Yeah, that scale makes total sense.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Uh, yeah, this makes sense
Just a rather amusing thing I found in my YouTube Analytics.
Yeah, that scale makes total sense.
Yeah, that scale makes total sense.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Thoughts on Azrael's Tear
Well, it's been a while since I've posted on this blog, hasn't it? I'm coming back to post about the latest game I'm LPing, blind this time (in the unlikely event you're reading this without already knowing that fact).
It centers around the search for the Holy Grail. But in this story, it's the future (well, the date given at the start of the game is in 2012, so it's no longer the future at the time I write this). For some unexplained reason, tectonic activity has increased dramatically over the last few years and, conveniently for archeologists, has resulted in numerous previously-buried sites being uncovered.
Also, a new type of tomb robber with high-tech equipment has emerged, known as Raptors (which, we're told, is "thief" in Latin; well, actually "one who seizes" according to the etymology given, but "thief" works too). Chief among their equipment is the MS-2 HUD helmet that has a number of support features, including scanning, mapping, and "twelve gigabytes of library information". The helmet is able to identify the composition and structure of things you run across and makes remarkably good guesses about the operation and purpose of a lot of them. Raptors also carry the MS-7 Sniper gun. We play as one of these Raptors.
One day, we get a letter from another Raptor, something that doesn't happen very often as Raptors are not very friendly with each other to say the least. The writer, Colin Scott, says he has found the Holy Grail, but that he seems to have gotten in too deep (the letter was to be delivered in the event of his disappearance). He includes a "last testament" supposedly written by a Sir Guy of Bramley, a Templar knight and one of the twelve chosen to guard the Grail, who lived a whopping 600 years thanks to something called "Grailstone". Colin makes an offer of half the profit in exchange for assistance, and this is where the game begins (all of the above is summarized from documents enclosed with the CD).
Maybe I was just blind in those last three cases. Of course, the cursor does have a context-sensitive appearance, so if I'd happened to move it over those items, it would have become obvious without me having to spot them. Still, I don't feel that's the way things should go.
On a minor note, this game came out around the same time as Quake, which both looks better and, I think, ran better on contemporary hardware. I wonder what would have happened if Intelligent Games had talked to Id. Well, just an idle fantasy. :-)
The controls are not too bad, though they do take some getting used to. For moving around, one can use the keyboard — up and down to move forward and back, left and right to turn, < and > to move sideways, and Page Up and Page Down to look up and down — and/or the mouse. But the way the mouse is set up is strange: Just moving it moves a cursor, which can be clicked on buttons and objects in the world with the left button. If you want to turn, you have to hold down the right button and move the mouse. Up and down is also the opposite of what you'd expect — up looks down, and down looks up — and you have to press F10 to switch to the more intuitive mode. Walking forward is accomplished by pressing the left button while the right button is held; you can move forward this way but not backward, so it's a good idea to keep one's other hand near the arrow keys.
The music, composed by Kerry Minnear, is where this game really shines. Here are a couple of examples as heard from a Roland SC-55mkII Sound Canvas:
Even on the lowly Sound Blaster, it sounds pretty good:
Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to sound very good on an MT-32, one of the other premium sound modules of the early PC era. It might have something to do with this being a bit past the MT-32's heyday. Still, there are other games with music targeted for General MIDI where the MT-32 at least sounds decent. Not in this case, though. (Or is there just something wrong with my equipment or setup? FYI, this is an actual MT-32, not an emulation.)
And that's not the worst one I've heard so far. If you want more, here is a comparison playlist.
I seem to be quite stuck (see bottom for update). It probably didn't help that I didn't do very well talking to the two people I was so far able to talk to and probably messed up one of the rooms as well. So I'm posting my thoughts here in hopes that someone can help me out. WARNING: spoilers ahead! If you haven't played the game, read on at your own risk!
First of all, I've cobbled together a map of the area I can access so far, based on the MS-2 map screens. Please forgive the roughness; I didn't want to bother too much with cleaning them up, and things don't fit together very well, probably because the map sections are given at arbitrary scales. I drew extra white lines to connect things where necessary.
