Have you ever had an idea for something you considered dumb/impossible until someone goes, does it and somehow it works? I kind of had something like that with foursquare but I didn't bother to even tested because I (and everybody I told the idea to) found it sort of creepy that people could know your whereabouts at any time. And yet it did work, and despite hacks like "plz rob me" and others people keep installing location-based apps and services. Guess that when enough people are doing it they dont think about the implications anymore. How about you guys?
Well, more like "I can't believe it is that texture format after all!" And, "I can't believe those skels work on the PC version!" Among other stuff for Furballs/Fur Fighters. Edit: And of course, there is the "I can't believe I thought INTRO.CHB was the same as the final version files all these years."
I think I've mentioned this before, but when I was a kid playing around with my Minidisc recorder, I had an idea for something that was basically a PSP - a little portable PlayStation that plays games on Minidiscs. I should have patented it.
Twice, when coming back from Japan with WAY too much stuff to be considered "reasonable" under Economy Class baggage allowance... but it worked, once because I was late at the gate with my huge "hand luggage" (more like an oversized duffel bag) and once because Alitalia staff was particularly nice!
In the pre internet days: I noticed that my friend's Sega Genesis controllers had the same plug shape that my atari 2600 controllers did, I decided to go out and buy a sega genesis controller on spec to see what would happen when I plug it into the atari. Low and behold, it worked perfectly and became my new favorite controller for the atari. --- A second time: I newly bought a dreamcast in 2001. Heard some rumors that you could download and burn a game and it would boot just fine on the dreamcast without modchip or swap trick or anything. Downloaded DOA2 without really knowing how things would work... At a party, told my friends, all of them were like "no way, there is no way you can just burn a CDr of a game and have it work!" And then I popped it in, and it worked! My friends and I were all pleasantly surprised.
I've had tried several things that worked when it probably shouldn't have. But the only one that immediately comes to mind is a tad boring. I once installed Windows XP on one of my old Pentium 1 PCs just to see what would happen. You actually could run the OS that way, though VERY slowly. It's interesting that you say that, because when I first saw photos of the PSP and UMD, I thought for a moment that it might have been a new form of Minidisc.
If you know a woman who smokes, offer to let her sit in your car and warm up (as you have to smoke outside). This leads to conversation, which leads to many things, one of them being the high probability of getting a blowie in the future. Odd but true.
D'OH! D'oh. First time I replaced a DVD drive on a Powerbook G4 12" I was amazed. It was also the first time I had taken apart a laptop. Doesn't sound hard, but when you consider that everything must be removed in order to remove the DVD drive on those laptops, it starts to seem just a bit more amazing.
This! I remember hearing about a new portable Playstation... at the grocery store I flip through a magazine to see what it looks like and BAM there it is, with mini-disc style media. I probably thought it was just a dream for a second.
Doing my all region mod to my model 3 Sega Genesis. Had a problem where it would reset every time I switched the region. Was at a loss until a member here suggested to ditch the +5V wire to the switch. I did and just used the GND signal only. IT WORKED! No more resets on region change and everything works fine to this day. It even simplified the mod from 4 wires to only 3. The switch is a 4 position one and gives it all 4 possible region mixes. NTSC, PAL, JAP, and Asia. (Not sure on the code for Asian regions...)
I'm still looking for those late 90s PSP prototypes that ran games from an old big memory stick, I remember a number of blogs mentioned them from a quote of something a SCE engineer said, but now I can't even find those damn blogs! A shame really since maybe there was another one that used MDs, I always thought that the HiMD would've been a better choice than the UMD: you have a proven media that holds 1GB of data, more than enough for 99% of all PSP games, let alone compressed audio and video.
I would like to see these prototypes. Nao! Is there any technical data on the UMD format? Surely it's something simple like a DVD-based sizing/encoding... Wiki has nothing to contribute, and according to that Sony hasn't released tech info on the disc. There's some fun reading in an old thread, http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?30365-PSP-prototype-stuff just for kicks. But really, the system isn't -that- old (definitely had plenty of internet at the time!), so surely some decent pre-release information exists somewhere.
I left my Genesis paused for about 3 hours to go to the doctor when I was 10, and it had no ill effects (I turned the TV off of course)
Heh, i left my AV Famicom paused for three months (vacation time). It was powered by battery-backed 350 watt PSU from some military equipment. It was very safe PSU with built-in automatic fire suppression system, so you can leave it working for 30 years and nothing will happen (battery will be dead though). These were the times - no emulators with saves.
