Dripfree

I walk into Goodwill and check the case I see lots of Genesis and Sega cd games. There is a guy sorta boxing out the case with a cart and I'm watching him check prices of the games on Ebay. I couldn't get in to see anything and looking at the rest of his cart it was fair to assume he was an Ebay reseller. I got frustrated and then I thought if I go get an associate to open the case for me while he's price checking I would essentially have dibs. So I did. I told them I'd like to see the games and I took my time going through them in front of him. He scoffed at me audibly and visually. Not surprisingly all the games were high end Ebay prices. Most loose games had boxed prices. I said it was more then I was looking to pay and put them back. The other gentleman grabbed them up and passed on every one of them also. One and a half weeks later every game was still there. I assume they went on Sunday when that color ticket was half off, but it still would not be a steal. I have been considering that in the long term this may be a good thing. It seems Goodwill has made it very hard for the middle man. Although I was frustrated that I was not able to aquire these games I found satisfaction in the idea that the reseller could not profit by scooping up all the games. Perhaps it is a good thing that Goodwill is killing off the secondary market. Maybe I'm reading too much into this but it seems to me like resellers buy from Goodwill to sell on ebay and ebay dictates the prices that Goodwill sells for. At some point that has to stop working right?

Definitely the caps. This is the exact scenario I have seen on both of mine. Replace those guys and you will be good to go. Like I said you will learn alot from the project. The screen will never be great because it never realy was. If you feel confident when your done its not a whole lot harder or expensive to swap in a more modern screen or even vga out. There are lots of plans on the web for this. Sky's the limit with the game gear you can learn tons. If you screw it up it's sad but not a serious loss. Good luck.

I have recaped 2 game gears. Its not as hard as you may think and actually probably a good beginners project. I will say I believe every game gear should be recaped even if it works it will need it soon. I have not seen one with a cap issue that displays a white screen. All of the ones I have seen have been dim or black with no audio. It could still likely be a cap issue, and the caps should still be your starting point. For the caps I actually got a big grab bag of caps from American science and surplus for just a few bucks. Just make sure the uf number is the same as the one your replacing and that the voltage rating is the same or higher, and replace them all. If you dont have a grab bag then just get a kit. Watch for decimal points 22 uf is not the same as 2.2. I've made that error, you wont destroy it but it wont work and you will have to redo it. Desoldering is the hardest part. It's not recommended but on the first one I did I just used pliers to snap off the old caps. It worked fine for me but is risky. You could lift the pads ad traces and then you got a problem. So try to hold onto the cap with some needle nose pliers and heat the sides till it lifts off. Also watch polarity. Both that I did had polarity clearly marked on the board so it was easy. Hopefully all boards are marked this way. And finaly be aware of space and orientation. The new caps will be bigger and will have to be strategically placed so you can reassemble the unit especially on the sound board that thing is pretty small. Those are all my big tips. It may sound tough buts its not so bad. My first one really helped build my confidence for these types projects. If the price is right I say get it. I can help if you got any questions or even want some pictures. As for games... I really only play Off Road. I got a ton of games I don't spend a ton of time with them. This is a scenario for me where I enjoy fixing the system more then using it.

I was going to say about the exact same thing as Keatah here. Our brands vary slightly but I use nearly the same method. Ill add a couple things. Protect labels and serial numbers. I cut pieces of thin plastic and tape it over the label before washing it. Make sure the tape doesn't stick to the the label. Sometimes there is no good way of doing this so you just have to take the time to do a good cleaning with q tips and tooth brushes. Finaly I always finish it off with a wipe down of armor all. It makes the plastic glow, protects it, and replels dust. My most used products are... Rubbing alcohol Goo gone Armor all Magic eraser And I have used various products for removing scratches from auto's Fun fact this scratch remover will remove light scratches from screens and if you use a toothbrush it will even remove permanent marker from textured surfaces without hurting the texture.