Going room-by-room, here are my current thoughts on puzzles and other stuff:
But anyway, there's a locked door on the east side and a large pipe that pumps water up, where a crank switches it between two more sections of pipe on the south side; you can also put it in a neutral position, not connected to either.
There's also a car on rails, with its own grabbing claw, facing giant double doors on the east side; it won't move unless the doors are open, and I haven't worked out how to open them yet, but it might just be from the other side.
Finally, there's a large chasm running north-south near the west side; a mutated man named Lurka was trapped on a ledge at the start, but I got him upset at me, and he seems to have escaped on his own (or maybe fallen to his death trying?).
Up on a platform on the north side of the south half is a platform with four panels. One panel contains a section of tapestry; the others are blank. Two of the missing sections are right there on the platform (but good luck spotting them, as noted before); the other is far away. The panel that already had a piece of tapestry can be flipped over to reveal a riddle: "The eyes of Baphomet / watch over all / Beyond the murk / of stagnancy / His face lies / crystal clear". (Watch my LP for a little about Baphomet; or read Wikipedia for more info.) This is a hint about the fonts and the prism, since the water in the fonts is extremely stagnant.
The south font has a stone carving of a bible with a slot in it. Put the prism in that slot, and the font rises up about a foot. Stand on a conspicuous spot on the south side (pressure-sensitive, as the HUD reveals) and look into the prism to see a stone head and hear the voice of a man warning about what lies ahead; a mostly-hidden door in the southwest corner then opens to reveal a shield with the words "The way forward lies in prayer. Follow the path of the cross" written on it. The only crosses I've seen so far in this allegedly Christian place are in the tapestry, so I haven't figured out what this means.
In another corner is a sort of control panel with sections of pipe that can be pulled out, turned, and moved up and down, connecting one of three ports on either side to two of five ports down the center. One arrangement drains the south basin in the chapel, while another fills it.
According to the mapping function, there is an exit to the south, but so far I haven't been able to get through, due to there being a wood panel in the way. The scanner says it and the one on the west are screens. What kind of screens? For projecting images? Although they seem too darkly colored for that.
Stepping on a particular part of the floor causes a door that was suspended over the north exit to fall, sealing off that exit. Escape is still possible, by falling down the hole in front of the east door, but getting back in is a problem I have yet to solve. Thus, I can't explore the room anymore for now, and I can't try the block key.
There's also the other piece of the tapestry and a locked chest, which the well key fits. Inside is an amulet with the name Oisin on it. Next to the chest are some human bones that show evidence of the person having been eaten (!) as well as an elephant gun.
Finally, there's an opening into the side of the chasm that divides the working area as well as a ramp leading up to the main level (which can only be lowered from below, oddly enough, with a rope). Near the ramp is a door leading to the floor on the west side of the working area, but there's only another stone block there, so it doesn't seem useful.
Closely related to these three is Lurka, who claims to have been one of the slaves that helped build the temple. He's been pretty severely mutated. Apparently, the lizard is severely mutated as well. This seems pretty bad.
Incidentally, if this Malik stole all the Grailstone, why are Lurka and that lizard still alive when Sir Guy died without it? Did they keep shares, or is something else going on?
I don't know what to do with any of them.
At this point, I seem to be stuck. I spent over an hour recording two sessions where I wandered around, trying different items and messing with puzzles, but made absolutely no progress other than discovering how to fill the basin in the chapel. Help?!
EDIT: Got unstuck with iqzulk's help. Thanks.
About the game
That game is an obscure 3D adventure game called Azrael's Tear.
It centers around the search for the Holy Grail. But in this story, it's the future (well, the date given at the start of the game is in 2012, so it's no longer the future at the time I write this). For some unexplained reason, tectonic activity has increased dramatically over the last few years and, conveniently for archeologists, has resulted in numerous previously-buried sites being uncovered.
