________________________________________________ / \ | _________________________________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DOS & Don'ts | | | | | | | | A Modern Newsletter | | | | for Vintage-minded Folks | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | C:\>Issue #9 July 2024_ | | | |_________________________________________| | | | \_________________________________________________/ \___________________________________/ ___________________________________________ _-' .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. --- `-_ _-'.-.-. .---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--. .-.-.`-_ _-'.-.-.-. .---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-`__`. .-.-.-.`-_ :---------------------------------------------------------------: `---._.---------------------------------------------------._.---' ------------------ In this Issue... ------------------ Your Letters! Features ---------- Shark Week: Making a Splash for 36 Years, Grizzly Adam Tandy 1000 RSX, Joe Collett Pac-Man Fever, A Runaway Success, BlueMSX Columns --------- The Latent Image, Jon Mullin Retro Living in a Modern World, Grizzly Adam Bits & Bytes -------------- Random Access Memories Unclassifieds Ads ------------------------------------------------------------------------- __ __ __ __ __ \ \/ /___ __ _______ / / ___ / /_/ /____ __________ \ / __ \/ / / / ___/ / / / _ \/ __/ __/ _ \/ ___/ ___/ / / /_/ / /_/ / / / /___/ __/ /_/ /_/ __/ / (__ ) /_/\____/\__,_/_/ /_____/\___/\__/\__/\___/_/ /____/ -=Roman's Got a Gopher!=- Hello, I wanted to post a message in your mailing list about my gopher://shibboleths.org/ server with current programs for Windows 9x - XP, as well as DOS. Updates are made quite frequently. Thanks, Roman -=So long, Yousef=- Our friend and DOS & Don't contributor Yousef has moved on to greener pastures. We wish him the best of luck in all his future endeavors. Signed, The DOS & Don't Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _________.__ __ __ __ __ / _____/| |__ _____ _______| | __ / \ / \ ____ ____ | | __ \_____ \ | | \\__ \\_ __ \ |/ / \ \/\/ // __ \_/ __ \| |/ / / \| Y \/ __ \| | \/ < \ /\ ___/\ ___/| < /_______ /|___| (____ /__| |__|_ \ \__/\ / \___ >\___ >__|_ \ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ ______________________MAKING A SPLASH FOR 36 YEARS_____________________ ____________________________BY GRIZZLY ADAM____________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ ______________________/""-.____________________________________________ _____________________. '-,________________________________________ _____________________: '',_____________________________________ _____________________; * '.___________________________________ _____________________' * () '._________________________________ ______________________\ \________________________________ _______________________\ _.---.._ '.______________________________ ________________________: .' _.--''-'' \ ,'__________________________ __________.._____________'/.' . ;__________________________ ___________; `-.__________, \'__________________________ ____________; `,_________; ._\__________________________ _____________; \______,-' ''--.______________________ ______________: \_,-' '-.__________________ _______________\ ,-' . '-.______________ ______________.' __.-''; \...,__ '.___________ _____________.' _,-'_______\ \___''--.,__ '\_________ ____________/ _,--' ;__________\ ;___________"^.}________ ___________;_,-' ) \__)\______) ;_______________________ ________________/ \/ \_.,-' ;_______________________ _______________/ ;________________________ ____________,-' _,-'''-. ,-., ;_________________________ _________,-' _.-'________\ /____|/'-._...--'__________________________ ________:--``_____________)/___________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ The year is 1988 and the Discovery Channel is just 2 years old. A group of the channel's executives are having a drink at a local watering hole when suddenly one of the execs finds inspiration at the bottom of his bottle. "You know what would be cool? Shark Week!" Another exec jotted the idea down on a cocktail napkin. In the bright light of the following morning, it was decided that Shark Week would indeed be cool- or that is how the story goes. The reality is likely that shark-based programming was drawing good numbers, so an entire week dedicated to them would likely be a hit too. Shark week debuted on July 17, 1988. It was the height of beach season and despite its release 14 years earlier, Jaws and its subsequent sequels were still on every swimmer's mind. In case you haven't seen any of the