Thats kinda cool I never knew those existed. Honestly not something I would be supper interested in unless I stumbled across them. I could almost swear I had the same speakers for my first pc, or at least very very close. They were not sega branded of course and they were a beautiful beige color.

A friend of mine who I often play games with suggested we try Hoops for nes. It was one of his original games from childhood. We tried it for about 5 minutes and both agreed it was garbage. He said "I used to play the crap out of that game. I got it for Christmass and was so excited, I thought it was great". I had similar situations. I didn't have many games but I loved all the ones I had. I certainly knew certain games were better than others. Some things never occurred to me. Like that the controls may be horrible I just thought I wasn't good at it, and I would still play it quite a bit and I never thought man this game sucks. Looking back this seems silly to me. I cant believe how much time I spent playing Heavy Shreddin on my NES, or Ren and Stimpy on my Gameboy. Im curious if anyone else experienced this and what games actually seemed good to you through the eyes of a child.

Nice find. I don't find them floppies all too often but I always get them when I see them. I like finding the used ones cuz you never know what your gona get.

You know I do think your judgment is a little harsh. The game boy was a truly great system and has a ton of great games. It's easy to judge it harshly if you didn't grow up with it. I suggest you spend some time with it if you can, I really believe you're opinion may change. I do understand where you're coming from. I am from the NES generation. I used to hate the 2600. The graphics were so basic compared to the nes I almost found it unplayable. I usually couldn't even figure out what to do... Hell it took me a little bit to learn to operate the machine. Now it has realy grown on me but it did take me a bit to get there. That being said the device in this topic does suck and probably always did. I find it hilarious that they even produced this item, I'm not sure what their target market was hence my sarcastic original post. Im glad they did make it and im glad I got it for a quarter. Honestly I wouldn't pay much more.

Thats great to hear since I am about to embark on this project also. Do you think an arduino micro would be capable of doing this. I dont see why not, but I am very new to arduino. I want to keep the project small and had been considering using plans for a pic chip adapter I found but the arduino seems mor straight forward and has better documentation. As a side note I did end up finding a spoon control at a local vintage game store. I had already asked at 2 other vintage game stores and interestingly enough no one at those 2 stores had ever even heard of a cd-i. When I asked at the store that did have it the guy chuckled went in back and came out withe the controller and two games. He sold me it all for 10 bucks. I said that wasn't too bad and he said that I was probably the only person who would ask him for these items and he is probably the only store that would have them. I got to say this system is certainly not great, but its not totaly horrible either. If you find one at a good price and you got the space I'd say grab it.

Both pretty sweet I realylike the little computer that could be quite a bit of fun.

I think that the copyright laws are similar to driving laws in a certain sense. Like a cracked tail light, having dice hanging from your mirror, or having a dog on your lap. These are all ticket able offenses. 99 times out of 100 the cops look the other way. When the catch you drunk or speeding your getting nailed for everything. Kinda like now if you get busted selling ps4 bootlegs their gona get you for the C64 stuff too. It's actually 95 years minimum before this stuff becomes public domain. I do think this is good thing, and most people who have created something would agree. Not necessarily to go after every pirate, but to know you still maintain a bit of control over your creation, and even protect its integrity if need be.

Yes that is a great example. The Vectrex seems to somehow soften every thing down. Like I said I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps some type of volume control. The volume seems to swell and fade on each note creating a rounder less harsh tone. At least I think that may be it... Anyway I think it wasn't till the 16 bit generation when most other companies matched that quality.

So I always marvel at the sound quality of the Vectrex, minus the buzz of course. But it seems to just have a certain intangible difference that I cant put my finger on. Perhaps its just the flow of the music it just seems less bleepy bloopy. Lately I have been playing vectrexagon and the music if fantastic. I realize this is not the best example seeing as the game is very new, but it is still the vectrex producing that audio. The sound seems much better than anything of the time, and I think it's surprising just how long it took other consoles to catch up. I figure there must be some technical reason for this and I'm curious as to what it may be.

