General

Foxhack wrote:
16 years well spent.

Why don't they make vanilla twizzlers/licorice?

shadyfozzie wrote:
Gamepass it and pay the monthly fee for Ultimate? Just use a gaming PC or get a Series S or X.

I've been having some audio issues with my TV/soundbar setup. So, I bought a slightly better toslink cable (fiber optic line, out from the TV, into the soundbar). When I went to remove the old toslink cable, I realized/noticed it still had little rubbery plastic translucent covers over the inner part at the end of the cable. I had assumed it was just like that, but you're supposed to remove them. It's amazing that the cable still worked despite this. Not even sure if it is the cause of my issue, but I did switch to the new cable (removing its covers first).

Googled it and found a youtube video titled "Optical cable.... have you taken the cap off, moron?" Reading all the comments of people who did the same thing made me feel a little better.

bill wrote:

My guess is the rubber got breached so it was still making contact, or was it just that the plastic didn't stop the optical signal? Certainly possible that's what was goofing with it, but I'm assuming it was fine until it wasn't? Not sure why it'd get worse over time, maybe the rubber/plastic got cloudy with age.

Yeah, I think the light was going through the translucent covers. The audio signal must have been impacted, but I honestly can't tell the difference (I've never been much of an audiophile).

The issue I'm having may not have been related to the caps being on at all. I really don't know what's causing it. It's intermittent. It's like a buzzing sound that happens with some dialog, a kind of distortion. The soundbar is doing some processing to augment voices.

The soundbar has 2 optical in ports, so I switched to the other one and that seemed to fix it months ago. But, it came back last week. So, I switched back and that seemed to fix it again... but that doesn't make sense. Maybe some sort of grounding hum issue? So, I thought maybe the cable? The cable is the cheapest thing to replace. I'd also consider getting a new soundbar, but that's more money. It could be the TV too... expensive, but I could upgrade to 4k or whatever. Hopefully, it's fine now... or I'll just keep swapping the cable port.

Reading the 10TB drive thread got me thinking about the mid-90s, which another poster brought up. Back then, a few GB was a lot, because programmers could get great games to fit in a few MB. After all, FF6 was only 3 MB! And then I realized- you could fit both FF6 and Chrono Trigger on a standard PS2 memory card…

That's insane that FF6 was only 3MB!

What's really crazy to me is that a standard C64 floppy was 170 kilobytes and had thousands and thousands of games that were only one or two disks in size, with only 64k of RAM to run both the OS and game in. Some really great games in that era too.

ChrisKW1 wrote:

I remember the days of saving and loading games from tapes. We had a vic20 when I was a wee lad. I about flipped out when a friend brought over an actual cartridge and the game loaded almost instantly.

On the subject of c64, there is still a very active development scene for the thing. Really cool to see what people are STILL doing with those kinds of limitations.

benstylus wrote:

Yeah, I've played a few of them, got theC64 mini somewhere as well. Was my favorite computer back in the day.

Commodore was before my time, but I always thought having a Commodore PET would be neat.

I had a a Tandy Color Computer that the difference between pulling programs off cassette and floppy where crazy! My high school 'computer lab' was 10x C64's! My dad was the one with the passion for computers even in the early 80s and I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know why. He never played video games but was the first to get me a Odyssey 2 for Christmas and then the family always had a computer in the house.

lordly_llama wrote:

VIC-20 was fun. C64 was great. C128 was great. But the PET is not something I'd want except for a display piece maybe...

They were all great products of their time, some stand up better than others. But they were state of the art 30-40 years ago and started a lot of us onto careers in computers.

Some of the ingenuity on display in those simpler games makes them better than modern games that are high on flashy graphics and low on substance lol

I've messed around with those systems via emulators and... nothing makes sense to me. XD

It was a much simpler time, you had to load things from disks or tape with command line strings. Most modern emulators will let you attach a disk image and auto start them, though

GO 64
are you sure?
Y

I didn't have a 128 until I was already an adult so my go-to was:

LOAD"*",8,1
READY.
RUN

John wrote:

I had a boxed VIC-20 years ago! It didn't work when I initially got it, and I left it to rot in my garage for a couple years. A high school friend and I actually ended up reviving it, and getting it to work.

The thing literally just sat in my collection room untouched for so many years after. Last year that friend hit me up, despite years of no contact, asking if I still had the VIC-20. I ended up selling it to him.