commerc- ials in the last 36 years, Shark Week was a hit. It is now recognized as the longest-running cable television programming event in history. and is broadcasted in 72 different countries. The very idea was fire back in '88, and my 9 year-old self was all about it like that zombie kid was all about turtles. It has truly become a touchstone of summer. ______________________________ Early on, the Jaws references were / \ \ not uncommon. For example, the 1991 | | The DOS & Don'ts | Shark Week was called "The Revenge" \_ | Newsletter | in homage to the fourth and final Jaws | is | film, Jaws: The Revenge. Peter Benchley, | Looking for Authors | author of the novel the film was based | to write articles on | on, hosted the Shark Week programming in | retro subjects that they | '94. Shark Week has spawned many cross- | are passionate about. | promotions for other television programs | | under the Discovery Channel umbrella. | Sound like you? | The MythBusters , Jamie Hyneman and Adam | Contact Grizz at | Savage, hosted in 2005 and Mike Rowe of | grizzsoft@gmail.com | Dirty Jobs fame hosted in 2006. One of | _________________________|___ the odder crossovers was when profess- | / / ional wrestling company AEW featured a \_/____________________________/ Barbed Wire Death Match with a shark cage looming over the ring. Odder yet were the Dunkin' Donuts' Shark Bite Donuts and Cold Stone Creamery's Great White Bite ice cream, complete with blue gummy sharks. Speaking of gummies, I am surprised that I haven't found any evidence of Shark Week branded shark fruit snacks. For shame! Fruit snacks aside, Shark Week has not been without controversy. Even though it has its origins in the Jaws craze, it seems that the programming is now more focused on shark attacks than ever before. Viewers have noted that the programming has become increasingly more sensational and less fact-based as the years have gone by, and some have called their product- ions "docu-fiction." In 2005 Jonathan Davis, a marine biologist, reported that he was asked to let a shark bite him. You know, for ratings. Davis declined the offer. In an ill-received 2017 publicity stunt, Discovery advertised an hour-long program called "Phelps vs. Shark" where olympic gold medalist Micahel Phelps challenged a great white shark over a 100-meter stretch. Kind of. Not really, though. The shark was computer-generated and still defeated Phelps easily. The olympian, however, did manage to out-pace a reef shark in a warm-up race. The controversy surrounding this man vs. beast battle was two fold: Discovery's advertisements did not mention that the shark was CGI, and Phelps was wearing a swimming fin that goes against the Olympic rule book. Of course, the shark would have been disqualified for not wear- ing approved swimming trunks- so I say fair is fair. Back on the positive side, Shark Week has done a lot of good for shark- kind. Discovery has used Shark Week to raise funds for charity, primarily working with Oceana. What's more, they have dispelled many negative mis- conceptions about sharks and have spread awareness of exactly how important sharks are to ocean life. Sunday, July 7th will mark the 36th year of Shark Week, this time with John Cena as host. I will believe it when I see it. Anyway, what is your favorite shark? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Grizzly Adam: Grizz is one of those eccentrics that you read about. The type that people say marches to the beat of their own drum. His hobbies include writing, programming, computers, electronics, telephone systems, pyromania, and lawn care. Grizz's Website: grizz.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _________________________________________________________________________ | __________________ ______ __ | | |[]| | | /_ __/___ _____ ____/ /_ __ _____________ | | | | By | | / / / __ `/ __ \/ __ / / / / /____________/ | | | | Joe Collet | | / / / /_/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /____________/ | | | | | | /_/ \__,_/_/ /_/\__,_/\__, / /____________/ | | | |____________| | /____/ | | | __________ | _______ ____ ____ ____ ______ __ | | | | __ | | < / __ \/ __ \/ __ \ / __ \/ ___/ |/ / | | | || | | | / / / / / / / / / / / / /_/ /\__ \| / | | | || | | | / / /_/ / /_/ / /_/ / / _, _/___/ / | | | \____||__|______|__| /_/\____/\____/\____/ /_/ |_|/____/_/|_| | |_________________________________________________________________________| Another Tandy article? Really? Yeah, I know... I have a problem. How did I get another Tandy? Does it work? Do I have room for this? What are you going to do with it? Who is better, Captains Kirk or