Did you ever buy a Game system that when you open it up you find out it has a sweet game left inside? Well this is kinda like that. So here is one of my more interesting thrift store finds. I have been looking out for a VHS player for a while, I have been holding out for what seemed like a good one. Finaly found it so I brought it home plugged it in, and it started right up... Started right up playing the porno that was left inside... Soooo yea today I bought porn from Goodwill.

Ahh but here you go we have success with the Gamecube Gamboy player. Well the picture is upside-down probably because with the Gamecube Gamboy player the game goes in upside-down... Either that or I was holding my phone upside-down when I took it.

I just tried it out and sadly its a no go.

Just read this cuz it got bumped. I had read that the buzz comes from improper shielding on the speaker wires, perhaps someone can confirm this. With its close proximity to all the power components it will pick up those signals and output it with the audio. This stands to reason that the buzz could be fixed by adding shielding to those wires. I had considered opening mine up and either wrapping the wires with aluminum tape or perhaps replacing the wires with some nicely shielded cables. Perhaps chop up some monster cables or even coax. In the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk and effort. I do feel that the buzz does add a little charm and personality. But if the buzz realy does bother you that may be one way to stop it.

I'm a fast paced businessman who is always on the go. I need to stay in constant contact with my people so that I can buy high and sell low at a moments notice, but there is a problem... How can I stay in touch? Am supposed to lug around a computer wherever I go so I can send emails? Not likely. If only there were some type of magical device I could carry in my pocket and send an email with nothing more then the touch of my fingers. Believe it or not this device does exist and has existed for years!! Behold the Shark MX email for your Gameboy. It's so simple all you need is your Gameboy, the Shark MX, a length of phone cable, and access to a land line. It could not be more simple. But how do you type you ask? There is no keyboard you say. Well lets be honest keyboards suck. They are so cumbersome, there are so many buttons you can never find the letter your looking for. Well they solved this problem too. You simply move a cursor around over a bunch of letters and select the one you want. Now that's the best way of typing an email that I can think of. But such a powerful device would cost hundreds of dollars you say. Well it should and it would be worth every penny. I got mine at a thrift store for .25 cents so good luck finding a deal like that. There you have it, like I said the future is now. If you don't have one of these items yet get one or be left in the dust. We are embarking on a world where everyone will be connected with a single handheld device that they can keep in their pocket and that my friend is a world I want to live in.

So here is a fun story. I stopped at few thrift stores on my way home and came up dry. Pulling into my garage I could see my neighbor across the alley was tossing a gas powered weed wacker. Im thinking Im good at fixing that kind of stuff so I figure ill go to grab it and give it a shot. I peek in his garage and ask if he is tossing it. He laughs and says "no I just set it there while I stepped in here to get gas." It is then I see a box by the trash with an NES zapper on top. I say "what about that stuff?" He says "go ahead it's your's." So I grab it and run home like a little kid. There was a bunch of junk but the pic shows what was worth keeping. I went back and asked if he was getting rid of anything else like that. He tells me that the box was given to him by another neighbor because it had some stuff he wanted, but he would ask that neighbor for me. The whole scenario was very odd, including my girlfriend yelling at me for inspecting the nieghbors garbage. There was nothing super great in here mostly just random stuff, but finding a deal is rough lately so this got me really excited

