23.12.23
Another legendary game converted to MagicDesk cartridge format 🙂 As it is typical for an 8-bit game, it’s frustratingly hard as a hell. But Rick Dangerous games always delivered critical dose of charm and fun experience to stay forever fond to hearts of 8/16 bit fans. In modern days I am playing mostly Amiga WHDL release because of 16-bit graphics, but Commodore 64 version of game is 100% excellent also. Gameplay is same and 8-bit graphics (for this type of game) is top notch. After all, C64 version was my first contact with Rick Dangerous and where most of the memories were made 🙂
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20.12.23
Great looking and sounding C64 game but hard as a hell! In a typical 8-bit fashion, it requires you to memorize enemy movement patterns to make initial progress. With a little bit of invested effort, you learn what to expect from those little nasties and where they usually appear, get used to your movement limitations (keyboard is much more precise for me!) and suddenly it becomes more enjoyable “let me try just one more time” game. Although, still frustratingly challenging, even with in-game hi-score infinity life cheat (SINATRA) 🙂 Game was popular movie license and C64/16-bit versions were published by Elite (developed by Elite associated MotiveTime Ltd.) while Z80 versions were developed/published by also famous Spanish 8-bit software company TopoSoft . I remember getting it as a Turbo250 tape version with AR feezed levels in 1991. 🙂 Because of war outbreak in my home country in 90’s I never had a chance to check disk version, so I remember making my own one, from those AR freezes (to be proper working disk game – all that using C64 🙂 ).
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10.12.23
Commodore 64 never had proper 1981 Namco’s Galaga port. Although very simplistic in gameplay nature, I somehow always enjoyed it as a quick challenge type of games, especially excellently realized 1993. Amiga Deluxe Galaga port. Relatively recently, C64 fans got couple of excellent gameplay Galaga ports. In 2017. we got commercially published Galencia (also fully converted to Magic Desk CRT for my gameplay experience enjoyment, but since game is commercial I am not publishing it here) and in 2021. proper coin-up arcade port by Arlasoft, with full KickAssembler source available on Github. Although it’s a single-file version on C64, for personal RetroArch enjoyment, I converted latest version (1.06) to Magic Desk cartridge. Play it in browser here, or download Magic Desk/Ocean CRT/bin file for EPROM programming here.
9.12.23
If you require a specific PHP version and want it kept up to date, but not just receive the current release that gets updated when PHP new releases occur (for example the release of PHP 8.2 occurs when you want to stay on PHP 8.1) it is required that, when you install PHP and any modules, you only install version specific packages and not the generic packages. For example, most packages starting php- (e.g. php itself, and php-mbstring) are generic and will always default to the latest release, whereas selecting php8.1-cli, php8.1-fpm, php8.1-mbstring will install (and update) the specific 8.1 release (and in the case of PHP itself, the specific CLI, FPM, etc version of same).
Using this method will ensure that critical installs, e.g. to servers, are not suddenly replaced with a new version of PHP that may contain breaking changes or cause unexpected failures (e.g. a package not being available for your new release or an independent package that needs recompiling e.g. through PECL).
Also, this means that you do not need to try pinning PHP and that you are well set up to support multiple PHP versions on your system (e.g. to allow website installs to point to specific php-fpm versions).
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