CatPix

This is a Bailing-Lee/PAL/FM connector. IMO this may be a poor idea as those kind of converters are meant to be used with video (analog emitters, VCR) so there might be a good deal of delay in the analog-to-digital processing. Also you'll need a FM-to-F connector converter, those exists but it's a bit of a bummer to add a converter on a brand new acquisition (especially since the FM connector isn't the greatest, especially when built to Chinese quality standards.)

Neat design and idea, but sheesh... Just because something is made of aluminium doesn't make it a "MacBook". And call me old-fashionned but for me, MacBook are white 😛 The chromed buttons doesn't say "Apple" either. But still, neat idea to save a broken Sp. Doesn't solve the absurdly minuscule size of the thing but heh. .

Ashens did a review of the Game King, and showcase a decent load of games on it : It isn't a LCD game, it features a true screen ("LCD games" are usually G&W/Tiger types games) and games come on ROM - even tho some Game King clones use either fakes carts, or a menu without possibility tu play other games.

Nope. You're right in that technically, the video signal is about the same in RF and composite, but it's not "just" composite, and there is more than just a switchbox. RF combine the composite video signal, AND sound, and send them over radio waves. To be more technical, luma (the B&W signal) is sent using AM, as well as the chroma/color signal. AM is prone to interferences. But more importantly, as you can hear on AM radio, AM transmission always have a "background noise". You don't hear it on TV, but your TV tuner, first, need to be and remain perfectly tuned on the luma carrier, chroma carrier and audio carrier. Should one get slightly off and you'll have a more or less visible degradation of the picture or sound. This simply doesn't happen with composite. Second, your TV circuitry must get ride of the radio carrier to get the most clear picture, then, to separate the luma from chroma, need a "comb filter" that will "pull" the chroma signal. The poorer the comb filter is, the poorer the image will be - this is gonna be common to RF and composite, but again, if your TV doesn't pic the chroma carrier at the right place then the TV will work on a bad signal. This is also why S-video looks so great : being that both those signals are analog, mixing luminance and chrominance in the same signal will always result in some signal loss : you will lose some luminace definition AND chrominance information. S-video not only remove the comb filter step from the TV but it also provide the television with both unaltered luminance and chrominance signals. Also, I think that the FM signal width used on TV is limiting the audio signal - remember that the norm was defined in the monophonic era - so even on the sound departement you are losing in quality. But usually, the difference is hardly noticeable. Going back to the interferences, a RF console is basically (as someone mentionned earlier) a miniature TV emitter. The thing is that they aren't broadcast-quality emitter and can be quite sensitive to electric noise; also, the whole cable will behave like an antenna, and in both ways : it will emit (that's why you had those ridiculous FCC laws that turned US consoles into tin cans) but also receive. Letting your antenna cable going near the console's own power supply will induce signal distortion way more easily over RF than over composite. All of those reason mean that objectively, composite is always the better choice over RF. But again, sometime you don't have a choice, or you do not care, which is fine.

As far as I understand, yes, at least for rotary-using TV. This is why US TV channels would fight to get the lowest possible "channel" so people would find their broadcast faster when "exploring" the waves.

There's a case where the lowest option may be closer to the original visions of the game creators; when programmers use the "color blending" effect of composite to simulate extra colors or transparency effects. Those effects will appears on RF and composite video but will vanish with S-video and RGB. Examples here in Sonic: Composite : RGB : And Rikki&Vikki : RF Emulation or PC version: Another case is the NES, which use a NTSC color palette by default, so, for RGB solutions, namely TimRGB's chip or even the official PlayChoice-10 RGB chip form Nintendo, the NES colors are often "off" in RGB mod. Note that in any case, RF add nothing to those effects. The difference like in the use of RGB or (depending on the case) S-video.

