Year: 2022

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Nokia N-Gage #sidetalking

The only thing I really remember about these devices when they came out, was everyone taking the **** out of them for having to hold them sideways to use them as a phone.

Well besides that issue, the device itself could actually run some pretty good games for the time. Games like Tomb Raider got their own port for the system, and apart from the weird portrait screen, it was pretty playable.

One other big complaint people had about them was having to take the case off and remove the battery to change the game card. This however is no longer an issue since cracked games are easily available now and you can just fill up a 1GB MMC card with all the games you want and just leave it in the system.

I look forward to seeing what other games the system has to offer, already found a pretty good version of Rayman 3 which I have never come across on any other system as this is a 2D platformer like the original Rayman.

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Nintendo Virtual Boy

The Virtual Boy has always intrigued me, a bit like a VR headset, it’s one of those devices that people cannot show you what it is like in a video or a screenshot. You just have to experience it for yourself.

I had previously heard a lot of people complaining of headaches and eye strain etc, but a lot of people suffer from those sorts of things with modern VR headsets too and I’ve never had any issues with them. So I finally decided to take the plunge and add one of these devices to my collection along with a flash cart so I can experience the entire library.

I must say I am actually quite impressed, I mean it’s not actually VR in any way, it’s more along the lines of a 3D Gameboy, but the effect is really good and the games I have played so far have also been very enjoyable.

The device is also completely different from anything else released back then, so it looks great on display and always draws attention to itself. No regrets at all about finally adding this to my collection, especially the fact it was my birthday present.

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A new DIY case for the Jaguar Skunkboard

A while ago I put together a small project to flash the Atari Jaguar Skunkboard flash cart from a Raspberry Pi (More details here). The Skunkboard can only hold 1 or 2 games at a time so it was nice to not have to keep removing it and plugging it into my PC to flash it.

Since I built that, I have kept thinking about making it more compact and building everything into a single cartridge. Well, I finally got around to it, and here is the end result:

The cartridge has a DC power jack on the top which is powered from a USB cable. This provides the power to the Raspberry Pi as I didn’t want to risk drawing too much current from the Jaguar itself. The rotary encoder on the side of the unit is used to scroll through the game list and select which game you want and what bank to flash the game to.

I think it turned out pretty well. If you wish to build your own then subscribe to my mailing list from the homepage as I will be uploading the build guide and required files in the new year.

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Commodore PC10-ii

I was given this old PC the other day along with a bunch of other bits and pieces that I am still going through. But this was definitely the most interesting item so I wanted to take a look at it as soon as possible.

After measuring the voltages coming from the power supply it was clearly dead, all voltages shoeing around 1.7Volts. A full re-cap had the potential of bringing it back to life, but these old power supplies were not that great. The huge fan on it also failed and rattled around as it tried to spin.

My decision was to buy a small ATX power supply and retrofit it to the unit. After slicing the connectors onto the modern ATX PSU, I measured all the voltages again and then powered it up.

And it is now booting! This one was actually fitted with an ancient Western Digital Hard Drive which has also died, it spins up and tries to read, but it doesn’t sound healthy and wouldn’t boot. The floppy drives, however, do work, and among the other stuff I picked up, was a set of 5 1/4 inch floppies including a Microsoft DOS Boot floppy.

The most interesting thing about this unit is someone has fitted an Orchid Tiny Turbo 286 processor board to it. I’ve not been able to fully test that yet as I need to build up an AT-XT Keyboard adapter. But the PC does boot with the switch in both positions so I think it’s fine.

The next steps are to fit a modern Hard Drive solution like an XT-IDE board, give it some sound with a modern Adlib Sound card replacement and then design and 3D print a bracket to hold the new PSU in place and mount the power input and power switch on the back of the unit. Should be a fun project!

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Amstrad NC200

Having had the NC100 whilst I was at school and having one again in my collection now, I have still always wanted its bigger brother the NC200. The bigger screen, built-in backlight, and a 3.5″ floppy drive made it a far more advanced device.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for a while now for a decent priced one, and finally picked one up for a price I was happy with.

Since this has a built-in serial port and terminal emulator, My next thing to do is to get this connected up to some old skool BBSs.

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The Retro Hour Podcast Kickstarter has launched!

If you like retro stuff as much as me, then hopefully you have already checked out The Retro Hour Podcast.

The guys behind the podcast have now launched a Kickstarter campaign for their new book “The History of Video Gaming, From Those Who Made It Happen”. These guys have interviewed the most famous people in the industry over the years, so this book is sure to be a good read!

So go and back the project now! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/retrohour/the-retro-hour-book

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Parappa the Rapper merchandise

Although I mainly collect old computers and consoles, I do also have a selection of other retro merchandise and toys. I think in the near future I’m going to have to add a new section to my archive to include some of this stuff.

My latest pickup was this strange and seemingly quite rare Parappa the Rapper toy. It’s a moving toy depicting a picnic scene with Parapper and Sunny. When you press the button there is some Japanese dialogue and then it busts out into a cute tune and their heads bob around to the music.

The Boom Box in the scene contains a removable keyring containing a cartridge that holds the music and speech data. I assume they planned on releasing additional keyrings or something, but I think only 3 different models were ever released and I don’t know if any additional cartridges were ever made.

One thing is for certain though, it has a very high cuteness factor!

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Philips Videopac G7000 (Magnavox Odyssey 2)

This is another interesting machine I picked up a little while ago but hadn’t gotten around to updating the website.

This console/computer was released in 1978 and was named the Magnavox Odyssey 2 other in the USA (They got a much cooler name!). Many people refer to this as a console, but with it having a full qwerty keyboard and its own programming language, surely it’s a computer? Although the keyboard is absolutely awful so full respect goes to anyone that actually wrote a program for this thing using the assembler cartridge.

The system came in its original box which is in pretty nice condition, along with a selection of games to keep me entertained for a few minutes. The system itself is also in very good condition and seems to be working perfectly. Such a strange design!

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Sega Mega CD

I’ve always wanted to grab a Mega CD but the prices have always put me off. But recently I came across a listing for a Mega CD that was “not powering on” for £100. After previous research, I believed this was likely due to the pico fuse gone in it as is common on these units. So I decided to take the chance, and sure enough, after replacing the fuse it came to life. I’ve since replaced all the capacitors in it also as these are prone to failure in these units too.

Now I’ve gone this far I guess the 32x now has to be added to my shopping list!

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Sega Nomad – Megadrive on the go!

For those who have not heard of this, the Sega Nomad is a portable Megadrive (Genesis) that was only released over in America. I’ve wanted one for a while but they don’t often come up for sale in the UK, and with current exchange rates, importing stuff from America isn’t a great deal at the moment.

So when this one popped up on eBay in the UK, I decided to go for it. Its all fully working and it pretty good condition except for a few minor scratches on the casing.

My next project for this one will be to design and 3D print a battery pack for it using 18650 cells. I have ordered all the pieces I require so will hopefully post about its progress in the near future.