Posted by Marshall on 9, 2000 at 10:51 AM:
In Reply to: We were all new once. posted by Dr D on 9, 2000 at 10:21 AM:
: Sometimes I think that people don't read all the helpful advice in the archives or search for an answer first. A lot of the same questions come up over and over.
Well said, of course, I was following this board for about three months before I even realized you COULD search the board or the archives. On most message boards you can't.
Since then, I have often wanted to know something (Can an optical rotary joy work as a spinner or for non-rotary games?), for example, and found the answer in the archives without posting a message.
I think basically people on this site do a good job of helping each other out. When I first posted a detailed question here, no one replied. However, I looked over the board and found some questions that I could answer and posted replies. I think when people saw that it made it more likely that someone else would answer my questions.
Basically, the hard questions I don't often answer because I don't want to tell what I THINK is true and possibly steer someone wrong. Usually, the "newbie" questions have been answered by someone else by the time I see them. Sometimes I will pass these up even if I know the answer, but if no one answers in a couple of days, I often will post a reply.
I would prefer not to see the board split up, because my questions usually seem intermediate to me. (Stuff I don't know, but should be easy for someone who has already done it to answer.) I wouldn't know whether to post this to the "newbie" board or the "advanced" board! I wouldn't want to post to both and I wouldn't want to follow both to reply.
: I had the worst time with a PCI sound card. (it 4 different sound cards to get one that would work) All the help I received here still couldn't fix it. Only through a lot of trial and error (and $) could I get it to work.
BTW, if you use MAME, for the longest time MAME had a problem (now fixed?) with PCI sound cards. Something about the allegro input/output program. It's possible that it was just waiting for MAME to "catch up" that allowed the 4th sound card to work and the other ones might have also worked with the newer revisions of MAME.