Me and Carlson meant that in Europe in general, RF is more of a PITA to use because the console or computers tuners are rarely tuned to match a channel frequency. Tho your comment make me think that "console tuning" does exist, and indeed mostly appears on European machines. Partial example only but you can adjust the sound offset here. Here the control is quite prominent (Kanal) I assume that the idea was that people would rather tune the console than the television. An interesting example is also found on the C64 : On NTSC versions, you have a L-H (Low-High) switch to select between channel 3 and 4. http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/c64/h/back.jpg In Europe, the switch is replaced with an adjustable tuner screw :

Just to complete what Carlson said : On European TV since the mid 60's, "channels" aren't selected with a big rotary knob with pre-tuned channels, but would come with (depending on the era) 2 to 8 switches, each with their own mechanical tuner (or digital for later TV) (no, this TV doesn't only go form VHF 1 to 8 ) On this pic, you can see the "tuner" with the red bar used for tuning) And those tuners would be tuned like a radio; both because I assume making them pretuned would be horribly complex but also because OTA TV was the rule or a good part of broadcast way in the 80's, and over long distances, as most channels would be State owned, and the State would want the greatest coverage possible; signal drifting happens when you try to get OTA signal from far away; this also allowed emitters to have some "tolerance" in their own tuning. And you can add, that due to this fact, consoles using RF, especially US ones, sometime simply used the US tuner. Why not? maybe tune it up a bit more so it falls withing the PAL VHF band. Some systems used UHF; many European countries moved TV up to UHF quickly because it's a less interference-heavy band, less prone to erratic propagation (VHF signals from the UK TV system could be picked on the US coast quite often, and as far as Australia in the right conditions) and also, for France and the UK, because VHF was used by their "legacy" TV system (405 lines System A in the UK, 819 lines System E in France - I think Italy and Belgium might also have kept a legacy TV system running on the VHF band). As such UHF RF consoles were required, because in Germany for example, newer color TV may only have an UHF tuner, and British and French TV wouldn't be able to tune on a PAL/SECAM signal on the VHF band at all, for most of them. Now I didn't got enough German and UK consoles to test it, but for the French consoles, the UHF tuners were all over the place, with a console being tuned exactly on canal 35 or 36 a rarity, and usually more being in the middle. That mean that even if your own PAL (or SECAM) consoles that are all VHF or UHF, it's almost impossible to expect all of them to be tuned on the same frequency, so you practically have to tune a channel of your TV for ONE system and only one; and remember which consoles goes where, what Carlson described as "1 = Atari 2600, 2 = Intellivision, 3 = C64 etc,"

It's not impossible that some odd video system out there use different techniques that result in piss-poor composite and decent RF, but I do not know of it. The reason why, on systems like the SNES that has bog RF and composite out, RF can't be better than composite is because the RF is made from the composite signal; as a result, if the composite circuitry is bad then the RF wo'nt be any better. Now, on an individual machine, or on a series of machines, there may be a design or part issue after the point where composite and RF signal split (from the composite source to the composite pins on the back of the console) where a break or an issue cause a signal degradation that will appear only on the composite and not RF. But it would be an exception (for a manufacture issue) or a problem limited on one machine (broken part). On RF-only system, the issue is that mods are not equal, they may be made for ease of use (importing a PAL machine to the US for example) with only a minimum of parts, or made by hobbyist with more passion that skills. One common problem in RF-only system is that while the video signal feeding the RF unit may be "composite" it may not (will not, in most cases) be a standard TV composite signal. Tapping into it with no or mimimal circuitry to make it a proper, clean signal may result in a weak, dark image with crosstalk or other issues. It's why most "good" A/V mod those days usually goes directly tapping the signal from the video chip directly, or out of the DAC (Digital Analog Converter, the chip that convert digital video signals to analog). In both cases, the idea is to bypass most of the console's own circuitry. (it also usually allow to keep using the original video output, something that older mods usually don't allow). And there's also, as I mentionned, the TV display itself may be at fault. Now again I think most TV use the same composite circuit for RF and composite input but some TV may use different circuits to reduce crosstalk (I hadd a cheap TV where, when switching to AV, you could still faintly see the RF channel - or snow - behind, as if the A/V was layered over the RF signal, but it probably was the video signal bleeding over the composite input).

The problem here is that you're comparing, for the Intellivision and Colecovision factory-made video output (RF) with unofficials mods made years later, that might have been poorly conceived, poorly executed, or both. Also in your comparison video, you aren't showing the video on the same television. Your second television may have a poor composite input or even a whole video issue. There's no way that composite can be worse than RF since RF is composite video, "degraded" to fit on a television signal canal (composite video out of the SNES should have 480 visible lines; RF video signals, from consoles or even television broadcast, rarely goes over 400 lines) Now, does it look "more nostalgic" to you? Maybe, it is a matter of personnal taste. Like how I prefer to play on low-to-middle consumer grade TV from the 80's and 90 rather than on professionnal -grade Sony or JVC monitors from the 90's/2000's. But that doesn't make your choice, or mine, inherently "better".

