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F-MIN INFINITY an obscure Japanese sprite-scaler racing game

by Matt Sephton — Sat, 13 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is version 2.1 of F-MIN INFINITY, a sprite-scaler 2D/3D racing game by mpulip for Windows 95. You could describe it as Power Drift meets F-Zero.

The copy of its homepage in Wayback Machine was incomplete, as were direct links from an old feature on Vector, so it took a long time to find a copy of the .lzh archive file. Eventually I managed to locate it in an archive of an obscure old type of listing page on Vector.

To run the game correctly it’s best to use DxWnd, which will allow you to play the game on modern Windows with zero configuration, or even through Crossover/Wine and not use Windows at all.

The game includes help files as HTML, the ability create your own tracks, and source code. Let me know if you have more luck running it than I did!

Download at Internet Archive: archive.org/details/f-min-infinity-21

Thanks to my Patreon supporters!

一筆 / Hitofude / Ippitsu Japanese puzzle game

by Matt Sephton — Thu, 11 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

一筆 (“Hitofude” = Single Stroke) aka “Ippitsu” is a puzzle game by H.Hirabayashi.

Released in 1995, a decade before Mitchell Corp & Nintendo’s Polarium 直感ヒトフデ (“Chokkan Hitofude” = Intuitive Single Stroke) & Polarium Advance 通勤ヒトフデ (“Tsūkin Hitofude” = Commuting Single Stroke).

As huge fan of the Polarium games this discovery has rocked my world.

You can read about it in this 1997 feature at Vector and download it from its listing page. The author’s website is archived in the Wayback Machine. It will run on Windows 3.x and Windows 95, at least. I’m running here in English Windows 95 through DOSbox-x.

Resurrecting an ASMedia USB hard drive enclosure

by Matt Sephton — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A while ago I bought a 2.5” Crucial SSD and a UGREEN USB 3.1 Gen 2 Hard Drive Enclosure (SKU: 70499) on which to keep some working files whilst connected to a Mac mini. I used that on macOS 10.13 High Sierra, 10.14 Mojave, and 11 Big Sur (I skipped 10.15 Catalina). Over the years the setup served me well.

After I upgraded to an M1 MacBook Pro I didn’t need to use that sort of setup, so I just kept the external drive in my travel bag to be used as a backup drive.

The problem

The first time I plugged it in on macOS 12 Monterey it didn’t show up, but I didn’t have time to troubleshoot so I put it away again. Today I had some free time so I plugged it in and, unsurprisingly, it did not mount. Time to do some research!

First, I tried it in my Windows VM. No joy. Then I tried it on a real Windows PC: it mounted briefly and then disappeared. Interesting! Thankfully Windows gave me a little more information to go on than macOS, it showed the chipset model number: ASMT2235

The diagnosis

A quick web search found some references to a firmware update that “resolves intermittent mounting issues in Windows” which sounded like just the ticket!

The plan

I found a great YouTube video that showed the process and explained what you should and should not do. The video was created in late 2022 and advised installing the firmware that started with the same number as the one on your drive, but my drive already had that installed (version 171120_D1_1E_80). Then, whilst I was looking at all the other available firmware, I noticed that the first part of the filename looked more like a date to me, one that roughly matched when the firmware was released.

The solution

So I decided to try flashing the firmware with the most recent date (version 220906_D1_45_01). The flashing tool, MPTools, needs to have its interface unlocked using the password “asmedia” and then you should select the line in the window that corresponds to your drive. It shouldn’t let you flash the wrong drive, but please be careful!

After displaying a green progress bar, the tool declared the process was a “PASS”, and everything looked great. I unmounted the disk from Windows and it appeared in macOS — it had worked!

Lights out?

The only change after all of this is that the drive enclosure no longer shows a LED when powered on, which is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

The LED can be enabled by flashing a slightly less than newest firmware (version 200416_D1_43_00).

At this point, given that it’s proven these firmware updates do contain fixes, the choice is yours whether to have the light or not.

Japanese Windows 98 SE (VMWare)

by Matt Sephton — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I recently created this Virtual Machine of Windows 98 SE (Japanese) because one did not exist. Download should be on winworldpc.com soon, but you can grab it now at: archive.org/details/windows-98-se-japanese-vmware

My old Windows software

by Matt Sephton — Mon, 16 Nov 1998 12:00:00 +0000

After moving to Windows PC from Atari ST I discovered Visual Basic and my mind was blown by the possibilities of laying out a graphical user interface using the mouse and adding code to make it do stuff. I jumped in and made a whole bunch of Windows software, including some world-first features like hot-corners to invoke the screen saver and being able to quickly select favourite folders whilst in the file selector of any application.

I also made fun stuff like screensavers and videogames, as well as more utilitarian software “apps”. In addition, I played around with a really cool and very fast interpreted language called Euphoria!—whose claim to fame was that it had a reference-counting garbage collector—and I’m surprised to read that it is still around over 30 years later!

Archived web page: gingerbeardman.com/archive/tektonix/