tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82566859110465537642024-03-20T05:46:01.923+00:00PORLZILLA.COM | Designer Toys, Paintings, Retro Consoles, Illustrations and Design by Paul BurkePorlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-33311471505100408782017-04-12T14:31:00.000+01:002017-04-12T14:31:00.957+01:00QUARTERLY UPDATE BLOG POST : WORKSHOP UPDATE AND ZACCARIA CABARETHello people who read my blog about what I get up to when I have time for projects. It's been a while, as I always write in these blog posts haha. I have been getting up to things but none that are really techy that I can remember.<br />
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The main thing I've been getting up to is enjoying spending time with my family and getting the workshop in the garden up to speed so I can get back to working on my scratch built bar top arcade machine.<br />
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And because Spring time is here the list of DIY jobs is starting to get longer and longer, life hey! :-P<br />
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So, I finished up the inside of my small garden workshop, building my work bench, shelves and bandsaw table / stand etc. Now I have a work space that's dry and I can leave my tools out (although I pretty much always put them away) I can have bit and bob away at the bar top arcade cab whenever I get a spare hour here or there.<br />
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I'm really proud of the setup and how much I can actually do in a small shed like it is. When its been raining or dark outside I can still cut down fairly large sheets of wood (not being too daft) in there with some creative placements of tools and me.<br />
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I think I have all the tools I need to get my arcade project finished, I just have to learn how to use them! haha. I am learning new and better ways to do things everytime I make a little bit more progress. So much so that I will be re-doing one of the panels I made last year now I know a better way of cutting and mounting it.<br />
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Once I have the monitor mounting sorted how I want I think I will post some photos of my bar top cabinet. I get a more and more stoked out with how its looking everytime I get a bit of work done on it.<br />
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So enough of workshop-chat. Onto my new arcade cabinet...well, arcade cabinet project! My uncle who I hadn't seen in a long time was having to clear out the storage area he'd rented for years and years. I think he's realised he won't be doing anything with his stored stuff so has been clearing it out. Anyway, he was working his way through and found an arcade cabinet and knowing how much I'm into arcade stuff asked me if I would like it. And I said Hell Yeah!<br />
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I went out to see it and move it to my wife's family farm so I can store it hopefully safe and sound. When I got there I was pleased to see that it's a small cabinet so easier to move than my re-wired / resurrected full size woody cabinet.<br />
<br />A little look through the machine when I got it back I was a little disappointed to see that the chassis for the monitor was missing. :-( And when I mentioned it to my uncle he couldn't remember why it would be missing, more than likely years and years back when it was in his shop it would have been sent off for repair and he didn't get it back before he closed up.<br />
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Anyway, here is the cabinet :<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M76b1su2raY/WOtFjsRc6LI/AAAAAAAAQiU/H3PyXtpNfv4sTiBsBXrie3ShJk2Y-i53QCPcB/s1600/20170409_142049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M76b1su2raY/WOtFjsRc6LI/AAAAAAAAQiU/H3PyXtpNfv4sTiBsBXrie3ShJk2Y-i53QCPcB/s320/20170409_142049.jpg" width="180" /></a>As you can see, its a <b>Zaccaria Quasar Cabaret</b>. And from the research I've done on the internet there only seems to be one more floating around between arcade collectors in the UK. Pretty amazing that I now have one in my little stored up collection.<br />
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You can see in the photos that its had a little bit of a rough life by the scratches down the right hand side but I think with a little cleaning up they wont look half as bad, and a general wash down will do it a world of good! Its got years and years of storage based dirt and grime on it.<br />
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I'm going to keep my eye out on the Jamma plus forums for a chassis for the cabinet and see if I can get it up and running. Its missing the control panel artwork but the rear Quasar artwork is in pretty good shape. I'd love to get it back up and running.<br />
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The cabinet details are really nice too. The drilled out Z shape lower down on the front panel underneath the coin door.<br />
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Im going to post up some images on Jamma Plus and see if I can find out anymore information on this little cabinet. And see if I can source a monitor or monitor chassis for a decent price and get it back up and running and all cleaned up over summer.<br />
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And next month....REVIVAL : THE RIVALS!! Whoop! I can't wait. Im really looking forward to this event. All of them have been great fun, especially last years Summer Solstice. Hopefully there will be a Retro Asylum Forum meet up on the day I go. I'd love to meet up and have some high score sessions etc with the peeps on there.<br />
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Anway, hopefully I will be a bit more up to date with my blog and bar top progess etc.<br />
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<b>Porl''</b><br />
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<br />Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-56687123611184949282017-01-04T12:22:00.000+00:002017-01-04T12:22:39.169+00:00HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017!!Well, I was expecting to update this blog a bit sooner than a 5 month gap! wow! How the time and last year has flown by for me. I guess that's what having a little boy brings you. My time has certainly gone into basically playing with him when I get home.<br />
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But I have when I've had a little bit of time working on making an area in the garden for electronic tinkering and making things hobby and DIY. At the start of summer 2016 I started designing and making a bartop arcade machine. I'd been seeing a lot of them on the forums I frequent and I really wanted to have a go at making one. But rather than just buying a pre-cut kit I wanted to use the opportunity to teach myself wood working and really try to get my crappy wood work skills up a few notches! I've always been really bad at working with wood haha. But I've always been so impressed with what people can make.<br />
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So I started the design and when I was happy with that I got out on the tiny front little patio we have and got some of the power tools I inherited from my Father out and some MDF from my local DIY shop. And when I got a half-day friday from work or an hour here or there I'd get a little bit of work done to the project. The one main issue I was having, other than my slow learning curve was that I would spend a massive chunk of my time setting everything up on the patio and then packing it all away again into our front shed. So I wouldn't get as much done as I'd hope. And also I didn't want my wife and boy around all the MDF dust that was being generated as it's certainly no good for you. I have a nice mask I use to save my lungs!<br />
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On the way home from seeing some friends halfway through the summer season my wife mentioned the idea of getting another shed, probably from somewhere like Gumtree and turning it into a workshop. She'd noticed that I was spending ages with all the setup and pack down and that sometimes I got rained off which was always a little bit of a bummer. And even more of a surprise she found a shed locally that had just been put up on the site for a staggering £20! It was a small shed but we only have a small garden so it should be perfect. I phoned the guy up and we picked it up in the evening that week. It was hairy getting it home on top of the van we borrowed but it got home safe and sound and we then set about at the weekends repairing all of the old rotted wall, roof and floor panels. Which there were a lot of!!<br />
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Eventually we got all the parts repaired and excitedly started building the shed in the now cleared location at the bottom of the garden and we ran into a few hick-ups. The first being that the floor didn't fit the sides at all!! It was from a different shed! So with a bit of thinning and then extending the floor it fit. How annoying. So onto the roof. Well the roof didn't fit either! So we modded that to make it fit too. For £20 we appeared to have bought a floor from one shed, walls from another and the roof panels from another! 3 SHEDS haha!! But it all sits nicely now and the progress of moving it from a garden shed towards a workshop has really gotten going now.<br />
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I've build a small workbench and bandsaw stand from 2 old bed frames that my neighbour and brother were throwing out. And just have some shelves to make now to fit all the other bits and bobs of tools and I'll be carrying on with the Bartop project. As well as making a bath shelf to house all of my son's bath toys and an under stairs toy box.<br />
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So that's really what's been keeping me busy of the last half of a year. It's been quite exciting as I'm learning new things all the time and the Workshop is going to open up a few more opportunities for projects etc.<br />
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I did go to Revival this year too and took a load of photos which I'll just post below. It was a brilliant day!! I loved the talks I sat in on that Retro Asylum hosted and played as many games on as many machines as I could. It was so good! I fell in love with Defender as well. I'd only ever played the home version, possibly on my Atari 2600, I can't quite remember. But the arcade game, WOW! So cool! I saw some podcast celebrates around the show as well. Shaun and Vic from the Ten Pence Arcade Podcast. I was a little too scared to go and chat with them though, I can never think of things to say. And I also saw and spoke to Alex Crowley who was an original host of Ten Pence. He'd taken some of his arcade cabs to the show and I had a good go on them. The Sheriff upright cocktail being my favourite although I did really enjoy Space Launcher too! Both simple games but so playable and addictive!<br />
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Here are a few photos of the day :<br />
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Again, I absolutely loved the day and can't wait for the Revival event that will hopefully happen this year! And hopefully it's close by as well so I can go.<br />
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So that's a basic catch-up to my blog of things that have been happening this year. Projects have slowed down but they are always floating around in my head and just waiting for the time to strike haha!<br />
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Have a good new year folks!<br />
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<b>Porl''</b><br />
<br />Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-36584430938293406432016-07-18T12:15:00.000+01:002016-07-18T12:15:49.694+01:00JULY 2016 UPDATE<div class="p1">
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It’s been a little while *again* for updates. I keep meaning to do little posts but time just keeps getting away from me. But this month I’m super excited about an event that’s happening at the end of it. Revival Summer Solstice!! I bought my ticket about 2 months ago now and it took me ages to decide which day to choose to go on. I knew that there were going to be talks at this event, much like they had at the original Revival event a few years ago but I wasn’t sure which day would have which speakers etc as they’ve been drip feeding information about the show every couple of weeks. Well I decided in the end, as its school summer holidays and me and my wife don’t have to work on the saturday morning running a band that I will take the opportunity and go on the Saturday. Well I found out last week that I lucked out!! 50/50 chance mind you. But the saturday is the day they are having all the talks from people who used too and still do work in the industry. And on the sunday is when <a href="http://www.retroasylum.com/" target="_blank">Retro Asylum</a> are recording for a podcast from the show. So, even though that would be cool I’m stoked I should be able to attend some of the talks from people such as Jim Bagley who must be a super interesting guy because he’s creating some of the coolest “I just want to do this because no-one else has” kinds of projects over the last few years. So as well as going on all the arcade machines I can get my hands on again I’m psyched to get to hear some people talk too!</div>
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So if your going to the event on Saturday and do read my stupid blog you might end up having a 2 player game with me on an arcade machine and not even know haha.</div>
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I can’t wait to go man! WOO!!</div>
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Other updates?</div>
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Well project wise I’ve just been plugging away on my Summer Project I issued to myself when I get chance. Each stage is taking me so long because Im completely learning new things and skills every time I get to work on it. So each step is very drawn out but so far *touch wood* its going okay. One of the things I had been doing was playing around with my Raspberry Pi 2 which I got for christmas. I have Retro Pie on there but I’ve been really wanting to set it so that vertical games are orientated the correct way, so I have to turn my monitor. I’m not a fan of the fit it to a landscape screen setting that seems to be on all MAME setups as standard. But I’ve been struggling a lot with it. I don’t ever use Linux so again I’m learning in bits each time I play with it. And you might thing “well, why bother messing around with rotating your screen?! You can still play the game. Well, if you see below where I was playing a bit of Gunbird, you get to see it so much better! Look how it fills the screen. Your not leaving half of the screen for just black space, that suckers getting full with shoot-y goodness! ahem. haha.</div>
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But I’ve got to figure out how to get my Pi-Mame / AdvMame or whichever to do game by game screen rotation / orientation. I’ve joined a retro pie group on Facebook though that seem to be super knowledgable so I should hopefully be able to get some help at some point. I need to get scan lines going on there too, that would be the icing on the cake! :-P</div>
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Anyway, I’ve not really been up to much other than playing in bands and helping do other things that aren’t really retro / geek related. I’ll get there though, chipping away.</div>
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Right, time to sign off and ticking off the days till its Revival !</div>
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Catch you later</div>
