Lambda

Wow. I remember playing the original StarCraft as a kid. Great memories

8 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Congrats!

I tried beating this game without guides or hints about ten years ago, but I didn't know about burning bushes or bombing unmarked walls, so I gave up in frustration. Now that I've seen some speedruns and I know it actually came with a paper map, I think I could get through it without too much trouble. I really should go back and do that some day.

I’d definitely give it a shot. Haha it was a great feeling!

7 hours ago, ifightdragons said:

He is talking about the controller input lag you get from playing the NES on a digital display, not the inherent CPU slowdown caused by too many moving sprites on screen. 

But yes, the slowdown can be very helpful! 

 

Ahh wow I don’t think I even realized the controller input lag, but that could be because I play on the digital TV 99% of the time now and I’m not trained to see/feel it.

The PPU framer rate cycle slowdown helped massively in one area. I remember one room, I literally lined myself up and fired the sword shot just to get 8 sprites on one line. The slowdown gave me the quarter second I needed to think and then beat the darknuts .

2 hours ago, epiclotus said:

Awesome job!  I have several games on my list that I have gone back and done this for, and it's a great feeling.

Do it, brother! This was definitely satisfying!

1 hour ago, Kguillemette said:

When I was 6 I got as far as level 6 and 8. I found the entrance to Death Mountain. It took me several years to find the entrance to level 7. 

 

No help. I did help some of friends with some of the secrets I found, though!

You Sir are a gentleman and a scholar! it was guys like you that were a massive help on the recess playgrounds! Commendable! 
 

23 minutes ago, MachineCode said:

In the early 90's as a group, my neighbors, my brother and I used to play this and Zelda II together and apart and kinda share our findings with no help from strategy guides or magazines. Come '93 (I'm around 7 at this point) we had all gotten to Death Mountain and I was the 1st to finish it. None of us actually grabbed the red ring either as we didn't veer off into the area where it was hidden. For Zelda II we all got to the 6th dungeon and got the special ability to see in the ghost town, but none of us beat it until I did in college in the mid 2ks.

One fun thing I figured out was how to get the power bracelet as the first or second item (depending on if you grabbed the sword) in the game by going through the lost woods and circling all the way around. Fun times.

It's kinda crazy how my finishing the game was like a big deal in my grade to the point where people didn't believe it. Like someone had me over their house to make me do this in front of them as everyone played it but nobody finished and then was like telling everyone at recess like "Dude, he did it right in front of me!"

I remember playing certain games like Zelda in groups.. it was almost mandatory because of the lack of info. I wish I could find some of the notes me and my cousins all wrote down as we progressed. That’d be cool to see again. And there were definitely doubters back in the day when you beat a hard game haha... no cell phone cameras to take proof pics back in the day. I miss those times.

5 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

After you beat the second quest, give it a try without a sword.

You can't beat the game, because Ganon requires at least the basic sword, but you can get to him without it, and finish all of the other dungeons along the way.

Then the truly hardcore mode is beating the game with minimal equipment and only 3 hearts.  I can reach Ganon in that mode, but basically one unlucky hit kills you, so haven't had the patience for a win.

This sounds insane haha. Definitely going to read up on how some guys accomplish this. “ NES Hard” was hard but what you’re describing sounds like a suicide mission !

4 minutes ago, guillavoie said:

Congrats on beating the game, never too late!

I remember we played a lot of The Legend of Zelda when we were kids at home, and I know my bro and I went pretty far in the first quest without much outside help. I'm pretty sure we beat it with some kind of help, like advises from my older brother or even from friends, but I know for sure it was not much. We found the level 8 by our own for sure cause we were crazy pyromaniacs burning every damn trees in forest.

But some of the secrets in the second quest are just out of this world with no help. Like how in hell are you supposed to find the entrance of level 8 on your own? I always thought this one was just crazy well hidden.

Thanks!

That’s so impressive to have gotten so far with such little help! I admire everyone who’s done so! I know it took me a bit of searching and a lot of help to get through this, so I’ve got a ton of respect for everyone who did this the old fashioned way!

