JB0

Actually one good thing about this micro-GBA SP. The regular SP will drop in price, and I'll be able to pick up a backup GBA SP for cheap. That way, when the first SP gives out (hopefully never), I'll have another ready to go. Of course, I'll take the battery out for long term storage. Won't do to have battery leakage destroying the unit before I can use it. What's gonna kill you is the LiIon battery pack has a ... I think it's 10-year life... from date of manufacture. After that time, they're pretty much useless, no matter how well you cared for it(even if you maintained it at it's optimum 2/3s charge for every second of it's life). Fortunately, Nintendo seems to be using the same LiIon pack for the DS, so the SP has gotten a new lease on life. With luck, they'll stick with the same pack through the forseeable future.

What the Jaguar did (like what the Dreamcast did) was to claim to have a certain bit processor, when they actually had two half-bit processors. I forget the Jaguar's numbers, but in the case of the Dreamcast, they claimed 128-bit with two 64 bit processors. And as you can see, the Dreamcast was more powerful than the 64-bit N64... damn near the true 128-bit PS2. The bait! I MUST NOW REPLY! Jaguar claimed to be 64-bit. And in point of fact, two of it's five processors(spread across three chips) ARE 64-bit. It has a 16-bit 68k(intended for bootstrapping and IO processing, only capable of reading 16-bits of the bus at a time), a pair of identical general-purpose 32-bit RISC cores(one in Tom{designated for central processing}, one in Jerry{designated the digital signal processor, and intended for audio work}, though only the one in Tom can read all 64 bits of the bus at once, due to the limitations of the Jerry chip, whcih can only "see" 32 bits at a time), and two 64-bit processors in Tom, both of which are intended for graphics work(the blitter and object processor are both fully programmable general-purpose processors). Interesting aspect to the Jaguar is that there's very little hard-wired into the system. While all processors had recommended uses, that didn't mean you had to do it. You CAN use the "blitter" as your main processor should you desire. You can even have everything running on the 68k, and totally ignore the other 4 processors completely(many titles, particularly SNES/Genesis ports, did exactly this). All 5 processors can access everything on the system. The hardware is totally, completely, utterly insane. The argument for the Jaguar being 64-bits ultimately rests in the system bus. Most systems have a central processor(or in multi-processor systems, several identical chips) responsible for all system activity, which aside from being the logical measure of "bittage," defines the system bus. The Jaguar has no true central processor, and the system bus is 64-bits to ensure it's wide enough to accomodate all the devices on the system(graphics chip Tom specifically). So they count the bus width. Ultimately, however, trying to classify the Jaguar's "bittage" is futile and will leave you with nothing but a headache(so it's a good thing bittage doesn't really matter). And the Dreamcast is a single-processor system. I think you're thinking of the TG16, which had 2 8-bit processors, but a single 16-bit graphics chipset. DC IS in a similar boat in one respect, however. While it had a single 64-bit CPU(or 32, I've seen conflicting data on the SH-4, and think it might depend on which specific variant you use, as well as where you count the "bittage"), the graphics chipset was 128-bit, and they claimed the GPU bittage(I believe both companies were careful to say that it was x-bit graphics, not an x-bit system, though I could be mistaken{it's very possible NEC was thinking 8+8=16}). Other oddities: Saturn has 3 32-bit processors(2 of which are SH-2 CPUs, one of which is an SH-1 intended for CD drive operation) and a 16-bit one(68k variant intended for sound hardware control). If I recall, at least one SH-2 MUST be used for central processing or the system no workie, and all CD access has to go through the SH-1. NeoGeo and CPS2 both have a 16-bit CPU(68000) and 8-bit sound processor(Z80). SNK advertised the home version of the NeoGeo as a 24-bit system, because it was 8+16. A fully tricked out Genesis has 2 32-bit SH-2 processors in the 32x, a 16-bit 68000 and 8-bit Z80 in the base Genesis, and another 16-bit 68000 in the SegaCD. And which one/s is/are in command depends on what software you're running, from the Z80(Master System software) through the twin SH-2s(32x). The base Genesis is at least clear enough. In Genesis mode, the 68k is the CPU, and in Master System mode, the Z80 is the CPU(and the 68k is offline) The Intellivision, despite being pre-NES, uses a 16-bit processor(name forgotten). A 16-bit chip that takes 10-bit instructions, no less. Figure that one out. The XBox, while bieng hte most powerful current-gen system, uses a 32-bit CPU. Bottom line... bits are meaningless, and not just because no one's ever defined hat "bittage" is. Long as I'm here, I'll provide commentary on the rest... For what it's worth, the big bottleneck comes at RAM access, if I recall. Multiple devices usually can't access RAM at the same time, so they don't screw each other's work up. How many shader operations per second do you need? Do you even know what that means? Shhhhh, you'll make his head hurt. Fact(?): The Xbox 360 has licensed BLAST PROCESSING!* from Sega. *Actually, I defend blast processing as clever marketing to communicate the superiority of the Genesis CPU to a market that thought 68000 was the appropriate # of beers to drink at a frat party, and megahertz was what their head did the next morning. But it's still easy to make fun of. It has a lot less. You don't need to be as fast (mind you, I didn't catch the PS3's speed, but the 360's is 700MHz) if you don't have to read and write from it as often. Reminds me of the SNES/Genesis days, when Nintendo attempted to confuse the issue. "SO Sega claims the Genesis is faster. Well how do we measure system speed? Sure their CPU runs faster, but our RAM runs faster. So see, it's hard to say which is better." Yes, they actually claimed that. I still have the GamePro with the ad in it(2-page spread, designed to look like an impartial editorial column), though Althena herself would have trouble finding it. I realize it's not a good habit to reply to one person's post while quoting another, but... I owned a 100$ DVD player before the PS2 even hit the US market at 300. Thank you. It IS, however, true that the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player available IN JAPAN. That qualifier means a hell of a lot, as it restricts the statement to the small chain of islands where it was true. Leaving that little qualifier off is a long-running thorn in my side. As I pointed out at the beginning of the current generation during some all-too-common 'Cube bashing along the lines of "OMG IT AM NOT HAEVING TEH DVD PLAYAR IT AM SUX!!1111"... "Sure the PS2 doubles as a DVD player. But you can buy a GameCube, a DVD player, AND a game for the same price as a PS2. And the standalone DVD player won't have the playback issues that the PS2 player has already become famous for." Well, SO3 comes close... it's on 2 single-layer disks. But other than that... *shrugs* It's a console, not a PC. I haven't found a use for the two USB ports on the PS2. Why the hell would I care that the PS3 has three more than the Xbox 360, then? Either way... my PC has 2 hubs sticking off of it. 5$ solves the problem nicely. I have to defend the CF/SD/MemStick slots. I hate the proprietary flash RAM cards we've been stuck with since the PS1. 30$ for an 8 megabyte PS2 card is highway robbery. And the sub-megabyte cards on the GameCube? GAH! When was the last time you played a 7 player game? Addendum: With all 7 players seated at one machine. While quite possible over TEH INTARWEB, it IS pretty absurd for a single-system setting. Only valid use I can think of is the Silver Star Story bonus game "Lords of Lunar." If something else supported 8 players on the PS*(I can't use X as a variable? :'( ), I'd love to hear about it. Last I checked, 95% of titles didn't even support ONE multitap. ... And personally, I don't think LoL worked with more than 4 players. Once you get past the 4 corner stations of the original Warlords, the whole gameplay setup gets seriously borked.