Also, a new type of tomb robber with high-tech equipment has emerged, known as Raptors (which, we're told, is "thief" in Latin; well, actually "one who seizes" according to the etymology given, but "thief" works too). Chief among their equipment is the MS-2 HUD helmet that has a number of support features, including scanning, mapping, and "twelve gigabytes of library information". The helmet is able to identify the composition and structure of things you run across and makes remarkably good guesses about the operation and purpose of a lot of them. Raptors also carry the MS-7 Sniper gun. We play as one of these Raptors.
One day, we get a letter from another Raptor, something that doesn't happen very often as Raptors are not very friendly with each other to say the least. The writer, Colin Scott, says he has found the Holy Grail, but that he seems to have gotten in too deep (the letter was to be delivered in the event of his disappearance). He includes a "last testament" supposedly written by a Sir Guy of Bramley, a Templar knight and one of the twelve chosen to guard the Grail, who lived a whopping 600 years thanks to something called "Grailstone". Colin makes an offer of half the profit in exchange for assistance, and this is where the game begins (all of the above is summarized from documents enclosed with the CD).
A sort-of review
I don't think I've gotten very far in the game yet, so this isn't really intended as a review. But I'll say a few things based on my experience so far. First, I have mixed feelings about the graphics. On the one hand, it was no doubt revolutionary to have a game in full real-time 3D graphics. It does enhance things in a sense, and some puzzles seem to at least involve 3D thinking. On the other hand, it was still a bit primitive in 1996, and even sometimes looks weird or is just plain difficult to interpret. Some examples: |
| That's water?? |
 |
| Legibility problem! |
 |
| "Baphomst"?? |
 |
| Can you spot what's takeable here? |
 |
| What about here? |
 |
| And here? |
On a minor note, this game came out around the same time as Quake, which both looks better and, I think, ran better on contemporary hardware. I wonder what would have happened if Intelligent Games had talked to Id. Well, just an idle fantasy. :-)
The controls are not too bad, though they do take some getting used to. For moving around, one can use the keyboard — up and down to move forward and back, left and right to turn, < and > to move sideways, and Page Up and Page Down to look up and down — and/or the mouse. But the way the mouse is set up is strange: Just moving it moves a cursor, which can be clicked on buttons and objects in the world with the left button. If you want to turn, you have to hold down the right button and move the mouse. Up and down is also the opposite of what you'd expect — up looks down, and down looks up — and you have to press F10 to switch to the more intuitive mode. Walking forward is accomplished by pressing the left button while the right button is held; you can move forward this way but not backward, so it's a good idea to keep one's other hand near the arrow keys.
The music, composed by Kerry Minnear, is where this game really shines. Here are a couple of examples as heard from a Roland SC-55mkII Sound Canvas:
Even on the lowly Sound Blaster, it sounds pretty good:
Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to sound very good on an MT-32, one of the other premium sound modules of the early PC era. It might have something to do with this being a bit past the MT-32's heyday. Still, there are other games with music targeted for General MIDI where the MT-32 at least sounds decent. Not in this case, though. (Or is there just something wrong with my equipment or setup? FYI, this is an actual MT-32, not an emulation.)
And that's not the worst one I've heard so far. If you want more, here is a comparison playlist.
Puzzle thoughts (and speculations)
Well, as of session 4,First of all, I've cobbled together a map of the area I can access so far, based on the MS-2 map screens. Please forgive the roughness; I didn't want to bother too much with cleaning them up, and things don't fit together very well, probably because the map sections are given at arbitrary scales. I drew extra white lines to connect things where necessary.
Going room-by-room, here are my current thoughts on puzzles and other stuff:
"Spa"
Name given by the HUD. Well, I guess the "spa" is really just a water tank. It's certainly too hot for bathing, let alone swimming. Falling in is instant death.But anyway, there's a locked door on the east side and a large pipe that pumps water up, where a crank switches it between two more sections of pipe on the south side; you can also put it in a neutral position, not connected to either.