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<b>Porl''</b></div>
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<br />Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-60017233819356693712016-04-20T12:00:00.000+01:002016-04-20T12:00:18.608+01:00CAPCOM CPS2 ALL-IN-ONE BLACK MARVEL VS CAPCOM BATTERY CHANGEHey guys,<br />
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I've finally done it! I've finally grown the balls to tackle the battery change on my Capcom CPS2 All-in-one black metal case Marvel VS Capcom game. I've done a battery change on a regular CPS2 board, the plastic cased A board which you can do without the game connected but when it comes to the All-in-one games their different...<br />
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....you need to change the battery while the game is on!..<br />
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...<b>WHILE IT'S TURNED ON!!!</b><br />
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haha, yeah that's why I've been putting off doing it. You need to keep the game on while you desolder the old battery and then solder in the new one. I mean, the process of changing the battery is super simple but doing it while the board is propped on its side so you can get easy access to the top and bottom makes it a lot more delicate. If you press too hard on anything the board will move, potentially slide and you can touch other parts of the board by accident with the soldering iron or your hand and short something. Or cause it to lose power, which while the battery is disconnected will just brick your game and it's phoenix time. Which is what I didn't want to happen.<br />
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So I set myself up as best as I could and did everything methodically and checked my work at each stage just because I wanted to be super careful and I love this game and really don't want to knacker it up.<br />
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Here you can see the offending battery, which to be honest was still in good shape. No leaking or bloating or anything. But it's been in there since 2011 and I wanted to get a fresh one in to help prolong the life of this game in it's original form.<br />
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Sorry this image is a screenshot from the video I made documenting my progress with this swap (see bottom of this post for video). I forgot to take a photo of it propped up as I was psyching myself up to go for the desolder haha. So this is how I had the game propped up. I electrical taped both sides of the edge of the board that's touching my hobby mat so that the game couldn't slide out from under itself. That would be pretty disasterous! And you can hopefully see its leaning against my plastic main soldering box. It's pretty heavy and with it leaning towards it the game can't fall forward as I work. And you can see the Jamma edge on there too.<br />
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And <b>SUCCESS!!! </b>Here you can see the game working with it's fresh new battery in place! <b>WOO!!</b> The actual swap was a simple job in the end, I was just super careful with how I put the solder sucker on there etc to desolder the old battery. I did have a little bit of a heart attack when I was cleaning the last bit of solder of one of the pads that looked like it might be obscuring a bit of one of the holes and it might make pocking one of the legs through a little tricky. I didn't realise but the games music had stopped! I looked over to my TV and the screen was frozen with the small Capcom logo in the middle bottom bit of the screen and the rest of the screen had a Patent number, Patent number text written all across the screen. I thought for sure it's dead and I'd moved the board too much or something. I was gutted. Well I finished putting the new battery in and trimmed its legs. Then I turned it off because I'd have to turn it off at some point to put the game away. And when I turned it back on the flippin' thing worked!! Man I was so happy! haha<br />
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So I did it! The battery change didn't take very long at all in the end and now I'd done it it's not that scary anymore. I must admit that I couldn't find much at all about changing the batteries on these boards just comments about doing it while the game is on. The only real posts I did find ended up being from a Blog written by the guy who owned this game! I bought it off him via Arcade Otaku. I recognised the scratches on the metal casing. So this game seems to be the poster boy for the battery swap :-P<br />
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Below is the video I made of the battery change each step of the way. Except for the actual battery swap. I was too scared to do that on video in case I messed it up worrying about talking on camera or if the camera was in focus or had fallen over etc.<br />
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So there you go, I wanted to post up something about the swap I did as information is fairly scarce on swapping out the batteries on these boards. And hopefully it'll help if you have an All-in-one and want / need to change the battery on it but don't really know how to go about it.<br />
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Good luck and see you soon<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-24598342430759286002016-04-11T12:00:00.000+01:002016-04-11T12:00:18.858+01:00YES ANOTHER GAMEBOY....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So again it's been a while since I posted anything up on my Blog. The past few months have flown by and I've just bit-d and bob-d about with projects but haven't really got any finished during the time. It's a shame but I'm still super excited about retro gaming projects and still have several lined up. One major one I need to get to is changing the battery on my CPS2 all-in-one Marvel Vs Capcom board. The battery is pretty old on it and I need to grow the nerve up to change it. Apparently they work differently to normal CPS2 boards and you have to change it while the game is on and playing!! If theres no power and the battery gets taken out it dumps the encryption keys and thats it, you need to get it phoenixed! And I don't want that at all!</div>
<br />Anyway, what's the story with me getting <b>another</b> Gameboy!??! Well it was a bit random really, I'd been into my companies (where I work, I don't own it haha) RnD department on the scrounge for some AA's to run my DMG Gameboy and told them why I wanted them. They very kindly gave me some retro fuel cells for the Gameboy and then a few days later one of the guys from there came over to my desk and gave me his old Gameboy Color! For Free!!! Woo! It's been sitting in his loft and when he saw I was interested in playing them he thought someone should play it and just bought it in. Man I was stoked! And green is my favourite colour so its even better! It came with Star Wars pod racing in it which I haven't tried and Brain Training for Nintendo DS (Which I have been using to get my maths skills better than the crappy Graphic Designer stage they are at now haha).<div>
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The Gameboy isn't in mint condition or anything, it's been played and Im more than happy with that. The screen is scratched slightly but you don't see them when the game is on. Oh and the battery cover was missing. I don't understand how so many Gameboys have no battery covers?! Do the clips break on them or do kids just not put them back on when changing the batteries and they disappear? Anyway, I dropped £3.99 on amazon and got a repro cover and its now complete. :-)</div>
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And I've started working my way through Zelda : Links Awakening. It's really good so far and I've just entered the second dungeon ; Bottle Grotto. I've got a lot of game to play but It's very much a game I can pick away at I think. Also Im very impressed with the screen on the Gameboy Color. I didn't think the viewing angles etc would be improved over the DMG but it really is a step up! It's a lot easier to see in normal daylight. When it gets dark etc the game gets switched into the backlight DMG ;-)</div>
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Oh also, I got this game with some of my birthday money and I've started the trek into Dark Souls 2 on PS3. I've heard that it is a solid game and I've not really been interested in it for years, but I watched a Giant Bomb quick look on Dark Souls 3 and they completely hooked me. It actually looked really fun and the style, graphics and gameplay looked really good! So I dropped £6 and picked it up. Well, It IS FOOKING SOLID!! haha. I've played a few hours of it and Im totally stuck already. Its not a hand holder at all which is really interesting and Im determined to get further, it has definatly hooked me!</div>
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I've looked up a tutorial and I was heading into an area I'm no way near strong enough to go through yet which has been why I've died, and died and died etc etc etc over and over again :-P<br /><br />Oh and I also have Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain to play through. Im super into MGS and Im really looking forward to getting some play time in on it, I think Dark Souls 2 needs to be done first though...we'll see.</div>
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So I thought I would drop an update and I need to get more projects finished.</div>
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Hopefully I'll have some actual finished stuff to show soon.</div>
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<br />*fingers crossed*</div>
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<b>Porl''</b></div>
Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-87346677371943426342016-01-22T12:00:00.000+00:002016-01-22T12:00:20.907+00:00PLAY IT LOUD!! BACKLIGHT + BI-VERT MOD<div class="p1">
Hey, how’s it going? Hopefully well. :-)</div>
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A few posts ago I showed the Play it Loud! Gameboy I got locally for a real deal. Well I got round to backlighting and bi-verting my Gameboy so that I can play it in any light :-D</div>
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As an example, this is the original screen. You can see the title screen for Zelda : Links Awakening okay in this photo but you really struggle when your holding the Gameboy and its moving around in the light.</div>
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I was a little worried I must admit because I watched a few tutorials on doing the backlight mod and one of the main things everyone says is how easy it is to ruin the screen by prying the screen out too far and snapping / breaking the connections between it and the main board. I really wanted to do this mod though so I had to be brave, take my time and go for it.</div>
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I went to a really cool UK Gameboy mods site to order my backlight kit. Check them out here : <a href="http://www.gameboymods.co.uk/">http://www.gameboymods.co.uk/</a> Shaun who runs the site was really helpful with my questions and the backlight arrived super quick. I highly recommend getting your backlight from him!</div>
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When the backlight arrived I got started that night on the mod. I couldn’t wait haha. Here you can see front main board out and the really tricky back reflective sticker removed. I didn’t want to take any in progress photos as I did this, I just wanted to concentrate on getting it all out in one piece and not wrecking the screen. Its this process that can damage the screen. There are solder points under the glass that can easily be pried away from the solder pads if your not careful.</div>
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I didn’t end up photographing the light in place, I’m not sure know why but I connected the power and grounds up to the capacitor you see in the above photo. Its directly below the screen. Its a nice short location and keeps everything clean.</div>
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Here you can see the Gameboy back together and the light working!! Whoop whoop!! What you might notice is that the image is now inverted compared to the first non-backlit image. Once of the cool things you get with the back-light is a contrast sheet and if you turn it one way the image is normal and you rotate it and the image is inverted. Its important if your going to do the Bi-vert mod to have the sheet set to invert. When I add in the invert chip to the gameboy its going to re-invert the screen which will result in a really nicely contrasting screen image.</div>
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That was all I managed to do in the one night, and I must admit I was really happy I’d gotten that far with it as I really did take my time removing the reflective sticker.</div>
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I played the machine for about a week inverted until I got another chance to open it up and install the small 7404 Hex Inverter chip to switch the image back over.</div>
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This really was a simple mod to do and I followed the excellent guide on mmmonkey’s site : <a href="http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/gameboy-dmg-01-screen-invert/">http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/gameboy-dmg-01-screen-invert/</a> He always does great write ups and has really informative photos so you shouldn’t have any problems following them.</div>
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Here you can see my inverted back-lit Gameboy sitting on the tutorial I printed out. This is a reference of how it looks before for a late photo ;-)</div>
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There isn’t much to write about the process really, the guide is so good I just followed it and kept my wiring as neat as possible. The chip just wedges in the top of the case and it all closes up absolutely fine! Here you can see my wiring and the chip in place. Looks pretty neat I think!</div>
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And here it is all Bi-verted for comparison! Look at that backlit bi-verted contrasty goodness!! :D</div>
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And heres another one of the first level of MegaMan as it shows more depth in the screen image.</div>
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These two mods really have made my Gameboy way more useable in everyday life. I can see the screen in any situation now and I have it in my rucksack at all times for whenever Im having to wait for anything and I want a hit of retro gaming.</div>
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I really recommend trying this mod out if you feel brave enough or get someone to do it for you. It really does add loads of extra usable life to you Gameboy and looks top banana! I went for the green backlight just to keep the feel of the machine original. But I saw several Gameboys backlit with other colours and they all looked great! I was really Impressed with the light blue and the pink ones.</div>
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So yeah, go for it and have fun with your Gameboys!</div>
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<b>Porl’’</b></div>
Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-39440052136324983982015-12-01T14:01:00.000+00:002015-12-01T14:01:25.729+00:00REVIVAL WINTER WARMER 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hey yup,<br />
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As I mentioned in a post last week I think it was, or maybe the week before, I went to the Revival Winter Warmer retro event in wolverhampton on sunday.<br />
