were elegant and cool and its ability to be stood vertically, like it was a fancy subwoofer or something, really made a statement. The blue accenting helped sell a futuristic aesthetic, really making this feel like a grown-up console for the next generation.

Xbox 360 (Microsoft, 2005): whilst the design of the first Xbox has its fans, its bulkiness and X-shaped cartooniness made it feel of an earlier generation than the sleek and sexy PS2. The 360 was Microsoft’s answer in more ways than one: ditching edgy blackness for a more cheerful shade of white (or, I dunno, kinda light beige?), this hip and groovy, front-room-friendlier design was further reinforced in its soft curves and removeable bits and bobs. The controller was a refinement, almost perfect, and the way the circular power switch lit up to match with the controller you were holding was inspired. And – get this – no wires! It may have sounded like a washing machine exploding in a jet engine, but it looked great.

Xbox Series X (Microsoft, 2020): from soft and subtle lightness, to bold, brutalist blackness. The Series X is a statement; the desire to provide maximum grunt requiring maximum cooling leading to the revolutionary decision to make a console that wasn’t, essentially, an oblong. This is a daring design that is sure to attract detractors; a chunky slab of a thing, a sexy PC tower or very tiny fridge. Even the venting is bold, with its huge circular holes in the top, with their funky green highlights offering a sense of depth and splash of colour. The controller did nothing new, but by this point MS had perfected controllers anyway.

Dreamcast (Sega, 1999): after a bunch of pretty similar black boxes, Sega went the other way with this, an absolutely delightful little beast. Small, sleek, and bathed in light, everything about it screamed colour, with its games full of fast movement and trademark Sega blue skies. The logo was cool, the controller even cooler, a weird thing almost the size of the console itself, its friendly hues echoing (for me at least) the highs of Nintendo controller design. And it had these weird little funky memory cards that were also, like, Tamagotchis? Or something? What a wild design. I do wonder where Sega might have gone next.

PS one (Sony, 2000): line-wide reversions of consoles count, as I’ve said, and this is just an incredible bit of electronic architecture, shrinking the original PlayStation console down to something more or less the size of a double-disc CD jewel case. A gorgeous, round-edged, friendly little thing, the size of a PlayStation controller. Its brightness and cheerfulness and all-round preschool vibe served as a great counterpoint to the ascendent PS2; a kind of “my first console” for the youngsters when the older kids take their PS2s off to uni with them.

Game Boy Advance (Nintendo, 2001): I think a lot of people prefer the clamshell “SP” revision, but I love the original. Flipping the original Game Boy design from portrait to landscape, it echoed the size and feel of a standard game controller, but with the screen in the middle. The colourful graphics were echoed in its colourful, well, colour. True, the screen wasn’t backlit, making playing in anything other than perfect sunlight something of an ordeal, but the console itself was a beaut.

Wii (Nintendo, 2006): after the chunky wonder of the GameCube, where could Nintendo go? A sphere? A pyramid? A giant silver X? no, they went the other way, focusing on accessibility and affordability rather than sexy crash-bang-wallop visuals, with a positively tiny machine that was quite a bit weaker than the competition, but a whole lot cuter. True, the box itself is fairly nondescript, but subtle design touches give it character: one corner cut off at a diagonal, a choice echoed throughout the machine’s elements (it’s there on the power brick); the soft slope of its cradle if you want to sit it vertically; the lights around its disc slot. But then there’s the controller! Not just revolutionary in terms of its use, but also a beautiful bit of minimalist design, offering what we need with little fuss or fanfare, and the nunchuck component fitting just delightfully in the hand. It was a dream to use a Wii, and the whole aesthetic was open, non-threatening, welcoming.

Atari 2600 (Atari, 1978): most of these consoles have been from roughly the same age, as I think it took a while for the hardware to evolve past the eighties/nineties aesthetic of “part of a spaceship’s dashboard in a really cheap sci-fi b-movie”. But going back farther, the earliest consoles had a lot of cool design elements, and I just love the 2600. Fun fact: being too young to ever have one, I didn’t realise quite how many versions of the 2600 there were. My favourite – the one I associate most with the console – is the first or second iteration; I can take or leave the number of switches, but I like the mock-wooden trim. The black ridges of its design, the slope of its hood leading to the cart slot, all feel so tactile, so sturdy. It feels delightfully analogue, just to look at, and part of that comes from the big flippin’ switches on its top. This is really like some old piece of hardware, not just a stereo component, but part of a ham radio or even a bit of military hardware from the Korean war or something. And I’ve not even mentioned the supremely iconic joystick! Funkily, chunkily, gorgeously retro.

