Retro game stuff talk

[FlyingTomahawk]

Received the replacement belt(s) today...for free.
A little pre-story to that...
There is a Japanese guy that has a blog and there he shows you step by step with videos and pictures how to replace the belt and align the spindle. Those Mobilon rubber bands are sold in 100 gram packs so one package contains 460 rubber belts! That guy bought 3 packs since he repairs FDS often he says. I guess he does repair work? Anyways, he says he has over 1400 belts and anyone who contacts him gets 5 belts for free, shipped home! And not only that but he also includes washers and bolts to offset the motor pulley to prevent the belt from dropping out once replaced. All for free! How generous is that.

To be honest the belt install and spindle setup are bit of a pain in the rear. It took me a few tries until I got it working properly.
Once done I finally could check if my FDS games were working. And they sure did...

[ruckage]

Hey @FlyingTomahawk , hope you're doing well.
Awesome work on the Famicom/FDS - looks as good as new.

[FlyingTomahawk]

@ruckage

RUCKAGE! Man how are you? It's been like ages since I last read you.
How is life treating you? Hope everything is alright.

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I'm happy with the result.

[VictimRLSH]

@obsidianspider said in Retro game stuff talk:

Today I added my very first Treasure game to my collection: Dynamite Headdy for Sega Genesis. It’s in very good shape and only mildly suffers from the common Genesis game problem of looking like someone soaked the label in vegetable oil. I don’t know why so many Genesis games do that.

Also: can anyone suggest a good gamebit screwdriver that works well with Genesis games? My orange handled one from Amazon “works” but it often slips from the screws on Genesis games and mars the finish. I’d like to minimize that in the future.

My custom PCBs also arrived today. They're my very first boards that I designed myself, so there's nothing fancy going on, but it looks like they'll fit the ribbon cable that I intended, so hopefully I'll be able to test with a Pi soon.

Did you get any extras of these done? Willing to sell?

[ruckage]

@FlyingTomahawk said in Retro game stuff talk:

@ruckage

RUCKAGE! Man how are you? It's been like ages since I last read you.
How is life treating you? Hope everything is alright.

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I'm happy with the result.

I'm doing well thank you, been pretty busy. Had a fun month long roadtrip just before Christmas travelling around France, Andorra, Spain and Portugal.
Hope you doing well too.

I must get on and finish my Famicom and PC Engine projects. The PC Engine Mini is coming out soon which will work out quite well for me because they're selling additional PC Engine USB controllers which will be ideal for my project (I've already pre-ordered one.)

[ruckage]

Here are some new GBA/Gameboy games I've bought since the last time I posted.

And I've made some more cases as well:

And here's how they all look spine on displayed on my shelves (That's 29 cases so far - still quite a few to make yet):

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk Super jealous of the great deal on the FDS. Very well done!

[obsidianspider]

@VictimRLSH said in Retro game stuff talk:

Did you get any extras of these done? Willing to sell?

Extras of what?
Dynamite Headdy? No

The breakout board? OSHPark has a minimum 3-board order. I need the other two for testing screens. I'm not looking to sell any. Sorry.

[obsidianspider]

@ruckage Those cases look fantastic! Those are the European DS cases, right?

[ruckage]

@obsidianspider said in Retro game stuff talk:

@ruckage Those cases look fantastic! Those are the European DS cases, right?

Thanks :) . Yes, they're European DS cases. It's really easy to modify the GBA cart holder to also hold GB/GBC games and they will also hold the manuals with another small modification (gb/gba manuals are usually bigger than DS manuals - at least in the UK). They also have a nice wide spine which is great for adding spine art.

Some US cases have a GBA slot but I'm sure I read that it was removed on later cases so you have to be a bit careful. It's also pretty much impossible to modify them to hold Gameboy carts and the larger manuals as huge amounts of plastic would have to be cut away.

[ruckage]

@obsidianspider
I was reading back through the thread and saw you got a copy of Billy Hatcher. How are you liking it?
It was one of my first Gamecube games and still one of my favourites on the system. Its shame it wasn't that successful as I would have loved a sequel.
And I'll never get over how cute Gamecube discs are - not a fan of the cases though, I had a few discs that were cracked in the centrer due to the disc holder.

[obsidianspider]

@ruckage I only played it a bit on the day that I got it because I've had a bunch of other stuff going on in the last two weeks, but so far I like it quite a lot.

[obsidianspider]

Today I added my very first US Nintendo 64 game to my collection: Beetle Adventure Racing.

Yes, really.

If I hadn't seen a MetalJesus video that mentioned it and then tried it on my EverDrive I wouldn't have believed that this is a really fun racing game either, but I'm happy to have it. CIB N64 games are pretty expensive right now, so I don't see me finding others in great shape for decent prices any time soon, but we'll see.

[FlyingTomahawk]

@obsidianspider

I remember the time when Nintendo 64 was about to end its life span in the game market. N64 sales were down and prices for N64 games at an all time high. I was working at a game store that time and games were sold for $120-150! Conquers Bad Fur Day is was my favourite next to Ocarina of Time but at the price for it right now I don't think I'll ever collect it.

Btw. Did you see the post above regarding your display PCB? The guy had a question about it.

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk I paid nowhere near those prices for Beetle Adventure Racing.

I did see the question about buying the PCB and I replied. I’m not looking to sell them and I need the three that I have for testing other screens. I have some 1.54” screens en route from China. Well. In theory they’re en route.

[FlyingTomahawk]

@obsidianspider

Where did you order those PCBs?
I am planing on creating some PCBs for my Famicoms. Is it expensive?

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk I used OSH Park but there are other options in China that are cheaper for larger batches. For three boards around 21mm square it was $3.45 shipped to my house. Here’s a graphic from a Discord server I frequent that’s helpful. I’m hoping to get better at board design for some ideas I’ve had for a while.

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk said in Retro game stuff talk:

Is it expensive?

I’ve found the most expensive thing so far has been the time invested in learning how to use Kicad, find data sheets and learn nuances of circuit designs.

[FlyingTomahawk]

@obsidianspider

Yeah, i know what you mean. I think i get the hang of it but it's a steep learning curve.

I use DesignSpark PCB which helps a lot. Looking at other PCB projects and try to understand the way they're build up.

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk right now I’m just doing simple stuff, essentially replacing hooking up a spaghetti mess of wires. I haven’t even begun to dive into things like interference or trace width or things like that. I don’t even know what I don’t know yet.