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I went on my own this year as I didn't want to drag my wife along and then worry the whole time that she was bored when Im geeking out and playing on everything in site. So off on my todd I went and after a few moments of getting lost on the way I turned up safe and sound and ready to get my geek on.<br />
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Well as you walk in you could just hear people. Simple as that, so much converstation and laughter mixed in with bleeps and bloops from arcade machines, pinballs and retro computers and consoles. It was so cool to see! The place was packed and apparently sunday was the quiet day!!<br />
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From the get go I scoped out some of the stalls which had a lot of backlit and biverted game boys and loads of games! Not just gameboy games but for every system, including imports. Man you could route through the games all day long! I bought myself a copy of Dr Mario for the gameboy from one stall specialising in gameboy's. I traded in my spare Super Mario World 2 : 6 golden coins and got it for £3. BARGAIN! And as I was putting The Dr in his new home in my gameboy case the stall owner spotted my BC Kid game and asked if I fancied selling it as he'd been hunting it for ages. Well I offered a trade which he agreed to and I did a nice swap for Megaman : Dr Wileys Revenge. Very happy about that! Woop! BC Kid was a cool game but I've got a Megaman itch that needs to be scratched and it was a fair trade. It was very cool that the stall owner was up for trades etc, it made the whole experience really friendly and like-minded.<br />
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Man and the selection of machines was top notch, I finally managed to have a go on a Virtual Boy and I thought it was really really cool! It did make my eyes hurt after 5 minutes but the depth and 3D in it worked really well I thought. I don't think I'd like to own one though as I wouldn't get much use out of it because of the eye ache but the unit and the shooting game I played was really cool!<br />
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There were a good selection of arcade machines there too which I tried to have a go on each of them. I think I only missed out on a few as they were really busy, such as the two Outrun games they had. Outrun and Turbo Outrun.<br />
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I loved having a go on a Point Blank machine again, I used to put so much money in the one they had at the Super Bowl in Burton as a kid so that was a wicked hit of nostalgia.<br />
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I don't really want to just ramble and ramble but the event was great! Like minded people, randomly playing Street Fighter 3 against a guy I didn't know but made friends with was really cool. And to top it off we were playing on a great Sega Blast City candy cab! Top banana!<br />
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I highly recommend going to a Revival retro event if you've never been. They are going to be back in 2016 at the larger location, I think it will be the wolverhampton race course again. I went there 2 years ago with my mate and it was immense! I'm going to try to get to that event too! Certainly after such a good event this weekend. :D<br />
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Enough ramble. Catch you later haha<br />
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<b>Porl'' </b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-86750242101926750892015-11-19T12:00:00.000+00:002015-11-19T12:00:11.255+00:00PLAY IT LOUD!!!!!Hey everyone,<br />
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Wow another post in the same week! This is fairly uncommon for me haha. Well I wasn't planning on putting up another post so soon but I managed to spot a bit of a deal, well I think it is anyway, on gumtree this week.<br />
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I've been playing some Legend of Zelda Link to the past advance on my DS when I've had a spare half an hour in the last few weeks. But I went to play it at the start of the week and I found out my game save had corrupted or the battery had burped on the cartridge and all of my game had gone! I was so far through the game too! I was a little distraught haha.<br />
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So It got me thinking that I wanted to start playing my Gameboy Legend of Zelda Links awakening now that my DS game has now reset.<br />
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Well if you've seen my older post about getting Links Awakening with Metroid 2 you'll have seen that I've been using a Gameboy Advance SP to play my Gameboy games. Well this is actually my sisters Gameboy that she's been lending to me so I could scratch that oldschool Gameboy itch. Its been playing on my mind to give her the SP back at some point and to actively look up a cheap original Gameboy. I never had a DMG, pocket or color when I was a kid. I had a Game Gear :-P But I've always wanted to have a Gameboy so I don't feel like I've missed out haha.<br />
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I did a random search on gumtree for a Gameboy in my local area on tuesday and one showed up! £20 for a Yellow Gameboy DMG Play it Loud! in a carry case with 6 games! And it was less than 3 miles from my work. After work that day I enquired about the quality of the Gameboy and if it was still available and next night I went round and picked it up.<br />
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I think this is a deal because the DMG's are generally £15-£20 on ebay on there own and I got 6 games and a Nintendo carry case that fits the gameboy perfectly for the £20.<br />
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And here it is! :D The games that came with it are : BC Kid (bonk), Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2 : 6 Golden coins (which I already had but with a damaged label), Alleyway, Ms Pacman, and Foreman for Real.<br />
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They all fit in the carry case as well as the Gameboy so I can have my games really on the go now. Its pretty much going to live in my rucksac.<br />
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The Gameboy itself is in perfect condition as well! It's a pretty common yellow Play it Loud! version which I quite like the look of to be honest. I wasn't sure when I first saw the gumtree advert but in real life its pretty cool!<br />
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There are little to no scratches on the screen which is insane for its age! The sound is spot on, with no speaker crackle and it has its battery cover which I've seen is a little unusual. Everyone seem's to either lose or break the covers so they are missing.<br />
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There is a little wear on the start button text but that's it.<br />
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The screen display itself seems really good but I must admit Im a little disappointed with how hard it is to see the screen in most lights. You really have to angle it just right so you can see the game in a way that you can make out whats going on. Its quite similar to the Neo Geo Pocket Color except the NGPC is easier to see as its newer I guess.<br />
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Im really considering getting a backlight kit from a UK gameboy mods website and having a go at making it a lot easier to play. I'll have to watch some tutorials to see if its as hard / scary as I've heard.<br />
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Seen's I've finally gotten an original Gameboy I don't want to break it, especially seen's its such a good example of one.<br />
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I love a show on Youtube called The Game Chasers and I must admit I generally get a bit jealous with how many good deals they get in their shows. And finally I feel that I've managed to get one myself. :-)<br />
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The lesson of the day, check gumtree in your local area and if your lucky you may stumble across some really nice retro items. It never normally happens to me so it shows they are out there.<br />
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And with Revival Winter Warmer coming up in 2 weeks I think I'll be looking at the stalls to see if there are any classic Gameboy games I can snag for a good price.<br />
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Happy hunting!<br />
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Porl''<br />
<br />Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-34033303774537869512015-11-16T10:54:00.001+00:002015-11-16T10:55:47.882+00:00REVIVAL WINTER WARMER 2015Hey hey,<br />
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I'm getting really excited about heading out to my first retro games event of 2015. I bought myself a ticket for the sunday of the Revival Winter Warmer 2015 in wolverhampton. I went to the first Revival retro weekender 2 years ago, well I think it was 2 years ago. I managed to win me and my friend a ticket each through a competition on the retro asylum forum. Getting the high score on the Master System version of California games surfing.<br />
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We went for the whole day and it was awesome!! Tonnes of arcade machines, pretty much all the retro consoles and computers you could think of from back in the day, stalls, gaming competitions etc. It was great fun! So this year I was getting that itch to go to an event so I got a ticket for the sunday of this years event. Its going to be smaller than the first Revival but from the sounds of it its going to be just as awesome!<br />
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The weekend is November 28-29 and Im counting the days down now. I think all the tickets are gone for the Saturday now but if your wanting to hit up some arcades and your in the midlands (UK) area you should definetly check it out. :D<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/RevivalRetroEvents/">https://www.facebook.com/RevivalRetroEvents/</a><br />
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2 weeks to gooooooooo<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-78560303419696099022015-10-02T16:13:00.000+01:002015-10-10T14:31:08.775+01:00SEGA NEPTUNE REPLICA FINISHED<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hi Everyone,<br />
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Thanks for coming back and checking on my blog. Some of you guys might have been following / found my blog because of my EPIC Neptune project I set myself a few years ago after seeing the awesome Longhorn Engineer's tutorial on creating a Neptune using a 32x and a Genesis / MD2.<br />
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My idea was to learn soldering by making one of my spare Megadrive 2's into a working Neptune. But rather than leave it there I was going to use the skills I'd picked up making designer toys to make a replica outer shell for the mod and create an actual Neptune.<br />
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Well my project started with the hunting out on ebay of a 32x and then getting as many Neptune Prototype shell photos as I could and comparing them with my MD2. I'm pretty much 100% convinced that the Neptune prototype shell is a modified Genesis 2 shell. The bottom certainly makes me thing this as the lower square pan is exactly the same as a Gen 2 shell.<br />
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I documented the process of making my Neptune replica shell at most stages of sculpting. I thought I would make a slideshow so you guys can see what the steps are to make a Megadrive/Genesis 2 shell into a Neptune shell.<br />
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To finish it off I back painted the perspex LED 'window', glossed the buttons and applied the waterslip decals for the logos so that it looks like the prototype photo's I've seen on the web.<br />
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I've placed a few photos on the page as well as making a gallery for you guys to look through.<br />
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<embed flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=https%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2F110023540098522679848%2Falbumid%2F6201050871550596849%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCL6ujM_s253R_QE%26hl%3Den_US" height="400" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" src="https://photos.gstatic.com/media/slideshow.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600"></embed><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SqGKDai4PJ0/Vg6b_EzbKiI/AAAAAAAAD4Q/WIMbPUFIan8/s1600/IMG_0181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SqGKDai4PJ0/Vg6b_EzbKiI/AAAAAAAAD4Q/WIMbPUFIan8/s640/IMG_0181.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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As you can see from the above photo I've finished the internal modular setup of the Neptune for when I eventually get a 32x. I really wanted to make sure that I would not need to destroy the 32x to make the Neptune. I will simply just have to take the 32x apart, fold it under itself and plug it in. Well I'll actually have to desolder the choke and resolder it on its side to lower the profile of the edge of the 32x so it will fit in the Replica case.<br />
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Again I made a slideshow of the progress I made with the mod and if you've followed my blog you will have seen all or most of them.<br />
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<embed flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=https%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2F110023540098522679848%2Falbumid%2F6201064659643211729%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCJWFme6pyoywZA%26hl%3Den_US" height="400" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" src="https://photos.gstatic.com/media/slideshow.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600"></embed><br />
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And to finish this post off which is a little shorter than I thought it would be. Its more photo heavy as I've basically posted most of my progress as I've gone along. I also made a Youtube video showing the shell and the internal mod.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AHzlmP_8LX8" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Hopefully you guys like my replica Neptune shell. I'm so happy that its all finished off, and when I get a 32x I'll make it even more finished off. :-)<br />
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Catch you guys later on.<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-57158589746550760082015-09-03T15:48:00.000+01:002015-09-03T15:51:39.250+01:00TICKING OFF SOME CHILDHOOD GAMES FROM THE LISTHowdy,<br />
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When I was a young lad doing my paper round I would get Mean Machines, C&VG and Games Master magazines and would spend hours pouring over all the pages dreaming of playing all the awesome looking, now retro, games in there. Being a boy with a paper round I wouldn't make enough money to buy any of the new systems let alone get new games as they were so expensive. So in the back of my mind I've got a nostalgia games list that's constantly niggling away.<br />
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Well a little trip to one of Derby's retro game shops last month managed to satiate one of the little itches back there. I managed to spot a copy of Super Mario Land 2 : 6 Golden Coins with a damaged label for £3. I thought that was a really good price to finally get to play a portable mario game from back in the day. I would have loved it to be the first game but for that price I paid without a second thought :-P<br />
