A lot of people are complaining about twitter as the delivery method for this kind of content. I actually really like it, having things broken up like this makes it much easier for me to digest because of my ADHD
Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
121–130 of 143 posts
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was commenting about the SNES version of Pilotwings also not having a proper sequel. Been wanting one since '92 or so, don't remember when I beat it for the first time. Also, my copy of Pilotwings the Biplane crashes, always thought it was weird that the demo would do that. Guess I'm gonna have to find a copy with the other chip.
Oh! I was assuming the N64 version was a sequel of the SNES version. Never thought of them as unrelated.
Pilotwings 64 was a sequel. I'll be honest I never played the SNES version as I had a Genesis instead of an SNES around that time so maybe the SNES version had different mechanics that the previous poster missed in the N64 version and he doesn't consider it a true sequel. Not quite sure...
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Came here to say the same. Someone needs to tell these people that Twitter is not a blogging service...
But... that's exactly what it is
It's a microblog service. It's funny that Twitter originally came from the idea of just having a list/feed of AIM/Yahoo Messenger away messages.
It's about using the right tools for the job, and in this case, a regular long form blog post or a video is a much better tool than a ton of chained Tweets.
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#124This hits on something I've wondered about for a long time. Since carts did not just include data, but also mappers and coprocessors, how do you write an emulator that can accurately play an arbitrary ROM dump?
Does your emulator have to have knowledge of every single game, and what mappers and/or "helper" chips each had, and emulate just the ones appropriate for a given game?
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#125This hits on something I've wondered about for a long time. Since carts did not just include data, but also mappers and coprocessors, how do you write an emulator that can accurately play an arbitrary ROM dump? Does your emulator have to have knowledge of every single game, and what mappers and/or "helper" chips each had, and emulate just the ones appropriate for a given game?
Yep. Exactly.
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#126This hits on something I've wondered about for a long time. Since carts did not just include data, but also mappers and coprocessors, how do you write an emulator that can accurately play an arbitrary ROM dump? Does your emulator have to have knowledge of every single game, and what mappers and/or "helper" chips each had, and emulate just the ones appropriate for a given game?
They do, absurdly enough. See for example BSNES, https://byuu.org/ , here's a quote from their most recent release notes: "If the coprocessor firmware is missing, bsnes will fallback on HLE where it is supported, which is everything other than SD Gundam GX and the two Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shougi games."
See past HN submissions about the extreme lengths BSNES goes to in order to get this data: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3675123 , "In order to extract these programs from most of the DSPs, we had to decap the chips, scan them in with an electron microscope, and 'tweak' the processors to allow us to dump their protected program ROMs."
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#127There is a good debugging advice related to this story: "if your code is the same but suddenly starts behaving differently, check for hidden state."
You're right – but I don't think "hardware" usually counts as state!
We don't generally count hardware as state because we expect it to be a reliable abstraction, but this same attitude applies to other things we do too: note that any program you've ever compiled can also count the compiler itself as state; this is the whole foundation for trusting-trust attacks!
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh! I was assuming the N64 version was a sequel of the SNES version. Never thought of them as unrelated.
Pilotwings 64 was a sequel. I'll be honest I never played the SNES version as I had a Genesis instead of an SNES around that time so maybe the SNES version had different mechanics that the previous poster missed in the N64 version and he doesn't consider it a true sequel. Not quite sure...
All of the Pilotwings games are great. But the later 2 (64 and resort) have a different look and feel than the original.
For me the difference is 2d flight sim from the 16bit era vs the much more advanced 3d polygon driven flight sim of the later games. Think Mario World vs Mario 64. The original Pilotwings has a charm of its own that isn't in the other games.
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> I had a Genesis instead of an SNES around that time
One thing I miss from that era of gaming, households were typically one or the other, at the time I didn't know anybody that had both Nintendo and Sega. I had to sell my NES to upgrade to SNES (I was 7, it was a big deal to me).
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was commenting about the SNES version of Pilotwings also not having a proper sequel. Been wanting one since '92 or so, don't remember when I beat it for the first time. Also, my copy of Pilotwings the Biplane crashes, always thought it was weird that the demo would do that. Guess I'm gonna have to find a copy with the other chip.
Oh! I was assuming the N64 version was a sequel of the SNES version. Never thought of them as unrelated.
They are related in name and activity, but they don't have the same look and feel.
If you called Pilotwings 64 a reboot of the original Pilotwings you wouldn't be wrong.
Re: Pilotwings demos act differently depending on when the cartridge was made
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of these are priority and value judgements. The author sees all that very differently from how you do. Additionally, there are numerous others, myself included, who see it differently. Frankly, I am quite happy to take it however an author feels they can share it. Often, that brings context of value to me as well. Not all of us care about optimal when reading. It is just reading. No big.
You and gdulli (and soon to be me I'm sure) are being mass-downvoted by people who trend way older than the current people using social media, who grew up on blogs and written form, and thus hate everything new. I personally prefer reading a blog too, but I realize that some people who have adaptive issues (the OP has severe ADHD and only writes effectively on Twitter, something basically no one criticizing him has l…
I am old enough to appreciate more traditional form and style. Your initial paragraph could be speaking right to me. I do not care, but some might!
Just saying :D
Made a decision during the early 00's: embrace the new. Flow.
Basically, I am willing, and often do the work to remain able to return comms to me, or that I encounter, using the same transport, norms and style.
This has not been all that tough. Often, doing it is super interesting too.
I have had entire emoji / gif conversations with younger people, for example. I found out having a pen on my phone gave me superpowers too. Uber decorations! My 3 yr old granddaughter can't read yet, but does understand emoji and texts then to me all the time.
What will the norms be when she comes of age? I may live long enough to find out! And it will be fun.
The thing that got me moving this way is time spent with my own kids online. Old era chat. Being with them was like immersion.
One day, I dropped a string of typical chatter on a forum where us parents were talking about kids online. I translated it to make a point.
That point was lost amidst a ton of meta from parents:
YOU CAN READ THAT?
Yes, and could speak it then too.
I had broadband, most homes did not. I would come home from work to see a pile of kids all doing stuff online on the old machines I kept setting up. Had a few older workstations as Internet stations.
Edit: side note, those kids used Win NT, Win 98, Linux, IRIX (lol, an indy) and did not care, other than for how to launch a browser and find a file, or make a picture. /side note
Until that moment, I had no idea there was such a profound chasm and that many people have trouble getting across!
Truth is, the younger peeps among us are often where the fun stuff is. And nobody has to know you are old on the Internet.
:D
My inner 12 year old is always pleased when I find myself on the occasional lark into strange lands online. Younger family members know this. They will reach out, and when I respond in like kind, they share. More people should try it.
At any given time there is a sea of younger people seeking to establish their norms and identity online, and the difference between now and back then is everyone doing that fresh (so many getting online together), where today many have done it and have solidified some, leaving newbies to their play more isolated.
This appears to work just like music used to.
Anyone old enough, pre Internet basically, remembers decades of music. Most imprint during their teen years. And they sort of lock in, quit exploring.
Interestingly, I love experiencing new music so much that I also made a similar decision in the 90's having felt music begin to move on without me. That is to sample the new and talk to people during their formularive years for insight as to where the trends are. New music is fun! (And can be strange, annoying, beautiful, all that)
TL;DR: We all get old, and getting older sucks. If we do the work to retain our sense of play, getting older sucks a lot less.
Play. You will live longer and have more fun and likely not get an optimal output from your life too. But you will have had fun and will likely improve on the net happiness in the world.