Month: December 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.