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A little trip to my sisters house on the way home to borrow her Game Boy Advance and I've been happily trying to get anywhere significant in this hard as rocks game!<br />
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I've been on and off playing The legend of Zelda : A link to the Past GBA on my DS Lite for a while now. Getting stuck, leaving it then coming back to it etc and with my Game Boy stint going I decided to look up some of the older Zelda games to add to the list to play once I beat it. If I ever beat it haha.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/rt26FRP3FWOu50D1ob0hrY-SGuHUWIZlWbtOuS1ZcN-sRAHEySIgTrXt4UcdEeqEpNNnbUE4vqGcyUt3VBNJqZOxnn2k8A1LSBmctsGpNT2DmbrMDIXQbEupQpvvLqqN3lzs07I18_G-pJeG-lomFTltyCvhJBFlMdFODREDRAlbgtZJ7qmQ8nx4Tvxr-yTebk1uKrLO5742PPINhePNFblkZY6C4qY_8FevkiM_XT8CozlwlOPRecAak5i7Z79tNICBLTHQCMpVkHh-W_2L9UOaDPiU_Xd-b4d4ueHjF_d2FPldr3-94mZKrMSwsQUrgLwbFDkcy6xte1dufQbtBtosYFUam9R7DdybdaPw45Gp7yeRru6vu9RGh0aM4INAdy0H-zrriKyc8z-0QFkBh9lsYKgig2owg2AqbWSjNq7F1RLMOrC5GQPon5XG7YQVpBgOre1a5lZgkOJKi56QqIoQndwwuYtmKF_rh8nhBXLQub3sRD4iQ5j_0d1fqPc0Oo_gEg=w1500-h1048-no" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="446" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/rt26FRP3FWOu50D1ob0hrY-SGuHUWIZlWbtOuS1ZcN-sRAHEySIgTrXt4UcdEeqEpNNnbUE4vqGcyUt3VBNJqZOxnn2k8A1LSBmctsGpNT2DmbrMDIXQbEupQpvvLqqN3lzs07I18_G-pJeG-lomFTltyCvhJBFlMdFODREDRAlbgtZJ7qmQ8nx4Tvxr-yTebk1uKrLO5742PPINhePNFblkZY6C4qY_8FevkiM_XT8CozlwlOPRecAak5i7Z79tNICBLTHQCMpVkHh-W_2L9UOaDPiU_Xd-b4d4ueHjF_d2FPldr3-94mZKrMSwsQUrgLwbFDkcy6xte1dufQbtBtosYFUam9R7DdybdaPw45Gp7yeRru6vu9RGh0aM4INAdy0H-zrriKyc8z-0QFkBh9lsYKgig2owg2AqbWSjNq7F1RLMOrC5GQPon5XG7YQVpBgOre1a5lZgkOJKi56QqIoQndwwuYtmKF_rh8nhBXLQub3sRD4iQ5j_0d1fqPc0Oo_gEg=w1500-h1048-no" width="640" /></a></div>
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Well I heard that Link's Awakening on the Game Boy is a brilliant game in the brilliant line-up of Zelda games, so I looked up a copy cheap on ebay. I managed to snag this cart with a damaged label on the cheap which im really happy about. Now I know they aren't the nicest looking cartridges in the world but for the price I've paid im getting so much game and that's what Im after. The playing of the game, especially seen's my shelf space is getting woefully small at the moment.<br />
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And yes I know the DS Lite is an awful pink colour!! :-P It is the cheapest price DS Lite you can generally get and I don't go playing it in public haha. It does the job and works an absolute treat :-P<br />
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And the last game, I've heard so many good things about the Metroid games and how brilliant they are so I looked up some on the Game Boy and managed to get Metroid 2 : The Return of Samus nice and cheap too from ebay, cart only. This one has a nice intact label though ;-) Again I hear that the Metroid games are hard as nails and I've never ever played any of them, oh other than Metroid Prime! I loved that on the Game Cube but that is a world away from the original side scrollers.<br />
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So yeah, I wanted to update the blog, sorry its not a WWF Superstars update. Im still working through DIY jobs at home (Slabbing and building steps) at the moment but when I get the next bit of Retro DIY time Im going to get back onto the sound issue.<br />
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But for now I'll be living the Game Boy dream and heading back to the 90's :-)<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-50010315529395996962015-08-24T13:50:00.000+01:002015-08-24T13:50:10.036+01:00WWF SUPERSTARS JAMMA ARCADE GAME REPAIR - PART ONEHi everyone,<br />
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Okay, its really really been a long time since my last post! Man lots have been happening over the past half a year and I've not really had the time to do any retro based projects as we've been doing a lot of re-arranging at home and painting and building etc. I have still been playing my retro consoles and getting some games every now and again but no where near the level I had been.<br />
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Well I had an afternoon free yesterday and decided to get my WWF Superstars board out of my little rack of games and decided to start trying to figure out the sound issue I showed in my last video.<br />
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I video'd yesterdays progress and made a quick video. This is the first part as I haven't fixed it yet but Im hoping to get back really soon. And it wont be an 8 month wait haha<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7QWxslgNkRQ" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Hopefully post again soon<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-67003785243858633492015-01-27T14:36:00.000+00:002015-01-27T14:37:34.181+00:00NEW YEAR AND SOME NEW PROJECTSHi All,<br />
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A bit of a late Happy New Year! but there you go. :-)<br />
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I've been quiet again on the old blog front, the time keeps flying by which is a little worrying when you think about it. Over christmas I don't get much time to do many geeky projects as we're out busking with the kids Brass band that me and my wife volunteer for. Always good fun getting out there and playing the classic christmas tunes!<br />
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Well its a new year and I want to get cracking with a couple of Sega based projects and 1 arcade game project.<br />
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Currently the 2 Sega projects are on the go which I will no doubt make a post about when they are all done and finished. I'm just waiting on an ebay purchase to finish the larger of the two projects wiring then I will be onto the final touches for it. I'm really pleased with it so far, mysterious huh? :-P<br />
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I also have an arcade game project which I made a quick video intro for which is at the bottom of this post.<br />
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While I was working on one of the Sega projects I was watching some of the arcade and retro console repair videos that I subscribe to on YouTube and I started getting the urge to have another go at repairing an arcade game.<br />
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So off I trotted to one of the arcade forums I go on and snagged myself a board with some issues. Mainly this games problems are in the sound department. The game is WF SuperStars :-D I used to play this loads at Mr Man's video shop on Rosliston Road when I was a teen so its got a great nostalgic feeling for me.<br />
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Its going to be fun to tackle issues in the sound area of a Jamma board as I've not poked around those areas yet.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/K74TH18LXG8" width="640"></iframe><br />
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BUT, I need to get some of these other projects finished first before tackling WF. :-P<br />
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So catch you guys on the next post which will hopefully be a nice completed projects post.<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-72188106848662306432014-11-19T14:21:00.000+00:002014-11-19T14:21:33.502+00:00NINTENDO NES NOSTALGIA ??Howdy Pardnurs!<br />
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This week has been a week where I've been playing some games in between doing some graphics work as a little treat for getting stuff finished and sent off. But somehow I still end up managing to fix / work around a problem with one of my consoles.<br />
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The start of last week I traded in a few old un-played xbox 360 games at CEX and picked up Dead Space 3 for the 360. I really really loved the first game and the second game was great too but it took me ages playing it in sections as I tend to play now. The xbox 360 is in the living room and seen's its the shared room I can't really hog it by playing games when my wife wants to watch a tv show or something. Its a bit anti-social especially as she hates scary stuff and Dead Space's are horror games haha. So I've started that anyway as I want to finish the series. I've heard its not as good as the other two games and the Co-op element put me off when it originally came out but for £6 I think its worth a punt to round the games series off as I really liked the story.<br />
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Also at the end of the week I got back into listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ak-oNNRK_ucbdy0EzsKM6Ivr9DG8NjM" target="_blank">Retro Beats podcast</a> on youtube by Derek Alexander, also known as The Happy Video Game Nerd. I really like his web shows and I've always loved the NES game episodes.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GqwcfZdYgdM/VGyjeen1iFI/AAAAAAAACQM/jFmFqAdfvto/s1600/IMAG1176.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GqwcfZdYgdM/VGyjeen1iFI/AAAAAAAACQM/jFmFqAdfvto/s1600/IMAG1176.jpg" height="320" width="181" /></a>The Nintendo NES has always been a console I only ever played in snatches when I went to Comet in my home town. Comet was a national home appliance chain store and the one in my area, back when I was a little kid they had NES's and when they came out SNES's that you could play on until the store workers came around and moved you on. It was a try before you buy type of thing except I could never buy as I was too young haha. So I played the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles game on there as well as Mario and I think Castlevania. But in tiny tiny goes so I never ever got very far. I always loved it though.<br />
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When I was growing up I basically went through the Sega consoles so I missed the Nintendo side of things until my mate gave me his childhood NES as he was moving away at the start of this year. I couldn't believe it!! :D<br />
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Unfortunetly a few years of inactivity had some how bought upon the dreaded flashing red LED of Doom! So back then I bought a new 72 pin edge connector and replaced the old one and it worked. While I was at it I disabled the lock-out chip to hopefully stop the non-loading problem in the future.<br />
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Well that was a while ago now and listening to the Retro Beats podcast re-ignited my want to play some of the games I never got to as a kid. So onto ebay I went and managed to get Duck Tales, cartridge only, for £5 + postage which is a steal I think! :D<br />
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Here it is on top of my tiny NES collection which was all given to me by my mate.<br />
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It arrived a day early and I excitedly plugged it into my NES and turned it on....and Grey Screen!!! I blew on the cart and in the NES (Old skool fix haha) and re-seated the cart a few times but no joy. Darn it! It was knackered again.<br />
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So last night I set about taking the console apart again to clean the connectors, again, and re-seat everything.<br />
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While I was at it I decided to give everything a good clean so with my contact cleaning spray. So the motherboard is all nice and clean now and not sticky anymore from flux residue etc. I put it all back together and excitedly tried the console again but still grey screen! :,-(<br />
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Out of curiosity I un-pressed / clicked the cartridge from its locked in position and tried the power again and low and behold the game loaded up!! I turned the console off and clicked the game in place again and it Grey Screened! Weird! I tried it with my Mario 3 cartridge and again it worked in the pre-load position but Grey screened in the clicked position. I must have a dodgy new ebay connector. Doesn't matter though as it works in the pre-load position and I've managed to play through 2 levels on Duck Tales so far and its awesome!! And incredibly hard (compared to new games) but it's a really nice challenge. And Im into that kind of difficulty at the mo with trying to beat R-Type on the PC Engine, which is still elluding me haha.<br />
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So yeah, Im into this NES malarky at the minute and really loving it! I can't wait to see the other bosses on the levels I've not beaten yet on Duck Tales. And man is that music good!!!! The moon level is amazing but really all the music I've heard so far kicks ass!!<br />
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So there you go. If your NES is Grey Screening and not loading any games give the pre-load position as I call it a go. It might be the thing that works as we are always programmed to click the game down in the NES to then play. It certainly works for me :D<br />
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Have fun!!<br />
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Duck Tales Do Do Do!<br />
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<b>Porl'' </b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-71899621964946157212014-11-10T10:06:00.000+00:002014-11-10T10:15:27.066+00:00SEGA MEGADRIVE SONIC THE HEDGEHOG USB DRIVE<div class="p1">
Howdy Y’all,</div>
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I’ve not had much time this past 2 weeks to play with making my Neptune hook-up wires unfortunately and I’ve been getting myself down with doing ebay searches for Sega 32x’s on there and seeing how expensive they are now. The prices of them have really shot through the roof and they seem to be becoming more and more unattainable which sucks. I’m still searching though as I need to get a working one to finish the Neptune off.</div>
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Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. Its about a little mid-week recycling project that I’ve been thinking about. I like most megadrive owners / collectors have a couple of spare Sonic the Hedgehog 1’s knocking about that no-one wants and I’ve been feeling that its such a shame that such a great game is just gathering dust getting absolutely no love as there are so many of them about.</div>
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Well I had the idea that the cartridges are around the same kind of size as some usb portable HDD’s so I thought I could use the casing to house a HDD and make a geeky drive to carry around. Getting one of my spares out and looking over it I saw that they are a bit too small so I did some research on the internet to see if people have made retro game USB drives and saw that some people sacrifice some awesome looking Nintendo games to use the cases to house the drives. And when I saw this I actually thought its such a shame that the actual game, the physical chips and board are just getting binned so that the cases are empty enough to make room for the HDD’s to fit in. So I opened up my Sonic cartridge to see if there was anyway I could keep the game in there and hopefully make it playable still while also being a USB drive.</div>
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Once opened you can see that the actual game board doesn’t take up all the room inside the cartridge and the space available is just a bit bigger than a USB pen drive with some room to spare around the sides. This is a pretty good result as I have a spare USB pen drive knocking about that I don’t use as I always end up losing them seen’s they are so small. And it was also free as I got it in a promo goody bag gift.</div>