You know I was under the same assumption as you until I opened it up. I was hoping to hear some others weigh in, especially someone who owned the Vextrex new. There was certainly nothing missing or broken on mine. Also no evidence of excessive wear that would cause this much movement. I may be wrong but I think it was always like this. Anyway no matter the reason I didn't like it. Here is my solution if anyone is interested. Not a great picture. I don't have a macro mode on my camera but what it is is one of those cap nuts with a hole drilled trough it allowing the shaft to pass through into the cradles that move the pots. There is a washer that sits just below the ball for the ball and socket joint, with a small spring in between. The spring puts a slight upward pressure on the stick forcing it to sit in the up position. You can still press the stick down but it always returns to the up position. I was worried about the extra wear this may put on the cradles. That is why I chose the cap nut for its smooth top. I put a chamfer on the hole I drilled to remove any burr. I then polished the edge of the hole with a stone and then a leather strop to make the surface as smooth as possible. Finaly I coated all contact surfaces with a little tacky grease to realy minimize wear and make the motion silky smooth. It's quite nice if I do say so, but I'm still curious what a normal new stick would have been like.

I am definitely predicting a price drop. I don't think it will be because of emulation or because of a loss in interest. There realy is a whole new generation becoming interested in these games. I always say video games have not gotten any better over the years they only look better. I had a friend who's son had a psp. It was hacked and he asked me to put god of war on it. The next day he wanted a different game... This went on for a while so I put on an emulator with a bunch of nes games and he was set for weeks... He loved it. For many emulation is more of a gateway drug that makes you want something more pure. Here is the thing emulation has been around for a very very long time. long before the prices rose. I believe prices are rising simply because the idea that all these games are valuable has hit the mainstream. That combined with resellers buying up and hoarding all the popular titles has simply made the idea of value become a reality. Most of these games are not rare at all, most are not really even all that uncommon. The truly rare ones will maintain value and likely rise. The vast majority I believe will fall from where there current perceived value is down to it's actual value. Which is a long way down. Actually emulation did get me into collecting. I had been emulating in the mid to late 90's with nesticle on a pentium 100. Then on my dreamcast. My dreamcast was lost for a while and I thought I just had to replace it. It was then I realized I was using it mostly for emulation so why not just replace it with the real thing? I did and the sickness only grew from there. Oh and don't worry I did get my dreamcast back.

I am actually surprised to find that the Genesis goes for that much at all now. For some reason that console seems to be the exception to this thread, in Wisconsin at least. It was not too long ago I seemed to be tripping over them at Goodwill. They are certainly not common these days but when I do see them they seem to be very cheap, only in the thrift stores mind you. When I see them at retro game stores they're like $30. Actually a little while back a goodwill here had one in the case for $19.99. It actually didn't sell and about a week later I saw it sitting on a shelf at a reduced price on $9.99. It was console only nothing else. It's wierd around here grey is the color of gold to these stores. If it's grey its going to be overpriced. Any other color you may have a shot at a deal.

Nomad with screen upgrade. Nomad video out runs into 32x. 32x video out runs into replacement screen. The Nomad is powered by its battery pack and the 32x is powered by the Game Gear battery thats clipped to my hip. And of course the extra 6 button controller for some sweet on the go Cosmic Carnage battles. The best part is its not that noticeable on your Nomad! Can you imagine I you had this as a kid. Even better you got it when you're 40. Im not going to lie this picture is a fake... It is theoretically possible, and I was considering taking on the challenge of making this. I cant bring myself to make such a permanent mod to my Nomad for something so silly. Maybe someday I'll get a spare Nomad and a spare 32x and create this monstrosity.

You will get no arguments from me on this. The end result is actually not worth the effort. For me though the effort is worth the effort. I will likely enjoy the process of getting this thing to a point where I can play games on it more than actually playing any games on it. It did not work at all when I got it and after much effort it works. Thats the real game to me. Getting a working controller and seeing it as a fully functional system is beating the game.

Honestly I think you should open that controller up and do the repairs yourself. The Vectrex controller is actually a very simple design. The hardest part is actually removing the overlay wthout destroying it. Even then there are very good reproductions. I just did a full restoration of my controller and will be documenting the whole process. There are plenty of people here who can answer any questions you may have allong the way. In my opinion developing some of these skills is very important when getting into this hobby. Without them the hobby of collecting these old consoles can come with a lot of hear breaks.