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Lost Prototype Found! The Origin of Lock-On Technology!
That’s right. We all know about Lock-On Technology, the secret dark art of Sega used to turn Sonic & Knuckles into what it should have been if Sonic the Hedgehog 3 hadn’t been rushed to release. But what if I told you that that wasn’t supposed to be the first game with Lock-On Technology? What if Sega had intended Lock-On Technology for an entirely different game, on a different console? Also, what if 80’s sitcoms were involved?
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Pinball in my House, 2026: Alice Goes to Wonderland
So, an ongoing background story in this blog has been that I quite like to play pinball. A problem with pinball, though, is that it is an intensely physical game. Video pinball machines, modded or otherwise, struggle to scratch the same itch, even though they have major benefits, like multiple tables. And many manufacturers have, over the years, tried to make a home pinball machine work. Now we have another: Wonderland Amusements. Let’s take a look.
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What if the Apple ][ had run on Field-Sequential?
One thing I remain fascinated by is the field-sequential color system. Essentially, unlike composite video, which sacrifices color depth in space, field sequential sacrifices color depth in time. But the specifics matter, and we have the specifics: the United States adopted such a system, but didn’t stick with it. So this article describes a nonexistent, alternate-world computer– what would an early mass-market 8-bit computer have looked like in a world where the field-sequential color system was in place?
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Sega Consoles Never Die: The Soggy-1000 and MD3
It should come as no surprise that I love the retro video game fandom. There is a huge outut of effort and creativity to keep game consoles alive and improve them decades after they were abandoned by their manufacturers; and this is an international effort. So today I’ve ordered a few consoles from enthusiasts in China via Aliexpress. China is a major center of this due to their thriving electronics industry, so I’m excited to dig in. And of course, how could it be anything but Sega?
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You Can't Trust the Internet Anymore
I like things that are strange and a bit obscure. It’s a habit of mine, and a lot of this blog is to document things I haven’t heard of before, because I wanted to learn about them. I mean, jeez, I’m certainly not writing blog posts about strip mahjong because the people demand it. But I can’t stop seeing misinformation everywhere, and I have to say something. This post is just a rant.
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Story Follows Function: Mahjong Daireikai
We like to say that video games are art, and there’s truth in that. But in the capitalist world, video games are also a business. Not everything is the product of an auteur with unlimited funds; sometimes, the funds justify everything. That’s especially true in genres like strip mahjong. At the end of the day, everything is subject to the budget. Sometimes it’s just more obvious. PLUS: The AI apocalypse continues! Ghosts! The Legend of Makai!
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The Last Preset Machine: Yamaha's MR10
Earlier on the blog, I took a look at an early preset drum machine, the Panasonic RD-9844. How early was it? Not a single IC in sights, a pure discrete logic machine packed tightly into a case. Let’s take a look at the opposite end of things. The 1982 Yamaha MR10 drum machine. PLUS: Disco fever!
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