Year: 2021

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I shall call him, Mini Wii

The Wii mini was an odd choice by Nintendo. Designed to be a cheaper version of the Wii, but lacked Gamecube game support, WiFi, 480p video output and the SD Card slot. It seemed to be the console that nobody had asked for. I’m pretty sure by the time it launched, everyone and their granny already owned a Wii anyway.

It did however have quite a stylish look to it and the Wiimotes included the Wii motion plus functionality. But the main reason I never looked at it again was that it was classed as “un-hackable”

Without internet access or the SD card slot, non of the known exploits would work on this unit. But recently I saw an article saying it had been hacked. It turns out it was actually hacked way back in 2020 but it seemed to go pretty much unnoticed.

Anyway, since the option was there now to mod it and loads games from a USB stick, I thought it would be rude to not have one in my collection. I have added it to the Nintendo shelf in the bedroom so I can have some late-night Mario Kart action 😁.

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TZXDuino

I needed a method of easily loading games for the ZX81 and buying original cassettes wasn’t really on the cards. Normally I look for some sort of native SD Card solution and even though one exists for the ZX81 (ZXpand), it wasn’t easily available to purchase and was probably a bit overkill for my needs.

So instead I went for a slightly different method, and although it is still SD card based, this unit actually reads TZX files from the SD card and then plays them back as sound files out the headphone jack.

The obvious disadvantage is games load at the same speed as they did from tape. But the advantage is this unit is compatible with many of the older computers that used tape as their medium.

It’s actually a really nice little device and since the games for the ZX81 were quite small anyway, they don’t actually take that long to load. 1K Chess for example took about 30 seconds (An entire Chess game fitted within 1K of memory, crazy!)

I purchased this unit from eBay for £24, but you can find them in various different shapes and sizes. I’ve even seen a project where someone built one into an empty cassette tape.

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GBA SP gets re-shelled

Now my GBA SP is all charged up and working, it needed a new shell to bring it back up to showroom condition. There is a huge selection of shells available on eBay for around £12 each. I decided to go for a nice clean purple case. It’s actually a pretty easy job to swap the insides on this console so if you have an old SP lying around it may be time to give it a new wardrobe.

The next question is do I keep the original screen or replace it with a modern IPS screen 🤔

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Acorn Electron (Elk)

I have been looking at these for a while now and this one came up for a decent price on one of the various Facebook groups I follow so I couldn’t resist. It’s all in perfect working order but the case is a bit yellowed. So this gives me an excuse to have another Retrobrighting session and this time I’m going to fully document it and make a guide for the website for anyone wishing to do the same.

Stuck out the back you can just about see the Elk128SD interface which gives the Electron 128k of RAM, a joystick port and an SD card slot for loading all the games from.

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GBA SP – Car boot find

I haven’t been to car boot sales for years, but there was local to me today so I thought i’d go and see if there was any old consoles/computers. Really didn’t expect to find anything of interest. When I arrived, only 5 stalls were set up so my expectations were set even lower.

But then the first table I came to had a Gameboy Advance SP with a game sat on there. The next issue to contend with was what ridiculous price did they want. So many people now just look on ebay at the highest price something sold for and say they want that amount for it.

I was extremely surprised when he said £4! It didn’t have a charger with it so there was always the chance it was broke, but for £4 I wasn’t going to worry too much.

Once I got it home I connected it up to my bench power supply (since I don’t have a charging cable for one of these yet). It all powered up and worked perfectly. The case is a little scratched but I’ll get an aftermarket shell for it off eBay and give it the treatment it deserves.

The game that came with it was the Pokemon Leaf Green version which would normally fetch a reasonable amount on eBay. But this one is actually a bootleg copy. Still a very good deal!

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My ZX81 gets its own CRT :)

Since I purchased it, I have to admit I haven’t powered on the ZX81. It’s currently standard so only has an RF output and although I have TVs that still have analogue tuners they are just not in a convenient location to set this up. My plan was to do the composite video mod to make things a little easier but that was on my list of things to do.

Then, the other day I was browsing YouTube and came across a video where someone had bought a small 5″ CRT from Aliexpress and was connecting it to an Apple II computer. The TV he had was from an old video doorbell or something and was designed to be wall-mounted so not really what I was after. But the thought sat in my head that a small black and white CRT would be perfect for the ZX81 since it didn’t do colour anyway.

So a quick eBay search later I found a perfect condition 5.5″ Chinese monochrome CRT with a built-in RF tuner and radio for £11.99!!

And here it is, a match made in heaven!

I still need to find somewhere to set it up for display but this is a much more manageable size to deal with. The ZX81 also needs a new keyboard as the ribbon cable is perished on this one and is a bit flakey for typing programs on. I’ve also ordered a TZXDuino to help loading tape files into the older computers. I know I could use my mobile phone but these devices look so much cooler 😎

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The boys are back in town!

The earliest version of the Gameboy I have ever owned was the Gameboy Color which I still have in my collection today. It seemed about time that its predecessors joined the club. So here we have a duo of new consoles today. The original Gameboy and the Gameboy Pocket.

Is there another handheld more iconic than the original Gameboy? I personally don’t think there is.