Picard?? All of these will be answered soon! So, a few weeks ago the same friend who offered me the previous Tandy (a 1400HD laptop) sent me a message and asked me if I wanted a Tandy Desktop. I asked him how much, what model, and condition. He told me it was a Tandy 1000 RSX and it was free- the best price ever. He sent a video of the machine booting up to Windows 95. It still had the original monitor and keyboard. I was stoked! I told him to give me a day so I could talk to my wife. I had already talked her into one retro computer that was now in need of repair, but I had it stored in the garage so it was out of sight and out of mind. I started to research the Tandy 1000 RSX. It was not your typical Tandy 1000 but more of a PC clone of the time. It did have the awesome Tandy sound board built in, but it did not function due to the IRQ address being different than on a standard AT motherboard. No big deal though- I love Tandy computers and I like this one. The device has a 386SX a slot for a math coprocessor and up to 9MB of RAM. I talked it over with the wife and she said OK, as long as it was mostly stored out in the garage like the other. I messaged my buddy and we arranged a time to for me to collect the computer. I met up with my friend at a gas station. He had the computer, monitor and everything in a blue plastic tub. He opened up the top and showed me some of the goodies. I could see the PC, the monitor, a 100MB parallel Zip drive with disks, other Microsoft software on floppy, and a serial mouse. Wow, I had hit the jackpot! I was so excited. It did look a little rough, though. Apparently it had been stored uncovered in a garage, so there was some cleaning to be done. No biggy. I asked my buddy for more information about the system. Unlike most machines where you never know what their story is, I had a story for this one. This PC was made around 1991 or 1992. My friend's dad used it in his home business for years. Then when my friend got it when he was in high school and upgraded it from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. He would use it to control little cars on a race track. That is pretty awesome if you ask me. I got the unit home and put it in the garage to work on later. My friend messaged me and said he forgot to give me the keyboard, it didn't get put in the box. I am still working on getting that- I really would like to have the Tandy branded keyboard. A few days later I got out the device and cleaned it up. There were signs of mouse homes, and mouse bathrooms. No biggie. I got all the dust and debris out and then cleaned with it up with alcohol and other cleaners. I cleaned the metal, motherboard, and cards. It mostly cleaned up pretty well, but the case has a few rust spots. I will need to do a good sand and see if I can find Tandy Beige in a spray can to redo the metal. I'm sure they keep that at the hardware store. (Editor's note: I found IBM beige at the hardware store a few years back!) Since I didn't have the keyboard, I had to break out one of my own: a UniComp 122 key PS/2 keyboard from 2010. This thing is a beast, and goes well with the computer. I had the serial mouse from my friend in the blue plastic bin, so I cleaned it up too. I put a towel down on the kitchen table, brought in the computer and monitor, and powered it on. It started right up and I was greeted with Windows 95. I was stoked. I excitedly called for my 14 year old, but he was not that impressed. Then I pulled up QBASIC and loaded Gorilla. After a single round he was hooked, thus passing on the love of old games and hardware to the next generation. When we were about to play our 4th or 5th round something happened. We heard a loud pop and smoke started to pour from the monitor. At first I was in shock, but when I realized that the monitor was still on I unplugged it and opened the back door. I unhooked and took the monitor outside on a table to air out. The monitor had released the magic smoke, a parable told by the electronically inclined- especially the older ones. The parable insists that electronics are secretly smoke powered, and that if the smoke escapes from a component, then it will no longer function. In this case it was a filter capacitor that lost its smoke. The capacitor is just used to filter the power coming in and everything will still work without it, but for safety I will need to replace it. I don't want to damage this monitor built in 1991. So that was the end of my new Tandy play time, but at least my house smelled like burnt rubber and electronics for the rest of the day. So, what are the plans for the new Tandy? I have looked at several