SNES mini - The Bear and Badger

Unlikely

I spent hours copying the copy protection documentation manually. The code wheel for Legends of Valor was a bastard, and I seem to remember Civilization had a massive manual with a different picture on every page, which I had to draw by hand.

poprock

cockbeard wrote:

Pah, us poor folk had to note down the counter number on the cassette where different games loaded new levels or on som compilations where different games where. OutRun and California games I'm looking at you. ALternatively half press play and hope you had stopped it at the right sized pause in high speed extra high pitch load tones else you'd load the wrong game/level

Didn’t realise you were old enough to remember the Speccy/C64/Amstrad days.

I used to copy loads of games on to one C90 with the high-speed dubbing on my midi system, and then wonder why they didn’t work.

poprock

Unlikely wrote:

I spent hours copying the copy protection documentation manually. The code wheel for Legends of Valor was a bastard, and I seem to remember Civilization had a massive manual with a different picture on every page, which I had to draw by hand.

All of this complex piracy malarkey is why I never got on with the consoles of the time. Putting in a cartridge that you’d actually paid for seemed wrong, somehow. Sort of un-British. videogames were all about underdog ingenuity and difficult workarounds to break the copy protection.

As such I missed out on the Master System, the NES, the Megadrive and the SNES. Didn’t look at console gaming at all until the PlayStation came along.

mk64

Jesus i'd forgotten about that shit in the manuals to prove you hadn't copied the game! lol

I also remember the spectrum days, I didn't have one but my friends did. It used to take about ten minutes to load up "Oh Mummy". It was dog shit too but we played it.

I think we stopped playing the spectrum when handhelds like Tomytronix and nintendo handhelds came out. The spectrum felt dated then even if the depth of the games was more.

[Deleted User]

I remember my dad coming home with photocopied manuals in a plastic wallet with hand written labeled floppy disks.
They had a looky looky man that also worked as a cleaner at the airport.

Would never happen now of course.

retroking1981

davyK wrote:

Unlikely wrote:

Can't see the video but I thought the "C" designation was because "A" and "B" were typically reserved for floppy drives.

Aye. I reckon there will be a few here young enough to not realise that.

I do

Only just though tbh. I'm old enough to remember the advent of the CD-ROM D : drive.

My first PC didn't have one but my Uncle who was tech savvy installed one for me. A Creative 2X speed.

My first PC was a Mitac, not exactly a household name, not even sure how big they were then tbh.

It was a 486 DX2 66MHz can't remember the RAM unfortunately but I'm pretty sure the HDD came in at a whopping 60MB.

mk64

My first computer was a 486 dx2 66mhz and had 4mb ram. The more expensive model about three months later had 8 but alot of games played on 4 but choppy (destruction derby). It was the first model before the pentium series of processors started.

davyK

I can remember using an IBM PC at university that had no hard drive - just 2 floppy drives. This was around 1987 or so. Even then it was old - but hard drives were small then - first one I used was 30MB.

So I had drive A holding the compiler and drive B holding my source files and compiled EXEs. I wrote a little database program for a friend that used drive A for the EXE I created and it accessed drive B for data.

Then the C drive came along and things got a lot easier.

SInce those machines had no hard drive the OS was on a disc in drive A. So you had to have an MS-DOS or CPM or equivalent disc to boot from. I think the IBM PC may have had its OS in ROM. Can't remember all the details.

The micros had their OS - or an excuse for an OS - in ROM which is what made them so easy to use.

The Daddy

Getting an HDD installed in the A1200 was a revelation. No disk swapping for me matey. Apart from the games that didn’t work from it.

mk64

on topic quickly - does the snes mini count towards nintendo points?

WorKid

Yes, I got a flier in with the console. Are the points worth collecting?

EvilRedEye

You can get a Zelda Picross games with 1000 points... Digital tat and stuff... It's not like the old thing where you got physical stuff but it's worth having an account. Redeem now cos the code expires mid-November.

Tbh, it kind of annoys me because there are no physical rewards yet the points expire really quickly.

Escape

poprock wrote:

And that was only after we moved to HD (high density) floppies … beforehand it used to be half that!

Yes! 720s for the A500. I had a box of those (remember their lockable trays?) left over when I had my first PC. That was a P120 with 8MB RAM, and the first game that I found to require 16 was, unexpectedly, Magic: The Gathering.

I mentioned the Cube's 1.5GB discs, but the N64 was much worse-off when you think about it. 32 for Ocarina's absolutely amazing; I'd have had Lake Hylia down as a few MB by itself. Nintendo also had to cut a few things from A Link to the Past when they translated it from Japanese, because English used up more memory and they'd already hit their ceiling.

davyK

Ocarina was supposed to be a DD drive game but they canned that when the peripheral didn't work out. There was a rumour of a "Gaiden" side quest in it that had to be dropped for the move to cartridge and that ended up being Majora's Mask. That could be tosh though.

