О “железе” и программах
Some random notes:
You can have both English version of Metal Slug and red blood. Just need to enable blood using Soft DIP Switches. To access them, press B+C+D
161-in-1 cartridge is weird. There’s Shock Troopers 2, but not Shock Troopers 1. There’s Sengoku and Sengoku 3, but not Sengoku 2.
Aero Fighters 3 is buggy. Not sure if it’s the ROM that was put on the cartridge or the game itself, but sometimes both you and the enemies become invincible.
For years I’ve beet trying to hear the difference between lossy and lossless audio using one of the ABX tests.
I thought that I can’t tell the difference because even the SoundBlaster AE-9 is not “professional” enough.
So I got USBPre 2 for a time. And guess what? I still don’t hear the difference 🤷♂️
For two weeks I was bothered by my RTX 2070 fans starting and stopping.
At first I was blaming driver updates.
But then I ended up opening the case and noticing that just one of the three fans does that.
A little vacuuming helped. And I also bought a bottle of air duster though, just in case.
A couple of weeks ago we replaced our rather simple Russel Hobbs filter machine with a more sophisticated Sage Precision Brewer.
And boy, does it make a difference.
It doesn’t just pour boiling water, as some other brewers do. It controls water temperature using PID, like the higher-end espresso machines. The quality of coffee I get is comparable to filter coffee from Black Sheep. And it’s also easier to clean.
Potentially, it doesn’t even require paper filters. There’s a plastic basket that comes with it as well. But I got a stock of those paper filters during COVID, so I’m not sure if it’s worth to test the basket.
The downsides are that it’s huge. The tank is 1.7L, and it’s 1.7L of coffee. While we drink around 0.5L in the morning. So the pitcher always feels almost empty. I wish they had a smaller model for such cases.
Must admit that until few months ago, I was worried about switching my keyboard and mouse to wireless. But it’s actually not a big deal. I get to charge the keyboard maybe every month, and it’s just for an hour, while it still works. Same for the mouse. And I don’t feel any delays, at least when the mouse is connected to the dedicated receiver. So overall, positive experience, not only for work, but also for gaming.
Can’t make this stuff up. A day after I put together my SuperGun Neo Geo setup, my consolized Neo Geo lost by Royal Mail arrives back. It was in transit since 29th of July, almost 2 months, and the Royal Mail itself admitted it was simply lost. At least that resolves my issue of not having a proper shell for my board.
Just for the fun of it, I decided to see if it boots. The reason I sent it back was that it wasn’t even showing the boot screen. And it does!
Look what 5 months in Spanish Inquisition does to you. Anyway, it shows the 00D00000x555 error:
I managed to get the malfunctioning motherboard out of the shell, and put the working motherboard inside. So now I have a fully working consolized MVS, it seems.
Attempt to get a shell for the motherboard turned out to be a fail. Bought MV1-B shell for MV1-A board, because there were no MV1-A shells available, and those look very similar with their parallel card slot. But MV1-B shell is slightly narrower, so MV1-A board doesn’t fit in.
But other than that: it’s alive!
The board, the card, SuperGun, PSU, gamepad – everything put together and working.
And the graphic issues are gone. This is beyond awesome.
Got myself a new mouse. Wanted something that could be connected wired as well as wirelessly, so I could control multiple devices using the same mouse. I like DeathAdder shape, and I dislike the separate buttons on V3. So, I went for DeathAdder V2 Pro.
After DeathAdder Chroma I owned for years, Razer DeathAdder V2 Pro feels surprisingly cheap: it’s lighter and the plastic is not soft-touch. Funny how 10 years ago you had customizable weights you could put in your mouse to make it heavier, while now every mouse makes competes how light they can make their mouse.
Royal Mail admitted that they’ve lost the package that was shipped back more than a month ago from Spain, with my non-functioning Neo Geo MVS.
The good news is that I received a refund, and it took me just a couple of days.
The bad news is that the maximum refund is 65GBP, while I paid around 200GBP for the console.
The good news is that the seller already shipped me a replacement board, free of charge, which is very generous of him.
The bad news is that this is a naked board. No video output, no gamepad ports, no power supply, no enclosure. Now I’ll have to source everything by myself.
The board I received is MV1A. It comes as two separate boards, that you connect at a right angle. So your cartridge is put parallel to the motherboard.
There’s also a newer MV1C board, which looks smaller at least on photos, and consists from a single board, so the cartridge slot is on the motherboard, and the cartridge is put in a vertical position.
https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=MVS_board_types
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/neo-geo-mvs-motherboard-pcb-comparison-chart-for-consolization.5904/
Discovered that there was an official arcade stick made for NES.
People say, though, that for many games, it was more of a disadvantage.
The really groundbreaking feature of this phone is its camera.
At first I wasn’t impressed. Yes, it takes rather bright photos at night, but that’s it.
But then I zoomed to see the moon, and… wow:
And this one was taken from some 50 meters away, across the canal.
My misadventures with Neo Geo console continue.
I bought it back in May, from Spain.
For the first day or so it had a distorted image, which is a known problem.
Then the image disappeared completely, showing just a bit of garbage.
I’ve sent it for repairs, and it got stuck in Spanish customs from 5th of June, until the 29th of July, when they decided that they don’t want to accept my customs declaration, and shipped it back.
Now it’s still on its way back, and I was told that it should arrive “in a week or two”.
Yes, a single day of happiness, three months of waiting. And when I finally receive it, it will still be the same malfunctioning console, which I’ll have to find a way to fix myself now.
I decided to replace Keychron K8 with a low-profile Keychron, and stay with TKL.