options. Backing up the contents of the hard drive is a must, if for no reason other than to preserve how my friend controlled the toy race track. I would also like to put a SSD of some kind in there. My Buddy Grizz reminded me of the PicoMem, a card that can emulate networking cards, disk images, ethernet, and can even bring limited USB support. I think one of those with maybe another device that can emulate different sound cards would be great. I even looked into a different operating system (OS) to put on there. I haven't found a version of Linux that will run, but I did find out that NetBSD will. So, I could get a Unix/BSD system up and running on the machine. Why? Just because I can! I even thought about setting up a retro network in my house for my retro machines. But who knows? I still have many projects on the back burner ,including the Tandy 1400HD laptop I wrote about previously. Yep, Grizz and I have been thinking about a solution for that thing still, and Grizz has a solid idea for getting the original power supply working. OK, I think I'm done with talking about my retro computers for now. I promise to talk about something else for a while. If you guys have any ideas for uses for the Tandy 1000 RSX and/or the Tandy 1400HD, send me some feedback though the newsletter. Who knows- we might strike up a great conversation! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Joe Collett: Joe has been working with retro machines since he was a kid and the computers were new. He never lost his love of those early machines. His day job as a desktop support tech allows him to work with the newest machines, but he will always have a soft spot for the old machines and software that made the modern world possible. Joe's Website: comfortablynumb.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________________________________ / \ / ___________________________________________________________________ \ | | ___ __ ___ __ __ __ __ _ ___ ___ _ _ ___ ___ | | | | | _,\/ \ / _/ __ | V |/ \| \| | | __| __| \ / || __| _ \ | | | | | v_/ /\ | \_ |__|| \_/ | /\ | | ' | | _|| _|`\ V /'| _|| v / | | | | |_| |_||_|\__/ |_| |_|_||_|_|\__| |_| |___| \_/ |___|_|_\ | | | | | | | | .-. .--. | | | | | OO| / _.-' .-. .-. .-. .''. | | | | | | \ '-. '-' '-' '-' '..' | | | | '^^^' '--' | | | | _ __ _ _ _ __ __ | | | | /\ |_) | | |\ | /\ \ / /\ \_/ (_ | | / / |_ (_ (_ | | | | /--\ | \ |_| | \| /--\ \/\/ /--\ | __) |_| \_ \_ |_ __) __) | | | | _ _ _ __ | | | | |_) \_/ |_) | | | |_ |\/| (_ \/ | | | | |_) | |_) |_ |_| |_ | | __) /\ | | | |___________________________________________________________________| | \ / \_______________________________________________________________________/ Pac-Man was among the most popular games during the early 1980s, but it holds a unique position held by few others for one reason in particular- merchandising. Our story begins with a small band out of Arkon, Ohio, call- ed Buckner and Garcia. The band's name refers to its two members Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia. While they'd done smaller singles and albums prior (such as Animal Jack and Merry Christmas to the NFL), these songs were mainly done for the radio and for novelty use. It would be in January 1982, that the song which would truly form their legacy would be created. Dubbed Pac-Man Fever, the song itself was an up- beat, dance style song that was based on Pac-Man's gameplay. The song's title referenced the huge success Pac-Man was enjoying during that time. The song would be first released as a single available on 8-Track, vinyl, and standard audio cassettes. The song would rise to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, coming to rest in 9th place for that year, thanks in no small part to the popularity of its namesake game. It would also earn the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Gold Certification for selling over 1 million copies. With the success of the single, Buckner and Garcia would record an entire Pac-Man Fever album that followed the video game theme. Included on the album are Froggy's Lament, Ode to a Centipede, Do the Donkey Kong, Hyper- space, The Defender, Mousetrap, and Goin' Berzerk. Like Pac-Man Fever, each of these songs were based on a popular arcade game from the era- Frogger, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender, Mousetrap, and Berzerk, respectively. For the album proper, additional instrumentalists were brought in includ- ing Mike Stuart on synth, Chris Bowman on electric guitar, Larry McDonald on bass, Ginny Whitaker on drums, and David Cole on electric drums. Follow- ing the same dancehall style as the prior Pac-Man