I’ve heard this so many times about second quest. I’m not sure my next play will be the second quest. I may move on to Links Awakening which was actually the very first Zelda game I ever officially owned myself. I never beat that one as a kid either but I’m dying to beat it soon. I’m playing Ocarina concurrently, and I’ll probably put that one on pause while I conquer links awakening. Old fashioned game boy style! Haha

28 minutes ago, Estil said:

Yes, both quests back in the 90s, eventually with zero deaths on both.  It was only when I accidentally discovered in the Second Quest you can walk through walls in dungeons and use the whistle to open passages in the Overworld that it even became possible.  No I did not have the benefit of Nintendo Power except the SMB3 guide.

Those sure were the dark days...yes I know the 90s had the greatest console war ever (for some reason I was told by more than one classmate that "Sega [Genesis] has better graphics [than SNES]" which I don't get at all) but I'm forever grateful we live in a modern age where we can much much much better enjoy retro gaming in ways that were never dreamed possible even 10-20 years ago.

Total Respect here! Zero deaths is NUTS! I couldn’t even get past certain darknut rooms in Dungeon 8 without a red potion!

The console wars of the 90s were hardcore! Me and my cousins had hours of discussion on which system was better... NES or Genesis... one thing we all agreed on... we all loved Comander Keen on Windows 95 at our other Uncle’s house .

32 minutes ago, Estil said:

Lag...I hate lag

I genuinely hate lag as well! However I can say there was ONE room in Dungeon 8 when the number of sprites on screen caused the processor to lag slightly. It gave me enough time to think about how to react and conquer the room. I’m sort of thankful for this moment . I may have had to start over without that half a second lag!

4 minutes ago, Yelir said:

Were you playing on a monitor in widescreen? I have never beat this game either, I get bored after the first few dungeons. Congrats!

 

Haha yes, I have the NES hooked up into AV on my 50+ Samsung in the living room

56 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

I got this game as maybe the third game for my system, and before I had NP.

My dad and I took turns hand drawing maps while the other explored.

We exhaustively mapped both quests, burned bushes, bombed caves, and all.

 

Amazing!! That’s got to be an awesome memory! Amazing that you both got all of that accomplished! 

ill never forget being in 5th grade (I just transferred to a new school), and one day my dad came into my room as I was waking up, and asked me “you feel sick today right?” With a wink... I was able to convince my mom to let me stay home from school, with his help, and we spent the entire day (9am-3pm), playing genesis games and eating junk food. One of my favorite memories as a kid.

25 minutes ago, Mr. CIB said:

People buy games that are sealed and Incase them in plastic with a grade on it never to be opened or used. It’s all in the same..... people will still want an NWC because of what it represents 

2 for representation! Haha. I like hearing this because I guess that’s what it’s all about. I’m genuinely seeking out the people(s) that will be concerned for if and when the original data is lost. While I agree with you, I feel like this sentiment has to exist out there somewhere?..

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

 

People are not buying NWCs to play! As will ALL the games we own, bit rot, disc rot, the ravages of oxidation and entropy are going to render them all non-functional at some unknown point in the future. That doesn't change the fact that these remain genuine artifacts and collectables, which will presumably still be desirable to a large number of people.

In the future people will play games on everdrives, FPGA clone systems and regular emulation. The empty carts and discs will be for collecting and display purposes only.

I happen to agree with this in many ways and completely understand the point... however it makes me wonder how many collectors will still WANT an original game, solely for the purpose of the PCB, Shell and label, when they know the data won’t run. In my own opinion it might turn some off? I’m really not sure... which is why I ask the question. Great response though and I appreciate it!
(This type of response give me hope past collecting while data rot occurs)!

The main point in question here lies in the Intrinsic Value of the original Data on the EPROM. THAT is what I’m driving at for everyone to address.

I genuinely hope people still feel like this long after we’re all gone.

(The disk rot is a problem that accelerates faster compared to chips/carts, and this is a big reason I mostly collect carts as compared to optical).

6 hours ago, TylerBarnes said:

This is concerning. Why aren't these covered? 

Although these EPROMs are covered as stated by @98ViperGTS

It leads to a question I have since I have some experience with Homebrew and programming EPROM for multiple machines over time.

We all know they run out eventually... eventually even ambient light will destroy a single byte on an EPROM and render errors... there is a limited lifespan on these chips.

My Question:

What do you all think happens in the future... once we are all dead and these PCBs start showing up useless due to bad data..?

Do the new owners desolder the EPROM, reprogram with authentic binaries, and keep them going longer? What if an EPROM goes bad entirely due to dead cells?!

so many questions here and I’d love to hear thoughts on the future as this topic’s title entails.