Between K1 and K1 SE I decided to go with the original K1, because I like to keep my keyboard flat, and for some reason I’m more attracted to the aluminium body, and not a plastic one.
Keychron K1 gets everything right. It’s a total joy to work with. I went for the red switches, and they are pleasantly quiet. Also, the charging port is at the right place, on the back of the keyboard, and not on the left side.
I was surprised by the amount of lighting effects this keyboard has. Especially because I tend not to use lighting effects at all.
Maybe later I’ll replace ABS keycaps with PBT ones. But in the meantime, I like the smooth feel of ABS’s.
I ended up ordering my next phone, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, from Hong Kong. Hong Kong uses UK standards, but the phones ship with Snapdragon CPU instead of Equinox. And the price is lower by some 10 to 20 percent. So, you end up getting a more powerful phone for less. A no brainer, really.
It took 10 days for the phone to arrive. Looks legibly sealed, so if it was tampered with, someone at TechInTheBasket did a great job to conceal it.
There is a bit of bloatware, but it’s easy to uninstall.
Fingerprint sensor works great. It’s super fast and recognizes both hands well enough for now.
Camera hole in the middle of the screen is slightly annoying, but that’s the norm nowadays.
Funny, but it seems to be nearly impossible to operate this phone without a case. All the lenses are on one side, and stick out too much.
Decided to try out a Keychron keyboard as well. The closest to Razer Type Pro I could get, so I could compare apples to apples. I went with K8 with brown tactile switches.
First impression: slightly quieter, about 60db vs 65db for Razer. Also, wired connection option is great. But I actually miss the second Enter, since it’s a TKL keyboard. Turns out I press it with my thumb unconsciously quite often.
Also, Keychron is much faster to wake up than Razer. It takes just a second for it to connect, and about 5 seconds for Razer.
Ended up returning the Razer keyboard.
I wanted a new keyboard for a long time. But I didn’t really need a keyboard. That’s how I ended up using Logitech K310 for almost 10 years. But everything has to end, so I decided to try out a new keyboard.
I almost certainly wanted something from Razer, since I’ve been using their mice for at least 10 years, if not more. And I didn’t want any gamer features, such as lighting or extra keys. I was thinking about tenkeyless (TKL for short) keyboard. But what if I wanted to play a retro game that needed that numpad? 😅
So, I ended up going with Razer Type Pro. Didn’t want the armrest Ultra adds, since I like my keyboard not taking too much space.
First impression: tall and heavy. But maybe that’s because Logitech K310 was a complete opposite: low profile and very light.
I thought that you can also use this keyboard wired, but turns out the cable is only for charging. Since my motherboard has Bluetooth built in, I ended up using it in a Bluetooth mode.
On the downsides, the keyboard will go into sleep mode after 15 minutes, and it takes about a second for it to wake up. Need to get used to this.
Also, which is really strange, there’s no battery indicator. Not even in Razer Central / Synapse.
Got myself Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro in good condition from eBay a few weeks ago.
I knew it was big, but I didn’t think it would be so heavy, though. They literally put a metal plate in it to make it heavier, which is quite a common practice, AFAIK:
It’s also very tall. Which is alright if you put it in your lap, but less so if you use it to play on PC and put it on your desk.
There are 40 Neo Geo games in total, and those are Japanese versions. So there’s blood in Metal Slug, but also, the names are all kanji.
The emulator is Final Burn Alpha, pretty standard stuff. There are a couple of basic filters. Smoothing uses something like SuperEagle/SaI algo, so it completely ruins mesh details such as Hanzo’s arms in Samurai Shodown.
Since it uses Final Burn Alpha under the hood, there’s also a hack that allows you any game from any of the platforms this emulator supports. Even CPS3. Yes, you can run Street Fighter 3 on it, and it runs smoothly.
Having said that, I will probably sell it at some point, as it takes a lot of space, and doen’t have any advantages compared to my PC and Hori Fighting Stick.
The way I discovered that my Note 8 is “slightly outdated” is when I noticed that my Evernote stopped supporting new features. Turns out it requires Android 10 now, and my Note 8 is still on Android 9. And has been for a while – since August 2021, it seems.
That way, by buying a flagship back in November 2017, I skipped Note 9, Note 10 and Note 20. There was no Note 21, because COVID. If I wished to, I could stay 5 years with the same phone 🤯
About a month ago got my hands on RetroTINK 5X. What can I say? It’s amazing.
Two main things I ended up missing in my RetroTINK 2X were better PlayStation 2 support and SCART port.
You see, I was planning to buy RetroTINK 2X mainly for Nintendo 64. Which ended up being a huge disappointment.
But PlayStation 2 library proved to be still fantastic. And once I decided to realize my childhood dream and buy a real Neo Geo, it was really a no-brainer.
One of the most interesting features of RetroTINK 5X are the CRT-emulating filters.
You can see some of those cool effects here:
Or here:
Spend the weekend going back to Windows 10.
Unlike upgrades, which are quite straightforward and preserve everything, downgrades are hard.
Had to install it from scratch, first time in maybe 10 years. Until now, I was always just upgrading, from Windows 7 to Windows 10, then to Windows 11, preserving all of that junk. It migrated probably between a few HDDs and SSDs. Not anymore.
What broke me was strange UI freezes, as if it was trying to read something from a slow disk. Couldn’t find anything concrete about that problem: Internet is full of “7 ways to fix your Windows”, with suggestions to reinstall mouse drivers 🤦♂️
Also smaller things: no previews on folders, dumb taskbar and useless websearch instead of working local search.
As part of the migration, I also moved from Opera to Firefox. I was on Opera by inertia, really. Same as I was on this copy of Windows.