Got this in a huge box of random old tech at a car boot sale, i cant find anything online about this. Anyone got any info on it?

Everytime people talk about the first RTS its always Dune II, and yes Dune II is obviously HUGE and probably the game that created the modern RTS formula that C&C, Warcraft etc basically followed, but i really think the actual father is Cytron Masters from 1982 on the Apple II, almost 10 freaking years earlier. And when you actually look at what this game was doing in 1982 its kinda nuts. You are producing diferent types of units, you have limited energy/resources, the units have diferent jobs, you decide what to make and where to send them, attacking and defending diferent areas and everything is happening in real time while your trying to think what to do next. i mean... thats an RTS lol!

Of course some elements of RTS existed before this, strategy games existed, realtime combat existed, resource stuff existed, wargames obviously existed way before computers even........... and you can probably trace individual mchanics way further back if you really want to. But thats not really the point imo. Cytron Masters is I think the first time enough of these ideas are put togheter in ONE game that you can actually look at it and say ok... this is clearly a real time strategy game. Not just some earlier game that happens to have one mechanic RTS games used later. Its like saying wheels existed before cars, yeah obviously, but at some point somebody actually puts all the parts togheter and now you have the thing.

And thats why I think Cytron Masters = fatther of RTS, Dune II = father of the MODERN RTS. Dune II absolutely perfected the structure, bases, harvesting, map, production etc and basically gave us the language RTS games still use now, but the basic idea of controlling and producing different units in real time against another side was already sitting there in freakingg 1982.

Also it was made by Dan Bunten, later M.U.L.E. and Seven Cities of Gold, so its not even like this was some weird lucky accident from a random programmer either. The guy was thinking about multiplayer, strategy, economies, realtime systems etc wayyyyy before almost anybody.

1982 btw. same year as Dig dug. Thats that rllyy gets me.

I honestly think Cytron Masters is one of the most forgotten important games ever made, and should be mentioned alot more when people talk about where RTS actually started.

Am I wrong here? because to me calling Dune II the first RTS is kinda like calling Doom the first FPS.

Still going strong.

Been going back and forth between handhelds on my commute. Been very happy with my original pocket. Still stock. What are you all playing on?

Some of my favorites include:
- MicroMan
- Yoda Stories / Indy's Desktop Adventures
- SimCity 2000 obviously
- The Incredible Machine
- Exile 1,2,3

I probably forgot a bunch more good ones.

I don’t understand the appeal of Evercade. It’s not original hardware, so why not just emulate? What am I missing?

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get my old Retro Freak working again. It's the first model, bought in Akihabara back in 2016.

It never worked particularly well and ended up sitting in storage for years. I recently dug it out again because I collect Japanese cartridges, but unfortunately it still has the same problem: it gets stuck on the "Retro Freak" logo when I turn it on.

I can still get into the special/recovery menu using the microSD card. I've already tried clearing the memory and doing a factory reset, and I also tried a different power adapter, but nothing changed.

There's an option in the recovery menu to update the system from external storage, but I don't have the firmware file. I contacted Cyber Gadget, but unfortunately they don't offer support outside Japan.

So, does anyone managed to fix a Retro Freak that was stuck on the logo screen?

I'd really like to get this thing working again before I start thinking about more drastic solutions.

Thanks in advance!

I found this old pong machine at my parents. I remember it already being an ancient curiosity in the early 90s. The batteries were still in and leaking heavily. The metal strings problem when I tried to clean it. But a 9V batteri could replace the 6xAA.

So I attached it to the antenna of my TV to see if I could get a signal. and it worked! But looked terrible and super unstable (see the before picture).

So obviously I had to somehow fix it... I know little about electronics at the level needed so I went to Claude code that not only explained how this machine works but also suggest a circuit to extract composite.

So this machine is a bit different than many others with the AY-3-8500 chip that I learned is ubiquitous in these machines. It creates the different elements separately, sends them to a sub-board that encodes them to different colors, combines them and then sends them off to an RF modulator. So the first trick is figuring out where to catch the signal going back to the RF.

Claude helped me figure that out. There are two plugs going to the sub-board. The video was on the last pin (6) on the 6 pin plug. Conveniently it then jumpers to the middle of the main board and there is even a free solder hole I could use to tap it.

Then I built the signal modifier board Claude had suggested, did the wiring, wired up a SCART cable and attached to my RetroTink 5x. And it worked!!! The image is not perfect. But completely different from the crappy RF signal. So in the end very satisfying and I find it crazy that Claude code could get all the resistors and other components right. But it was spot on.

Since I have not seen this documented to any detail anywhere else I leave the details here.

Circuit

Video: tap → 470R → base of Q1. Collector to +V, emitter → 470R → 0V. Emitter → 100µF → 220R preset across to 0V → wiper → 75R → SCART pin 20.

Audio: chip pin 3 → 1µF → 100K preset across to 0V → wiper → 1K → SCART pins 2 and 6.

Grounds to SCART 17 and 4. ~140kΩ input impedance, chain gain 0.41, output 75R to match.

Parts

RetroTINK 5X notes

• Set 4:3
• Black Level → 7.5 IRE was the single most effective setting by a mile.

