The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Here's where the decision to put it today was made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests/Sonic_X-treme

So I guess we can thank Alex Field for getting this one queued.

 

I wanted to ask, are there any official releases or hacks of Sonic 1 in Wide-screen?

I know about mobile ports, but if I recall correctly, these are riddled with ads with no real way to buy the game separately?

 

Ads can be removed via paying a small fee (about what it originally costed iirc). If you can find an old version from before the free SEGA Forever update (before 2017), those do not have ads.
The decompilations (while incomplete, with some sprite/palette bugs and being prone to crashing from my experience) also don't run ads, even when used with more recent builds (which you can download here).

There's also the patched ROM and specific Emulator combo that did rounds awhile back. Can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

 

Thanks, You were right - the mobile version indeed has the option to buy it and remove ads - after installation, and it's not expensive, just bought it

 

So apparently Sega themselves requested Roger make Sonic sound older? Puts things into perspective...

 

Anyone know the background behind these Sonic 2 Championship coins from '93? I just flipped this on ebay, but these appear to be pretty common in Japan.

 

I don't know if this has anything to do with, but it's the same year.

 

Afternoon,


I dun found me some new old Sonic 2 8-bit prototype screenshots. Of Sky High Zone.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c905435541

From the Japanese 1992 Sega summer catalogue, which we need scans of. As we do of most catalogues.

I'm not going to lie though:



This fascinates me more. It's some super early World of Illusion mock-ups, and I can't tell if they're in-game graphics or hand-drawn.

 

So this is not necessarily related to Sonic but probably is?
A new sound effect was added in the files of Fall Guys Season 5 that is awfully familiar:
https://twitter.com/FgPancake/statu...lAf3SjnLdDGppaC1-5xA8QjFR38Dy-nRjA1rsyxLMl3cs

 

Our coverage of Sonic X-treme has annoyed me for years because it's interspersed with source code modifications and political guff. I think I've tried to make it easier to follow in the past, but ehhh.


But I'm on an "emulate small Saturn things" streak at the moment so:


Sonic X-treme (V40 prototype)


Sonic X-treme (prototype; 1996-07-14)

Pages for the two Saturn prototypes we weren't covering. It might be more digestible now... or less digestible, since I've no plans to touch the PC builds.


I've been considering setting up a Windows 95/98 virtual machine for years to tackle all the old Sega PC things (without messing up real PCs) but I... sort-of don't want to? Like, I want someone else to step in and be "that guy" before I spend ours tripping up on old graphics APIs or something.

 

It's amazing what you get caught up in.





Remember these videos? They were donated to Sega-16 years ago by STI bod Peter Morawiec. I was doing some wiki work and caught a line in the accompanying interview that I don't think was noted:

"Brilliance"


I love this era of computing but I know so little about it. Brilliance was an Amiga graphics package released in 1993. Supposedly it had a fairly loyal following (or at least, verison 2.0 did) but isn't particularly well documented. Apparently it could do animation and Morawiec was all over the thing back in the day. Both Sonic Spinball and Comix Zone almost certainly originated from pitches realised by this software.

There's also a second video of Sonic Spinball that was shown at Summer CES 1993 (it's where most of the prototype screenshots came from). This was using final(ish) artwork and was designed to actually look like a Mega Drive game... but it's very possible that Sega went to one of the biggest trade shows of the year and demonstrated Sonic the Hedgehog... on an Amiga.



Also

That's one hell of an example image. I'd hang that on my wall.

 

You might be onto something. Suddenly the jerkiness of those frames look very familiar. Along with Sonic bouncing around the area while off-center.

Edit: Goddammit. The link won't embed at the right time. It's at 3:13

 

So here is where I think they're from.

Almost everyone knows about the Nintendo World Championships right?

Well Sega had it's own version only... in classic Sega style... it wasn't very coherent.

It seems that depending where you lived in the world the competition had both a different logo and a (slighty) different name.

The most well known one was the Sega European Championships. There's pin badges from those as well as quite a few photos and video.

But there were also regional finals held in Australia and the United States, Japan also seems to have had it's own version based on those coins which always seem to pop up from time to time, but finding media from the time is near impossible.

They're really common in Japanese auction houses which suggests that they were more participation prizes than grand prizes, similar to the EU championship pin badges.

Need to get a coin myself some day.

 

No need to make things overly complicated - just use PCem. All that's really involved is downloading a few drivers for the hardware you choose and installing Win 95 or 98. The recent PCem update earlier this year (adding Voodoo 3 support) has IMO made it the definitive way to run anything that requires Win 95/98. Depending on the hardware you choose, you might need a beefy CPU, though. There are plenty of guides online if you need help. Granted, it might be slightly difficult if you aren't that familiar with the hardware of the time, but if you're into old hardware then PCem's a joy to play around with.

 

The latest in the saga of "questionable life choices".

I make no guarantees of extensive PC coverage though - I do too much as it is.

 

Does anyone know the specific origin of the name "Tails"? As in, who came up with the name? I feel like I've read this before but can't remember where.

I've come across some interesting Sonic 2 info and will post it soon but I want to make sure of the Tails origin.

 

I only remember Sega of America coming up with it, though that comes from Console Wars, a book you don't particularly like if I remember correctly.

Other than that, I don't remember anywhere unless it's in a video interview with Tom + crew somewhere during past anniversaries.

 

Thanks. It's possible I'm remembering this from Console Wars.

I found this excerpt from Console Wars, which just says "Sega of America decided upon the name Tails" and describes Al Nilsen getting the developers to agree to the name change.

And here is Al Nilsen verifying the story and talking about how he had to convince the team to change the name.

But... Nilsen never says he came up with the Tails name, as far as I can tell.

I mean, I'm not sure how much effort was really needed to come up with "Tails" for a character with two tails, but I don't think a specific person has been named.

 

I don't think that has ever been clarified in any source that I can remember.

Though I've always been under the impression that it was Madeline Schroeder going from Nilsen's account about working with her on his backstory.

I was going to say you could ask him on Twitter but he hasn't been active since August.