401 Reply by Bit Shifter

(84 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Alister wrote:

Thanks dudes, all this info is really helpful (when i understand what youre talking about)

Ill try famitracker and try to get my head around it

With trackers, I've heard that composing music on them isn't like writing sheet music etc. but it uses hexidecimal characters. I (sort of) know what that is, but whats the relationship between notes and hexidecimal characters?
Actually that's probably something I should mess around with myself...

I don't intend to piss people off by asking for help, I understand that chiptune emerged from a very DIY scene but for new comers to the scene (like me) its a bit confusing if you've never really been exposed to the 'chiptune making scene'

Just dive in. Some things you're worrying about now will become immediately clear simply by experiencing them in-context. The things you don't understand quickly, you'll then be better able to contextualize when you present the community with specific questions.

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402 Reply by Bit Shifter

(84 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Nothing stops you from hooking an off-the-shelf SNES's audio outputs up to a mixer.

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403 Reply by Bit Shifter

(360 replies, posted in Past Events)

Facebook event listing created -- http://www.facebook.com/events/338768329499531

so now you KNOW it's real

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404 Reply by Bit Shifter

(23 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

e.s.c. wrote:

@bit shifter: you probably saw this

http://www.gamefaqs.com/gameboy/928914- … anizer-and

i have one, courtesy of lissajou smile
and yes, it has a calculator... even better, it has an FAQ page on gamefaqs
no walkthrough though, so i still can't beat that damn boss which sort of just looks like a calendar

I don't think this was it either — but there couldn't possibly be three of these kinds of products out there could there? "All right, dev group — the Game Boy PDA market is blowin' up, and we want a piece. Let's get in there while we still can."

I remember the one I saw having lighter packaging — wish I could remember the specifics. It's possible that it's this same product in a different packaging design or something. Or that I'm just misremembering.

Calendar bosses are the hardest to beat.

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405 Reply by Bit Shifter

(23 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Damn -- this is amazing / hilarious / absurd. Apparently the manufacturer followed up with a product called WorldPort GBX:

http://www.nesworld.com/gbx-smartcom.php wrote:

By 2001 Datel had invented a new version of the SmartCom called World Port GBX which actually had a small modem built-in.

Now the catch with the Worldport GBX was that it would only work from telephone lines in the United Kingdom, so I'm guessing it's safe to say that neither the Worldport GBX or the SmartCom was a great success back then...

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406 Reply by Bit Shifter

(23 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I remember seeing some sort of bizarre cartridge-based "personal assistant" software for the Game Boy several years ago at a used game shop here in New York, but I can't remember what it was called. My ham-handed Google hunting for it did, however, turn this up (which, if I'm not mistaken, is actually different from the thing I'd seen):

http://www.nesworld.com/gbx-smartcom.php

that site wrote:

SmartCom™ is an exciting new do-it-all package which transforms an ordinary Game Boy® Pocket or Color into an advanced personal organiser.

SmartCom’s features include:

• E-Mail / Pager *: Using Game Boy® Color’s Infra-Red function, you can send messages to other SmartCom™ users in the vicinity !
• Notepad: SmartCom™’s mini word-processor allows you to create and save your own notes – and you can even print them out using the Game Boy® Printer !
• Phone Book / Phone Audio Dialler – Keep a record of those important phone numbers using SmartCom™’s Phone Book feature. When you want to call a friend, simply hold by the telephone and hit a button – SmartCom™’s Phone Audio Dialler function will then dial the number for you !
• Calculator: Whether you’re working out your finances, or doing sums in class, the Calculator function will also come in useful.
• Clock / Alarm: SmartCom™’s battery back-up means that it always keeps track of the time for you, and the alarm will even sound when your Game Boy® is switched off ! If you go on holiday, simply tell SmartCom™ which country you are in, and it will change the time accordingly.
• Calendar: Don’t miss those important dates ! SmartCom’s™ calendar will mean you never forget family & friends’ birthdays or important appointments.
• TV/ VCR Remote Control *: This clever little feature lets you change channels on most modern TV sets and video recorders ! Whoever thought that one day you could use a Game Boy® to control your television ?!

The programming wizards at Datel have somehow managed to cram all this incredible technology into a normal-sized Game Boy® game cartridge. And the great news is….it’ll only cost about as much as your average game !
*Denotes a feature that only activates on Game Boy® Color

Some screenshots:




Bizarre.

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407 Reply by Bit Shifter

(70 replies, posted in General Discussion)

"Chipmusic -- it's kind of like Mario at a Blip Festival"

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408 Reply by Bit Shifter

(20 replies, posted in Motion Graphics)

So awesome. Man I miss this whole experience so much. Great video, great recap, great tracks, great marsupials. Also Melbourne, I'm sorry for dissing your giant theremin.

