eightbit

I am a Neo Geo AES owner once again. I originally purchased (or I should say my Grandmother purchased for me) my first Neo Geo AES Gold System at the Babbages store in Garden State Plaza Mall in NJ on launch day. It was the summer of 1990 and I was 15 years old. Previously I would play all of these great games at the local Fun N' Games arcade in Willowbrook Mall in Wayne NJ. I particularly loved Magician Lord and Ninja Combat. So when I got word that this was being released with games that WERE those arcade games and not just lesser ports of them of course I had to have it! My birthday was in June and my grandmother asked me what I wanted. I told her I would wait because something amazing was coming in August. She said OK.....but I never revealed the price of the thing of course. When I called Babbages that day and they said it was there we went down to pick it up. There it was, behind the counter way high up. I walked up and said "I'll take that Neo Geo Gold System".....and um...Magician Lord and Ninja Combat! When they rung up the total my grandmother nearly collapsed. I thought that was that....but she busted out the credit card and purchased all of it for me! I could not believe it. Anyhow, I played Ninja Combat at home for 45 minutes and beat the game. $200 down the drain there! Magician Lord proved to be a LOT more difficult. It was the same game as the arcade, but you couldn't just continue where you were as in the arcade by sticking a quarter in. If you died early, you were sent back to the beginning of the level. If you died on the mini boss before the big boss, you were sent back to the level's mid point. I got far, but at a certain point I just could not get past it. Then I had an idea. I noticed the MVS cab in the arcade had a slot for a memory card. My Neo Geo Gold system came with a memory card. Could that work? I took the card to the arcade and popped it in the slot. The arcade staff guy ran over and said "What are you doing to that machine?". I pointed to the slot and said "it's for memory cards". He looked confused. Popped in a quarter and started the game and received the memory card load screen. YES! I continued on the level I was working on and dumped a few bucks in quarters to make it through. Beat the level, saved it, brought it home and was able to keep going now on the next level. That amazed me....still does to this day. Years past and I am not sure what happened to that AES. I probably traded it like a dumb kid for a PS1 or something. The story continues when in the late 90's I ended up with one again and amassed a pretty large collection. I purchased Metal Slug X and Shock Troopers 2 when they came out. $250 each IIRC. But, I had a bad breakup, sold my house, sold my collection, and moved on. But now, what I thought would never happen again in my life has happened. Due to some very fortunate circumstances I now have an AES again. It is not a USA system like my last two as they are way out of my price range now, but a Japanese model. That's OK, any Neo Geo AES makes me happy! I opted for a multi-cart that takes microSD now. I would love some real games (and I may still pick some up) but I just don't have that kind of coin. Good enough now to at least PLAY the games on real hardware. Attached are pictures of it as it stands. It came in the box with a bean style arcade stick (which I really like!). The box actually shows the bean stick coming with it, so this is a later model. The box serial and console serial match as well. Welp, that is my Neo Geo story. Hope you enjoyed it

And, if I can ever find a decently priced 32X and Genesis 2 style loopback cable I will attempt the 32X mod. That is going to require a few more wires.

And when the VA2 board was released they used an ASIC by Sega with the SMS support completely removed as far as I am aware. So I am guessing the engineers that designed that chip to be more cost effective probably saw it in there and said "what the heck is this doing here? Remove it"....hah There are probably tons of the VA1 board models out there but the thing that sucks is that there is no way of knowing until you open it. Not many ebay sellers would be willing to do that for you. So you just have to keep buying them and taking chances. What RetroRGB says here is not entirely true: https://www.retrorgb.com/genesis3.html You cannot see the board traces by the cart slots by opening the cart doors and matching board traces because there is an RF shield that covers all of it on these. Unless someone removed that previously those traces cannot be seen. And apparently the PCB does fit....but man does it look odd:

I can bet when they were developing the PCB they weren't even thinking about the SMS compatibility aspect at all. I don't think they said "we aren't adding that" at all. I think they were just focused on getting Genesis games working. I could be wrong as I was not there with them of course, but I can see SMS being completely overlooked. That reminds me that I didn't try SG-1000 games. I will have to give that a try at another time

I can see why they didn't. At the time the only adapter we had was the power base converter....which I do not think would even fit on this. I don't have one to try but I suspect it will not. And, if it did, it would look WEIRD. You wouldn't even see the Genesis 3 at all...the PBC would be covering the whole thing! Not to mention the fact that the SMS and its games were long off of store shelves when this was available. So, why bother adding it as (at the time) it would not work anyway. They used an ASIC with the support in there, but that is only because it was the same ASIC (I believe) as the Genesis 2...so they just sourced chips with that support in there anyway. They never expected people many years later would use everdrives in order to get SMS game code into these things I am sure I just did this to have a tiny Sega Master System with real SMS hardware. I could now stick this in any tight spot and play Wonderboy Big thanks to BigO for hooking me up!