Working area
The water from the tank powers two machines in the working area, up on an inaccessible platform on the north side. One is a saw, and one is a crusher. There's also a crane with a large grabbing claw in the working area, which is used to pick up stone blocks from the floor and load them into the machines. One of the blocks (identifiable by large cracks) contains a key that can be extracted with the saw.There's also a car on rails, with its own grabbing claw, facing giant double doors on the east side; it won't move unless the doors are open, and I haven't worked out how to open them yet, but it might just be from the other side.
Finally, there's a large chasm running north-south near the west side; a mutated man named Lurka was trapped on a ledge at the start, but I got him upset at me, and he seems to have escaped on his own (or maybe fallen to his death trying?).
Chapel
That's my name for it, anyway. It does seem to be related to worship, as there are fonts and basins large enough for a person to submerge in (baptismals, according to the HUD). The room is divided into north and south halves by a wall with three large (very broken) mirrors or windows; I'm not sure which, because the two sides are almost mirror images, so it seems like it was intended as a trick of some kind. Now, though, one can simply walk through one of them. The basin in the south side can be drained (see below about the well) to reveal a glass prism.Up on a platform on the north side of the south half is a platform with four panels. One panel contains a section of tapestry; the others are blank. Two of the missing sections are right there on the platform (but good luck spotting them, as noted before); the other is far away. The panel that already had a piece of tapestry can be flipped over to reveal a riddle: "The eyes of Baphomet / watch over all / Beyond the murk / of stagnancy / His face lies / crystal clear". (Watch my LP for a little about Baphomet; or read Wikipedia for more info.) This is a hint about the fonts and the prism, since the water in the fonts is extremely stagnant.
The south font has a stone carving of a bible with a slot in it. Put the prism in that slot, and the font rises up about a foot. Stand on a conspicuous spot on the south side (pressure-sensitive, as the HUD reveals) and look into the prism to see a stone head and hear the voice of a man warning about what lies ahead; a mostly-hidden door in the southwest corner then opens to reveal a shield with the words "The way forward lies in prayer. Follow the path of the cross" written on it. The only crosses I've seen so far in this allegedly Christian place are in the tapestry, so I haven't figured out what this means.
Well
This room has a well with hot water and a 400-year-old corpse. (Remarkably well preserved, isn't it? There might be a reason for that, which I'll cover later.) Next to the corpse is another key. When one first approaches the well, a ghost appears, calling out for someone named Oisin (pronounced "oh-SHEEN"), which is apparently the aforementioned corpse. :-(In another corner is a sort of control panel with sections of pipe that can be pulled out, turned, and moved up and down, connecting one of three ports on either side to two of five ports down the center. One arrangement drains the south basin in the chapel, while another fills it.
Orrery
This is a mechanical model of the solar system. (Heliocentrism in the 15th century? Interesting.) It appears to be in disarray, and the MS-2 says it has collapsed, though I'm not so sure it's not supposed to be like this at first. On one of the eight sides of the room is a puzzle with nested rings where the object is to get a sun symbol into the center. The puzzle then forms a vertical lemniscate surrounded by two concentric rings, which might be an infinity symbol. The central axis of the orrery also rises, aligning with something high up on the ceiling, which I can't see very well because of the interface limitations. (Who thought it was a good idea to only be able to look up and down 60 degrees?)According to the mapping function, there is an exit to the south, but so far I haven't been able to get through, due to there being a wood panel in the way. The scanner says it and the one on the west are screens. What kind of screens? For projecting images? Although they seem too darkly colored for that.
Cage
There was initially a cage in the center, with some sort of mutant lizard thing living inside. The cage consists of bars, with a pillar on each of four sides. Penscan says there is metal machinery inside the pillars, and turning a lever on one side causes the bars to fall in, killing the lizard. Curiously, the scanner says there are faint life signs detected. (Again, see below for speculation on that.)?
This room is apparently unfinished. The floor is unstable, and indeed, stepping on the bit in front of the east door causes it to collapse. (This is the only way I know of to get into the tunnels, covered below.) Algae cover a plaque next to that door, rendering it unreadable. Turning the large mirror in the southwest corner causes light to shine on the algae, which kills them but also releases a poisonous gas temporarily. Once the plaque is readable, it turns out to bear an inscription of a cracked cube with a key in front of it, as well as a keyhole. This is probably where the key from the stone block fits. However...Stepping on a particular part of the floor causes a door that was suspended over the north exit to fall, sealing off that exit. Escape is still possible, by falling down the hole in front of the east door, but getting back in is a problem I have yet to solve. Thus, I can't explore the room anymore for now, and I can't try the block key.
