Yes, this is awful and frustrating. I got confirmation from the admin of the PCjr forum that they can be a little tricky. I was not interested in tricks this morning.

A casual glance did not indicate the problem. I guess I will leave it on with the case off for 20 minutes to see if I can tell where the zaps start.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=141852 time=1708376471 user_id=3]
Just documenting some frustration: I was able to get the case off the back of the monitor. I cannot get it to snugly fit back on.
[/quote]

That was the only part I would have truely dreaded lol. Apparently they are a bitch to take apart and snap back together and I would have been pissed if I broke a tab off. I want recap my Vectrex one day but argh that case!

Just documenting some frustration: I was able to get the case off the back of the monitor. I cannot get it to snugly fit back on.

Flyback transformer failure is my first guess! I can tell by the sound and the flickering of the screen. This is exactly what happened to my Zenith TV after being dropped. It MIGHT be able to be salvaged simply by reflowing the flyback connection to the board assuming neither the transformer or board cracked.. or it could even be a cap finally shitted out. Here's a video I checked out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZNpORMG9N4

So, the new PCjr monitor I have is doing this.

There is chatter, which I have never heard from a CRT (just a vector) and there are spots where it seems to be blasting red and green blotches on the tube. What the heck is this even called?

https://youtube.com/shorts/uYYdNmd22RA

Noooooo

I have my PCjr on two Ikea shelves and one just burst. The monitor fell to the ground screen first and no longer works.

Argh, I say.


Argh.

I'm reading that Qix came out for the IBM PC in 1982. It is on my list.

There are MS-DOS game jams! I need to enter one some day.

This person made a game called "Cara Grabs Antimatter." It is a cute little mechanic that I have seen before in some form, but I can't recall if I have ever seen it exactly implemented like this game does. The creator asked if people wanted to try it on their real systems, and I was happy to.

It worked flawlessly on my PCjr, here is a screenshot - one thing to note is that I believe the colors used for a real CGA machine are yellow, green, black and then that pinkish red thing CGA does.

On the PCjr, they (correctly) come up as brown, gree, red and black - I have had it explained to me before, and I have seen documentation on why this is the case. A lot of games act this way, when it comes to the PCjr palette and color modes and the PC's CGA ones.

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/3JBj7qVF/Cara-Grabs-Antimatter-01.jpg[/img]

You can try the game out here: https://voxel.itch.io/cara-grabs-antimatter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GeAtO6B3ZM

That is a video created by Jim Leonard - it is using the "composite" mode for video, which looks so much better due to color blending, than on a regular CGA monitor. It was an art form.

The gameplay really is lacking though. I think he picked "novice" mode and you play a while with no enemy cars.

I don't know. I get these desires to go make a free "upgraded" version of these arcade games, and Spy Hunter never got a proper sequel. It's real sequel is an absolute abomination, one of the 25 worst games ever made from what I can tell.

They did do an overblown 3D Spy Hunter for the PS2. The camera is all wrong, it's a totally separate thing. But imagine:

- Better driving controls
- More crap in the streets to avoid
- Other vehicles helping you
- More enemy types: there are 4 in Spy Hunter, plus some of the ones in water which are essentially the same
- Different weapons?
- Better controls. Spy Hunter was the first "you need a lot of buttons" games, but you still slow down by moving the gamepad or joystick down, at least on the PC version.
- Objectives that still work with a 2D game? The objective for the original is just to keep going.

I dunno. I have other stuff to finish but I think about a true sequel to a lot of these arcade games often.

I did not take a picture of Spy Hunter. It is not a great port. There does not seem to be any water areas, the helicopter will appear at least twice before you have the missiles and any way to attack it, and the Weapons Van is really few and far between.

The Gravis Gamepad does work, through the adapter I bought a while back.

However, the adapter takes over the keyboard slot, and it has two connectors for a keyboard - none of which are compatible with my particular genuine PCjr keyboard (I have a PS/2 keyboard I can use to get by). But this is all solvable. We have **options**

I bought a new old stock joystick that didn't work, so a few months later I bought the crappiest, cheapest one I could find, and of course it works perfect.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ue25ssr.jpg[/img]

First problem-free game I have played of Touchdown Football with a joystick in probably... well, I don't think it worked for XTs, right? So maybe 36 years or so.

That is an amazingly kind thing of you to say. I am starting my week off RIGHT. I will try to make the posts with pictures of the systems have more juice to them. I am a retro monster!

There was a PC Jr set up and running at the convention I went to over the weekend. I love seeing the pictures of yours, and sitting down in front of one again was a real treat. There are so many downsides to owning, maintaining, displaying, and using old hardware, and yet when you sit down at an old machine you haven't seen in years it's like running into an old friend.

The ADB (not ADP) port on the Mac is fine, more on that in the Mac thread.

Today I played GATO to make a joke on Mastodon. You're all on Mastodon, right? Get on Mastodon! Let's all be pals there!

Here is GATO, the submarine warfare game for the PCjr.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/bKbBuQx.png[/img]

My Jr has a problem where the graphics will distort after a warm boot.

The keyboard or ADP port on my Mac doesn't seem to work.

Ohhhh, the joys.

Reminder to patch Paratrooper for the PCjr tomorrow.

https://www.brutman.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3276#p3276

Then I shall try it!

I am interested in your thoughts on The Black Cauldron if you get around to trying it. I didn't see the movie because it wasn't in theaters long and never arrived on VHS in the USA. However, for some reason that game got me really interested in the story and I ended up reading all 3 books by Lloyd Alexander when I was 12-13. It's basically a King's Quest clone where you have to type in commands. I recommend trying to play it yourself for an hour or 2 then resorting to a walkthrough. Back in the day I probably spent 4-6 hours total trying to finish it myself before writing Sierra Online for a printout of a walkthrough.