fever each song takes the listener through the basic ins-and-outs of the game it's based upon. The album would see similar success to the prior Pac-Man Fever single, with Do the Donkey Kong becoming popular enough to reach 3rd place on Bubble Under Hot 100 chart for 1982. Amidst all this, an actual Pac-Man Fever was sweeping the United States and beyond. Pac-Man would be merchandised heavily during this period with drinking glasses, tv trays, a literal toilet seat, and even a cartoon series produced by Hanna Barbera which lasted for 44 episodes. From board games to bedsheets, to Coleco's Tabletop units, Pac-Man Fever had truly sweeped the United States. (Editor's note: I had a coffee cup, the board game and the bedsheets in my youth). Other popular game characters would see similar merchandising such as a Donkey Kong plush produced by ETone, various cartoon series, and countless licensed lunch boxes. However, this wouldn't last forever. Only a year after the Pac-Man Fever Album was released, the Video Game Crash of 1983 would go into full swing. This not only spelled doom for many of the companies involved in the United States video game market, but also meant that many of the related merchandising would go the way of the dodo. While the industry would recover in 1985, thanks in no small part to Nintendo and Worlds of Wonder, Pac-Man would never see the same level of mainstream success with merchandising. However, Buckner and Garcia would continue to make new songs and albums. These new works would even include a digitally remastered version of their Pac-Man Fever album, which was released on CD in 1999. In the modern day, Pac-Man is still fondly remembered by many. Smaller scale merchandise is still created for him, and many other video game characters- a new version of the Pac-Man board game would even be released in 2019. While relatively unknown today, the Pac-Man Fever Song, Album, and wave merchandise remain an interesting footnote in arcade history. Happy Gaming! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About BlueMSX: BlueMSX, Blue for short, enjoys retro technologies, history, and learning for the sake of learning. She has been interested in retro electronics and media for nearly as long as she can remember. This fascination means that she has a lot of great stories to recount. Blue's philosophy can be summed up by the quote, "History is like a puzzle- the more pieces you have the more sense it makes." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | The Latent Image - with Jon Mullin | | | | This Month: | | A Boy and His Packard Bell | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi readers! I've had a couple family emergencies last month, so no photo article. I like to have a couple articles in my pocket for when we need an extra emergency article, and this is one of those! Don't worry, camera articles are coming back next month! Recently I received an old desktop PC, an Acer, which was missing its hard drive. Since it functioned fine otherwise, I thought it would make for a nice retro game system. The more I worked to bring it to life, the more I didn't want to call it old though. It wasn't old, compared to my first computer. For some reason, working on a decade old system reminded me of the old computer I used through my youth: A Packard Bell Legend Multimedia. In the early 1990s a middle-aged man was browsing the aisles of a local department store. He is looking for a home computer for him, his wife, and their grandchildren. There it was, a Packard Bell that was bundled with an impressive software package. It was the right price and had all the things he and his family would need. He finds the sales person, hands them the money, and brings the PC home. He unpacks everything, planning to put it together after dinner. The man's youngest grandson wanted to see the cards move in solitaire. So he sneaks into the bedroom, plugs all the cables into the ports, plugs it into the wall, and is off to the races! The grandfather comes into the room after some time, shocked that his 4 year old grandson just set it all up. The boy was just sitting there, moving the cards and giggling with a myriad of random windows opened in the background. The man sits by his grandson and pops him on his lap. They spent the rest of the night playing solitaire together until it was time for bed. That boy was me. The Packard Bell had an Intel 386DX, 4 megabytes of RAM, a 170 megabyte hard drive, a 14 inch color monitor and ran Windows 3.1. The slew of software it came with was memorable as well. I remember it had a digital tour of the San Diego Zoo called "The