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I found some sticky back velco strips as I thought that I might get a larger capacity pen drive in the future and if I glue gun the pen drive in place it will be stuck there forever. A rare bit of forward thinking from me haha. I also quickly ordered up a usb extension wire from the interwebs to give me a wire that can connect the cart / usb to my computer. I don’t really like the look of just the USB connector sticking out of the sides so wanted to go the dangly wire way.</div>
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Here you can see how the insides of the cartridge will look with the USB pen drive in place and the extension cable hanging out the side. Looking pretty neat.</div>
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And here you see how it looks with the little security screws put back into place and the cartridge all closed up.</div>
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When I was brainstorming how to have the USB extension cable and have the game playable I thought that if I have the cable coming out of the top of the back alignment groove the cartridge should still fit into the Megadrive 1 and 2 and not crimp or squash the cable. And it was a bit of a relief when I tried it after screwing it back together and it still fit into the cart slot and switched it on! :D</div>
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WOOP! Now I have a retro styled backup USB drive which has given a dusty unused cartridge some new life AND the game is still in there and working. So if there is an emergency situation where I see a Megadrive and heaven forbid there isn’t a game available to play then POW! USB Retro pen drive saves the day!</div>
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Hopefully this little post will inspire some other people to give their spare cartridges a new lease of life without sacrificing the actual game itself as that seems a big shame to me too.</div>
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I’m going to be making some time to make the hook-up wires for the Neptune next so hopefully there will be a post on those soon.</div>
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Catch you later</div>
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<b>Porl’’</b></div>
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Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-25668845407399129902014-10-31T11:24:00.000+00:002014-10-31T11:27:26.006+00:00R-TYPE 1CC FIRST LOOP - PC ENGINEHi Guys,<br />
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This has been something that I've been wanting to attempt since I watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQTsJ1BdqCEcPvhVQ-8hdHA" target="_blank">Ex_Mosquito's</a> awesome R-Type arcade 1cc first loop on youtube and when he released the video with commentary I really started trying to get somewhere on my PC Engine version.<br />
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The deal with the PC Engine version is they couldn't fit all of the game onto 1 Hu-card as its a really accurate conversion (except they added in vertical scrolling which isn't in the arcade version) so they split it into 2 releases. Misleadingly they named the second half of the game R-Type 2 but this is actually the second half of the first game. Confused? haha<br />
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I've tried and tried since being a young lad to get anywhere on the R-Type games on the arcade or on any computers or consoles I found it on and always got stuck on the 2nd level. Its such a hard game. So a stupid dream is to actually get to the end of the game and this has always seemed like a fruitless dream.<br />
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With the R-Type version on the PC Engine you get to have a little halftime break so I've been practicing and practicing and I've finally managed to crack the first half of the game. Which is technically, on the PC Engine the first game finished :P it has an ending etc.<br />
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I'm so happy right now that I've managed to get through the first part of this game as level 4 is so tough!!! And that I managed to get it on camera. It wasn't the smoothest run that I've had but it's the first time I've been able to beat it. So no more waffle, more video.<br />
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Now I'm going to start practicing R-Type 2 so I can finally beat this game! More studying of Ex_Mosquito's commentary and lots and lots of practicing. :D<br />
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Catch you later<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-32983377029004479382014-10-23T09:10:00.000+01:002014-10-23T09:10:09.386+01:00SLOWLY GETTING BACK INTO PROJECT STUFFHi Everyone,<br />
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I'm back!!! :D Well, I'm not in full on geek project mode again but it's getting there. Our wedding and Honeymoon have now passed which has gone far too quickly!! But the day was amazing and went exactly how we wanted which is all you can ask for. Perfect! Then the day after our wedding we jetted off to Singapore for 4 days then hopped onto another plane and went to Bali for 6 days. The honeymoon was so awesome and such a change of pace from here at home. It was 4 days of non-stop sight-seeing and walking about and then 6 days of non-stop chilling out and relaxing and swimming. It was absolutely brilliant!<br />
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Then the next weekend we were off to Gloucester for a Lindy Hop weekend, 3 nights of social dances and 2 full days of workshops/lessons. We love this weekend which happens every year and it was the icing on the cake of our wedding few weeks. :D<br />
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Now we're home and getting back to normal I've started finding the time to get some more work done on my Neptune. Not so much the case but the wiring for the modular idea I've had where I won't potentially be ruining an expensive 32x to make a Neptune.<br />
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So I've been doodling what I need to do.<br />
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As you can see from the picture on the right I'm going to do the Fold Under way of mounting the 32x because of the new placement of the power and reset buttons. They are moved up the board closer to the cart slot, see the photo later on, so the normal stretched out 32x layout wont work as the cartridge connecter area goes over the buttons and they wont work.<br />
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The modular idea is to desolder the megadrive's cartridge slot and rather than binning it like you would normally I'm going to solder the short wires to this so that its a repostitioned cart slot. This will mean that I wont have to solder straight to the 32x. I want to not have to do too much modding to the 32x if I can help it and if I can I don't want to put solder all over the cart pins on the 32x. Its going to be a bit tighter in there because of the cart slot but thats the plan anyway.<br />
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And once I’ve gotten the cartridge slot moved, which I’m not looking forward to as its a lot of wires to solder and they are the lovely little wires that love to pull away from solder or to snap if you move them even remotely quickly, I’ll then have to get onto making some wires that will hook the 32x up internally. Normally with the Neptune mod you either desolder the A/V in and out ports on the back as well as the PSU port and solder wires from them to the required places on the Megadrive’s motherboard. Obviously with this modular route I don’t want to be taking things off the 32x or soldering to it if possible, I want this expensive peripheral to still be nice, and also problem solvable. I think I have 2 Megadrive 2 A/V plugs in my tool box at home so my plan is to create 2 wires with A/V plugs on the ends that will plug into the 32x. One will go into the A/V in port which will be soldered to the underside of the Megadrive 2’s A/V out area. The other will be soldered to the original Megadrive 2’s A/V port which will be mounted upside down as of The Longhorn Engineer’s original design. Then, in theory the wiring will work exactly the same as the normal way of doing the mod but in a plug and play way. The PSU connection will be done the same way the Mega-CD tail I made for my Jammadrive 2. I will need to sacrifice a Megadrive PSU to get the port but it should also work fine having a plug inside the case.</div>
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<b><i>—— FAST FORWARD Doodle-doodle-doodle-doodle ——</i></b></div>
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I’ve been writing this post over the span of 2 weeks when I’ve got snippets of time and I’ve actually done some of the modifications to the Neptune wiring already. So I thought I would show its progress so far. Bare in mind I don’t have a working 32x yet, I only have my original FUBAR’d one which I’m using for checking on spacings inside the case etc.</div>
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This weekend I started the long task of desoldering the cartridge port and wiring up all the extension wires to it. I’ve recently been getting into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Captain8Bit" target="_blank">The Game Chasers web show</a> on youtube and this kept me company through the slightly tedious task of stepping and repeating the wiring. Here are a few photos of the process of extending the cartridge slot so that it will sit in the position I’ve been thinking will work best. In these photos you can also see the power on / off and reset buttons that I’ve moved so that they will work with the new positioning of the buttons on the Neptune case. You can also see on the underside of the board where I’ve moved a load of capacitors to the make room for the extended cart slots wires to sit. ( Note - you can see the last cart solder point on the right has come away, this was a gutting moment I must admit, but thankfully I traced where it went off to and managed to patch in the wire when re-wiring the cart slot and it all works)</div>
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For doing wiring like this I highly recommend the helpful hand crocodile grip stands. They are a god send for holding parts in place while you solder them. It’s such a pain to do this sort of stuff without them.<br />
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And here you can see the cartridge slot in place with a copy of Sonic 2 in there from when I successfully tested the slot out. Phew that was such a relief when I switched it on and it worked. Its a little buzzy in the audio department but its not too bad and it could possibly be from interference / cross talk from the unshielded wires. I tried a couple of games but I had it twice not load a game for me and when I inspected the wires one or two had come away from the cart slot. I desoldered these little tinkers and tried a pile of my megadrive games out. Games from different producers and I even got the furthest I’ve ever gotten on Shadow Dancer. So while it was still playing I delicately ran some hot glue over the top layer or connections on the cartridge slot to help give the wiring a little bit more grip and hopefully stop any breaks.</div>
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The next step was to get my 32x slotted into place and see how it lines up with the cartridge slot on the top of the case. A little disappointingly I couldn’t get the case to close. It seemed to be held apart from the lower part of the case by nearly 5mm. So off I trotted outside with my dremel and a grinding bit and tried to shave out some of the inner plastic a bit more to give me a smidge more room for the chock to sit as this is the bit that seems to be the tallest part on the outer edges of the 32x.</div>
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After some trimming and testing and trimming I got the case to close. :-D<br />
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Here you can see how the 32x sits in the folded under method connected via the now repositioned megadrive 2 cartridge slot. Its sitting really neatly in there I think and doesn’t look any different to the soldered in place versions other than the fact its still plug and play.</div>
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Now onto the last step of getting the 32x to stay put inside the case, other than the outer case gripping it like a vice haha. I needed to find some screws long enough to reach through the 32x, its lower board and the megadrive 2 motherboard and into the lower cases screw holes. This has been something I’ve been trying to find whenever I’ve been in a hardware store to buy different things like paint etc. But I’ve always come up with nothing as hardware screws are always too big, they won’t fit through the cartridge slot holes. It’s been a really pain in the butt.</div>
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But like an idiot I forgot that where I work, which is a radio control car manufacturer and distributor, I might actually be surrounded by screws that could work. And low and behold that seemed to be the case!!! The trick is to find screws that are the same dimensions ( M3 ), have a similar thread spacing and also long enough, which seems to be around 30mm. Asking some of the tech guys here I’ve found that these screws fit and seem to work a treat! : <a href="http://www.hpiracing.com/en/part/Z574">http://www.hpiracing.com/en/part/Z574</a> I originally tried a different screw which also fit but the head of the screw was quite deep and the cartridge wouldn’t sit in the slot low enough to be very stable.</div>
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Here you can see the new long screws holding everything into place. WOOP!</div>
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So the next steps, which I haven’t actually done yet. Make some small tin-foil shields to sit between the wires to try and limit any cross talk between the wires. Make 2 sets of A/V cables which will plug into the internally mounted 32x. And finally make a wire to hook up the 32x with power.</div>
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So over the next few weeks I’ll tinker away and try to make some A/V and power wires up and get them mounted into the Neptune case. It’s actually all starting to come together finally for this project.</div>
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Catch you later</div>
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<b>Porl’’</b></div>
Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-49824729709890886462014-08-09T11:07:00.000+01:002014-08-09T13:35:48.107+01:00LITTLE BIT OF AN UPDATEHi Peeps,<br />
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I've just sat down at my desktop computer and realised I hadn't made any blog updates in a while. Man it's been a hectic past month and a bit and all I've been able to do geek-wise is plan things to do.<br />
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The Naomi is up and running and worked like a dream on my stag night were a group of us had a gaming night where I put out a load of my consoles with some tv's and my two arcade machines. Everything ran like a dream which was a real relief especially seen's its all old tech really. We got a real good game of Super Mario Bros going on the Mario Allstars cart on the SNES with about 4 of us taking turns trying to beat world 5. Damn Hammer Bros!!! haha. And I also got inspired to play more Sonic Spin Ball on the megadrive where my mate how's really good at it played through the first level while giving me tips. One tip was don't play it overclocked haha as it runs a lot faster and can make a tricky game even trickier! :-P<br />