Thanks. It arrived today. Success!

So sorry to hear CPUWIZ is going through all of this. I have had many conversations and dealings with him for many many years....just a great guy that does not deserve the hand that has been dealt. Here's to a speedy recovery and good news soon.

It started with a trade with Jesse and turned out to be a full servicing of my Colecovision! This fine gentleman added a nice rocker switch, LED light (in a sweet amber-ish color), recapped the entire board (including forward thinking ways of the recap job for the caps under the RF modulator) and added an RGB/Composite board that allows the system to use a Genesis model 2 style a/v cable for either composite (what I am using for the time being) or crisp RGB. The communication was stellar. Not only did he request my input quite often as to what I wanted and where I wanted it (color of the LED, placement of the RGB port) but provided me with videos of the work including an over 18 minute personalized video of detailed explanations of everything that had been done along with gameplay examples with the unit displaying in both the composite and RGB modes. I am seriously completely floored at the level of customer service here. I didn't think something like this existed in this day and age. The unit came back to me today in such superb shape. He cleaned it too! It looks 10X better than when I sent it out...and it was pretty clean then. Everything looks astounding and works great. This Colecovision is now better than new. I suspect it will outlive me. All said, I not only can recommend him, but he will now be my only go to guy for anything that I need for my consoles that he is willing to provide. I would trust this man with any of my systems. I cannot say that about anybody else. Need some work done? Check with him. Maybe he can perform the work that you need. You will NOT regret it!

TV's don't have COAX anymore? I just took a long at my 6 month old Westinghouse 4K TV and it still has a COAX connection.

Once again, smooth transaction and nice person to deal with!

Worms is gone. Rest still available for now!

Ohh, and it goes without saying I think that if anyone does want these to act fast and let me know what you want so that I can remove the listing(s) before they sell Thanks!

These are listed on ebay for $150 each: Breakout 2000: https://www.ebay.com/itm/133526758415 Defender 2000: https://www.ebay.com/itm/133526761489 Protector (original non-SE release): https://www.ebay.com/itm/133526775977 and Worms is listed for $180 https://www.ebay.com/itm/133526814441 If someone here wants them outside of ebay, I am willing to sell the first three for $120 shipped each and Worms for $150 shipped. PM if interested!

13 minutes left for this phone and in the vault it goes...never to be seen (or listed) again!

If you want to simply get rid of it for not too much coin (I am thinking $20...that is what I spent on the last one I purchased) I will take it off of your hands. And simply because I want to try the mod

Last day today (9/21/2020) to have a chance to own the red emergency rotary. If it does not sell today it will be carefully placed in a hidden vault at an undisclosed location on the east coast of the United States with two special armed forces guards that will guard and protect it for enemy hands for 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the remainder of the century (at least). It will be connected and active for direct military interaction with the super heroes...many of which are now in quarantine do to the pandemic unfortunately.

I have never had the need to overclock a Genesis. Got to play it as it was meant to be I have a VA4 model Genesis 2 (actually the Majesco release) which has the best composite audio and video of any Genesis model I have used. The audio is awesome as well. And, the Genesis 2 does support stereo sound unlike the model 3.

A flash cart (to play roms), or a power base mini (to play real carts). As for mod scene, I doubt there are many people trying to mod a model 3 for master system support Maybe me and two other guys on the net...lol.

That is a VA1 you have. You can immediately tell by the orientation of the ASIC. The VA2 is placed in a diamond position as shown in the pictures before yours...and it says VA2 on the right of the cart port. I guess the VA1 does not print "VA1" anywhere....but make no mistake yours is indeed a VA1 and ready to be modified

PM sent regarding the 130XE's and some questions. Thanks!

If you can get it, do it. This console is not as common as you think.