Animals!," that I played quite a bit as a child. It was fun and comforting as a child to explore the zoo and learn about animals across the world. Eventually my family would move out of my grandparents house and into our own. We would play on the Packard Bell when we went to visit, and as I got older I would write book reports on that computer. We did eventually get our own computer at home, but I loved that Packard Bell. My grandmother got a new computer in the early 2000s though, and sadly the Packard Bell was put into the storage shed. Not long after getting their new computer, I was helping my grandmother clean out the shed. I saw the Packard Bell, and asked if I could have it. She agreed, and gave me the computer, the software she did have, and her old printer (which needed ink). I took it home, set it up, and Windows wouldn't start! I was devastated. I looked in the gargantuan software binder she gave me and saw the install disks for Windows 3.1! That excite- ment was quickly quelled when I saw, one disk was missing. The only set I had completed was for MS DOS 6.22 which my grandfather purchased at one point for work. I chose to install DOS, and promptly got a ride to the library to check out a book on how to use it. Despite losing windows, I still typed all my documents on MS DOS's text editor until I graduated high school. I played Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken for hours on it. I didn't have a lot of software for DOS, but I cherished the software I had. Eventually, the Packard Bell wouldn't turn on. I was saddened by this, but it was 2008. I had to say goodbye to the Packard Bell, but I'll never forget about it. Even to this day, when I see a command prompt I have to type DIR and watch as a sea of directories fly by. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jon Mullin: Jon has been photographing professionally since 2008, but has been surrounded all his life by the small and quirky point and shoot Kodaks that his father collected. Now he photographs pets and people in unique and interesting ways. Jon's Website: jonmullin.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,---. ,---. / /"`.\.--"""--./,'"\ \ \ \ _ _ / / `./ / __ __ \ \,' / /_O)_(_O\ \ | .-' ___ `-. | .--| \_/ |--. ,' \ \ | / / `. / `. `--^--' ,' \ .-"""""-. `--.___.--' .-"""""-. .-----/ \------------------/ \--------. | .---\ /----------------- \ /------. | | | `-`--`--' `--'--'-' | | | | Retro Living in a Modern World | | | | | | | | with Grizzly Adam | | | | | | | | This Installment: Operation Wii | | | |_________________________________________________| | |_____________________________________________________| It doesn't seem that long since Nintendo released their Wii console and motion controls took the world by storm. For close to a month I would call around to all of the big box stores seeking any intel that would help. Eventually, I got a solid lead. The Wal-mart just north of us was one of the last of their smaller stores, before they all became super-sized. This meant that they would close down every night, which is when they would do most of their restocking. Easy. I showed up as they opened for a few days, until that Thursday morning when my efforts were rewarded. My family and I had a great time playing that Wii for many years to come. Fast forward to the present. Nintendo has long since closed down their Wi-Fi Connection (WFC) service, effectively killing online gameplay on the console. Or did it? For about a year now, fellow DOS & Don'ts contributor Joe Collett and I have been talking about finding a way, and some time, to play games together online. Eventually we settled on using the Wii, which is renowned for its hackability and its homebrew scene. I am no stranger to the Wii homebrew scene, as I softmodded mine shortly after purchase. This allowed me to play backed up games, homebrew titles, and ROMs for many retro consoles. While we haven't played many Wii games in the last few years, it has remained in use as an emulation station. Step one, we needed to come up with a list of games that used WFC connectivity. NintendoFandom.com had a nice list of online games for the Wii, but the list did need some vetting. Many of the games listed did indeed have "online capabilities" but did not actually allow for online gameplay. Most of these featured an online scoreboard, where you could measure your performance against other players from around the world. While cool, that's not what we are looking for. Some of the intriguing games that allow for actual online play include We Love Golf, WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009, Deca Sports II