#top ten #games #gaming #consoles #videogames #game consoles #nintendo #sega #microsoft #atari

0 notes

bleefinburtle · 3 years

Text

I have a problem with my television that I never thought I'd have. The problem? My tv is good. Like REALLY good. So good in fact that it makes everything shown on it look like crap. All my smaller tv's look fine but this tv is so clear that you can see every single thing wrong with everything ive ever recorded. The tv? A 1998 35" sony trinitron. Werent expecting that were ya?!

0 notes

jaguarwong · 3 years

Text

A rambling diatribe on retro-gaming elitism

There’s a lot to be annoyed about in the world today - obviously - especially with the various types of mess we’re all living with in every country in the world.

But a particular, and specific annoyance in the retrogaming hobby/lifestyle/environment/zeitgeist, is the hive-mind attitude from an increasing number of the most vocal (and seemingly most affluent) participants that this is, or should be, an extremely expensive hobby/lifestyle/etc/etc.

It’s impossible not to notice an underlying, deeply unpleasant, atmosphere of elitism in many of the communities I visit. An attitude of ‘you’re not doing it right’ directed at anyone who doesn’t have their Neo Geo AES hooked up to a 20” PVM via OSSC. (I have no idea if that example makes sense, nor do I care.)

This is the kind of arms-race attitude that fought to keep PC gaming an exclusive club for decades, and it has gradually seeped into retro gaming's language and ecosystem almost undetected.

The simple joy of rekindling one's nostalgia for Super Mario World, or re-experiencing the simple fun of games lost with the arcades, is being obfuscated by a collective need to quantify, update, and monetise every aspect of vintage computer entertainment.

It’s the kind of environment where you might expect the gateway drug of emulation to be met with the utmost scorn, but instead the self appointed guardians of retro (You can have that for your quiz team/band name, BTW) have positioned emulation behind a paywall of Retron 5s, Mega SGs, and (only the latest and most expensive) Everdrives. Any excited newcomer asking about the best controller to play retro games on their laptop is quickly overwhelmed with talks of latency, resolutions, and refresh rates.

If it wasn’t bad enough that forced exclusivity exists, it actually appears to be having it’s desired effect.

You can see it both in the way questions are asked and in the tone of the responses. You can see it in the photos of someones latest, expensive, haul and the other even more expensive stuff in the background - almost, but not quite, out of focus.

People don’t ask where they can find a cheap CRT, they ask if their $100 Trinitron is ‘good enough’. A joyous celebration of a bargain buy, or a long lost attic discovery, will be met with derision and disbelief, the underlying accusation that unless you can afford the inflated eBay prices for a barely average Sega Saturn game, then you aren’t worthy to own it.

Which brings me neatly to the event that triggered this rambling blog entry.

There was someone on a Discord server I’ve been frequenting who stated, blankly, without malice, that “all the good Saturn games are 100+ dollars”.

Why would they think this? Simply because it’s what the gatekeepers want them, you, and everyone else to think.

These are the people who, when a collective question is asked, wouldn’t dream of recommending any of the dozens of fantastic, better even, Saturn games you could buy for the price of Burning Rangers.

It’s this sub-group who don’t want you enjoying Sonic the Hedgehog for free when they’ve invested $200 in a Mega SG. The only way their post-purchase rationalisation can cope is by attacking the perceived difference in quality, by claiming they seek a ‘purer’ experience, and by attempting to undermine the simple pleasure of just playing old games by insinuating that someone with a secondhand NES Mini isn’t doing it right.

Now I just want to be clear that I’m not claiming to be some kind of saint who never judges anyone else's choices, nor am I saying that there aren’t benefits to some modern retro products, but the weaponised affluence I’m seeing increasingly around retro gaming communities is something else entirely.