I have a theory. They wanted to taint the license so badly that no one would request an Enterprise movie, or send them another annoying petition to bring it back.

That percent is the operative symbol, though. Microsoft and Sony both have a larger QUANTITY. It's easy to have a higher percentage of M-rated titles when you have the smallest library. Look, I grew up on Nintendo, and I've tried to support them right up through the DS. I'm tired of getting screwed for my support though with small libraries, little third party support, and ports and remakes of old games. I'm just saying. If it's a kiddie system, then how come it has so many M games?

*sighs* Untill I saw the size, I was actually interested. If the screen size was consistant with other GBAs(and thusly, the whole system was a fair bit larger), it'd be the best of all worlds. The image quality of the DS with the comfort (and presumably 8-bit compatibility, though that's not proven) of the original GBA. I HATE the SP. My original GBA is more than visible enough to balance out the pathetically bad image quality of a lit SP(and good luck playing it unlit). The SP is furthermore massively uncomfortable due to it's small size(a sin sharred by it's Micro sibling). And I'm not paying extra for headphone compatibility, which is a necessity for portable gaming(the speakers they put in those things are abominations, aside from the lack of stereo speakers in everything but DS and PSP).

Personal preference is leaning towards the Revolution. I'll very likely wind up with all 3 eventually*, however. There's invariably a few "must-have" titles for everyone's system. Hence, I vote "more than one." *Eventually means "oncepeople get hyped about XBox720, PS4, and HyperNES.

