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NUON N501 Incoming...


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I don't even want to do the math or count the years but I haven't had a Nuon since it was in store shelves at Best Buy if that tells you anything. Ran across a post from someone selling one for $100 on the Jaguar group page on Facebook and have a Nuon with all the games coming my way. I don't know what the going rate of these things are but how can I pass it up for $100? I've never had a chance to play any of the games outside of Tempest 3000 and only ever saw Iron Solider 3 running and being played by someone else at Jagfest 2k1.

 

Out of the small handful of games that was released for the system and some aftermath stuff that found it's way to the web and is downloadable, is there any easter eggs or other things I should definitely keep my eyes out or open for, especially in regards to Tempest 3000?

 

Like I really need another DVD player... but this will definitely serve as a T3K VLM blasting machine and will hopefully prove to get an excessive amount of use. =)

 

On a side note, I remember them having a huge blowout of sales regarding the N501 for like $75 boxed new and I had it in my head that since the majority of my family members were still on VHS at the time, it would've made a nice gift for them all at Christmas time. I only ever did end up getting one surround unit for an aunt/uncle and not sure why I didn't pull the trigger and get the others Nuons at the time but I really should have.

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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Well, it arrived and my fanfare was short lived. It works but just barely. The laser pickup seems to be on its way out and has an extremely difficult time reading discs. I was only able to actually get T3K to load once and the Tetris disc just keeps skipping. I popped the hood and gave the lens a proper cleaning but it only seems to have made matters worse. Shit. Are Nuons known for quality issues or did I just luck out? Not happy about it..

 

On a completely different note, I was completely overtaken with fascination of the Jaguar 2 inside of my Nuon last night. I didn't realize it ran that deep. I thought the CD chip "Orbit" sounded awfully familiar. Totally butched. ;-) Then looking over at the Jerry II chip... eh, I mean Puck chip... or what have you, I couldn't help but feel VMLabs have managed to pull a quick one over Atari that just didn't work out in their favor, unfortunately. Looking up a little and there it is, the BIOS chip socket the Jaguar uses.

 

Does anyone have a link to the exact specifications of the chipset? All I could find are the capabilities of said chip (MPEG decode this, DTS that, etc.) and the bus speed it was running at 54mhz with an unconfirmed amount of RAM space at 8MB (or 16MB buffered?) and to my understanding, basically the unit consists of 4 chips instead of the typical 5 the Jaguar had because they have completely removed the 68000. I'm sure I thought this back around the time when the Nuon was released but with so much stuff coming directly from the Jaguar (Tempest, Iron Soldier, VLM) I can see how this is exactly what the Jaguar 2 would have become, only enhanced upon slightly and now with more blur ;-)

 

How on Earth did Space Invaders XL ever pass quality testing?

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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My memory is fuzzy of IS3 on the Nuon and since I couldn't get past the level select stage when it comes to loading, I have no idea. I'll probably tinker with it some more tonight and if all else fails list it as-is on eBay because I just don't have the time or patience or know how to fix a faulty Nuon.

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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It's still not right but I managed to get it to load T3K again last night. This game is spectacular!

 

:thumb:

 

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*Just found out that the entire early series of the Samsung M DVD players have the same drive so I just ordered a M101 for $5 off eBay plus shipping to replace the drive in mine. Keeping fingers crossed this resolves my issues!*

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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Thanks Dragon!

 

I'm learning a lot about this machine. I had no idea that the N501 was basically half the resolution of all the other Nuon released players because of its hefty overhead I guess bearing on the processor so even though it has 152 VLM effects, the resolution runs at 180x120 but it is all blurred to death, which makes it ok. I'm not sure how this translates over to the actual games or if that's strictly for the VLM. Here all along I was believing the N501 to be the best version available but apparently the Euro market got the much better or faster Nuon processors based on the Aries3. Not sure what all that updates since I can't seem to find any real technical details of either chip online outside of generic info in regards to what they do. The N501s seems to be the most available as well, at least here in the U.S.

 

The replacement DVD has shipped but I've decided to yank the current drive out in place, adjusted the POT for the DVD portion (since normal CD discs seem to play just fine) I figured it was worth a shot. I changed it a notch and it certainly seemed to get further and read some discs easier but I ran out of time and will have to try adjusting it some more later to see if that will actually resolve the issue. Worst case scenario, I end up with a spare pickup laser assembly for if and/or when the one currently in the machine does die.