I did it guys, and it feels awesome!

I first tried this game nearly 25 years ago and couldn’t figure much out as a kid. I heard chatter on the playground as a kid, some intel was solid, some was totally fraudulent haha... but without Nintendo power, I couldn’t finish the game, and I only had the chance to play it at my cousins, since he had Nintendo and I had Sega Genesis.

(Our dads who were brothers literally planned that out to make sure we were always entertained when visiting the other... “play a new system?! **eyes wide** “YES!” We’d shout!)

44 Lives later, and I did it. 
 

This begs a question I wanted to ask everyone: 

Who has done this game to completion with zero help?

Who has used guide for the whole way?

For partial guides, how much did you need and what were the worst parts? (Darknuts were the worst for me in Dungeon 8).

My answer: I used guide only when totally stumped... that equated to me search for over an hr for next objective with zero to show for it (as an adult this is a LOT of time when you have a family haha).

2 hours ago, 98ViperGTS said:

Yeah, that's mine

Ahh there we go! Sorry, wasn’t sure if it was mentioned in here yet. Just popped up onto my eBay feed this morning.

Edit: ahh okay, I see it now earlier in the thread. I didn’t know that number was yours, sorry for double posting. Pretty cool to own one. (Not sure i could let one go if I happened to own a copy).
 

Any clue how the crack on the shell happened? Shells feel pretty tough, I feel like it’s take a decent amount of force to do that. Wondering if this has got an interesting story behind it!  

On 1/14/2020 at 1:53 AM, ninjistar said:

For sale: NWC #0165. WELL BELOW market value at $125,000! A steal!

 

#328

328 is up for 125k it looks like... lol in case nobody saw this yet.

@drxandy thanks for the info. Would love to try surly out of the ship East here to NY!

i remember vacationing by Chicago and visiting Finch brewery on a whim... at the time they had nearly zero distribution. 3 years later, there wasn’t a shop around that didn’t carry their beer. Hopefully I can find surly as well!

quick question: is dots and loops some sort of nod to the stereolab group?

1 hour ago, Richardhead said:

Weldwerks Strawberry Cheesecake Berliner.

This beer looks and sounds incredible. I’m not a huge fan of “sweet” but I love a well crafted beer. This may be a one and done sort of try for me personally, but I’d definitely like to try this one out! Thanks for sharing!

@drxandy give it some time, and have three at a time, not the entire 6. Grab a settled batch if possible. A lot of coders like to drink coffee while they code... personally I prefer a voodoo Fat Tire by New Belgium is also great, if you need less potent. The higher potency doesn’t really bother me much... in the words of Willy Wonka: “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker”

to each their own, right?

i will say the sloth on the rogue had me laughing (inside joke between me and my wife), but I like blondes and Kambucha, so I may have to give that a try if I can hunt it down.

Bout to crack her open

In all seriousness. Thanks for all who responded. I hope this brings the community a small bit of comfort as we all move forward

33 minutes ago, ninjistar said:

What people think you do when you tell them you're a pen tester:

@ninjistar

This... this is what I do... I test BICs for accurate ball point placement on a 24/7 basis. It’s a thankless job, but someone has to do it...

I always play all homebrews I buy. I may not always finish them, but I love exploring, hunting bugs (and reporting them to creators), and hopefully finishing the game out of respect to the creator, much like @guillavoie stated. (If I don’t finish them it is sadly because my skills may not be up to par ... but that just keeps me on the hunt for bugs like the 1-up glitch I found in Star Keeper... so that I CAN finish them  hahaha... and trust me when I say... EVERY game has a bug... challenge me, and I will do my best to find a flaw in the code.. all for the fun of it, of course  )

I love supporting the work of others.

Hey all,

First: I want to say thanks to @Gloves and all other staff members for rebuilding this community. They’ve done a stellar job! **applause**
Second: I wanted to share something with the community that I think many will find important at a personal level.

For those who don’t remember me from NA, (I was only there for a couple of years before GC stepped in) I am generally new here.

I run a company called Lambda Technology Inc. Our goal is to provide specialty IT services to a range of industries. We’ve worked with Architectural firms, Mom and Pops, Aerospace, and our largest focus is Wall St. We are often hired to create thoughtful solutions for problems they face: whether that be Web Master, Website/Intranet Builds, VPN installs, Secure/Hardened System Builds etc., there is little we can’t handle.