Trust me... its just a new shell for the same old mistakes lol Yeah no kidding. The hardware won't matter anything if they keep their marketing focus on lil barnacles and Pokemon as opposed to targeting a wider cash-spending audience. By cash-spending audience, I don't mean the type that have to ask mom if they can go outside and play. So... you're too old for Resident Evil? RE0 and the RE1 remake are still 'Cube exclusives. RE4 is COMING to PS2, but the 'Cube's had it for sometime now, and the PS2 version is taking a graphical downgrade. Fact: 'Cube has the largest % of M-rated games of all 3 current systems.

And Sony stole the design from Atari. Get over it. http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=270&st=1 Which seemed like a good idea at the time. The goal was to avoid load times. Which they did quite successfully. And ROM carts ARE more durable than CDs, which is another plus. Ultimately, profit margins made it undesirable. It costs a lot mroe to make a ROM cart, which means you don't get as much cash per sale. Oh, boohoo. DVD player was ONLY an issue for japanese PS2s. In America, DVD players had been available for over a year at the 100$ level, a third the price of the PS2. Make the disk wider, double the capacity. No-brainer. Dual-layer DVD is quite enough currently. 'S why MS is sticking with DVD next gen too. Revolution only got DVD video playback because it adds MAYBE a penny to manufacturing costs. I still say the 'Cube has the best games. And here's what interests me... 512 MB OF ONBOARD SRAM! A HALF-GIGABYTE OF SAVE SPACE INSIDE THE DECK! I LOVE YOU NINTENDO! ... But not as much as I would have if hte XBox hadn't been able to save internally too. Nice to see things swinging back to the days of the PCEngine and SegaCD, though.

As noted above, the YF-19's shield is anti-projectile while the YF-21's shields aren't described as such--after all, they're repurposed stabilizers. The YF-19 also has two wing cannons which can be rotated freely about in Battroid mode. (Think of them as shoot-from-the-hip rifles.) I'd like to point out that the YF-19's shield being more useful without a PPB is partially offset by the YF-21's BDI/BCS. It's easier for the YF-21 to dodge fire(especially from a known enemy with a detailed database entry), because Guld has computer forecasts of probable fire areas. And if he dodges wrong, it's a lot easier and faster to relocate a PPB disk with BCS than with conventional controls(even taking into account that the disks may have a maximum movement rate, you don't have to release control of something else, and have a more accurate idea of where to place the disk). Not knowing how fast they come up when the system is activated, I can't guess at how that ties into things(may be able to leave the system off until the instant you need the barrier disk, but I wouldn't bet on it).

They were happy enough to give us the mirror universe episodes, which in my opinion were some of the best of the entire series. I think Paramount just wanted to make sure no one asked for movies.

The final episode of Enterprise fastforwarded twice. First was 10 years into the future, so it was at the NX-01's retirement. Second was 200 years into the future so it could be dropped into a holodeck on the Enterprise D. I get the impression it was more of a new NextGen epsiode that HAPPENED to feature the Enterprise cast than it was a proper Enterprise episode. Of course, as a NextGen episode, it had to have an exterior shot of the Enterprise D. And I'm sure they sold the model ages ago. For what it's worth, the majority of Enterprise was far better than Voyager.

I quit watching before the title sequence even ran. As soon as the holodeck grid popped up, I left. Apparently I'm that much better off for it. The Terra Prime arc was a massive letdown after the mirror universe, but it beat the hell out of another NextGen episode that just happened to feature the NX01 in the holodeck.

That one is rumor right now. The PSP has an IR transmitter, some crafty japanese kids figured out that they can control their Sony robot Dog with it, it is speculation at this point but if it is capable of transmitting the signal to remote controll the dog, it is probably capable of transmitting to control many different Sony products. It will likely take a firmware upgrade from Sony to facilitate the function any further, or it could just be a fluke with the broadcast spectrum hitting on some of the Dog's signals. I can't find the article about it this second but I am pretty sure I read it on Engadget or Gizmodo.. As I understand things... If it has an IR transmitter, then with the right firmware it can control ANY IR remote device. It's all the same frequency, more or less. The big thing is getting the serial data pulses in. A remote control signal is a set of, say, 12 bits, and the LED flashes to tell the reciever what to do. So, say -**--*---*-* could be the power singal, and *-*-*-*-*-*- could be mute(assuming * is lit and - is dead). I dont even think it needs a firmware upgrade. just need a program like a wav to ir pulse like one of the ipod projects. The BIOS may not allow direct control of the IR port. If it restricts it to certain data packet sizes, you'd have an issue.

