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Sony KV-32FX66U 32-inch Trinitron

I’m catching up on a few updates that have happened over the last couple of months. One of which was the acquisition of a 32inch Sony Trinitron.

This absolute monster weighs in at 65kg, which meant it spent a few weeks in our hallway before finding someone to help me carry it down to its final resting place.

The person I got this from was actually the same person I got the 28inch version from a while back. This one however, is fully working, but with some minor geometry/convergenace issues. I’ve mostly fixed all of these now, with just a small issue in the top right, which I will look to fix with convergence strips when I get a few minutes. For now though, it is hardly noticeable, especially when playing games with a bit of overscan.

The only issue I have now is that both of these Trinitrons are 100Hz models, so the PlayStation 1 Lightguns will no longer work. To get around the loss of Point Blank, I’ve now set up my arcade cabinet to work with my Guncon 2s, which seems to be working great so far.

I’ve yet to try the PS2 lightgun games on this set, but from what I have read, I just need to switch the G-Con2 into 100Hz mode, and it should be good to go. Hopefully, that will be a good experience for playing Time Crisis 2 and Vampire Night again.

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I bought a box for £130 😬

Quite a while ago, I realised that collecting computers/consoles with their original boxes came with one big downside, the amount of space they take up!

I have a lot of boxes for a lot of systems, but I don’t really have the space to display all the boxes. The majority of them spend their time sitting up in the loft, which seems pretty pointless.

But when one specific box came up for sale recently, I knew I just had to get this one as it holds a special place in my heart. I am of course, talking about the Sam Coupe box.

Despite having 3 of these computers here, the boxes for them are long gone. At least the computers themselves never got thrown out!

I have only ever seen an empty box go up for sale once before, and that was a few years ago now. Usually, the boxes only sell with a computer inside, and these tend to fetch ~£1500 these days. So I had to grab this one whilst I could.

The box is in pretty good shape, complete with all the internal polys, and the blue bag that the computer was originally wrapped in.

I look forward to fully packaging up one of my Sams now with all of the original components, where it can sit out on display alongside my daily driver Sam.

Let this be a lesson to everyone, collecting boxes can turn into an expensive hobby! 😅

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HP Jornada 720 added

For some time now, I’ve had the HP Jornada 720 sat in my watch list on eBay. Last week, one popped up with my favourite word in the title, “FAULTY”.

The description said the device was all working apart from the keyboard. This was either going to be an easy repair or something a lot more difficult. I decided to take a chance and made an offer on the device, which was accepted.

Upon receiving the device, the description was accurate. They said that it was never opened, which was confirmed by the warranty sticker still being intact. I opened it up, pulled the keyboard ribbon cable out and gave it a clean with some IPA. I then connected it back up, and everything is now fully working.

A nice and simple repair, and now I have a fully working device to play around with.

And yes, it does run Doom!

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Meeting the Oliver Twins!

This weekend, a friend and I went up to the Bristol Video Game Expo and met with the Olive Twins. They were up there to give a talk about their career, which was very interesting to listen to. But before they did their talk, we bumped into them walking around the expo and had a quick chat. They also signed my copy self made copy of Wonderful Dizzy, which I made a while ago (https://www.northdevonretroarchive.co.uk/2022/02/13/wonderful-dizzy-homemade-physical-copy/)

They were very impressed at the amount of work I had put in to make it look as original as possible 🙂

They were really nice guys, so if you ever see them, don’t be afraid to go and have a chat. They have both lived such interesting lives.

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Project: Arcade Cabinet Build

As you may have guessed from my previous post, I’m embarking on my next project of building a full-size arcade cabinet. I’ve decided to replicate a cabinet that used the original control panel that I was given.

I’ve created this in the projects section of my site and will be keeping a diary of the build progress along the way. I’ll also put up a post when updates are made so that anyone who has subscribed will get an email alert.

This is going to be a fun one! Head over to the projects section now, or click continue reading below.

Arcade Cabinet Build Diary