Way back in the 1980s, the days of the exciting home computer and game console boom, Micom Soft introduced their XE‑1 line of game controller peripherals. From the humble XE‑1B two-button joystick for Japanese home computers, to the XE‑1ST2 switchable 4-way/8-way joystick with support for FM Towns and Sega consoles, to the fully programmable XE‑1SFC Super […]
Author Archive
Con cua or con ghẹ?
There are two Việt words for crabs that you might hear frequently, cua and ghẹ, but there seems to be some confusion over the difference. Google Translate unhelpfully renders both of them as “crab” when translating to English. Well, cua refers to crabs in general, and not just true crabs (brachyura), but also the other […]
MSVC C++ ABI Member Function Pointers
This is a detailed discussion of MSVC C++ ABI pointers to member functions, including some of the trade-offs they make. The format of pointers to member functions in C++ is implementation-defined, and a lot of incomplete and misleading information about this topic can be found around the web. There’s a popular article at Code Project […]
Lifting a jinx?
The past decade has seen a substantial increase in rail freight in Australia. Capital investment like the Southern Sydney Freight Line and conversion of the Victorian North East line to 1435 mm standard gauge is paying off. Allied Pinnacle has a siding just south of Kensington station, and Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR) currently has the contract […]
The Q Factor
If you spent much time in video game arcades ’90s, you’re sure to have seen the QSound logo proudly displayed during the attract loop of games running on Capcom’s CPS-2 and ZN-1/ZN-1 hardware platforms, and heard the distinctive jingle. But What exactly is QSound? What does it actually do? Capcom was definitely keen to promote […]
TPG FTTB Settings
In case anyone else wants to configure third-party equipment for a TPG fibre-to-the-building service, here are the details. Below the fold are screenshots of the settings entered in the web-based configuration UI of an AVM FRITZ!Box. Note that the SIP password is not the same as your account password, and you’ll need to obtain this […]
TPG: Just Don’t
Due to persistent issues with line quality, I switched an Internet connection from Internode ADSL2+ to TPG fibre to the building (FTTB). Although the connection quality is better, just about everything else about TPG is worse. I strongly recommend avoiding TPG. Problems include: Error-prone signup process Supplied modem/router is heavily compromised Phone service is tied […]
Going Old-School
For lulz, I decided to rewrite MAME’s Intel 4004 CPU core and add support for most 4040 features. The new CPU core operates at the bus cycle level, and exposes most useful signals. It also uses lots of address spaces for all the different kinds of memory and I/O it supports (thanks OG). Some CPU […]
Attacking the Weak
ShouTime dumped the incredibly rare game Omega (Nihon System). It’s a ball-and-paddle game running on similar hardware to Sega’s Gigas. These games use an NEC MC-8123 CPU module containing a Z80 core, decryption circuitry, and an 8 KiB encryption key in battery-backed RAM. When fetching a byte from ROM or RAM, the CPU chooses a byte […]
My PAL with the LASERs
Back in the distant past, MAME started cataloguing programmable logic devices (PLDs) in addition to ROMs. This was met with considerable hostility from certain segments of the community, as it was seen as forcing them to obtain files they saw as unnecessary for emulation in order to run their precious games. However PLDs are programmable […]