Minter's quite popular among the segment of the US market that consists of Jaguar fans and a good portion of retrogamers. He also wrote the lightshow for the JaguarCD and Nuon. As far as I know, however, he was NOT involved in the original Atari-made stereo component visualizer from the early(pre-VCS, if I recall) days of the industry. Amusing sidenote: According to rumor, Sears-Roebuck executives, when shown the original device, promptly asked what the engineers were smoking. And were equally promptly answered as one drew forth a bag of weed. And Insert Credit has a tongue-in-cheek blurb about his XBox 360 lightshow program.

That one is rumor right now. The PSP has an IR transmitter, some crafty japanese kids figured out that they can control their Sony robot Dog with it, it is speculation at this point but if it is capable of transmitting the signal to remote controll the dog, it is probably capable of transmitting to control many different Sony products. It will likely take a firmware upgrade from Sony to facilitate the function any further, or it could just be a fluke with the broadcast spectrum hitting on some of the Dog's signals. I can't find the article about it this second but I am pretty sure I read it on Engadget or Gizmodo.. As I understand things... If it has an IR transmitter, then with the right firmware it can control ANY IR remote device. It's all the same frequency, more or less. The big thing is getting the serial data pulses in. A remote control signal is a set of, say, 12 bits, and the LED flashes to tell the reciever what to do. So, say -**--*---*-* could be the power singal, and *-*-*-*-*-*- could be mute(assuming * is lit and - is dead).

Because in Japanthe user base of all video game consoles or PCs is eclipsed by the huge amount of people who own cell phones. Release a small game for a cheap price, bound to make some money. Well, I understand that japanese cellphones are also a fair bit more powerful than US ones, making modern games a possibility(though the lack of a gaming quality input device hinders them, so ). And I don't even see why US phones are as powerful as they are. I like the cheap phone with the crappy black&white screen that gets 5x the battery life.

Of course it is. Which is why the VF-22 is the winner!

http://www.hcn.zaq.ne.jp/cabic508/rsf/frame1.html FF6 end with consoles. PSP filling in for Kefka. And if someone makes a hack that does this to the entire game, I will worship them.

Myth: PS2 is hardware-compatible with PS1. Fact: PS2 has the PS1 CPU in it, but emulates the rest of the system. I'd bet one will be ready at launch. And that it'll be close to 100% compatible.

The only ones that were still flying were NASA's. And they had to drop it because they couldn't afford the maintainence.

Yes. Eventually they'll be back to doing video game versions of Wheel of Fortune and tarot cards.

I think it was the BCS. But not because that was the only signifigant diffrence. But Guld was working controls faster and more precisely while processing more information about what was going on. And, of course, once he started pulling the really high Gs, he wouldn't have been able to work the controls manually anyways, so if it'd been Isamu he'd've crashed right there.

It's funny that you should bring up Rally X, because it actually brings this thread back on track. Ridge Racers actually has Rally X as a minigame... if you score over 50,000 points, you'll unlock a special class car for the main game. Rally X is also supposed to be on the upcoming Namco Museum for the PSP. Mmmm.... Nice to see it getting some appreciation finally.

To be more specific, they're saying that the Xbox 360 will have three 3.2GHz, for a grand total of over 9 and a half gigs of processing power. Not to mention that the technology they're licensing from NEC is supposed to all but eliminate the frontside bus so it doesn't get slowed up there. If it means that I can get rid of my current Xbox, I'll take the emulation. Oh, and IIRC, the original Xbox was actually 733MHz. Ooops. I've got a bad tendancy to round things to whatever's convenient. *puts dentures in* In my day we didn't have all this multi-processor multi-gigahertz stuff! It was all a single 1Mhz 6502. Maybe a 4MHz Z80 if we were lucky! And we had to walk uphill through boiling snow to put the cartridge in!

Nice missing the obvious, IGN. The video chipset isn't NEAR the biggest problem. THE FREAKING CPU ISN'T EVEN THE SAME DESIGN PHILOSOPHY! There's big problems before you ever get to the video chipset. XBox 360 is fairly powerful last I heard. Was supposed to be 3 3 GHz PowerPC chips last I heard. That's a lot of power for emulation. Mac Mini has a 1.42 GHz G4(which is PowerPC-based too). Xbox has a 800MHz Pentium 3. And the PowerPC family tends to perform better than the x86 family. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if you could emulate a MacMini on a XBox360. ... I lie. I would be. Bit TOO close spec-wise. But XBox on XBox2? I'd take that bet.