Disappointed that the VC version of F-Zero X didn't include the track editor and extra cups that the DD drive construction kit had.

monkey

poprock wrote:

Unlikely wrote:

I spent hours copying the copy protection documentation manually. The code wheel for Legends of Valor was a bastard, and I seem to remember Civilization had a massive manual with a different picture on every page, which I had to draw by hand.

All of this complex piracy malarkey is why I never got on with the consoles of the time. Putting in a cartridge that you’d actually paid for seemed wrong, somehow. Sort of un-British. videogames were all about underdog ingenuity and difficult workarounds to break the copy protection. As such I missed out on the Master System, the NES, the Megadrive and the SNES. Didn’t look at console gaming at all until the PlayStation came along.

I had a super wild card for the snes. A floppy disk drive with a cartridge at the bottom to fit into the slot on the console. Bought games for a quid a time at the car boot, or copied them from the rental shop.

mistercrayon

LtPidgeon wrote:

mistercrayon wrote:

LtPidgeon wrote:

Any word on the hack for this being released? It's a pain in the arse having to get up to change games.

If you have a wii pro controller then the home button replicates the reset button.

I think I do have one of those. Would a Wii U Pro controller do the same? I would imagine my Wii controllers are stashed in a box somewhere.

I don't think so. The wired connector for the wii pro controller is what connects to the snes mini. Thinking about it its probably a pointless solution given that wire is even shorter.

hylian_elf

EvilRedEye wrote:

You can get a Zelda Picross games with 1000 points... Digital tat and stuff... It's not like the old thing where you got physical stuff but it's worth having an account. Redeem now cos the code expires mid-November. Tbh, it kind of annoys me because there are no physical rewards yet the points expire really quickly.

No physical stuff to get is why I'm not bothering anymore.

mistercrayon

I’d be fine if the digital stuff wasn’t pure garboldo.

mk64

monkey wrote:

poprock wrote:

Unlikely wrote:

I spent hours copying the copy protection documentation manually. The code wheel for Legends of Valor was a bastard, and I seem to remember Civilization had a massive manual with a different picture on every page, which I had to draw by hand.

All of this complex piracy malarkey is why I never got on with the consoles of the time. Putting in a cartridge that you’d actually paid for seemed wrong, somehow. Sort of un-British. videogames were all about underdog ingenuity and difficult workarounds to break the copy protection. As such I missed out on the Master System, the NES, the Megadrive and the SNES. Didn’t look at console gaming at all until the PlayStation came along.

I had a super wild card for the snes. A floppy disk drive with a cartridge at the bottom to fit into the slot on the console. Bought games for a quid a time at the car boot, or copied them from the rental shop.

How did you find about this sort of thing in like 1993? My friend had one at school and I was so jealous. He would raid block busters and then had everything. When he let me loose on it I was like a kid in a candy shop. I just couldn’t stop smiling. He also had sky and used to record wwf for me. Lol.

retroking1981

I sold all the physical tat I got from My Nintendo, or Club Nintendo as it was known then.

I much prefer having discounts on games personally.

Although they need to get their finger out and introduce these 'Switch Rewards' that's had a place marker on the site for months now.

Whilst I'm on the subject the Switch eshop desperately needs to be redesigned now, it's basic as fuck. The Wii U one shames it and that's not exactly something to brag about.

And hurry up with Netflix, youtube etc.

Anyway, My Nintendo points... you may as well redeem them, doesn't hurt to have offers at your disposal.

Escape

mk64 wrote:

How did you find about this sort of thing in like 1993?

Given that they weren't available from UK retailers or magazines, it must've been word-of-mouth from indies via import. I think there was one for the Mega Drive, as well? But it was something like £300.

monkey

A guy who was at the local car boot every week selling pirated stuff. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

Questor

Word of mouth and car boot sales were the friend of the pirates in the 80s and 90s.

Everyone at school and college who had the same computer all had basically the same collection of games, as we all copied each others stuff.

I also remember 'modding' my megadrive to play import games by taking a hacksaw to the little lugs on the back of the cartridge port. If only it was so easy with some later machines!

[Deleted User]

To be fair if there is one thing that is eroding it is the needless region specific games.

My understanding is it was a necessity due to power outputs at one point. Then greed set in. Now you can switch regions and download games on offer elsewhere.

LtPidgeon

mistercrayon wrote:

I don't think so. The wired connector for the wii pro controller is what connects to the snes mini. Thinking about it its probably a pointless solution given that wire is even shorter.

I guess I'll have to have a rummage then. Thanks.

Unlikely

Oh Mummy was not shit.

cockbeard

I preferred Spannerman out of those two

But Oh Mummy seemed to influence the Ghostbusters game a bit so that was good

Unlikely

To be fair, it might have been shit on the Spectrum - I had it on the Amstrad.

CPC master race.

ChopperByrne

CPC 464 was a glorious machine.

Did you have the colour monitor, or the poverty green screen monitor like me?

Unlikely

Colour monitor AND DMP2000 dot matrix printer (Dumpy).

My mate had the 6128 though. Flashy disk drive-having bastard.

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