Admission 1: I strongly believe that by downloading a thousand roms and picking one to play for five minutes before switching to another, then another, then another... your assessment of them will lack a psychological bond of choice, expectation, and - yes - sometimes investment that adds to the whole experience of a game.

But this is no less true of a pack of illegal roms than it is of someone with thousands in disposable income spending a tenth of that on a game they’ll probably never play.

Cost, value, and investment are relative terms. The kind of ‘bond’ I’m trying to describe between a player and a game can be gained through the investment of time, the effort of research, and the expectation of finding out for oneself if that game from your childhood holds up 20 years later.

Admission 2: I think games from the previous century should be played on a CRT television whenever possible. Pixels look better with real scanlines - it’s an incontrovertible fact - and the colour depth offered by that massive, humming monstrosity wedged into the corner is really something lost to the ages.

But it’s not a prerequisite of fun. And it’s especially not necessary to find the most expensive, most instagrammable, most egregiously hyped PVM to enjoy a game of Super Mariokart with your kids.

When I say: "I think these games should be played on a CRT", I mean ANY CRT. I’m typing this in a room with 6 of the things, two of them were free, and the whole collection has been compiled for the total cash investment of £26.

As someone born over 4 decades ago I’ll let you into a secret: The geometry has always been rubbish, the hum has always been loud, the picture has always flickered and no one ever cared about resolution or refresh rate or input lag when playing Tornado Low Level on their ZX Spectrum in 1984.

It’s entirely possible to argue a convincing case that you’ll get a more enjoyable retro experience from a wonky Bush portable TV than from any professional quality display equipment. And beyond that, if you can’t find a tube telly or don’t have room for one, use an LCD - it’s better than nothing, and the filters some emulators have these days are great.

It comes down this:

If you’re lucky enough, or have worked hard enough, to have the disposable income necessary to buy $400 RGB Scart cables and a professional monitor the size of a family car - and that’s genuinely what you want for your retro gaming experience - That’s cool. You don’t need anyone's approval or respect, you’re doing what you want to do the way you want to do it - and that’s a life lesson for everyone right there. But it’s your way, and nothing more than that.

This nonsense of idolising only the most expensive elements of this hobby has to change and we, the members of these communities, are the only people in a place to do that.

So the next time you see an excited new Dreamcast owner looking for game suggestions, mention the best ones first, not the most expensive.

When you come across a reddit picture of someone's game collection don’t immediately look for the over-priced ‘rare’ game they haven’t got, look for the ones you have in common and can have a conversation about.

And if you ever, ever, see someone being criticised for playing roms, or using composite cables, or playing on a flat screen TV, or any of that postering gibberish - step into that conversation and ask what games they love? What happy memories do they have? What is it about retro games brings them joy?

Because this is the real value of games.

They bring us experiences and memories to savour forever, they engage with us in a different way to that of films and music - and that difference should be cherished.

Games exist to bring us pleasure. Sometimes that pleasure is tinged with fear, and sometimes it’s truly dark and doesn’t feel like pleasure at all. Sometimes the pleasure comes from intellectual stimulation, sometimes from mindless entertainment.

But whatever form it takes, this pleasure, this… fun… cannot be tempered by technology, and it must never be attributed to any scale of monetary investment.

The simplicity of Retro Games is joyous, they are heartbreaking, they are brilliant and they must never be withheld from those who measure value in the size of their smile, by those who measure it in the size of their wallet.

You better get the aspect ratio right though, or I will hunt you down!

#classic games #retro gaming #sega #nintendo #playstation #gaming

0 notes

notmjbad · 3 years

Text

End of my dream

All of this continues from the first half of the dream that I can barely remember:

I was at work, and it was lunch time so that meant break time. For some reason, the boss and the stockperson were arguing about something and I was following them around. Near the end of the warehouse, the boss revealed this secret room with a computer or few in, surrounded again by about three TVs and old gaming consoles/audio equipment (I saw about three original PSOnes?). He needed to do something on one of the said computers in regards to something that the stockperson had done wrong - not particularly sure what, as I was already rapt in the interesting electronics around me. They ended up leaving, and I started watching actual TV on this old CRT that looks exactly like my 29-inch Sony Trinitron in real life. It was some sort of Australian cop show where they pull over stupid P-platers with illegal modifications and book them, etc. Some guy had a Holden VF ute in a gorgeous red colour that was lowered to the ground with big, black, approx. 20-inch rims on and no clearance between the the tyres and body panels. This was all occurring on a farm - potentially on an island - for some reason, out the front of the guy’s family home. The family home was more of a feeling than an actual vision. At about this point, I remember my mum shouting for me, assumingly from the front area of the shop I work at, saying something about leaving. This cop show had me, so I did not reply. I remember then assuming the body of the guy with the ute in the show about to get booked. I was being directed into the back of a police SUV, then directed back out for some reason, as that was ended up being the wrong thing to do, and then I was told I had some mail. These two female officers carried over a large package, with a note attached in some fashion, the latter I opened immediately. It was from my mum, she had left for England, I assume to get away from everything for a while. She wrote sombrely about how she would miss her son, and all the moments we had, like she was going away for a good while. She told me her destination, Newcastle upon Tyne or something, I assume so that I would come visit one day, and that was mostly it. I did not get to open said package, though I remember it being in the usual yellow cardboard, boomerang shaped, a bit over a metre long and maybe half a metre wide. I woke up straight away after reading the letter.

I’m not sure how I feel about all this other than that it was deeply saddening, and it made me think about how much I really value my family in real life.

Thank you for reading.

#dream #parents

0 notes

clairedmaddox · 5 years

Text

The Goose

The following is an excerpt from The Lund Loop Newsletter. To learn more click here.

In one sense, the hole in the television was beautiful, almost artistic.

The impact – from what I first assumed was a broomstick, but later turned out to be a hammer – had punched a perfect circle in the center of the tube, radiating a sunburst of fine cracks towards the edge of the screen.

That it hadn’t exploded in an electric storm of glass shards puzzled me. All the TV’s I’d seen smashed by guitars in bad 80’s music videos had done so. But the lack of dried blood or bits of flesh in the shag carpet in front of the television cabinet convinced me otherwise – and somewhat disappointedly I must confess.

None of my roommates were home to help solve the mystery, but explicitly understanding the dynamics of a house shared by four twenty-something males, I started to backfill a theory as to why the only TV in the house was now inoperable.

And it wasn’t just any TV. It was a 32” Sony Trinitron, arguably the best set you could buy in 1986. And even though my roommate got it for free by pulling a credit card scam at Circuit City, it was still a loss.

Occam’s razor suggested an overly inebriated partygoer had backed into it while playing air guitar with a broom, but that’s as far as I could take my mental exercise as I was tired and numb. To the point that kissing sixteen channels of cable TV goodbye for the foreseeable future didn’t even register.

I had just arrived home after a six-hour drive from Arizona, where my girlfriend and I spent a week trying to make Castaneda-like connections with the spirits of dead shamans, but instead got drunk and crashed in cheap motels.

I was disappointed by the experience, though the fact that Castaneda’s tool of transformation was peyote and ours was Crazy Horse Malt Liquor did not occur to me at the time.

It was upon climbing the stairs to my room that I realized the damaged TV was just the beginning of a tale that would end with the spilling of avian blood and a public shaming, the likes of which Huntington Beach, California had never seen.

—-

The older you get, the more your circle of friends solidifies. Though you still might pick up some acquaintances later in life, it’s very rare to develop true friendships after forty. Rarer still is meeting true friends of your true friends – those whom you’ve never met before. That’s because, by the time you hit forty, you’ve known your true friends for a long time and are much more likely to have met anyone else meaningful in their lives.

Meeting friends of friends is something that happens in your early 20s.

That’s the time when your world is expanding, first by leaving high school, and second by entering college or the workforce. That’s when you first start to meet people who don’t know your parents or siblings, aren’t familiar with your hometown, and don’t share a common history with you.

Meeting a friend of a friend is a dicey proposition when you’re young. They come with implied approval due to their relationship to your new friend, but not a guarantee. After all, you haven’t really known your new friend that long, so how can you be sure they are a good judge of character – present company excepted.

For me, it worked like this…

In my early 20s, I picked up some new friends whom I ran with for a few years. One was from across town, another from one county north, while three or four others were transplants from out of state. Those were the ones you had to worry about.

The transplants were trying to get away from something. Usually a small-town mentality or small-minded people.

