Here’s a weird problem that I’ve never seen before, along with my eventual hardware fix. After my previous Elgato Game Capture HD60 S HDMI capture card LED repair escapades, I recently ended up trying to find another modern revision of the same device so I could dump its SPI flash chip in order to be 100% certain that the data I put into the flash for the animations was correct for the newer model. I took a chance and bought one for cheap on eBay that was sold as not working at all, but looked like it was newer based on the case style and arrangement of the back panel:
The item description said:
Unit powers on when connected to computer, but all computers we’ve tested this with refuse to recognize it as being connected.
When it arrived, I noticed that it came with a USB A-to-C cable that wasn’t actually a SuperSpeed cable.
Earlier this year, there was some drama around the shutdown of the Nintendo Wii U’s online gaming. Team 0% had a goal of making sure that every level created in Super Mario Maker was beaten at least once. If you’re not familiar with Mario Maker, it’s a video game that lets you make your own levels in the style of several classic Mario titles and share them with the rest of the world to play. Well, it did until new uploads were disabled in 2021. By that point in time, the sequel Super Mario Maker 2 had come out on the Switch and that’s where most people were creating their levels.
The clock was ticking for Nintendo’s servers and Team 0% was so close to their goal. Eventually what it came down to was a single uncleared level: Trimming the Herbs by Ahoyo. As you can see in the video, it only takes about 15 seconds to beat. But in order to win, you have to do some crazy, precise tricks that casual players like me simply can’t do.
Some of the most talented Super Mario Maker players in the world were focused on trying to finish it before the April 8th cutoff, including sanyx91smm2, Thabeast721, and LilKirbs. It was very, very difficult. People started wondering if cheating was involved. In order to upload a level to Nintendo’s servers, you have to beat it yourself first. This serves as a way to ensure that impossible levels can’t be uploaded (although some cruel people use glitches or hidden blocks to still upload “impossible” levels).
I’m not really much of a gamer these days, but this story caught my eye at the time and inspired me to do some hardware tinkering with my own Wii U.
