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There are a couple versions of DIY light pen instructions online. Parts are under $10 at Radio Shack and it takes about an hour to build one. A couple community members have built/sold cheap light pens too. 1983 stylus.

Unless you are playing free homebrew games or titles that have been made public domain (in the case of the Vectrex for example)

Absolutely, but nobody's ever shelled out for one of these to just play homebrew stuff. 

I have.

I bought my Lynx Flash Cartridge and Atari Max cart purely for playing homebrews. Not a single commercial ROM has been loaded onto the Lynx one at any point.

It's not just homebrews, there are plenty of unreleased betas/protos, fan translations, and rom hacks that are fun to play on real hardware. There's also the convenience of loading all of the games that you own onto a menu driven multicart. Flash carts are awesome... even for people who aren't romz hoarding 'thieves'.

I use an NEC XM29 as my main retro gaming display. It's a 'multimedia presentation monitor'... 29" 4:3 CRT. Supports NTSC/PAL/SECAM/480p. It has inputs/adapters for composite, s-video, SCART RGB, component, and 15-pin VGA. It's housed in a sturdy rectangular shell and is easily tated to vertical for arcade gaming. Awesome. :28:

I'm not a fan of emulators.

First, I don't think they're an accurate representation of the way a game was designed. There are always some games that aren't emulated properly and have timing issues, graphics glitches, audio glitches, etc. Many games just don't play 'right'. But, even for the games that are emulated perfectly, older games were designed for 4:3 CRTs... playing on an LCD alters the color palettes, pixel aspect ratio, removes the scanlines, and nullifies any of the dithering and masking tricks that were used to optimize the video quality for CRTs. The games just don't look 'right'. Adapting to a different controller/button layout can alter the experience too... esp for systems that had unique controllers. Some games just don't feel 'right'.

There are some cases where emulation actually offers an improvement over the original hardware though... like the many HD upgrade compilations on PS360, or the N64 emulator that not only upscales but also allows hi-res texture pack plug-ins. While I usually prefer the original platform, these enhanced emulations are basically creating unique, improved variations of older games without any real code re-write.

For some of us older gamers, there's also the nostalgia factor and attachment to playing on an actual system... usually the same console that we purchased decades ago when the system was new. Not a knock against emulation, but it's another factor in sticking with original hardware.


The legal aspect of emulation is definitely more muddled and would probably send this thread in the wrong direction, so I'd only note that many older games are still being sold on the Nintendo VC or various retro compilations. If you want to emulate a game that's available for purchase on a current system, the developers/publishers deserve your support.

I initially voted yes, but after thinking about it I've changed my vote. There are a few members of the Jaguar 'community' who feel obligated to mock, disrespect, and ridicule everything and everyone that they don't agree with. Any Jaguar related effort would attract their attention and this community would likely be poisoned... either on this site or across every other Jaguar related forum/facebook page/youtube video/ebay listing/etc etc.

Decided to ask for help on an arcade forum to identify the game at 5:43 in the video.

It's Warp Warp by Rock-ola (1981) in case anyone else was curious...

Awesome!! All classics, but what's the game at 5:43?

Hi!
Always nice to see another former member of the JS2 community join RVG.

Not quite retro, but a few quality Japanese fighting games:

Dream Mix TV Fighters is a Konami/Takara/Hudson crossover clone of Smash Bros... including Simon Belmont, Solid Snake, Bomberman, and Optimus Prime.
 
DreamMix TV World Fighters trailer


Battle Stadium DON is a Dragon Ball/Naruto/One Piece crossover clone of Smash Bros.

Battle Stadium D.O.N - Lee vs Goku vs Luffy vs Naruto


Jump Superstars/Jump Ultimate Stars are DS fighting games that include characters from almost every major anime series... all fighting in comix zone style manga pages.

Jump Ultimate Stars - Trailer

In case anyone is interested, this 'revised' Hardware Handbook Vol. 1 is now available at Barnes & Noble in the US.

I remember when Dragon's Lair first appeared at the local pizza shop. My friends and I worked together to memorize the moves and timing cues for each scene... calling out a 'left right left up' style reminder to help each other as each scene started. It took a little trial & error but I think each of us could eventually 1cc the game. I never bothered learning Space Ace or any of the other laserdisc games... for me, the genre started and ended with Dragon's Lair.


I played to the end of Dragon's Lair 3D on the Gamecube too. Earlier console adaptations were horrible, but Gamecube/PS2/xbox were finally powerful enough to offer a cel shaded 3D action game that 'matched' the arcade animations. Not a spectacular game, but major bonus points for the nostalgia factor.

Volume 2 includes overviews of the 5200, 7800, and 800xl. More Atari, less Nintendo.

Also, the blue background Hardware Handbook Vol. 2 covers a very different set of systems than this brown background Handbook. Two nice compilations with very little overlap. Wonder if they'll re-release a 'revised' edition of Vol. 2 soon?

Why didn't I think of that?

In case anyone is curious, from a quick comparison of the 'revised edition' against the original version it looks like:
- they've added the Channel F and removed the Wonderswan. Otherwise, same list of systems.
- a couple of the console overviews have been replaced by newer articles (like your Jaguar article) but they've kept the older 'perfect ten' games lists
- also noticed that several pictures have been removed for the 'revised edition' and page layouts were changed slightly... maybe switched to a larger font for this re-release?

Just checked my bookshelf and I already have this Hardware Handbook and a blue background Hardware Handbook Vol. 2. Looks like this is a new 'revised edition'?? Is there a list on the front/back of the book detailing what's been revised from the old version? Not sure that I want to re-purchase my compilations of re-purchased content.