But small-minded people aren’t very good at getting the hint, and every spring break or 4th of July holiday a friend of a friend would arrive in town, excited to see what Southern California was all about.

That’s how I first met Snap. His real name was Sean.

Sean was a good guy. A solid guy. He was intelligent and polite, even thoughtful at times. The type of guy you’d introduce to your mom and she’d tell you the next day, “I really like that Sean.”

But Sean was a different person when we went out drinking – which happened quite a bit.

One moment everything would be great. Everybody would be laughing, joking, and having a fun time. Then in an instant, it would all go bad.

Sean would fly across the bar and crack a random guy in the jaw. Or scream “you’re a fucking bitch,” to a girl whose only crime was to order a drink next to him. Often, he’d break down and sob incoherently to his friends, who, while trying to console him, would suddenly be accused of mockery and challenged to a fight.

The worst part was that you never knew when it would happen. On some nights it only took one beer before things went off the rails. On others, he could drink all night long without incident.

But when it did go bad, it always happened without warning. There were never any signs or telltale clues that he was about to go off. He just snapped.

So, we called him “Snap.”

—-

As I came to the top of the landing, I noticed that three of the four doors to the bedrooms were open, an unusual occurrence in our house. Though all my roommates knew and mostly trusted each other, it was best practice to keep your door shut.

And it was no coincidence that the only door that was still closed had a lock on it. Or that it was mine.

Walking past the open doors, more damage was revealed. In my roommate Andy’s room, his pride and joy, a five-component stereo system, had been destroyed.

All the knobs from the tuner were on the floor, and the posts that held them in place bent downward as if hit by a hard object.

Both the windows on the dual-cassette player were cracked, like some solid metal object had been smashed into them.

The five-disc CD player had dents all over its case, the type that would occur if a hammer type instrument had struck it.

Hmmm?

And finally, both speakers had multiple holes punched in front and back, each the same size and circumference as the hole on the TV tube downstairs.

Double hmmm?

Then I passed Greg’s room and saw that the strings on his prized guitar were hanging by the tuners, as if ripped out from the bridge. There were also round impact marks across the face of the guitar which matched up with the stereo and the TV.

I was sensing a pattern here.

My third roommate, Jeff, has a couple of things askew in his room but no damage as far as I could see.

As tired as I was, I couldn’t help but modify my theory. Besides, it was simple.

Andy worked five days a week and had to get up at seven each day. Because of this, he was always in bed by 9:00pm. However, Greg was currently in between jobs, and liked to watch TV downstairs until early in the morning. On more than one occasion – sometimes multiple times per night – Andy would come out of his room and ask Greg to turn the TV down.

Sometimes once was all it took. But other times it might be four or five times before the request was acted on, and by that time they both were screaming at each other like maniacs.

Like I said, it was simple. Andy finally had enough of the loud late-night TV, came downstairs, and in a fit of rage, smashed Greg’s TV screen with a hammer.

Greg then took the hammer, ran upstairs, and went to town on Andy’s stereo system. After he was done, Andy took the hammer and attempted to destroy Greg’s guitar.

My roommate Jeff likely tried to break them up – physically – which is why some of the stuff in his room was knocked around.

Simple.

So I unlocked my door, went into my room, and crashed for a well-needed rest, unaware that the real culprit in this mayhem was “Goose.”

—-

I met Goose for the first and only time when I woke up from my nap. His real name was Eric. I never did get his last name.

He was a friend of a friend – a transplant – who had been hanging out and partying at our house for the last three days.

Our house sat on the corner of our tract’s outlet street, right next to a main thoroughfare. Sitting on our front lawn, you could see a wall across the street which ran along the length of that thoroughfare denoting our neighbor’s backyards.

It was in one of those backyards where a honking sound began on the Saturday night I was trying to commune with dead Indians (sorry, that’s what we called them in 1986).

The sound was made by a goose.

Apparently, Goose – the friend of a friend, not the animal – was in the front yard drinking with my friends and roommates and got annoyed by this sound. So he announced to anyone who’d listen, “I’m going to go over there and kill that fucking goose.”

With that he threw down his beer, grabbed a club out of an old golf bag in the garage – I think it was a three-wood – ran across the street, and jumped the fence into a random neighbor’s backyard.

