/vr/ - Retro Games

[Wayne No.6490808]

Why did they use destined-to-die BIOS batteries instead of never-fail UEFI EEPROM flash chips?

[Anonymous No.6490830]

>>6490808
They didn’t think you would actually still be playing it you old ass. Plus you can just solder a new one in.

[Anonymous No.6490831]

>>6490808
Because EEPROM was expensive back in the 80s. The better question is, why did they make the battery so hard to replace?

[Anonymous No.6490838]

>>6490831
It’s not hard to replace, literally solder a new one in, it takes less then 5 mins, plenty of tutorials in YouTube if you need help retard

[Anonymous No.6490857]

>>6490838
>solder a new one in
No, that's stupid. Why not build a compartment in the first place? Look at all that empty space.

[Anonymous No.6491025]

>>6490857
if shit got shook the batt would fall out. from a reliability standpoint, soldering it makes sense. but yes, it's annoying

[Anonymous No.6491571]

>>6490808
Fuck off, Wayne.

[Gary No.6492058]

>>6490857
>Why not build a compartment in the first place?

[Anonymons No.6492063]

>>6490838
I fucked up my legit copy of earthbound by trying to replace the battery. It's a bitch.

[Anonymous No.6492065]

>>6490808
Because it's a toy meant for children

[Anonymous No.6492117]

>>6492063
Aren't those expensive?

[Anonymous No.6492118]

>>6492058
Li poly mod

[Anonymous No.6492173]

>>6490808
>UEFI
The absolute state of /vr/

[Anonymous No.6492574]

>>6490808
why didnt they just release them digitally back then? probably would have been cheaper since they dont need to make a physical copy.

[Anonymous No.6492628]

>>6490857
Need to make a whole new mold for the game. Extra parts required. They never intended you to be playing it 30 years later.

[Anonymous No.6492865]

>>6490808
>UEFI
????

eeprom/flash was likely much more expensive than sram
i don't know the prices from back then, but considering even dev carts didn't use eeprom/flash (they typically used eprom), i'd say they were pretty expensive

[Anonymous No.6492872]

>>6492628
this too
sram and a battery were common, cheap components
flash was cutting edge in the early 90's

the backup battery usually lasted 10 years or more, which far exceeds what they assumed would be the products' lifetime

[Anonymous No.6492882]

>>6492173
>>6492865
This, where do you think you are? Don't throw around terms you don't udnerstand.

[Anonymous No.6492901]

>>6492574
release them digitally how?
i mean, they tried anyway, with things like GameLine (atari 2600 games you downloaded over telephone line)
the biggest hurdles back then would have been;
- storage. tapes were slow and not random-accessible, floppies were slow and expensive, hard disks were expensive, eeprom and flash were extremely expensive, etc
- security. how are you going to prevent people from figuring out how to put their own games onto that writable storage device like they're already doing in the home computer market? hardware accelerated strong realtime encryption/decryption wasn't a thing yet
- cost and accessibility, all this storage and a modem don't come cheap, and making telephone calls to download games wasn't cheap either
what happens if you want more games than can fit on the storage device? do you make the storage devices removable? (may make it easier to copy or clone)
do you let users delete games, then download them again later? (requires continuous support by the manufacturer, so it costs /them/ more, too)
etc, etc. there's many problems with digital distribution

[Anonymous No.6492903]

>>6490808
They didn't anticipate people would still be autistic over these games in 10 years and more. They saw games as products to consume and movo onto the next.

[Anonymous No.6492907]

>>6490808
Costs.
Spend a dollar or even two more per cartridge and your profit margin isn't that great anymore.

[Anonymous No.6493109]

>replying in a namefag-spammer-thread

[Anonymous No.6493113]

>>6490808
the bigger fuck you is capcom's suicide battery in cps2 boards to squeeze a few more shekels out of arcade operators

[Anonymous No.6493124]

>>6490808
>UEFI
Fucking what, lol? Are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.6493353]

>>6490808
>BIOS batteries
Also, static RAM is much simpler electrically to write than EPROM which was the other primary option at the time (and it doesn't require UV light to erase).

[Anonymous No.6493358]

>>6492063
Give it to me then, since it's worthless now. I'll give you a PSX or something.

[Anonymous No.6493364]

You all should just count yourselves lucky they didn't use rechargeable NiCad batteries that leak and destroy the boards like some Amigas and many old PC's used.

[ラジオちゃん !154PCPFtWc No.6493434]

>>6492901
Just go to your Lawson's and get a disk rewritten.

[Anonymous No.6493474]

>>6493364
Can you imagine the amount of seething if cart games were being destroyed by these bastards at the same rate as old mobos? There’d be a whole industry dedicated to preservation and restoration.

[Anonymous No.6493707]

>>6490808
Just ducking replace it. It's ridiculously easy and if you're going to be using retro hardware you need to learn this shit.

[Anonymous No.6493754]

>>6492065

[Anonymous No.6494173]

>>6493434
like i said, they tried anyway, several examples exist in the 80's and 90's, but they didn't really catch on, and they were always very much secondary to permanent physical releases

[Ralph No.6495713]

>>6493434
Or use diskcopy command.

[Anonymous No.6495953]

>>6492063
If you don't know how to solder, you gotta practice on one or two Super Mario Worlds before you try on a high end game man.

[Anonymous No.6496126]

>>6490857
You must be a child. Nobody expected this to be a hobby someday. Sell game, save $$$.

[Anonymous No.6497620]

>>6490808
>bios batteries
misnomer even in the context of computers
the battery on a pc motherboard does not power the BIOS ROM chip, it powers the CMOS SRAM chip which holds BIOS settings
while "CMOS" is a very generic name, only referring to the process of how the chip was made, it's a common name for the bios settings chip, and so it's more accurate to use the term "cmos battery" instead of bios battery

also, it's a button cell, probably the common CR2032

[Anonymous No.6498748]

>>6497620

[Anonymous No.6500514]

>>6490830
Soldering batteries incurs the risk of one blowing up, no?

[Anonymous No.6500527]

>>6500514
Only if you're soldering directly to the battery like a fucking dumbass. You can buy batteries with pre-welded tabs for soldering.

[Anonymous No.6500576]

>>6500514
soldering directly onto a cell can be dangerous, the original batteries have spot welded tabs, they're not soldered
you can get batteries with tabs or leads already attached for safe soldering