Tunnels
Probably from mining. Another Raptor known as Lincoln (is that a first or last name?) is encountered here. As the HUD says, very violent. There's no talking to this guy; he'll just shoot if you get too close. I ended up killing him in self-defense, though I wonder if it's possible to get around him without a confrontation. But on the other hand, one can get extra bullets from his Sniper. As with the lizard, the scanner shows "faint life signs". Again, see below for speculation.There's also the other piece of the tapestry and a locked chest, which the well key fits. Inside is an amulet with the name Oisin on it. Next to the chest are some human bones that show evidence of the person having been eaten (!) as well as an elephant gun.
Finally, there's an opening into the side of the chasm that divides the working area as well as a ramp leading up to the main level (which can only be lowered from below, oddly enough, with a rope). Near the ramp is a door leading to the floor on the west side of the working area, but there's only another stone block there, so it doesn't seem useful.
Not quite dead?
What's going on with Oisin's corpse, the lizard, and Lincoln? Well, I'm just going to come out with my suspicion: Grailstone. I still don't know what it actually is, but it's explicitly stated to be what sustained the Templars' lives for 600 years until Malik stole it. Oisin appears to be really dead, but his corpse is remarkably well preserved for being 400 years old. Maybe he wasn't affected as much?Closely related to these three is Lurka, who claims to have been one of the slaves that helped build the temple. He's been pretty severely mutated. Apparently, the lizard is severely mutated as well. This seems pretty bad.
Incidentally, if this Malik stole all the Grailstone, why are Lurka and that lizard still alive when Sir Guy died without it? Did they keep shares, or is something else going on?
Mystery items
Among the items I'm carrying at this point in the LP are the block key (again, probably fits the lock in the unfinished room, but I have to get in there first), an elephant gun (I haven't found a beast I might need to shoot with it), the Oisin amulet (for warding or does it actually fit something?), and the shield (the fact that it's named "Shield I" suggests there will be other shields).EDIT: Got unstuck with iqzulk's help. Thanks.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
More fun with Qwest
So I had a problem with the phone line on Monday, which started during another storm. No dial tone. Strangely enough, DSL was working on the same line, albeit at abnormally low bitrates. So I could still get through to Qwest. I filed a repair ticket on their web site. A few minutes later, the problem got resolved (perhaps by itself, I'm not sure, as they didn't seem to know anything about what was happening when I contacted them as asked on the ticket status).
Along the way I ran into this interesting message on the web site. Anyone see what's wrong with this interface?
Along the way I ran into this interesting message on the web site. Anyone see what's wrong with this interface?
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Thank you, YouTube
Well, they've finally done it. YouTube has mostly eliminated time limits on user submissions. The qualification is that a user must have a history of complying with the Community Guidelines and copyright rules. I got a notice about this today.
This is great news; now I won't have to worry about staying within 15 minutes in my future episodes. Yes, I know I could always have recorded long sessions and broken them apart like some people do. But the large amount of data I deal with in creating my own videos (in order to maintain very high quality) would make that impractical, which is partly why you're not going to see 5-hour videos from me any time soon. That and the fact planning gets more involved for longer videos. But at least now I can relax and end the video when I'm ready to end it.
Friday, November 19, 2010
What's up with Qwest?
Just a couple of things to announce. First of all, I will have the next episode of Let's Play The Legend of Kyrandia with an MT-32 up soon. I procrastinated for a while, but I finally got it recorded this morning.
It didn't help though that my DSL modem died. It happened yesterday around 2 in the morning. The power went out for about 15 minutes (bad weather seems to have knocked out a transformer or something in the neighborhood; there was a lot of that in the area this past week), and when it returned, I found the modem wasn't connecting to the ISP. No big deal, I know it's a bit flaky like that; usually after a few weeks it will no longer connect, and I have to reboot it. But this time, when I rebooted, suddenly I could no longer connect to it. No web interface, no telnet, nothing. All I could do was ping it.