Neat but also "Nintendo Switch was released in 2017 that Nintendo officially supported using the same device for handheld and TV gaming." Poor Wii U, already forgotten

If the retrotink cable can take unamplified RGB signal all you really need is a connector taking the RGB signal from the back connector; it mean either modding a Tennokoe or an IFU 30 and picking the signal from there. If the retrotink cables need a "TV level" signal, you'd need to build a pre-amp, there are one-chip solutions for that, too. Both Teenokoe and IFU-30 would have enough room to even put an HDMI out directly on them, but you could also choose to make a RGB output using the DIN output of the Megadrive (which would require your a separate stereo output) or using the connector for a console with direct stereo out.

Always nice to get to see the stuff that could have been!

I never bought any of my stuff from "reputable source or auctions" (save for stuff from Japan) - though, I'm not concerned since usually it's because I buy my stuff utterly cheap. I don't see how people would universally be aware that "this stuff" was hot, unless you have sources that the sellers behaved in a shady way (selling in large quantities?) ?

And that good old high pitched whine. And older TV looked so more original.

The LM chip would be included in any active converter I would like to advice you on converters but I haven't tested many. There are cheap multi-input boards "for arcade" on eBay, I gotta try them but I never seen "independant" advices on them. https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Arcade-Game-RGB-CGA-EGA-YUV-to-VGA-HD-Video-Converter-Board-HD9800-GBS8200-STHH/313328248859?hash=item48f3d1a81b:g:j7cAAOSwaIpcGydK

There are two issues in connecting video RGB to VGA : - sync signal difference. Video RGB use composite video (technically, it use an analog sync signal embedded in the composite signal) VGA use two digital signals defining the vertical and horizontal resolution. This one problem is adressed rather easily with the LM 1881 chip. However, you will run in a second problem, which is that standard Tv use interlaced video, which produce a 15 Khtz signal. VGA standard is progressive signal, which mean that the display will expect a 30 khtz signal. So unless you got the odd chance of a VGA display supporting 15 khtz (age doesn't mean anything, vintage amber CRT might refuse to display interlaced video while recent flatscreens will accept it) So to answer your first question, you will basically need an active converter stepping up your RGB signal to standard VGA, unless you can try and test and see if your display can support 15 Khtz.

We can add that in 1983 Sega released the SC-3000, which is an upgraded SG 1000 with a keyboard, more RAM and an upgraded video chip, making it a mini-computer. (and the basis for the future Master System) It's not unlikely that, as with other systems of the era, Sega might have planned to have an ecosystem of console, computer (and arcade?) based on the same chips.

I'll be interested in the pad review. That might be the only worthwhile part. I do'nt expect too much tho, most pads in the same price range are mediocre so that one shouldn't come as a big surprise either.

Yep. It's not very important. An electrical device will only draw what it need from the power source, not more. It can be an issue with older unregulated power supplies tho because if the load is too low, voltage rise. I assume tho that Sega dimensionned the GG power supply to take the extra voltage.

And from the other side of the Pond, I never saw any GG taking yellow tip adapter. I imported a Japanese one and same, it's a "standard" barrel. I assume Sega provided Europe and Japan with "standard" connectors because in Japan all consoles used the regular 9V barrel tip (including the Famicom) and in Europe, the Master System was popular enough that they could argue consumers didn't had to buy an extra adapter. I guess in the USA they changed for the new tip due to the popularity of the Genesis and to streamline their product line. As to why they changed the power supply... It's a weird decision, given there's no major differences in the electrical specs of both systems.

As I said, tastes and colors I find it bland, but as I said, except for the 3DO, all consoles of that gen seems to have only minimal though put in the design; to be more precise, in the aesthetics (the functionnal design is mostly good). But again, it's a matter of tastes and discussing them would mostly be sterile.

Taste and colors... personally the N64 overall design is quite bland (as is the design of consoles of this era anyway). This one may be anachronistic, may not please everyone but at least it took a radical approach. Also it seems to have been made with decent quality control and decent plastics.

From what I see here : There's nothing but a diode to drop the 6 V to 5V, so NO, don't ever use 9 volts on the Super Pong. I would also recommand using a regulated power supply instead of a power brick. Unfortunately there aren't many modern sources of 6V... I think old Nokia phone chargers were 6 volts; if you have the knowledge, you can replace the original tip by a mono jack (It's level 101 of electricity and soldering )

"It's a-me, murderer"