Cinder6

And they're not "real" Neo Geo systems, they're hacked together from parts. Not sure if that matters, but I like to at least have the real thing to start with. Though I understand the appeal of having a consolized MVS (cheaper games). Yeah, I wasn't really going to get into that, since I figured the odds of it actually being a CMVS are slim. Anyways, they are real in the sense that the board is an actual SNK product, with...additions. I, too, would prefer an actual big red (which is why I have one, in fact, but the CMVSs have some good things going for them: cheaper games, more games (IIRC, not all MVS games got AES copies), takes up less space, and multi-slot (advantage over AES, not an MVS cabinet, obviously). TC, I'd say try for $175-$200. Or post pictures.

The home console is called the AES. The arcade system is an MVS. There are consolized versions of the MVS, but they are usually much more expensive than the AES.

It's an MVS? As in, the full arcade cabinet? Find out which board revision it is (if it's a 1-slot, there are several, but 2-slots and 4-slots only have 1 version each, as does the 6-slot). If it is an MVS, jump on it for that price. Even if it's a CMVS (consolized), they're still worth more than that usually. The value of Baseball Stars (MVS version) depends largely on the region it was made for. US label is worth about 2x more than JP label, though both are pretty cheap, as far as NG games go (MVSs aren't region locked, and it will play in English, assuming you have an English BIOS). If it's an AES (console), try offering him $200, especially if things aren't boxed or it's not the arcade-style controllers.

Blazing Star for the Neo Geo. That game still blows me away.

Heh, so I ordered batteries from Mouser a few weeks ago (see my previous posts), and yesterday, I got something interesting in the mail. Apparently, buying six batteries means I'm a serious enough customer to ship me a gigantic catalog. This thing is seriously 2x the size of my phone book. Well, Mouser just went up in my estimation, so mission accomplished, for them at least

Not to mention the fact that lead is a horrible conductor.

True. Although, strangely enough, I just had a battery die on me after only being in use for 6 months. Extremely frustrating, as I lost my Phantasy Star IV saves. This is why I'd been looking at a holder. To be fair, I'd gone the cheapo and easy route by swapping a battery from a <$1 sports game, but when I did so, I tested the battery and it read 3.0v. In a few days, I'm going to test the current battery I'm using. It could be something wrong with my game. And yeah, the instructions on that site are a joke. I actually tried to follow them once. Have you ever tried to break the spot welds? I used an X-acto knife attachment for my soldering iron, and even after working on it for 15 minutes, I still hadn't broken 1 of the six (!) points. Ugh, no thanks. After I got the whole thing out with the soldering iron, I took pliers to both tabs and yanked. They started to come off, at least. The tabs also started to break. Worthless, worthless instructions.

Wait, what? Why? Lead is many things, but a good conductor, it is not. Unless I'm totally missing the point in plating the connectors...

By "looked at", do you mean "violently pried off", like I did? Anyways, I hear the holders work well in an NES cartridge if you solder some wire leads to them and tape them on some other part of the cartridge. Sounds like it should work, since I can only think of one NES game that actually fills the entire cartridge (and it doesn't have a battery, anyways). I've also seen people on some forums saying that they put a holder in a Genesis cart, but every time I ask which one they used, or where they found it, or...ANYthing, the topic goes strangely quiet. One thing that could just possibly work in these smaller cartridges using a horizontal holder. You'd have to solder wires to the leads, then the wires to the battery connectors on the PCB. Either tape the holder or let it "float". The reason this might work is because the horizontal holders I've found are all about 5mm thick; Genesis carts need at least 6mm headroom from the PCB to the casing. The only problem with this is that Genesis and SNES carts are shorter than NES carts...EA carts might work for the Genesis, though.

I've also seen people suggest using steel wool for the really horrible black spots that won't come out with anything else. I'd really put it in the "last resort" pile, as I can't imagine it's the best thing in the world for the contacts (after prolonged applications, that is). In general, you go up the ladder when cleaning games. Start with the eraser and rubbing alcohol, and move up from there. That'll take care of 99.7% of your problems.

Good to hear they fit, since I just ordered a bunch of them I'd been looking to put in a battery holder, but gave up after I found none that could fit (though this was a Genesis cartridge).

Well, maybe I'm misreading the question, but...many, many RPGs? Though it depends on what you mean by "ashamed to admit it". Is it: they aren't allowed to (princess falling for a commoner; a very prevalent theme), they don't realize it themselves (e.g. Alex regarding Luna in the first Lunar), or they are literally ashamed of themselves for falling for the person? I can't really think of any examples of the last...the closest I can think of is in Tales of the Abyss (PS2), but it doesn't quite fit.

I haven't played most of the series on the list (I'm just getting into Wild Arms, though). But of the ones I've played, I had to give the vote to Lunar. Phantasy Star is great, but it feels more rough (even IV), and I prefer a more traditional fantasy setting to space-age stuff. But that's just my bigoted view

Even if it's not one of the original SNESs, you can still use the regular RCA AV out (composite video), which would be better than demodulating with a VCR (incidentally, what VCR has component output?).

Heh, I was going to post about this. That scene actually annoyed me, because it portrayed video games in a negative light. Anyways... In an episode of Friends, Chandler gets a Pac-Man (or Ms. Pac-Man; I forget) cabinet and fills up all the high scores with dirty words. They then have to get all-new high scores, to clear them, before Ross's kid sees it (since apparently unplugging it doesn't erase the memory). The only problem is that (Ms.) Pac-Man doesn't have a top 10 list, and doesn't have a name associated with the high score. I'd also imagine that the game didn't have battery backup for the high score, but I could easily be wrong (by simple fact that I've never unplugged a Pac-Man cabinet). Not to mention that it'd still be trivial to erase them, even if there was battery backup...