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I've had a few emails about the Sega Neptune replica I've been working on for the past two years and it's progress. Well the progress of it is the outer casing is finished. But the project has stalled because of not having a working 32x to check that it will all work within the case. So I've been checking ebay every now and again but it seems the prices are going up all the time. I've not wanted to put the case out there as finished until I know that the whole kit and caboodle works.<br />
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I did a little work on it this morning, well it's not really work but I added in a brighter red LED to the motherboard so that it shines out of the new power light area how I'd like. I've been drawing plans and steps I want to do next to make it so I can get the megadrive 2 ready for a 32x to be put into it but it will still work as a megadrive while I wait on getting one. Make it kind of modular by basically repositioning the cartridge slot so that I won't be soldering to the 32x itself. I think it will work so I'll be doing some capacitor and resistor moving to make space.<br />
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Right, well none of this is going to happen until the end of next month now as we're ramping up to the wedding and honeymoon. So it's all hands to the pumps. I best get back to it.<br />
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Catch you all soon<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-9026476133107671122014-07-10T12:00:00.000+01:002014-07-10T12:00:00.948+01:00SEGA NAOMI CHASSIS SAGA CONTINUESHi everyone,<br />
<br />
Been a little bit of a break between posts again I know but not as long as it has been in the past haha. We've had a chock-a-block-a couple of weeks and I'd been struggling to get some time in on the Naomi project with helping to setup for summer concerts (indoor and outdoor) practicing for playing in the concerts as well as helping to organise our wedding and our stag + hen do activities. So getting to posting some updates has been a little tight like a tiger. But! Hopefully we have a nice couple of weeks of summer holidays now and a more leisurely pace.<br />
<br />
Well, As you probably read in my last post I had a real lemon of a monitor in the Naomi, and from some reading around on the forums I frequent I think it had been a problem for the owner at least a year before I won it on eBay. Bit crap really but I guess that's why I ended up getting it so cheaply. Anyway, nothing to it but try to get the sucker up and running.<br />
<br />
So at the end of the last post I had my Naomi up and running via my Dreamcast and had a great time playing some Street Fighter 3 : double impact and Giga Wing. But the pin cushion controls weren't working so you couldn't get it to full screen without it pinching inwards from the sides quite a lot! Pretty annoying and obviously another fault on the chassis.<br />
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Well, the chassis lasted until I played on the machine again after having a good nose round it. It started looking like it wanted to scroll and then POP the line came back. I guess some parts of it gave up the ghost, again. So back onto the repair dude for thoughts and ideas because he'd been slowly eliminating problems as he went with my chassis.<br />
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Because I'd replaced the transistor already and it had gone again it had to be something else and Grant started thinking it could be a faulty Yoke or fly-back. Well I know what the parts of the monitor are now from doing research on them for the Naomi project but haven't got the first clue with how to diagnose and fix them. So off my chassis went again down south for Grant to do some more inspections and to soak test the chassis again on his spare tube to see if it would hold out. And if it did that would mean that I had an internally sparking Yoke or something.<br />
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I had a nose around the Yoke area after I sent the chassis off and found a piece of plastic that encloses some copper wiring was loose and flapping about so I mentioned this to Grant and super glued it back on. He said that this wouldn't be the problem though, so I glued it up so that it should help stop moisture getting into the Yoke area through that avenue.<br />
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The coiled up copper wiring on the white cone is the Yoke area. It was absolutely filthy around this area so I gave it a good ol' clean down to see if anything else looked a little suspicious.<br />
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The chassis was posted off and received and I waited to see how it would hold up to Grant's tests and started trying to do some internet research on getting hold of Sanwa 29" tubes or even worst case senario, 29" tv's to sub into place. Both lots of research basically came up bust though and it would seem I would need to drop a couple of hundred on a complete monitor and chassis if it show's up as my tube is faulty as spares for them seem to be non-existant anymore. :-(<br />
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The weekend comes and I get a PM and its good news, well for me. The chassis popped again on Grant's spare tube within about 20 minutes. This ruled out my Yoke being the issue which made me have a huge sigh of relief!!!<br />
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And with this happening it got Grant's head scratching again and he would have to really start delving into the chassis. This could take a while, so awesomely! This is a true example of the Arcade scene's helpfulness and friendliness. He offered to send me his spare working, repaired chassis to use while he spends some time diagnosing and repairing mine so that I have a Naomi to use and play on while he gets into the nitty gritty with my faulty chassis. What a dude!! :D<br />
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So while I waited for the spare chassis to arrive I started working away on my Mame PC setup. I've played Mame before on my desktop PC but I've never set up a machine just to play Mame on an arcade machine before so I had to do a lot of reading up on what to use and how to set it so that the resolutions are fixed so they don't damage my fragile monitor and so that there isn't screen tearing etc. The last thing you would want is to give the game away that it wasn't running real arcade hardware inside with crappy looking screen tearing!<br />
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I follow a guy on YouTube called Exmosquito who does 1CC runs of some of the hardest arcade games and he runs Mame on his arcade machine and thankfully he did a video a while ago explaining his Mame setup. It looks like it runs absolutely smoothly so I wanted to copy his setup so I could have a spot on machine.<br />
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He uses GroovyMame which is a modified version of Mame and he also uses the CRTEmu drivers which are designed to work on ATI graphics cards. So I set about sourcing all the parts for making up a small PC that would run GroovyMame out of my spares.<br />
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Typically I didn't have very many parts left over at all. Since I was a teenager I've been into PC's with my Dad and whenever we'd upgrade parts I would generally keep them as spares incase anything went wrong. And over the years I've kept doing this and whenever anyone's PC's needed replacements I've popped these spares into their machines to help fix them. So when it comes round for me to want to make another PC I couldn't as I've given all the spares I need away! haha blumin' typical!<br />
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So I went on the scrounge a bit. I remembered my Brother might still have his old motherboard and processor still from when we upgraded his machine a few months ago so I gave him a call and thankfully he did! So I nipped over to pick it up. A good start! I have a mobo and processor. Next I need an ATI graphics card, which no-one I know has so I sourced a nice looking ASUS Radeon HD4350 512mb Silent PCI-express card that's compatible with the CRTEmu drivers and some memory from the local CEX. Im trying to get this little machine running on the cheap cheap if you couldn't tell. Next thing is a Power supply which is easy as I have my spare modular Corsair HX520w psu which will work a treat. And the final thing, a hard drive. I recently had a PS3 Phat 60GB that I reflowed which lasted for a very short time before it was properly bricked so before I binned it I took the HDD out of that and hooked the sucker up. Perfecto! A nice little Mame PC on the pretty cheap.<br />
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I mounted it all to the Naomi wooden board so that I knew it would fit within the bottom box of the arcade machine and it ended up looking like this :D<br />
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Not too shabby I don't think haha. I set up a switch so that it could be turned on from the front and all the ports are easily accessable from the door of the Naomi and the power cable routes out of the back of the machine.<br />
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Next step is to get GroovyMame installed and a load of games loaded and wait on the chassis to return.<br />
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More in the next post! :D<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-27691407817543725952014-06-12T12:56:00.000+01:002014-06-12T15:08:02.102+01:00A NEW TOY / PROJECT : SEGA NAOMI UNIVERSAL MAME CABINETHi peeps,<br />
<br />
It's been a little while since my last post. I've been itching to make posts about my new toy but I've been having nothing but trouble with it from pretty much the off so much so that I haven't gotten it to a stable position enough to make a post about it haha.<br />
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And the weird thing is I bought this under the impression that I could just plug this sucker in and play. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I5vf_fBhgBg/U4RaeaFBp8I/AAAAAAAABwA/far3GtpkyJI/s1600/IMAG0750.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I5vf_fBhgBg/U4RaeaFBp8I/AAAAAAAABwA/far3GtpkyJI/s1600/IMAG0750.jpg" height="400" width="226" /></a>Here is the beast, my very own candy cab! I must admit, I didn't think I would ever own a candy cab because they are so expensive!<br />
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Unfortunetly this isn't the view I had when I first got it home.<br />
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Right, how did I end up getting hold of a Naomi Universal cabinet in the first place?<br />
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Well I was sitting at our breakfast bar one evening after work with my Fiancé Rozzy and some how doing a random google search I came across an link to an ebay auction for a Mame ready naomi universal arcade cabinet. So being a nosey bugger I clicked the link and went through to the listing. It had 2 days to go I think and it had some bids but it was ridiculously low so I said to Roz that I might bid on it but I would never ever get it because it's going to go for at least £200. She said that if I did end up getting it for the measly sum I put in she would treat me as an early wedding present. But I was convinced that I wouldn't get it and to be honest, if I did win it where would I put it?! We live in a cosy small cottage and I don't have a garage haha.<br />
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Well, obviously I kept watching how the auction was progressing and no more bids came for a while and I was winning and thinking "crap! Im actually going to win this and I have no where to put it!!! what was I thinking!?" but it still had time and any arcade machines I normally watch for curiosities sake have a blitz near the closing time and shoot right up. Well finally another bid came but I was still winning. Then Wednesday lunchtime comes and Im watching for the Blitz like a hawk on my phone and .....I won it! I only went and blumin' won it and for the princely sum of £64!!!! £64 for a candy cab! And the description said that all I would have to do after collecting it was to plug in a Mame set up PC and it's ready to go! Wowzers!!<br />
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I had a bit of a panic about the whole situation to Roz and being awesome she got on the phone and sorted out with her family that I could keep it at their farm until we eventually end up getting a bigger house and I can take it home then. I had the idea that it could go up into our hobby room (this was before I saw how big it actually was and how heavy it is. jeez is it heavy!) but the floor wouldn't be able to hold this kind of machine as its an old place. So I have to store it and work on it at the minute.<br />
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Well, we borrowed the Discovery and headed off to Birmingham to pick it up and hope that it would fit in the back. We met up with the seller and had a good ol' chat and nose around his lock up which was packed to the gills with other arcade machines and spare parts. Pretty awesome! And the 3 of us, lifting with our legs, managed to get it to fit quite nicely in the back of the Discovery without any disassembly other than taking the top marquee out. Phew, that was a worry! I really wish I'd taken a photo of the machine in the back of the Disco but with all the excitement I didn't get my phone out. Oh well!<br />
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Off we trotted carefully back home in the Disco in rush hour traffic and got the machine out and across the yard to where I'll be working on the machine.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n9v4Z0f5qaw/U2VQixF52QI/AAAAAAAABr8/0cGl4f6QvNM/s1600/IMAG0683.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n9v4Z0f5qaw/U2VQixF52QI/AAAAAAAABr8/0cGl4f6QvNM/s1600/IMAG0683.jpg" height="400" width="226" /></a>Super excitedly I looked over the machine, got my Dreamcast out of its carry case as the Dreamcast (VGA modded) should be able to plug straight into the Naomi and play straight off and plugged it in. Turned all the power on and I get an image on the screen but it is rolling like a maniac!! Vertical sync isn't working! The image filled the screen from what I could tell but it was scrolling really really fast. I switched off the Dreamcast and tried it a few more times checking the cable was sitting correctly but no go.<br />
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I tried my laptop set to 640 x 480 but got the same result :-(<br />
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Here you can see the Dreamcast image rolling and rolling and rolling.<br />
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So I gave up for the day and headed home and onto the Forums and google to get a hold of a manual and do some research.<br />
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The next day I went back to the Naomi with an idea that I'll take the back hood off the machine and hunt down the vertical hold / sync and get it adjusted to settle it down.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Prd9banVR0c/U2VvkAC9R-I/AAAAAAAABrw/5hiH4t5843I/s1600/IMAG0686.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Prd9banVR0c/U2VvkAC9R-I/AAAAAAAABrw/5hiH4t5843I/s1600/IMAG0686.jpg" height="320" width="181" /></a>Unable to find a V Hold pot I started adjusting the H hold and got the image tuning in and out like you get with an Old TV tuning a station in. I got all the way to the left and got a vertical thin line. This must be the left hand side of the adjustment so lets turn right and see what happens when we get going. Turn......nothing......turn.......still nothing. I got a very cold feeling go down my spine with a realisation that it had just broken big time!!!! Oh man!! This was meant to be an easy plug and play system.<br />