So I rebooted again. This time, I noticed the LEDs were showing an abnormal condition. IIRC, the power LED went out, which it's not supposed to do. (I could still ping it though.) Corrupted firmware, perhaps? So I fired up the firmware recovery utility and tried it out. There's a special procedure involving the reset button to prepare it. (Separate non-flashable firmware code, or something like that? That's a good thing.) So it reflashed the modem and rebooted again. This time the power light was alternating green and amber, which I learned from a troubleshooting guide possibly indicates corrupted firmware or a problem with the power supply. Uh oh. If the firmware is still corrupt after reflashing, there must be a problem with the memory. Or was it the power supply? It was connected through a surge protector, and the protection indicator is still lit, so there shouldn't have been a problem there.
I tried the firmware recovery several times. After about the fourth or fifth time, I tried connecting my PC directly to the modem, instead of through the bridge I normally use. This time, it was successful. (Although, really, it shouldn't make a difference, as the bridge is a completely invisible device, unlike a router.)
But that's not the end. An hour or two later, the power went out again. This time, I was expecting trouble, and I wasn't disappointed. The firmware recovery no longer worked, no matter how many times I tried it. So I figured the modem is toast. Just to be sure, though, I called Qwest technical support. But no surprise, nothing they suggested worked, and they ended up recommending a replacement. Since the modem is a year out of warranty, I would need to pay for it. Fine by me.
But, you know, you should really rent it for $5 a month and get a perpetual warranty rather than pay $20 and own it with a 2-year warranty. (Uh, no I think not. Come on, Qwest. Do you think I'm stupid? I can do the math on that one. There is no condition I can think of in which renting would be advantageous. If it turns out DOA, either warranty should cover it. If it fails after a year, same thing. If it fails after the 2-year warranty expires, I have to pay for another one, but I still save a lot.) I politely declined. You know, you should really rent it for $5 a month and get a perpetual warranty rather than pay $20 and own it with a 2-year warranty. (That's not an editing error. They really did say the same thing over again, although I'm paraphrasing and adding my own knowledge that wasn't present in the script.) Really, I want to purchase it, thanks. (I'm glad One Eighty Networks provided dial-up as a backup for their broadband service, and that I kept that POTS modem I used before switching to DSL, or else I wouldn't have been able to look at Qwest's web site as easily.) Again, I declined to rent. So then they started to transfer me to sales, before realizing it was too late in the day (I guess they're on Eastern time). I'll just have to call back tomorrow. Oh, you know, you should really rent blah blah blah. *Sigh*. Yeah, whatever.
Finally, I called sales today and asked for a replacement. Alright, you can either make one payment of $99.99 or two payments of— Wait, hold on a second! I didn't ask for the Advanced modem. I want the Standard one (because I have no current need of wireless networking). Oh, but we no longer offer that. (Then why is it listed on their web site? And why didn't the tech support person seem to know anything about it?) So they offered two options. Either get the Advanced modem from them, or look elsewhere for the M1000; they suggested Best Buy or Walmart. So I looked. Sure enough, Best Buy has it for $70. What?? $70?? That's quite a markup. But you know, it's still less than the $100 I'd pay to have wireless functionality I don't need which would just be a needless security risk, and it's still less expensive than renting it for $5 a month for two or three years. Well, actually, since they're not offering it directly, I should compare it to the $8 a month for the Advanced one (whatever model it is). I ordered it online and picked it up at a local store in about an hour, which means I have broadband back much sooner than I expected. Thanks for the tip that saved me $30, Qwest.
And hey, I was pleasantly surprised to see a notice and a CD I'm pretty sure weren't included with the previous modem. It mentions the product containing GPL and LGPL software; the disc apparently contains the source code. Way to be compliant, Actiontec! I guess they got the message after that whole Cisco affair. I don't plan to modify any of the software; it's just good to know I can if I want or need to.