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409 Reply by Bit Shifter

(2 replies, posted in Releases)

щдт

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410 Reply by Bit Shifter

(71 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Decktonic wrote:

How is the TV network that publishes Big Bang Theory any different from the record label that publishes a music video?

Fuck man I don't know — that's why I keep saying it's confusing! We have, in front of our very eyes, an example in which a television program is using another company's logo (ours) without permission, clearance, or apparent concern — and at face value, this would seem to imply a different policy than, for example, what I'm used to seeing in the context of music videos.

But fuck if I know. Aside from news coverage when 9/11 happened, I haven't watched television for 14 years.

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411 Reply by Bit Shifter

(71 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Decktonic wrote:

Just keep in mind that in this example, 8bp is the company and Big Bang Theory is the music video.

No, Big Bang Theory is a TV show. I was using the music video example (where record companies seem to be apparently obligated to blur logos out) as a contrast / counterexample to a TV show, where (seemingly) there's no similar obligation. The rules seem to possibly differ between the two usage contexts. I was highlighting the apparent different simply to illustrate: whatever the rules are, they confuse me.

ANYWAY, option C, which I think is the likeliest scenario here, is that they thought the 8BP computer logo was just a cool nerdy design, didn't realize it was a logo, and saw no issue in using it in the show.

edit: clarifying confusing phrasing, originally typed semi-drunkely

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412 Reply by Bit Shifter

(71 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Companies don't charge for endorsements, they pay for them. If a company endorses a musician (for example), with the interest of associating the musician with their brand, the company pays the musician (or gives him/her free product). Not the other way around.

So in the music video example, if a company (Coca-Cola, Ford, Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems) wants to associate their brand with the music video's artist -- or even just wants to sneak in some product placement -- the company would ordinarily pay a lot of money to make that happen.

So one would think that when logos appear incidentally / accidentally in music videos, in backgrounds, publicly visible signage, the companies in question would get big old boners because they're getting product placement essentially for free.

But obviously there's more to the story that I don't know, because I think that's generally not how it works (in the music video context, anyway).

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413 Reply by Bit Shifter

(71 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I don't really understand what laws / interests govern logo use on television. You have cases like this, and then you have cases where record labels are obligated to blur out logos that might appear in their music videos and things like that. I guess a music video is considered a "product" in a sense, and a logo's appearance there could arguably suggest endorsement. Although I guess a TV show can be considered a "product" as well, and yet in those cases you have companies aggressively seeking to insinuate themselves there, via product or logo placement. Don't really get it.

Fucking logos. How do they work.

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414 Reply by Bit Shifter

(705 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Point.

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415 Reply by Bit Shifter

(705 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Honestly, anyone whining about this needs to get lost. In the entire world of musicmaking, I can think of no hardware setup with a more favorable awesomeness-to-expense ratio. And having a truly reliable, well-considered hardware solution to facilitate that is, in my view, absolutely worth the "added cost" equivalent to, I don't know, a night out at a dive bar (or 5 Cokes in Australia).

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416 Reply by Bit Shifter

(358 replies, posted in Past Events)

Yeah still processing everything that happened over the last week. Totally amazing. Some of my favorite moments:

- non-stop lolz at the Bongo House with Derris-Kharlan, Cid, G-Zom & Lauren
- spending most of the week in stupefied awe at Cid's endless helpfulness to everyone around him
- buying a Coke at some kind of stationery store on what happened to be Feb. 14th and having a big Russian (I think) dude pat me on the shoulder & whisper a heartfelt "Good luck tonight" in my ear
- Australian coffee
- kangaroo burger at a massive Melbourne night market
- Monodeer & iLKke's live set, seriously what the fuck
- getting to hang with Hally again, and being reminded what a beast he is on stage
- seeing Lazerbeat & _ensnare_ live for the first time, totally killer
- meeting iLKke & his excellent Wolverine sideburns
- the totally mindblowing interactive 7bit Hero set
- phở with Patric Catani (pardon me while I trick out this humblebrag with accurate Unicode characters nabbed from Wikipedia)
- chilling out with a beer in perfect Melbourne weather, listening to Dot.AY & Celsius' chipmusic radio show
- "poo tickets" = Australian slang for toilet paper
- getting schooled about seapunk, tribal guarachero, and meter-long Mexican pointy boots
- seeing cTrix, Batsly Adams, Abrasive, and little-scale all in one place, and feeling the earth's axial tilt shift slightly as a result of the mass of their combined intellect
- Mildura Brewery Desert Premium Lager
- discovering that a brand new Hally CD exists, and buying the shit out of it instantly

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