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See the image to the left. This is all that happens when tried with either the Dreamcast or the laptop. Oh, and the thin vertical line is still rolling without Vertical sync.<br />
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So I got back on to the forum and I got chatting with a guy who is the go to man for repairing the chassis in Naomi's and he's confident that he can repair it.<br />
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Of I headed to take the chassis out of the machine and send it off for repair and he found a multitude of things that had gone wrong on the chassis. Cold solder, capacitors gone as well as the vertical transistor and safety resistor. I think I'd been sold a bit of a dog of a monitor set up within this machine. The machine as it is is sound even if it needs a little bit of work to tidy up but the main bit being the monitor seems a bit boned!<br />
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Anyway, after a week Grant sent me back my repaired chassis and I installed it into the cabinet and I get a full screen view but its got a twitch to it. It seems like its trying its hardest to roll but something is holding it back. You could really tell it was itching to roll. I adjusted the image with the control panel break-out board and had a quick go on Street Fighter 3 double impact on the Dreamcast. This go was without sound though as the speakers are mounted within the rear hood of the machine. So I got up and headed over to get the hood so I could plug the sound in and I heard a really loud SNAP!!. I quickly turned round and the thin, glowing vertical line was back! Flippin eck!! :-(<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1UiqkQdXh_w/U4RbB0T8pQI/AAAAAAAABwQ/nRHC3y3XFcc/s1600/IMAG0747.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1UiqkQdXh_w/U4RbB0T8pQI/AAAAAAAABwQ/nRHC3y3XFcc/s1600/IMAG0747.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a>After some further PM's Grant really nicely sent over a replacement Transistor and resistor as he thought that the transistor was faulty. The next weekend I replaced the components and BINGO!! I got a steady image! Its on a slight tilt but not so much that the lay person could see without being told. I've got weird pincushion squeeze that I can't adjust out but I'm able to finally play some games on it using my Dreamcast and my Dreamcast arcade stick as I haven't got any pad hacks done yet.<br />
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Check it out! That's me playing some Street Fighter 3 Double Impact on the Naomi :D It's stripped down because of fitting the repaired chassis but its working and MAN IS THAT SCREEN BIG!!! It's like sitting in the cinema on the front row, you actually have to turn and really look around the screen or you'll miss something. Its awesome!!!<br />
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The pin cushion pinch is a bit anoying though as you can't get the image full screen without it pushing in at the sides so this needs to be adjusted (see right) but the next main job is building a Mame PC from as many spare parts as I can find so its nice and cheap as it's going to sit in the lower part of the Naomi perminantly and only play games. So it doesn't need to be any kind of real power house! And once the PC is working I can get the control panel hooked up via the iPac thats installed in there. :-D<br />
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Here's a few shots of the Dreamcast running on screen :<br />
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I've also made a video explanation of the progress so far so you can see it actually playing Street Fighter 3 Double Impact.<br />
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Looks pretty sweet I think!! :D<br />
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Geeky exciting stuff!!!<br />
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Catch you in the next update y'all.<br />
<br />
<b>Porl''</b><br />
<b><br /></b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-66173020863155467212014-05-19T12:40:00.000+01:002014-05-19T12:42:30.504+01:00ARCADE MACHINE REFURBISHMENT - RESURRECTION PART 6. FINISHED!Hi all,<br />
<br />
It's been a couple of weeks since my last update so I thought I would post up a quick update on the Jamma arcade machine resurrection.<br />
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I<b>TS FINISHED!!!</b> :-D<br />
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Yep indeedy. I've been over to the machine over the last weekend and finished up the last little touches I wanted to do to it so I can call it done. And its a pretty great feeling to know that I've taken a machine that was basically sitting and rotting broken and unusable and its now a tidied up and rejuvenated arcade machine that can be used to run both Jamma and MVS games.<br />
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The main finishing touch I wanted to do was re-fit the blackout card around the monitor so that you couldn't see into the machine while playing it and it just makes you focus on the game your playing. When I was removing the card to do the cleaning a part of it got torn so I had to tape it back together.<br />
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You can see the join if your looking but Im pretty sure if you didn't know it was torn and repaired you wouldn't spot it. It needed a little trimming and adjusting to get it to fit the new monitor shape nicely but in the end (with some stapling and then re-stapling) I got it to fit how I wanted and closed up the front of the machine and clamped the latches down so its all secure at the front.<br />
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On the left you can now only see me and the wall behind me reflecting in the glass rather than seeing straight into the cabinet.<br />
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Below you can see a kind of POV of how it looks when your playing. You really just see the game now.<br />
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The next step was to tidy up the dangling wires inside the coin door area so I got some of my cable tie bases stuck to the inside of the wood and cable tie'd the wires out of sight. Nice and easy.<br />
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I also wanted to mount the Test Switch within the coin mech area on the back of the coin door but the wires weren't long enough so I got a pair of off cuts from the jamma harness and extended them so that I could neatly route the wires along the inside of the cabinet and out to the coin mech nicely. So now when you open the coin door to get to the remote to set the TV to AV so that the picture is perfect the Test switch cabling is no longer pulling on the harness wiring and the door swings freely. :-)<br />
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And that's it! :-D I wanted to make a new marquess sign for the machine which I might still do at some point but It all still works and fits and is how the machine was last set up so I think its good for now.<br />
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The machine now needs some games played on it so it can be used again. At the minute I've gotten my Jammadrive 2 in permanent residence so that I can get blasting some of the amazing Megadrive arcade conversions I have. Golden Axe really plays nicely in the stand up cab set up even though its still the megadrive version.<br />
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Here is the arcade machine in its new location for a while. As you can see I had my trusty assistant with me helping me out. Unfortunately he's too short to reach the Player 2 controls. haha :-P<br />
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As I said numerous times Im really stoked out with this project and how I've managed to bring an actual arcade machine back to life from the dead! Its been a project where I've learnt a lot and gained a lot of confidence in this area of retro games electronics / wiring etc.<br />
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I have another arcade machine project on the go at the minute, yes I know! Another! But this project is very different to this machine so again its a neat learning experience.<br />
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So expect another post up here soon. Hopefully I get a major component for it back tomorrow (fingers crossed) so I can really get to work on it.<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Porl''</b><br />
<br />Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-2506951972378664582014-04-28T12:00:00.000+01:002014-04-28T12:00:04.459+01:00HOMEMADE SCAN LINE GENERATOR - MID-WEEK PROJECTHey y'all,<br />
<br />
Last week inbetween working on things for my arcade machine (fixing the blackout paper and making extension wires etc) I started work on something I've been wanting to make for ages! A Scan Line Generator for my dreamcast! :D<br />
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As always I headed over to mmmonkey's awesome modding website <a href="http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/" target="_blank">www.mmmonkey.co.uk</a> and started reading up on how you make them and what sort of bits and bobs I would need to get. Well, as it turned out I'd had some fore-thought and bought some of the required IC's and some matrix board last year when I was thinking of giving it ago. So All I would need to get would be the male and female vga ports and a little project box to house it all in.<br />
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With this in mind I started out on monday night with my soldering iron and started following mmmonkey's photos and write up. I found it a little confusing at points to follow along and know what was going on but after some cups of tea (and one hot chocolate with all the trimmings) I had a finished off matrix board. Awesome!!<br />
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I couldn't try it out though because the next step was to make a VGA extension cable (female - male) so that I could hook the R,G,B, V sync, H sync and Ground up to one end of the cable.<br />
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Fast forward a couple of days and I headed over to Maplin in Tamworth and picked up the sockets and project box so I could carry on with my little project. Fast forward to thursday and I get soldering again and the cable is made up and the SLG is soldered up to one end of the cable.<br />
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Cue excited running upstairs to plug it into my Dreamcast and check out the kick-ass scanlines!!!.......no scan lines! :-( There was a picture but five wiggly bands of what looked like interference. Darn it!<br />
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I looked over the matrix board again and noticed that one of my ground links wasn't hooked up so I bridged that and replaced a resister leg bridge with a small bit of wire. Cue new test and the same result!<br />
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hmmm<br />
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I got the images of the SGL progress from mmmonkey's website on the Tablet and got a fresh cuppa to ponder where I'd gone wrong.<br />
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I couldn't spot any differences until I went to the start of the article and looked at his original sketch. Could I have the chips in the wrong way round?! Could it be that simple?! I popped out the 74 and the 125 IC's giving myself a mental High Five that I'd had the forward thinking to solder in sockets rather than soldering straight to the chips themselves. If I hadn't it would have been pretty much starting from scratch if I'd have to desolder both the chips to flip them.<br />
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A quick check on the main TV downstairs and whats this?...could it be? SCANLINES!! WOOO! It took a little bit of head scratching but it's worked in the end!<br />
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Check those suckers out! That's some retro viewing right there on a modern LCD TV :-D<br />
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With the scan lines all working nicely I headed back to the project bench and started finishing off the casing.<br />
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And here is the finished result in the project box. I got the VGA cable sitting nicely in between the 2 socketed IC's which will help keep it all snug in its box, even though the hot glue will probably do anyway :-P<br />
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With the box all finished off I popped upstairs and hooked the Dreamcast back up to my PC monitor and put the SGL inbetween the two and flicked the power switch. The image comes on for a second then dissappears!! NOOO!! I hit my odd / even lines switch and nothing, turned the monitor on and off and it again appears for a second then dissappears. Darnit!<br />
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So I tried it on my smaller flat panel tv in my games room and nice scan lines show up.<br />
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It seems that my PC monitor isn't compatible with my SGL. Doh! Im not sure why. Could be that I've left a few of the pin's floating rather than grounding them out but I've hot glued it all in place now. Oh well, it was only a mid-week project and it works properly on my TV's :-D So when I fancy some Dreamcast on the big TV I can have nice old-school scan lines running on there.<br />
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I have enough IC's etc to make another SGL if I fancy it at some point and I'll ground out the floating pins and add in another switch to alter the width of the scan lines. I went with the basic version to start with to see if it would work or not.<br />
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Im really pleased with the result in the end, even though it doesn't work on my PC monitor. Its a shame but not the end of the world. :-)<br />
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Looks pretty neat all finished. If you want some retro scan lines on your VGA modded dreamcast then I recommend checking out mmmonkey's guide. Its a nice cheap and pretty quick project to get some retro goodness on your TV.<br />
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Just a quick last minute photo. It turned out not too dissimilar to my drawing I made during the week :-) I was trying to figure out how the video signal would run and which way it would face inbetween the monitor / TV and Dreamcast.<br />
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Catch you all later for the next project update.<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-75973503674312281172014-04-16T12:43:00.000+01:002014-04-16T12:47:05.412+01:00ARCADE MACHINE REFURBISHMENT - RESURRECTION PART 5. MARQUEE AND JAMMADRIVE 2Hi All,<br />
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Well, the weekend has passed and I managed to get a little bit of work done on the arcade machine while my fiance was planting trees with her mom in one of the fields. Shirking a little bit of manual labour I slinked off to my arcade machine to continue work.<br />
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My main aim for the weekends work was to try and figure out the marquee light and try to get that hooked up and working. I must admit though I hadn't got a clue how the thing hooked up to the power supply as it was just 2 wires and they weren't standard colourings to the wires. Hmm, surely one has to be ground and one live? There's a sticker on what looks like the ignitor? power block for the light that says 240v so I thought 'brilliant! I'll hook it up to a mains plug and see what happens'. Well, what happened was the bulb got really bright then a burning spot appeared at a part of the bulb and it switched off. Doh!! Burnt it out and my confidence with getting that thing working dropped through the floor.<br />
