Hatta

The SCART to Component converter would output YPbPr that wouldn't work with a monitor that expects RGB. Just buy an 8-pin DIN cable, some BNC connectors and a soldering pencil. You'll be out less than $35 on the whole deal, and the soldering pencil will come in handy in the future.

It should be as simple as chopping off the SCART end of your cable and soldering on BNC connectors, using composite for Ext Sync as you noted. BTW, you know that the 1084 does RGB too?

A lot of arcade purists don't like X-arcade gear. The sticks and buttons are clones, not actual HAPP parts. The older encoders had some lag issues, especially with adaptors. The newer encoders with USB don't support N-key roll over. For the casual, or even semi-serious arcade game enthusiast X-arcade sticks are a good easy option. For someone who is actually serious about split second timing in fighting games or shmups, you want to buy or build your own with HAPP/Sanwa parts and an iPAC. I have a dual tankstick I picked up used for cheap. It had the old controller but the previous owner did the USB upgrade. The PS2 port doesn't work on my HTPC, but does on other computers. Go figure. USB is OK, but then we're dealing with a 6 keypress limitation, and potential USB polling rate issues. If the controller didn't have these issues, I'd swap out the hardware for real parts and be in heaven. Or if the parts were authentic, I'd go ahead and swap out the controller for an i-PAC. But really to make me happy I need to do both, in which case the only thing left is the wood panel. I might as well start from scratch.

My 32" CRT weighs about 200 lbs, and is about 2 feet deep. This is not a problem. My TV stand is also 2 feet deep, and the shelves on either side of the TV stand are 2 feet deep. Suppose I put an LCD there. What am I going to use that space for? Am I going to stack items in front of the TV? Concerning weight, how often do I need to pick up my TV with one hand? Never. If you're a nomad who moves every time your lease runs out, I can see that being a problem. But so would moving your entire video game collection.

Dig the wire rack shelving. I have a similar set in black. Great for consoles, since you can twist tie the cords to the wires to keep everything neat.

My Dreamcast won't read my original copy of Sonic Adventure. Reads the CDR just fine though.

Yes, they've finally rediscovered the superiority of the command line. It's hard to keep track of dozens of items. But we all have vocabularies in the tens of thousands. Obviously it's going to be easier to remember a program's name than its location. Now if we could only pass command line options in the "search bar".

Yes, I bet if you check the pins with a continuity tester, you'd find that it's a genesis cable.

Kyle, it's been a couple years since I softmodded an Xbox, but even back then it was mature enough to be really easy. What you want is "Auto Installer Deluxe". It will do almost everything you want, and the manual is detailed and clear. The major complicating factor is installing a new hard drive. For this, the software you need is XboxHDM. You'll need a spare PC to hook the hard drives to for locking/unlocking or system installation. This is tricky because the Xbox hard drive is secured with encryption. Use AID to dump the key from the eeprom. Then put the new hard disk in a spare PC, boot XboxHDM, have it install the system and lock the drive. Then put the new hard disk in the xbox and you should be ready to go. If you're not upgrading the hard disk, AID is all you need. It sounds like you should have all the hardware you need. Google the software I mentioned, and flex your nerd muscles, and you should figure everything out pretty readily.

There's only one way to settle this. Give two teams the exact same materials, and have them each build a robot. One controlled by a 6502, one controlled by a Z80. Then let the robots fight it out.

Yep. My brother came to visit recently and I had Sonic 4 on my Wii. He picked it up and immediately said, "the jumping is off". He didn't last 10 minutes before finding something else. Really too bad, why bring back Sonic at all if they're not going to make the jumping feel right? Even the 2d sections of Colors felt closer to the original than Sonic 4 did.

There used to be a private server, but it's not operating anymore.

Grand Theft Auto. Any version.

The male end is the one with the pins, the female end is the one with the holes. The confusion comes because the pins are recessed into the plug to keep them from bending, but that doesn't change the gender.

Pirates! is one of the best games of all time, from one of the best game designers of all time. Hardly an average game.

Some DB9 serial cables will work. I've had trouble with both the male end of a serial cable being too loose for the controller cord, and with the female end of a serial cable being too shallow to fit into the console securely.

I keep everything hooked up.

Is giving your Steam login info to a random third party on the internet really a good idea?

There's very little reason not to get a 128. It's fully compatible with the C64. If you get a C64, you're going to have to track down a 128 power supply and adaptor, so why not just buy a 128 which comes with the power supply? And some homebrew software takes advantage of the C128's increased clock speed. For example, Elite 128, which is the best version of Elite next to the BBC. Now the 128D is a pricier machine, and the only real advantages are the form factor and included 1581. I wouldn't go out of my way to get one, though it would be nice to be able to stack the monitor on top of it. Also, the C128 keyboard is a lot nicer than the C64 keyboard, IMO.

Looks like Colecovisions take +5V, -5V, and +12V. Why not adapt an ATX power supply?

You don't have to deal with Microsoft Windows on any computer, modern or classic.

I think the recommended solution these days is to track down a copy of CoinOps, that comes with everything (front end, emulators, ROMs, artwork) and just install that. What you're looking for is "coinops 5 full". It's a 50gb download. Personally, I really didn't like the Xbox controller for classic gaming. Convex buttons with mushy action.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is the best Sonic game.

dsheinem hangs out at racketboy. You might send him a message and see if he has a higher res version. Or you could track down the box scans yourself and stitch something together. I think Gamefaqs has box shots that are 640px wide. At 150DPI, that gets you 21.3 inches. I bet you could scale it up by a factor of 2 with a nice scaler and get something acceptable and big.

I left my C128 collection when I went to college. Probably ended up at a Salvation Army. I had at least 2 1581's dammit.