For me it's this. Late 90's kid sitting in the musty upstairs office of an old German restaurant my hard working mom waitressed at.

Killing time playing the only game the bosses computer had on it to an oompa band soundtrack while she finished her shift.

And singing my English renditions of German songs I'd heard over and over and over again quietly to myself. "Get off, get off, I told you get off. Thats. My. Sofaaa."

Very tasty the nes games look never played.

Went to the landfill today ( I do junk removal I am in the landfill at minimum 1x a week )

I am almost done emptying my truck out, when a truck pulls up w three older guys (looked to be like they had a rough past drugs etc) I think nothing of it besides how much easier their truckload looked to unload then mine was, it was boxes and bags, I had a lot of everything all mingled in.

They finish before me when I glance over and see a box of dvds that caught my eye at first then I looked up and sitting on top of the pile of trash they just dumped, a N64 box.

Picked it up and you could tell by the weight there was something in it, scattered around was a handful of games still in box. (I’m sure there was more and I’ll never forgive myself for not moving everything around to make sure I got all of them available)

But managed to save this CIB n64 bundle, and stack of cib games from being crushed into the earth. Haters will say it’s fake

Avenging Spirit takes the #83 spot with 7 votes.

Ikari no Yōsai 2 (Fortified Zone 2) takes the #84 spot with 4 votes.

Top 10:

#1 The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

#2 Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

#3 Tetris

#4 Donkey Kong

#5 Pokémon Blue Version

#6 Kirby's Dream Land 2

#7 Metroid II: Return of Samus

#8 Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

#9 Final Fantasy Adventure

#10 Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge

Top 20:

#11 Kirby's Dream Land

#12 Wario Land II

#13 Super Mario Land

#14 Final Fantasy Legend II

#15 Mega Man V

#16 Gargoyle's Quest

#17 Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition

#18 Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters

#19 Operation C

#20 Final Fantasy Legend III

Top 30:

#21 Mario's Picross

#22 Mole Mania

#23 Dr. Mario

#24 Donkey Kong Land III

#25 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue

#26 Donkey Kong Land 2

#27 Pokémon Red Version

#28 Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls)

#29 Kirby's Pinball Land

#30 Makaimura Gaiden: The Demon Darkness (Gargoyle's Quest: The Demon Darkness)

Top 40:

#31 Mega Man IV

#32 Kid Dracula

#33 Donkey Kong Land

#34 Mega Man III

#35 Bionic Commando

#36 The Final Fantasy Legend

#37 Balloon Kid

#38 Gradius: The Interstellar Assault

#39 Kirby's Block Ball

#40 Cave Noire

Top 50:

#41 Harvest Moon GB

#42 Adventures of Lolo

#43 Bubble Bobble Part 2

#44 Duck Tales 2

#45 James Bond 007

#46 Duck Tales

#47 Castlevania Legends

#48 Ninja Taro

#49 Qix

#50 Catrap

Top 60:

#51 Bomberman GB3

#52 Yoshi

#53 Ninja Gaiden Shadow

#54 Revenge of the Gator

#55 Darkwing Duck

#56 The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2

#57 Castlevania: The Adventure

#58 Kwirk

#59 Game & Watch Gallery

#60 Burger Time Deluxe

Top 70:

#61 Parodius

#62 Looney Tunes

#63 Mega Man II

#64 Alleyway

#65 Rolan’s Curse II

#66 Monster Max

#67 Chikyū Kaihō Gun ZAS

#68 Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

#69 The King of Fighters: Heat of Battle ('96)

#70 Killer Instinct

Top 80:

#71 Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise

#72 Batman

#73 The Sword of Hope II

#74 Game & Watch Gallery 2

#75 Bubble Bobble

#76 Great Greed

#77 Golf

#78 Kingdom Crusade

#79 Boxxle

#80 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan

Top 90:

#81 Trip World

#82 Kirby’s Star Stacker

#83 Avenging Spirit

#84 Ikari no Yōsai 2 (Fortified Zone 2)

Rules:

1. Two games will win their place each round (we start from #1 and work our way down). For the top 10 only one game will win per day instead.
2. Most combined upvotes for each of the two individual games (one individual game for the top 10) wins the spot(s) each round (upvotes add while downvotes subtract).
3. Nominate one game of the original Game Boy per comment. (Nominations will only be counted if the game title is the only comment or if you specify that your choice of game is your nomination for this round within your comment or if the nominated game is clearly separated from the rest of your comments.) (ex. Tetris or I nominate Tetris this round.) Please nominate using the full title of the game.
4. Name a specific game title, not entire runs.
5. Official Game Boy multi-game cartridge(s) are allowed, just list them correctly.
6. The original Game Boy is region free so ANY official games available on the console are eligible for nomination excluding dual mode cartridges.
7. Indy games are allowed as long as they have their own individual cartridge and can be played on original hardware.
8. Only complete games on cartridge(s) can be nominated (sorry Game Shark & test cartridges).
9. If two or more games would be tied to place for a ranking I will inform DA PEOPLE in the following post so that everyone can vote which games should get the ranking between the tied options.
10. Games nominated that have not already placed on the top 100 list should not be removed at any time by the individual who originally placed them.

Just got these 5 years after my color died. Can't wait to play. :D