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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The more I dig into the Nuon and Samsung DVD players as a whole, the more curiosity and questions arise. I received my M101 which is laid out almost identical to the Nuon, only it uses a C-Cube decoding chip instead of VM Labs Nuon chip. I'm guessing the cost of the C-Cube must have been significantly cheaper to implement than the Nuon. From the information I could find, the M101 retailed for around $159 all the way down to $79 while the N501 was at $249 -- so almost $100 cheaper.

 

While the drive assembly is mostly the same, the IO board that transfers data between the drive and to the Nuon section is different. The Nuon has a 2LD board and drive and the M101 has a 1D board and drive with less pins to the drive and board but the same ribbon cable to the Nuon board itself. So, while it worked and played CDs and DVDs fine, it still seemed to struggle playing any of the Nuon games.

 

So far I've come to the conclusion that early Samsung CD/DVD drives are absolute shit and ultimately are prone to failure due to age.

 

How frustrating...

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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doubt I will ever own a NUON but apparently there is a PC emulator for it which surprises me with so few titles. Not sure of the status or how well it works anyways but still...........

 

Someone packaged the emulator with Homebrew and apparently everything required to run it on ISOzone. com but I will save anyone interested the trouble of going there (as with such sites it is a playground for ADS, POP-UP's etc) and just give you a direct link to the package as hosted on FireDrop PLEASE NOTE THOUGH I take no responsibility nor do I have time to troubleshoot or help anyone who chooses to download and run this emulator, you are 100% responsible and on your own ;)

 

Link to FireDrop file hosting (not mine) always suggest pop up and adblockers on such sites, go there and wait for FREE DOWNLOAD to count down and then click download file ONLY. Avoid anything offering to download through a download manager etc (I rarely see such things due to a secure setup but I know some people experience this. Below is the image highlighted in yellow EXACTLY what should click !

I have done so successfully and that is all I can say. 

 

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HERE IS LINK - 

 

https://firedrop.com/3c4798b7d80a560c

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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Great to hear someone has carried on from where NUANCE left off, hope it runs far better mind.Be interesting to hear from anyone who has tried latest emulator.

Sorry did not mean to confuse, this is NUANCE emulator but just packed into an archive with homebew / bios etc. It was uploaded a couple years back on ISO . com that's all. IE: just for convenience sake. 

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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His Tempest 3000 pulled in an astounding 9/10 score from the very cynical Edge reviewers, such a crying shame so few people (including myself) have ever gotten to play it.

 

It really is a different beast beneath and I mean that in the sense that you could consider it a sort of sequel because it's so much harder than Tempest 2000. Some of this may due to visuals. Still an amazing game. Even yesterday I found myself craving to play it again but just didn't have the time. Even more of a shame that the Nuon seems to be expensive and hard to obtain, especially in decent working condition.

 

My replacement drive didn't make matters much better sadly. I can get it to load Tempest 3000 just fine though thankfully, the real game I wanted to play anyways, and I can wait the minute or so for it load. Makes me feel like I'm loading a PXFX game lol

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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It's ok, again... as long as I can play Tempest 3000 and some music through the VLM, it's all good! :D

 

Yeah, I picked up Space Giraffe and it was alright but it certainly was no Tempest. I've yet to give TxK a go because I've been waiting to find a reasonably priced controller to connect to that PSTV I just picked up. Hard to justify $59 for a controller when the console was $20 lol but I really hope it does justice as a proper sequel to Tempest 3000 - the screenshots certainly look sharp!

 

Completely OT but now that I hear they have goodies planned for Sony's PSVR, I'll probably find myself with a PS4 and illuminating headset sometime early next year! NEON VR I hear...

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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Looked into NUON a little bit more:

 

Toshiba NUON's were said to sell better than Samsung models, due to the brand name and much wider avaiabilty, Samsung models said to be missing from 'brick and mortar' retail establishments.

 

VM Labs sponsored events like Trauma TV's Film Festival Trauma Dance in order to try and gain consumer interest in the hardware...

I originally had the Toshiba but sold it soon after once I realized one of the main features were missing - all the VLM banks that the N501 had! Of course, the plan had always been to replace the Toshiba and I sold that one for $300 around the time they were released but it never happened. Pretty sure my Jaguar collecting interfered with a lot of things, which was a huge reason I stopped collecting for it altogether only some 3 years later :D

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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