Immediately, he was confronted by a full-grown male Canadian goose, honking, and using its long neck to lunge and peck at him. According to Eric’s police deposition, he freaked out, took a swing, and despite never having played a hole in his life, connected flush with the head of the goose, immediately silencing it and in the process, separating it from life.

Eric claimed that he never meant to hurt the goose, just to scare it, but when it lunged at him, he panicked, causing him to take the fatal swing.

But that wasn’t the end of it and retaliation was swift. In addition to reporting it to the police, the owner of the goose got his brother and a buddy together, grabbed some tools, including – c’mon, you know where this is going – a hammer, broke into our house when everybody was out, and proceeded to do as much damage as possible to our highly prized consumer goods.

But he didn’t stop there. He also called the local newspapers – when local newspapers were social media – and begin a shame campaign.

So though Eric returned to the shithole from whence he came, never to face justice – or return to HB again, my roomates and I had to endure the scorn that arose from a series of front page articles about the goose murder, each one accompanied by a photo of the neighbors holding up their photo of Susie – their deceased pet goose.

The Goose published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

icarusthelunarguard · 3 years

Text

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

Aries

It’s OK to treat some things in simple black-and-white terms. For instance, “Yep, that's a panda.” You can tell because it went from “White Belt” directly to “Black Belt” and sounds like Jack Black. Release your inner Sith this week.

Taurus

Remember that colour TV you still have from 1980? Instead of paying for it to be disposed of, maybe it can be sold to a Retro-Gamer with an N64 and Atari 2600. “Trinitron” might be just another word for “Cha-CHING!”

Gemini

There’s a reason all your friends come to you with their problems; because you’re the one with the most revenge tactics. Consider setting up a Patreon account so you can help people for money in your spare time.

Cancer Moon-Child

Taking your pets to outdoor festivals is fun normally, but there are some pets you really should not do that with. Bearded Dragons, rescue squirrels, and ball pythons are not the worst choices, but Equines are. Remember……… Don’t Make An Ass Out Of Yourself.

Leo

You don’t need to run experiments with electricity to learn all about it. You just have to make some educated guesses about certain things. For instance trains are powered by the third rail, but it’s not the voltage in them that’ll kill you, it’s the amps. And how many amps does it carry? ENOUGH TO PUSH A TRAIN! Don’t play with electricity!

Virgo

People who say they can’t scrub images out of their heads with a steel brush have never actually tried to. Offer to prove them wrong with a cordless drill and a steel brush and watch how quickly they change their minds…. One way or another.

Libra

After months of backbreaking effort, you'll finally finish your first novel titled, “Going Into Labour: Birth, Politics, and Employment”. Until someone can figure out what category it should be sold in, it’ll never make it to store shelves. Settle down and write about just one topic.

Scorpio

Remember all those horror movies you watched in your youth? Now imagine how they might have worked out if a short angry Italian grandmother had been included. Her weapon of choice would be a tomato-stained wooden spoon or a thrown slipper. There’s your idea for your next film project called, “Halloween at Gamma’s”.

Sagittarius

You had the same horrible scope two weeks in a row and didn’t even realize it, did you? So this week you’re NOT going to say all the right things and make people happy. Matter of fact the only people who are going to talk with you are in games; specifically Phasmophobia. If you hear, “Kill!”, it might already be too late.

Capricorn

Scaring small children with your smile could land you the lead roll in 2044’s version of “IT”. Trouble is, how old will you be then? The only actor in movies now who will still look young enough then is Paul Rudd. He’ll be 75 years old, and he’ll STILL look about 30! You watch. You’ll see.

Aquarius

Normally we wouldn’t comment on your looks, but this week we have to. You could de-emphasize your nose if you wore something larger. Like, Wyoming. Breaking your nose playing goalie in futball is one thing. Letting your dog do it because they missed you and jumped up to lick your face is another! How many times has it been, Tony? How many times?

Pisces

In the entertainment industry they warn you, “Never Piss Off The Art Department.” Similarly you should NEVER piss off the I.T. department. After that password debacle they’ve decided to change your internal company phone number to “Nine Zero Three, Five Seven Six Eight.” Good luck getting your new business cards printed.

1 note · View note