I'm not really surprised the people at Qwest acted the way they did. I know how they operate: push people to buy things they don't really need (or rent unnecessarily). I just decided I wanted to rant about it here. But enough of that. Next you hear from me ought to be episode 2 of LPLOK.
It didn't help though that my DSL modem died. It happened yesterday around 2 in the morning. The power went out for about 15 minutes (bad weather seems to have knocked out a transformer or something in the neighborhood; there was a lot of that in the area this past week), and when it returned, I found the modem wasn't connecting to the ISP. No big deal, I know it's a bit flaky like that; usually after a few weeks it will no longer connect, and I have to reboot it. But this time, when I rebooted, suddenly I could no longer connect to it. No web interface, no telnet, nothing. All I could do was ping it.
So I rebooted again. This time, I noticed the LEDs were showing an abnormal condition. IIRC, the power LED went out, which it's not supposed to do. (I could still ping it though.) Corrupted firmware, perhaps? So I fired up the firmware recovery utility and tried it out. There's a special procedure involving the reset button to prepare it. (Separate non-flashable firmware code, or something like that? That's a good thing.) So it reflashed the modem and rebooted again. This time the power light was alternating green and amber, which I learned from a troubleshooting guide possibly indicates corrupted firmware or a problem with the power supply. Uh oh. If the firmware is still corrupt after reflashing, there must be a problem with the memory. Or was it the power supply? It was connected through a surge protector, and the protection indicator is still lit, so there shouldn't have been a problem there.
I tried the firmware recovery several times. After about the fourth or fifth time, I tried connecting my PC directly to the modem, instead of through the bridge I normally use. This time, it was successful. (Although, really, it shouldn't make a difference, as the bridge is a completely invisible device, unlike a router.)
But that's not the end. An hour or two later, the power went out again. This time, I was expecting trouble, and I wasn't disappointed. The firmware recovery no longer worked, no matter how many times I tried it. So I figured the modem is toast. Just to be sure, though, I called Qwest technical support. But no surprise, nothing they suggested worked, and they ended up recommending a replacement. Since the modem is a year out of warranty, I would need to pay for it. Fine by me.
But, you know, you should really rent it for $5 a month and get a perpetual warranty rather than pay $20 and own it with a 2-year warranty. (Uh, no I think not. Come on, Qwest. Do you think I'm stupid? I can do the math on that one. There is no condition I can think of in which renting would be advantageous. If it turns out DOA, either warranty should cover it. If it fails after a year, same thing. If it fails after the 2-year warranty expires, I have to pay for another one, but I still save a lot.) I politely declined. You know, you should really rent it for $5 a month and get a perpetual warranty rather than pay $20 and own it with a 2-year warranty. (That's not an editing error. They really did say the same thing over again, although I'm paraphrasing and adding my own knowledge that wasn't present in the script.) Really, I want to purchase it, thanks. (I'm glad One Eighty Networks provided dial-up as a backup for their broadband service, and that I kept that POTS modem I used before switching to DSL, or else I wouldn't have been able to look at Qwest's web site as easily.) Again, I declined to rent. So then they started to transfer me to sales, before realizing it was too late in the day (I guess they're on Eastern time). I'll just have to call back tomorrow. Oh, you know, you should really rent blah blah blah. *Sigh*. Yeah, whatever.
Finally, I called sales today and asked for a replacement. Alright, you can either make one payment of $99.99 or two payments of— Wait, hold on a second! I didn't ask for the Advanced modem. I want the Standard one (because I have no current need of wireless networking). Oh, but we no longer offer that. (Then why is it listed on their web site? And why didn't the tech support person seem to know anything about it?) So they offered two options. Either get the Advanced modem from them, or look elsewhere for the M1000; they suggested Best Buy or Walmart. So I looked. Sure enough, Best Buy has it for $70. What?? $70?? That's quite a markup. But you know, it's still less than the $100 I'd pay to have wireless functionality I don't need which would just be a needless security risk, and it's still less expensive than renting it for $5 a month for two or three years. Well, actually, since they're not offering it directly, I should compare it to the $8 a month for the Advanced one (whatever model it is). I ordered it online and picked it up at a local store in about an hour, which means I have broadband back much sooner than I expected. Thanks for the tip that saved me $30, Qwest.