Another part of our business entails penetration and vulnerability testing for our clients. I’ve been coding (and hacking) for 15+ yrs, personally and my employees are very knowledgeable. 
 

I’ve had some small conversations with Gloves and we went ahead and offered an external vulnerability test to VGS as a “Thank You!” For all of the hard work put in here, entirely free. My team was on board and offered to do the work themselves at no cost, and for them I give a huge thanks. 
We gave Gloves the scope of our test and what we’d be looking for and he gave my team his blessing/go-ahead.

We were primarily testing for information leaks (user,admin,root access, etc.) as well as server error handling. 
 

I’m excited to report that VGS has passed this test with FLYING COLORS!

At any point that we were able to bypass site specific error handling, the server itself stopped us in our tracks and wouldn’t budge.

The team here has a lot to be proud of. They’ve done a fantastic job at building a safe and secure community that we can all put trust in. I recall, in earnest, reading several posts about NA users being upset that NA never even had an SSL cert. I can say at this time, that VGS has very strongly protected User Data from prying eyes. All users should take a bit of comfort in this.

TL;DR: User Data (PWs, User info, Admin Creds, etc.) are all very well secured.

A bit of note that I give to all of my clients on regular basis: (Everyone should read this part).

1) A Vulnerability Test is an examination from the outside to check for common security holes that can be patched with relative ease. Think about this in the sense of a military Recon mission to scope the landscape.

A Penetration Test is not just a scan of vulnerabilities, but a full blown engagement, with the intent to break into a system and compromise the target even if it means creating new exploits. This would be akin to a full blown military campaign, going far beyond Recon. 
The test we performed was a Vulnerability Test, not a full blown Penetration Test.

2) Just because we perfomed a VulnTest and found nothing, doesn’t mean you cannot fall victim to an attack YOURSELF. Be vigilant. Don’t open emails that you don’t recognize, Dont reuse or give out passwords, Be aware of site clones, etc. I think if we all heed these words and practice General Sec Consideration, we will all be safe here. Anybody in InfoSec will tell you: 100% Security is a pipe dream... it simply does not exist. The goal of any sec worker is to make the system so difficult to break into that the engagement is no longer worth the attackers time... and causes them to move on to lower hanging fruit.

That being said, this is a big 1-Up for the community here compared to many others.

Thanks for reading.

All the Best

-Lambda Tech Inc.

@RegularGuyGamer

awesome info!! Thanks so much! Makes perfect sense now!

@RegularGuyGamer

the box and manual refer to the work of “Lugia” for this hack.

is there any way to tie “Lugia” to Miller, or are they different people? Maybe Lugia is Miller and did all of it? Or maybe Lugia ran the hack work and Miller simply did the box and design work for the manual?

i have no way of knowing myself...

4 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

PM incoming.

we posted within 30 seconds of each other. Shoot the pm my way as well if possible.

@RegularGuyGamer

1) if you can provide a link to that AliExpress sale I’d love to see it also (piggyback off @a3quit4s request).

2) I actually got it at a local retro game shop. There’s a shop in town (Game-On in Smithtown NY) that actually gave me shelf space for my homebrew Atari game. After seeing how awesome the people there were, and being genuine collectors themselves, I frequent the shop now quite often. I noticed on their Instagram page that they had a CIB sitting on the shelf in the background of a posted photo in their sister store. I contacted the owner and he reserved it for me. When I picked it up, the top flaps had slight wear, and the manual has a very minor tear at the top binding (nothing to get upset about). He offered it to me for a great price and I took it. 
Based on what I’ve seen, the game looked to be a trade in that he simply acquired. Definitely not brand new. But the provenance at that point is lost. I had seen copies listed for 100+ on eBay, and was unwilling to spend the $ when I know full well I have the materials/know-how to build my own copy if I wanted to. When I got the ask for the game from Game-On, it made perfect sense. The cost wouldve  covered build materials and time alone. I got it for a steal... WAY below any ebay asks I've seen. They simply saved me cartridge ink and build time to buy it from them.

Welcome! 
currently building a math game for my daughter to play when she’s old enough to appreciate it, on the C64. (She’s only 1 now  )

great to see a fellow C64 enthusiast. It’s the machine I learned to code on... my river runs deep for her haha.
 

excited to see what you put out! Be sure to share when you’re ready