The Spam Thread!

[cpd2009]

The really micro-sized Sega Game Gear collectibles have dropped in Japan, and here's a good review of one of the four different colored units. Yes, it's way too small for extended play, but as a novelty item, it works amazingly well. The screen is extremely small, but the video shows the picture is crisp and there appears to be no scaling artifacts present.

The teardown in the video also reveals this is another Allwinner-powered retro device running a custom Linux base. This opens up hacking possibilities too!

[huckleberrypie]

The really micro-sized Sega Game Gear collectibles have dropped in Japan, and here's a good review of one of the four different colored units. Yes, it's way too small for extended play, but as a novelty item, it works amazingly well. The screen is extremely small, but the video shows the picture is crisp and there appears to be no scaling artifacts present.

The teardown in the video also reveals this is another Allwinner-powered retro device running a custom Linux base. This opens up hacking possibilities too!

Some have dismissed it as an utter joke on part of Sega, but I could also see this as a doll accessory lol.

[cpd2009]

Speaking of incredibly small stuff... this was Majesco's attempt to bring video to the Game Boy, straight outta 2004.

In 2004, the only real way to watch video on the go was with a portable DVD player with LCD screen, so GBA video should have been the next logical step forward. The format is hobbled by the GBA's slow CPU and the storage limitations of the carts, leaving you with video quality reminiscent of an early 90s QuickTime movie. Majesco even tried to release full length kids movies on the GBA, with obvious heavy compression to boot. Nintendo was even in on the GBA video push, dropping at least four different carts with Pokemon episodes.

I seen in one of the promo ads featured in the video that there was a Strawberry Shortcake GBA video cart released. Perhaps I might track that down out of novelty. GBA video carts are incredibly cheap nowadays due to the format's failure, plus better ways to see the shows in question.

Several GBA Video titles that got a Volume 1 cart were supposed to get Volume 2, which was advertised in included leaflets. The Volume 2's never materialized and by 2006 the GBA Video format was dead.

[huckleberrypie]

Reminds me of when I downloaded a ROM of a Strawberry Shortcake game/TV episode combo. It has a full (albeit somewhat abridged) episode and the compression is borderline unwatchable by today's standards. Back then little girls might not probably care if it looks blocky as long as it has their favourite character on screen.

[cpd2009]

Reminds me of when I downloaded a ROM of a Strawberry Shortcake game/TV episode combo. It has a full (albeit somewhat abridged) episode and the compression is borderline unwatchable by today's standards. Back then little girls might not probably care if it looks blocky as long as it has their favourite character on screen.

True. Kids just want to watch their favorite cartoon characters no matter the quality, for the most part anyway.

One thing I hope drops this week is macOS Big Sur. The middle of October is normally when new OS releases drop out of Apple Park. I was tempted to install the previews, but decided to wait. The whole visual redesign is going to be interesting, especially for those who are so used to the current UI.



Yeah. My apartment's DSL isn't the best. HD video streams okay as long as it's the only thing you're doing online. Uploads are where my DSL falls flat. This may have been acceptable in 2005, but with my video uploads sometimes going over a gigabyte, DSL doesn't cut it. And because my part of the apartment building only has DSL internet, I'm stuck with these pathetic upload speeds until I move to a different place with cable or fiber.

[huckleberrypie]

Reminds me of when I downloaded a ROM of a Strawberry Shortcake game/TV episode combo. It has a full (albeit somewhat abridged) episode and the compression is borderline unwatchable by today's standards. Back then little girls might not probably care if it looks blocky as long as it has their favourite character on screen.

True. Kids just want to watch their favorite cartoon characters no matter the quality, for the most part anyway.

One thing I hope drops this week is macOS Big Sur. The middle of October is normally when new OS releases drop out of Apple Park. I was tempted to install the previews, but decided to wait. The whole visual redesign is going to be interesting, especially for those who are so used to the current UI.



Yeah. My apartment's DSL isn't the best. HD video streams okay as long as it's the only thing you're doing online. Uploads are where my DSL falls flat. This may have been acceptable in 2005, but with my video uploads sometimes going over a gigabyte, DSL doesn't cut it. And because my part of the apartment building only has DSL internet, I'm stuck with these pathetic upload speeds until I move to a different place with cable or fiber.

Kids won't care unless it reaches this point 



As for your connection, yeah, been there, done that. We've had pathetic upload speeds for almost a decade until the local ISP somehow decided to upgrade our DSL plan to 10MBPS upload and download; that didn't see much use however as dad applied for a fibre plan from a different provider.

[cpd2009]

Posted an interesting thing I managed to record nearly 20 years ago to VHS. This is a transfer using my AV-to-HDMI converter + HDMI dongle + MacBook Pro. The results are good, but there is framerate drops caused by the channel I recorded this from. It's like this on the source VHS and it's not caused by my capture setup. This "StarNet" channel appeared to use some kind of early Internet video technology to deliver their signal to Dish Network. Along with the stuttering, there was smearing of colors and odd pixelization that never occurred with other satellite TV networks.

Anyway, this is a rather interesting computer show that only aired on this now-defunct TV channel. It goes from straightforward computer instruction show to cheesey sketch comedy whenever it wants to. StarNet produced another computer show called "Tech Zone" that was nearly identical in concept. I have an episode or two of that as well, once I am able to find what VHS I recorded it on.

[huckleberrypie]

Nowadays that would be regarded as unadulterated cringe lol.

[cpd2009]

Nowadays that would be regarded as unadulterated cringe lol.

It's why I didn't watermark the video. Someone like Chadtronic may come around and riff the hell out of it (like he did with one of my Hardee's training videos I also uploaded), or someone else can make YTP gold out of it. Once I come across the other episodes I recorded, I will share them here too.

[cpd2009]

Here is what I find rather interesting on Instagram in regards to Inktober...

Within five minutes after I post my Inktober drawing of the day, I get at least five to six likes from completely random artists that I've never come across. Some of them are okay, but others aren't even into Inktober, or post artwork that is weird. I imagine these people happen to load up one of the several Inktober hashtags right after I post my work, hence why I get so many likes in such a small timeframe. These are probably the people who just look at the thumbnails, push the like button and go on down the page.

Likes from established children's artists that actually follow my account don't come until much much later, since my artwork gets buried in the thousands of other Inktober drawings later on.

Haven't come across spam accounts so far.