@vl_tone@mastodon.social
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

vl_tone

@vl_tone@mastodon.social

Little green person on the internet, loving retro-tech and colorful neon pastel art. Sometimes I like to reverse engineer old video games.
You may also remember me from such software as:
Toad's Tool 64: The original Super Mario 64 level editor.
Metroid Cubed: An early 2000s attempt at voxelizing a classic 2D video game. Recently revived as Metroid Curved.
SFXEdit: A level editor for Star Fox.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

So I saw some people saying that supposedly GTA 6 might cost 150$, and how this is ridiculous.

So I opened up my Byte to 1982.
Hey look: Odesta Chess for the Apple II and Atari 8-bits:70$.

With inflation, that's 220$

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@foone Random tangentially related tidbits: This screenshot is also in the manual (in B&W). Also, by some coincidence, NES games in Canada were also priced $42.97 (CDN) near launch? (This is an ad from November 1986)

harrymccracken, to random
@harrymccracken@mastodon.social avatar

I wrote about why Google search telling us all to eat rocks isn’t as serious an issue as it claiming there’s a non-existent Dr. Seuss book. https://www.fastcompany.com/91132217/google-ai-overview-errors

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@harrymccracken I know it's not your fault, but I had trouble reading through the article with that uncloseable and un pauseable auto-playing video that remains at the bottom of the screen. It can be made smaller but it continues to play which to me is very distracting.

scummvm, to random
@scummvm@manitu.social avatar

What's more useful than a debugger? A truly advanced debugger with tons and tons of features!

This time: DIRECOR. Down to the byte-code and to everything related to Lingo (the scripting language that drives the... well... scripts).

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@scummvm Which versions of the Director engine does it support?

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@scummvm Is "DIRECOR" the name of that debugger or is it a typo of "DIRECTOR"?

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@scummvm I'd be curious to try it on my old Director projects. Is the debugger included in the public release of ScummVM?

atpfm, to random
@atpfm@mastodon.social avatar

589: The Correct Amount of Rocks
https://atp.fm/589

Rumored AI features for WWDC, the state of LLMs, and a ridiculous desktop speaker setup.

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@atpfm Not sure about my 15 pro, but the iPhone X did use PWM when the brightness went below 50%. While it was generally unnoticeable, rapid eye movements, or moving the phone itself rapidly (i.e. when picking it up) would reveal some strobing that didn't exist at >50%.

It didn't cause me headaches but I found it annoying.

Reducing the white point using accessibility settings could make the display dimmer without PWM, but it would show uneveness in dark gray areas (similar to a cheap LCD).

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

Happy ! For those who don't know who Mario is, I prepared this helpful video.

Hundreds of disembodied Mario heads floating toward the camera while repeatedly shouting "It's a me Mario!" while the title screen music from Super Mario 64 plays in the background.

vl_tone, to Nintendo French
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

F-Zero ♾️

video/mp4

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

LLM is an acronym for Luigi Looks Mormal

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@cr1901 @mcc Indeed, Luigi is based off Mama in Doki Doki Panic! I made this useful graphic to help everyone remember.

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

Apparently I just posted a new YouTube video? It's something I do once in a while since 2005.

This one is short, but it's not a 'Shorts'! :D https://youtu.be/BxGEQ-sMbHE?si=SqYYsD3QdgY0Z6Di

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

Master Takahashi singing the Adventure Island theme live with NES BAND! (A Japanese band that performs NES music live with synthesizers.) https://youtu.be/GQ83CPXbCHU

vl_tone, to Nintendo
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

There nothing quite like actual NES hardware glitches!

Gameplay video of Super Mario Bros. with visual glitches.

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@cr1901 For some reason I wasn't aware of this weird IKAEEE GG code! It does seem to affect the PPU in ways that GG codes usually don't.

Speaking of blog posts, I have some unfinished draft on cohost for a post about how I was "circuit bending" my NES in the early 90s to create visual and gameplay glitches that were sometime similar to that GG code.

vl_tone, to Metroid
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

A couple of years ago I made this image comparing screenshots from the NES Metroid manual with their final version equivalent.

Most changes are subtle, but if you're into that kind of thing (which I am) you might appreciate seeing how the graphics were polished before the game release!

vl_tone, to random French
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

When I was a kid I was gifted a 64K Tandy CoCo 2 right around Christmas, and this is among the first BASIC program I wrote on it!

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

Merry Holidays from Voxel Planet Zebes! https://youtube.com/shorts/dArV2boVG1Q

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

The 'Super Mario Bros. 116 online Shockwave demo' I made in 2000 using Macromedia Director, after seeing the Super Mario 128 GameCube tech demo video.

video/mp4

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

Throwing some weirdness into , here's an animation of a flying moose smoking joints, made with high school friends in the 90s using Electronic Art's Studio/1 painting and animation program on a Mac Classic.

1-bit animation of a flying moose smoking joints, with clouds flying behind and over.

vga256, to retrocomputing
@vga256@dialup.cafe avatar

as promised, i'm archiving this 42 year old D&D campaign building software on cassette

warning: loud/annoying modulation sounds 😆

A cassette titled "Fantasy Gamer" by Prickly-Pear Software is inserted into a Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer Cassette Recorder. The owner hits play, and it begins playing back modulation sounds recorded on the tape.

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@feedmd @vga256 I was about to post the exact same thing! :D

vl_tone, to random French
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

My HyperCard Zelda overworld editor also included a playable demo that used some clever tricks to achieve 'smooth' scrolling between screens!

video/mp4

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Adjective noun

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@mcc I never got around to officially announce them, but I made two fediverse bots that post an adjective/noun pair every few hours from a list that I curated myself a few years ago! :)

English version : https://botsin.space/@nomadjen

French version : https://botsin.space/@nomadj

Screenshot of a list of toots from a bot called "nomadj - mots aléatoires" Vie éprouvante Bâtonnet influent Abbaye médaillée Partie performante

vl_tone, to random
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

In 2006 I dug into the iPod nano firmware and found strings referencing a phone and other unreleased features.

One of the string was "t_feature_app_STACKER_APP" which I speculated was a Tetris clone. Apparently I was right!
https://mastodon.social/@macrumors/112496683834623177

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

At the time, my discoveries made the rounds in tech news, possibly boosting Apple stock (which I didn't own and still don't), as it was the first confirmation that Apple was working on a phone. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2006/07/4703/

christianselig, to random
@christianselig@mastodon.social avatar

The price difference to go from an 83 inch OLED to an 88 inch is just bonkers

vl_tone,
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@christianselig Just saying: if you sit 1.5 feet closer to the TV, a 83" screen will look just as big as a 88".

vl_tone,
@vl_tone@mastodon.social avatar

@christianselig VR headsets do change your focal distance using lens (it would be impossible to focus on those tiny screens otherwise) but yeah they usually have a fixed focal distance that are much closer than a movie screen.

I get what you're saying about not being as immersive but sitting closer still makes a difference by filling more of your field of view, and in the context of this price difference it would be "good enough" for me! :)

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