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I could try to get another bulb to fit but I might struggle and then it could just burn out like this one did because its not wired correctly, so I decided to head down to my local B&Q diy store and pick up some tree ties for Roz and her mom and picked up a small strip light while I was at it. While I was there I checked over all the lights and checked that the one I got was mains powered so I could just hook it up and I'd be away.<br />
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I had a good long piece of mains cabling and scrounged a plug and hooked up the light to check that it fired up and worked okay. And, bingo! It worked! Next step is to get it mounted to the marquee board and check again. Here you can see it mounted to the board before I routed the wiring down the back trunking of the machine and down to the power strip thats sitting in the base.<br />
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After I got it all cable tied to place and hidden in the trunking I go it switched on in its new home. :D<br />
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Check that glow! haha. Another tick on my list of things to do there. Marquee light, done!<br />
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Here's how the machine looks at the minute with the glass and marquee sign all back in place.<br />
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Looking pretty snazzy I think. I don't know what it is but when the light turned on it just clicked to me. This is finally an arcade machine, it just feels more right.<br />
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During the week I'd received some new Neo Geo MVS games so I thought I'd bring one of the cartridges with me to 'test' out in the cabinet. Metal Slug 2! :D<br />
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Its crazy how different the game looks compared to my little LCD TV I've got at home. Standing up close to the CRT monitor with the scan lines etc makes it feel a lot more proper.<br />
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I got a nice little stash of games and I'm really itching to complete them all but the one thing I'm making sure I don't do is credit my way through them. I.e. just pressing the credit button continuously to force my way through the games. One thing I've been doing with Metal Slug 2 is giving myself 3 credits and 3 credits only. Trying to recreate only having so much change in my pocket like when I was a kid. Man, is Metal Slug 2 a hard game though!! I can only get to the end of level 3 so far with my 3 credits. Its crazy tough even on level 4 difficulty settings. I'll get there though.<br />
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The Games I got (as I got side-tracked there) are : Metal Slug 2 (loose cart), Metal Slug 4 (full kit), King of Fighters 2001 (loose cart), Puzzle Bobble (loose cart) and Tecmo Soccer '96 (loose cart). I'll probably be selling on Tecmo Soccer as Im not that into football games but the others are definate keepers.<br />
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So that was Saturday's work and I thought I would be all done for the weekend but we headed back on the Sunday so Roz could help her mom out with some more tree's so I had an idea of what I could leave in the machine semi-perminantly as I don't want to be leaving my 'real' arcade boards in the machine when it's not at my house yet.<br />
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So I used the time in the morning at home to source out an old Megadrive / Mega CD base plate from my wardrobe to see if I could modify it into a PCB stand for my Sega Jammadrive 2 :-)<br />
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I found the base plate out but quickly found out that its not going to fit the Jammadrive 2 unless I take the rubber feet off the bottom of the casing (not gonna happen as I want it to look stock :P ) or modify the plate. So I got my metal saw out and started hacking away at the base. I got a little way but needed some proper equipment so I took it to the farm and used the saws there.<br />
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Here you can see the Jammadrive 2 next to where I was working so I could keep offering up the plate to it to see how it was fitting.<br />
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Right, a little disclaimer...I'm not going to show the finished off plate because its VERY embarrassing and looks like a torture device from Vlad the Impaler (and it actually did impale me at one point and cut my hand doh!) but it does fit nicely and work very well. I drilled out some holes and mounted PCB feet that I had spare so that I could then screw that into the internal wooden wall of the arcade machine.<br />
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And here is the Jammadrive 2 sitting in place on the wooden wall. The way I positioned it is so the weight of the console pushes downwards onto the mounts of the base plate so it will keep in place and it also has the Jamma edge at a nice easy to access position. I've also mounted it quite high on the board so that I can still fit other arcade games in there past it so I don't have to take it out all the time to put other game boards in.<br />
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Im really pleased with how it sits in the cabinet I must admit and really happy that the baseplate worked after all my hacking of it (and my hand).<br />
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And here you can see the machine running Streets of Rage from the Sega Mega Games 6 cartridge. A neat little fact about this cart is that it has the full version of Streets of Rage on it so much that if you flick it over to Japanese language you get the game Bare Knuckle instead of Streets of Rage :D A good cart to test your language switch mods on ;-)<br />
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I thought I could leave this cart in the machine and there are a few games to have a blast on when there aren't any arcade boards plugged in.<br />
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Also its inspired me to dig some of my megadrive arcade converstions out of my shelves such as golden axe and I know its not technically an arcade game but its pretty close to the original, Splatterhouse 2.<br />
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Oh, I also painted up the old coin door that I mentioned in one or two of the video progress reports. Well it turns out after I painted it up that it didn't fit and wasn't the correct door!! Double dang it!<br />
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But I scratted around and found the proper one which is chrome and only needed a quick brush down to look half decent again. I mounted it into place and quickly tie-wrapped my Test Button to it but I'm going to extend the wiring on that so that its neater when you open the door.<br />
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And that's the progress so far. I'll leave you until the next post.<br />
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Catch you later<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-42886450684697172862014-04-14T09:13:00.000+01:002014-04-14T09:13:28.891+01:00ARCADE MACHINE REFURBISHMENT - RESURRECTION PART 4.5 - videosHi peeps,<br />
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Here is a small update for the last progress report. I finally managed to upload the video progress reports to Youtube over the weekend so I thought I'd post them up here while I carry on working on the cabinet.<br />
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I know you can see the progress in the photos but I always like to see arcade machines in action with the game up and running and yelling out of the way too loud speakers! haha :-P<br />
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Capcom CPS2 button demo:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VwJvOpUGjuU" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Neo Geo MVS button demo:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6SdZ0QI-fCM" width="640"></iframe><br />
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catch you on the next update!!<br />
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<b>Porl''</b>Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8256685911046553764.post-68632629753042538032014-04-06T21:22:00.000+01:002014-04-07T14:02:05.823+01:00ARCADE MACHINE REFURBISHMENT - RESURRECTION PART 4. CONTROL PANEL MODSHi everyone,<br />
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I've made some more progress on "the Machine" this friday afternoon and it's starting to get there now :-D<br />
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The aim for the control panel was to get 6 buttons for each player so that I can play my Street Fighter games on there no problem. So I set about drawing out the positions for the new buttons on the control panel so that I could figure out if they would all fit. What I've found is Player One's part of the panel had more than enough room around the existing 3 buttons to get the others to fit. But Player Two's area is really cramped. It's like they ran out of room as they worked along from left to right. So between the 3rd button and the cigarette area is rather cramped. So this part of the panel is going to have to be a bit of a compromise.<br />
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Last weekend I'd tried to make a start on the control panel and thought that I would be able to drill out the hole like a little pepper pot with the largest metal drill that I had and then cut out the linking bits of metal with my Dremel. Well let me tell you, that isn't the way to go about drilling the holes out of a metal control panel. To get the one hole done it took me an hour and a half and I went through 2 grinding wheels on my Dremel. This way would take me forever and I would be buying new grinding tools every other button hole.<br />
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So I left it there last weekend and during the week I picked up a Holesaw along with the corresponding drill bit from Wickes and set about the control panel again. What a change using the proper tools makes! The holesaw made short work of the control panel and I breezed through this time.<br />
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Here is the second player's control area. You can see that button 6 has had to be squashed up to get it to fit. And I've had to fit the extra buttons a little closer to the original holes because of available space. It doesn't feel too tight to use.<br />
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Here you can see the holesaw I used. Its a 29mm holesaw and the buttons fit perfectly into the space you drilled. I thought it might make holes that are a little too big but they are spot on.<br />
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One thing to remember though is take out the existing buttons when you start to do your drilling. I didn't do this and buggered up one of my buttons. :-( The holesaw generates lots and lots of really little metal flakes and they can go down the litte gaps around the buttons and jam them up a treat! Because the plastic is quite soft the metal seems to dig in really well and it doesn't feel like it will come un-stuck.<br />
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So I'm going to have to order another one to replace the stuck one.<br />
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Below you can see the backside of the control panel all wired up. It looks a little bit of a mess but it's as neat as I can get. I can't pull the harness wiring through any further because its pulling the jamma edge up too high for my smaller game PCB's to sit on the bottom of the machine.<br />
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You can see that Player One's buttons are laid out more traditionally than Player Two. The spacing is still not exactly how you would normally have it if you were to make the control panel from scratch. But its nice enough I think.<br />
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Once I'd gotten all the buttons wired in and tested I started working on a little idea I'd had during the week. One thing I found out from making my first arcade stick for my Super Gun was that if you make an arcade stick that is just 6 buttons you won't be able to play Neo Geo MVS games that require 4 buttons. This sounds a little daft but when you make a 6 button stick for CPS2 Street Fighter games your top row consist of A, B and C from the Jamma harness. And the bottom row are Light Kick, Medium Kick and Heavy Kick which come straight from the CPS2 kick harness. Neo Geo MVS uses button D from the Jamma Harness. So when I made my second arcade stick I made it have 7 buttons so that it had D on there as well.<br />
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The problem with the arcade machine is that the control panel has very limited space but I still wanted to be able to play Neo Geo MVS games on it. So I decided to see if I could wire up a switch so that I could convert button 6 to either by Heavy Kick or Neo Geo Button D.<br />
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Here you can see the Conversion Switch held in place via Cable ties mounted on my new bases.<br />
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The center of the Double Pole Double Throw switch leads to button 6. The left hand tab comes straight from the kick harness and the right hand tab comes from button D on the jamma harness. So if you flick the switch over to the left your hooked up for CPS2 games, and if you flick it to the right you have button D for Neo Geo games. :-D Im really pleased that such a simple switch works a treat! Probably very simple to most people that mess about with electronics or wiring stuff up but being new to this I was quite proud that it worked. woop!<br />
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Here you can see the finished control panel all working with the glass window in place. I've got Samurai Shodown running in the machine using my Neo Geo MVS 1F board.<br />
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For some reason when the Neo Geo is running in the machine the TV is keeping the channel panel up in the top right corner of the screen. Im a little unsure why its doing this as it doesn't do it on normal Jamma games. I'm pretty confident that when I get hold of the remote for the TV I can get that to turn off though so it's not obscuring so much of the screen.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dDa9lI5ObDA/Uz8j2n-nxHI/AAAAAAAABlA/UGBQxGDShe4/s1600/IMAG0599.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dDa9lI5ObDA/Uz8j2n-nxHI/AAAAAAAABlA/UGBQxGDShe4/s1600/IMAG0599.jpg" height="400" width="226" /></a>And as a last little picture, here is how the CPS2 cartridges sit in the bottom of the machine. You can see how the Edge connector is in the back and how smaller boards will just end up hanging from it. Which isn't a good way to have them connected. So I'm going to be making a little box that sits in the bottom of the machine so it raises the boards up a bit.<br />
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So what's next for the machine? Im going to be cleaning up the glass window and trying to get the marquee light working. Tidy up the coin door a little bit and remount it to the front of the coin door area. Sort out the back panel of the machine. Repaint it or something as birds have been pooping on it a bit. Ugh!<br />
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Catch you on the next update :-)<br />
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<b>Porl''</b><br />
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<br />Porlzillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05854858006195452131noreply@blogger.com