It was a cool thing to have, but ultimately I don't have any attachment to these weird old PCs... meanwhile I have two C64s and an Atari 800 that I need to figure out WTF to do with. I MIGHT keep the CIB C64, but the Boxed 800 and other C64 should probably go.

Yeah....I get it Frank. I found a Tandy Color Computer app that could run in a browser. I spent hours upon hours on this system when I was a kid. I was done after 20 minutes. :D

This reminds me that I really need to clean up my NeXTcubes and get them listed for sale while there is still money in them.

rayzor6 wrote:

The Internet Archive actually has a ton of old computer games playable in the browser.

"You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

This really is a great place online. As I mention almost ad nauseam: I love modern board games and I spend a lot time on Board Game Geek. You cannot even have a conversation there without a witchhunt/playground mob following your posts and trying to censor you. What's worse is that they have no problem banning you from the site.

My position in a lot of matters are pretty clear...but I'd never EVER try to silence someone of an opposing view even if I could. I think it self defeating and a declaration that you don't have a point in your stance.

rayzor6 wrote:

I think part of the reason is we try to encourage people to keep politics and religion OFF the site. People generally can't handle adult conversations with different opinions on those subjects when they are with family and friends, so trying to do that with anonymous strangers who have no real reason to back down is going to be practically impossible.

And for whatever reason, some people hold grudges against random people on the internet they disagree with.

And I understand...but I still see it being discussed here on occasion and I think honestly, when it's an impasse HERE; it pretty much ends. I know most of us have a long history of interaction as opposed to over there and maybe that is a big reason.

When it happens here we mostly just lock the thread and tell people to cool off. Banning almost never happens, but we also have restriction as an option which I'm not sure BGG uses.

That might also be more a function of the exponentially higher number of users on that site where its easier to just ban and walk away than try to remember who has misbehaved in the past and increase penalties as appropriate.

You have good points. I just remember a time when being correct and truthful was important and that isn't directed to any of the typical divides except the cowards that simply try to silence you from the get go.

EDIT: this comment would be removed from BGG to give you an idea.

I’ve had some pleasant, or at the very least calm, interactions with folks over political/social situations on this site since the old guard of main users abandoned ship and stopped gaslighting folks in the main threads. I’m thankful/appreciative of that. Site may not be as crowded as it once was but it is a lot more understanding and a lot less obnoxious.

Edit: also appreciative of the negs in lieu of dorky thread fighting.

theJaw wrote:


I'm going to go ahead and neg you, but it's out of love. I may be way off base, but I've seen growth in you for not falling into the norms of the internet for quite some time most of the time. I think most of us need to take a deep breath and find our zen.

Lol I accept that neg and love @KCPenguins and offer nothing but love in return.

That’s what the world…

Needs now…

Is love…

Sweet negs.

BUT to be fair the growth that you’ve noticed is likely in part due to the fact that the folks who used to reign over the forums, who acted purposely antagonistic and elitist, have taken off. That or bill forced a block/I ignored certain folks lol.

Point being that the general crowd here on the good ol’ TZ seems a lot more nice these days. And I love yas.

Negs... sweet negs.

rayzor6 wrote:

Ngl, I was tempted to delete it to prove your point

One of the best things I ever did for myself on this site was have Bill hide negs for me. I only see the positive counts on scores. And it really made a difference for me.

John wrote:

Not for John's eyes:

benstylus wrote:

You could the revoke my posting/thumbing/geekgold giving privs and send me this msg (bold emphasis is mine):

"Disruptive comment removed

The above post is unwelcome in our forums and has been removed. This is not intended as a punishment and we do not think you are a bad person. Moderators remove potentially disruptive comments so the rest of the thread can continue without interruption.

Please see https://boardgamegeek.com/community_rules to review the expectations for members of our community.

Please also note that commenting on or complaining about moderation in a thread not specifically discussing moderation is also unwelcome, as such comments can quickly disrupt the thread.

Our moderators may disable the account's posting privileges to prevent continued disruptions if an account commits frequent or severe violations of site rules. (If this is the only moderation note you've received recently then this likely won't be an issue for you).

Please use https://boardgamegeek.com/contact if you wish to discuss this message

I once got suspended for saying "fu" in chat.

lordly_llama wrote:

If it was preceded by Shaq, you got exactly what you deserved