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 🤔
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!
I have just written up a quick guide on how to build your own GX4000 cartridges:
I have just written my review of the Retrosix CleanScreen LCD Screen mod for the Sega GameGear.
You can read the full article by clicking the link below or going to the Mods section on this site.
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.
With an estimated 15,000 units sold worldwide, the GX4000 is still quite easy to get hold of. That probably tells you something about how good it is! Although the price of this console does seem to be going up recently.
The console is still a nice looking machine though and there are a few good games that were launched for it. Only around 30 cartridges ever came out for the console. These now seem to sell for more money than the actual console. I have looked around and there is an SD card solution for this console but considering the small size of the library and the quality of most of those games, I have decided to go down a different route.
The user “Chinnery” on the CPC forums has released the designs for a blank PCB for this unit. All that is then needed is an EPROM chip to write the game to and a couple of other components. Stick this in a 3D printed case and we are done.
Considering there is probably a maximum of 10 games that I want then this should be a cheap way of getting them in my collection.
When I was younger I remember seeing a CD-i in a UK store named Comet. It was running an interactive encyclopedia on the demo unit and I remember navigating around and seeing videos of Whales and various other things. It seemed like magic at the time considering my other encyclopedia was a set of books with photos in it. After seeing this in the store I begged my parents for a CD-i for ages but they were not exactly cheap.
I never did get one back then but mainly because the PlayStation came out and my parents purchased one of those for me for my Christmas and Birthday present (Thank you!!!). But today this changes and I took delivery of a Philips CD-i 210. This is the unit that was less like a games console and more like a piece of Hi-Fi equipment.
The unit is in pretty good condition with just a few light scratch marks here and there. It also came with a selection of CD-i titles and some video CD’s which it can play since it has the optional Digital Video module (MPEG 1).
The only issue with it was the tray wasn’t ejecting but upon opening it I could see the drive belt for the drive was stretched and had come off the wheel. So I replaced this with a similar size belt and now all is good.
So I am fully aware the CD-i isn’t the best machine in the world but it’s an interesting one to have a play around with non the less. I will be on the lookout next for the peacekeeper light gun for the CD-i which is actually an interesting device since it is one of the few light guns that will actually work on modern TV’s. That is because it’s not technically a light gun, it’s actually closer related to a WiiMote where it has an infrared module that sits on the top of your TV and the gun uses that to track its relative position. I have actually come across a DIY project which looks like it will let you use WiiMotes as a controller on the CD-i so I may go down that route as it looks like a fun project.
Anyway I will do a full write up on the system after I have had some experience using it. I was also do a write up of the controller mod if I go down that route.
Another new edition to the collection. The Panasonic FZ-1 3DO console. This console launched in 1993 in the UK at a price of £400, which is roughly around £830 in today’s money. Safe to say I have never owned one of these before now!
This only came with one game called Striker, and I am really not a fan of football games. Luckily copy protection wasn’t a thing back then so burning ISOs to a blank CD works fine with this system. The one issue I did have though, is my modern PC won’t write discs any slower than 24x. At this speed, the discs were not readable in the 3DO. So I had to bust out the old retro PC and use the Sony CD writer in that which can do a 4x write. These work well in the 3DO but with some occasional skipping usually on the opening video scenes.
I expect an optical drive emulator will be on the cards for this system in the future but is it one of the more expensive systems to mod in this way (http://3do-mnemo.com/USB_Host_for_FZ1.htm)
Have you ever owned one of these? What games should I try out?
So I remember wanting one of these so badly when I was younger but couldn’t afford it. I am fully aware now that the game is most likely terrible, but the advert at the time was awesome!!
Anyway someone offered me one of them fully boxed and complete so I just couldn’t resist. It’s finally time to discover how bad (or good?) the game actually is 🙂
I backed this little (and I do mean little!) device on Kickstarter a while back and today they delivered!
This small hand held measures just 4.5×4.5×1.5 cm and yet still manages to emulate systems up to and including the orignal Playstation.
Now this is obviously not going to be your main emualtion device but its a really cute thing to have attached to your keyring for those times times when you’re sat in a clothes shop waiting for the wife to try on everything in the store 😛
More information can be found here and pre-orders are now live.