And hey, I was pleasantly surprised to see a notice and a CD I'm pretty sure weren't included with the previous modem. It mentions the product containing GPL and LGPL software; the disc apparently contains the source code. Way to be compliant, Actiontec! I guess they got the message after that whole Cisco affair. I don't plan to modify any of the software; it's just good to know I can if I want or need to.
I'm not really surprised the people at Qwest acted the way they did. I know how they operate: push people to buy things they don't really need (or rent unnecessarily). I just decided I wanted to rant about it here. But enough of that. Next you hear from me ought to be episode 2 of LPLOK.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Next LP: Legend of Kyrandia
Well, I got a total of four votes for next Let's Play with an MT-32. And the results are clear: 3-to-1 in favor of The Legend of Kyrandia: Book One. So here you go.
If you watched my previous LP, you may remember I set the CPU cycles to 500 for the initialization. (Actually, I discovered recently that 1000 works fine, too.) Well, for LoK, it seems the maximum value is somewhere between 150 and 200. It definitely seems to be written for a second-gen MT-32. Someone commented that they have no problem with buffer overflows. This person reported that he or she has serial 871041, which makes it an "old-style rev. 1", a later version that is still considered first-generation. I, on the other hand, have 836243, which is a rev. 0. Supposedly, all MT-32s before 950500 have the buffer overflow problem, but there may be subtle differences; I don't know. I'm not sure why some people like me have the problem and others don't. Apparently no one knows, at least no one who has said anything publicly.
By the way, I also speculated earlier on that Windows XP does some sort of buffering that prevents problems, because I had tried playing MIDI stuff from King's Quest V under WinXP and hadn't seen any buffer overflows. But guess what. I tried that with LoK music, and it does happen. So once again, I can't say for sure just what's going on, except that LoK's MT-32 driver is too fast for whatever Windows is doing to fully compensate.
If you watched my previous LP, you may remember I set the CPU cycles to 500 for the initialization. (Actually, I discovered recently that 1000 works fine, too.) Well, for LoK, it seems the maximum value is somewhere between 150 and 200. It definitely seems to be written for a second-gen MT-32. Someone commented that they have no problem with buffer overflows. This person reported that he or she has serial 871041, which makes it an "old-style rev. 1", a later version that is still considered first-generation. I, on the other hand, have 836243, which is a rev. 0. Supposedly, all MT-32s before 950500 have the buffer overflow problem, but there may be subtle differences; I don't know. I'm not sure why some people like me have the problem and others don't. Apparently no one knows, at least no one who has said anything publicly.
By the way, I also speculated earlier on that Windows XP does some sort of buffering that prevents problems, because I had tried playing MIDI stuff from King's Quest V under WinXP and hadn't seen any buffer overflows. But guess what. I tried that with LoK music, and it does happen. So once again, I can't say for sure just what's going on, except that LoK's MT-32 driver is too fast for whatever Windows is doing to fully compensate.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
LP KQ5 is done... mostly
I just released the final episode of Let's Play King's Quest V with an MT-32. I must say, it's been fun doing this. I'm not quite done, yet, though. I have one little extra to show, for the sake of completeness. Actually, if anyone knows of any deaths I might have missed, don't hesitate to let me know, either here or on my YouTube channel. It must work on the MS-DOS CD-ROM version; if I can confirm it, I will include it in the extras video, or another video if it's too late for that. Oh, and I will credit you with pointing it out to me.
I'm going to do another Let's Play with the MT-32, and I want some input about which one (this in case you haven't seen my request in the more than half a dozen other places I mentioned it). See the Halloween post for details.
I'm going to do another Let's Play with the MT-32, and I want some input about which one (this in case you haven't seen my request in the more than half a dozen other places I mentioned it). See the Halloween post for details.
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