and III, Hooked Again: Real Motion Fishing, and Winter Stars. There was also a surprisingly large list of WiiWare titles including Mart Racer, Pool Revolution: Cue Sports, TV Show King 2, and Major League Eating. Of course, there are also the perpetual favorites Mario Kart Wii, Animal Crossing: City Folk, and Smash Bros. Brawl. Good thing Joe and I own all of these games! Step two, we need to get online. The WFC services have been discontinued since 2014, but a couple community-based replacements have since sprung up. The original and best known replacement is Wiimmfi (pronounced weem-fi, maybe) and has been around since May 10, 2014- 10 days before Nintendo would shut down WFC. There are several ways to use Wiimmfi, such as ROM and WAD patching, and hot-patching for discs. Wiimmfi hot-patch support is even built into USBLoaderGX! The other major WFC service is WiiLink, which recently absorbed WiiConnect24. The folks at WiiLink have done a lot of work to get official channels like the Forecast, News, Everybody Votes, and Check Mii Out channels back online. These channels work with both Wiimmfi and WiiLink. Ultimately, we decided to go with Wiimmfi and set up USBLoaderGX accordingly. I also patched all of the WiiWare titles we had decided on. Step three, proof of concept. After getting everything setup on my Wii's SD card, I zipped up its contents and sent it to Joe. Over the phone, I guided him through installing a few custom firmware IOS (CIOS for short) and we both jumped into a game of Pool Revolution. The game might take some getting used to, but Joe and I were able to have a game of 9-ball online! Step four, go on vacation. This is an optional step. Just as this project was heating up, I got on a jet plane headed for the continental divide and just returned home yesterday. I think we are all set, ready to play but we obviously need to test more than one game before calling the project a rousing success. Next month I will report back on operation Wii plus give a significant update on my retro lifestyle. Until then, stay retro! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Grizzly Adam: Grizz is one of those eccentrics that you read about. The type that people say marches to the beat of their own drum. His hobbies include writing, programming, computers, electronics, telephone systems, pyromania, and lawn care. Grizz's Website: grizz.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,------------------. ( Our Readers' ) > Random Access < ( Memories ) `-----------(_)----' 0 o .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. GroovyGravy writes: Don't power on that Coleco Adam with a casette in the machine! Don't blow into NES carts! Magoo writes: I Don't know how to put it as a memory but the boxes from that era with the graphics and manuals. I remember Lucas arts their finest hour was a history book combined with the game manual. I do miss them in this here is the disc or download era. Faceless-man writes all the way from Turkey: Watching Pokemon as a Youngester who had just gotten his first phone. Only the first season, though, because it was banned in my country at the time. Not growing up with Mario, Sonic, Yu-Gi-Oh or anything and just learning and loving them at age 16. While everyone else had already got PS4s and X-boxes and I was playing Mario and Pokemon games on my phone's GBA emulator. Not knowing English very well at the time, I always had to stop playing after a cetain point because i couldn't understand what I need to do to complete the game. I stopped playing, picked it up 2 years later and finished it in two days. I genuinely cried after winning the game. That was just the start of my journey with emulators and retro games. .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. ================== | UNCLASSIFIED ADS | ================== ############################### # POLARIS NUCLEAR SUB # # Fires ROCKETS and TORPEDOES # # Only $6.98 # ############################### *Over 7 feet long *Seat 2 kids *Controls that work *Rockets that fire *Real periscope *Firing torpedoes *Electrically lit Instrument panel How proud your child will be as commander of his own POLARIS SUB--the most powerful weapon in the world! What hours of imaginative play and fun as he and his friends dive, surface, maneuver, watch the enemy through the periscope and fire their nuclear missiles and torpedoes! What thrills as they play at hunting sunken treasures in pirate waters and exploring the strange and mysterious bottom of the ocean floor! HOURS AND HOURS OF ADVENTURE Sturdily constructed of 200 lb. test fibreboard. 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