CatPix

Fair. I mean, I know for sure this logo was too recent to be from a 505, and a Peugeot Logo would be a strange souvenir to bring from Europe, so it had to be from a 405 MI16 After looking, it seems Peugeot made some variants, possibly corresponding to different trimmings (and the MI16 would have been a very high one) For the back thing, you're right. I'm probably mistaking it with later variants. Funny how I just see those everyday and can't recall all those details. But heh I'm more a Citroën guy

Where in the hell did you find a Peugeot logo XD Is tha from a 405Mi16? Not even... if memory serves me right Peugeot of the era had a "free standing" logo, without the frame, and without a "back". Ad for me : two fuses (one wasn't needed but since both fuses were equally old and corroded, I figured that the other one may give up as well from old age) some sticky tape, and an electronic typewriter (from East Germany no less) was revived.

This explain why I never saw that 4.8mm version. Reading above, I'm not gonna quote because the message is from 2011, but for a powerpack, the reason why you should replace the original NiCd by NiMh is cost (not sure they still sell NiCd anyway). And the reason why you don't need to worry about NiMh exploding is because the Power pack charger does "trickle charging" or slow charging (instruction manual says you need to charge the Power Pack for 8 hours if I recall) which won't harm NiMh. Overcharging (letting the power pack plugged for more time) may damage them, but this was true of NiCd batteries as well.

Yeah. I have over 50 Japanese Hu-card and many of them bought in "lots" made by Japanese seller to get rid of unwanted games. I haven't had a single dud yet. I do have a few games that are a bit iffy with my system but I suspect that my PC-Engine connector may be the culprit (pushing Hu-cards all the way in cause issues on a few ones, pulling them back by a mere millimeter : works flawlessly).

Maybe the US "flipped lines" cause more issues to Hu-card - pardon me, Turbo-chips - than the original Japanese. or the manufacturing process was less good.

It's probably true for earlier Laserdiscs, but later ones have better video quality. Though of course you can also put in balance useability, size, etc... Video-CD though were limited to 30 min video, LD could store either 30 mins or one hour per face. VCD were one face, LD were two, so no matter what, for a movie (which are usually more than one hour long) you need 3 VCD or to have the movie cut in parts, wherehas a LD can hold 2 hours, so one movie on one LD - with a double side player, you don't even need to flip the disc. But LD are bulky and inherently limited to being read on LD players since they are "unique" and the video is analog; a VCD (Non-CD-i video) can be read today on any computer.

Maybe the non-working games are Japanese pinout versions they got for testing and design approving for the US market? Shorting seems really odd, but could be an explanation. For the weird box, I can imagine that if he tested the systems he wanted to just slam the cards in, so he made a snug fitting support to just push the cards in without having to hold the console (I'm gonna assume they use the same card connector that the PC-Engine, and those are nice and tight)

It's a different can of worms than the original topic, but you have to remember the mood BITD. I was reading magazines from 96/97 and tests written back in the day were deriding or regretting that games like Rayman were "in old-fashioned 2D instead of the fantastic 3D the Playstation is able to offer". And the game get a 13/20 on graphics, and the explanation was "visuals are fantastic but not 3D". 3D was a required step. Sega had to go 3D or die. Their failure was more due to managerial issues (AKA : stupid decisions) than the hardware or even the software. Sure, it would have helped to have a more simple console to program for, sure it would have helped to have a cheaper console, but those were only two small hurdles in front of... crass incompetence, I think we can call it that way.

It's not impossible that those expansions where shelved when faced with the low sales of the 3DO, knowing that it wouldn't really make the sales bounce back. Especially with the CDi showing that "multimedia" stuff was not a selling point - despite Philips managing to sell CD-i to museums, driving schools and other interactive-heavy applications.

3D printing really opens new perspectives for fixing out old electronics!

I'm certainly not downplaying the fact that it's quite unreliable I'm just pointing out that at this point in 2020, the already faulty designed connectors have, for the most part, either having been "cleaned" with solutions that only made the problem worse on the long run, or original connectors been replaced with crappy ones that don't even last 5 years, which make the issue looking worse than it really is. It would be like replacing the worn-out belt of a disquette drive with a desk rubber band. Maybe it will work for a few times, but it will fail faster than a proper replacement, and you could blame the design that make use of rubber belts all you want, the issue is still that on top of a poor design, a poor solution was used to solve the problem. Also, being member of a retrogaming club, we have the same issue with NESes Especially since they are hardly used and I know that at least one received Shitnese replacement connectors. It was replaced 2 years ago and it's already failing. I have demanded to replace at least the "expo" NES connector with a Blinking Light Win one but 2020 came and all manifestations have been cancelled, so no money for this year. For personnal anecdotes, on my side, I cleaned my original NES connector with vinegar and bent the pins back with a ruler (a crucial but almost always neglected step) back in 2008 or 2009 and my NES accept my games 7 times out of 10, and usually, cleaning the cart solve the issue.

Though, it's noticeable that the original Nintendo connector lasted for about 15/20 years (and I have and know a few ones with their original connector). It acquired a dreadful reputation or breaking so often due do the shoddy cheap 10$ replacement connectors made available in the 2000's that are of terrible quality. That and the dubious recipes to "clean" the connectors, such as boiling them, which only make things worse since you're just soaking the connector in water, which just accelerate oxidation and make the "fix" last a few years at best, or washing them in a mixture of water+cleaning agent, which still cause the oxydation issue (don't use water). Though, it's still a very poor design since we have older systems that last longer. The Fairchild Channel F have a similar system, where you insert the cartridge until it "click" down in place, and you "eject" it, pretty much like a tape from an autoradio. Yet it seems those wear down less... Though it may simply be that those console saw less usage and are less worn down overall. There's a second reason, thinking about it, and it's more on the cartridge side. On a standard connector, there is quite a good strenght applied on the cart pins, meaning that insertign the cartridge scrape oxydation on the PCB. We've all done this : pulling and putting back a cart a few time to see a glitchy game becoming playable. The NES connecto name say it all : ZIF : Zero Insertion Force. Thus, the NES connector doesn't "auto-clean" the carts. And a perfectly fne connector may be accused to be causing troubles when in fact, it's the cartridge fault.

I don't understand where the argument wanna go. Especially when mixing Commodore with Sega. First, Commodore was in the computer business. They did not need the games. They had no need for making recognizeable games or mascot; their market was larger than games; the reason why the C64 is the most sold computer are certainly not gamers, but businesses and (for the US) schools, and student buying the computer they worked on at school. It even ignore the fact that Commodore wanted to end the C64 but didn't because it kept selling. Ultimately, the C64 was ended because Commodre themselves ended. Else, the C64 would have been made and supported until 1995. The Amiga had a market in video editing, 3D modeling, etc.. The Amiga's failure is mostly due to Commodore's poor decisions for half baked upgrades, a growing and confusing range of computers that were not even 100% compatible with each other (not helped by crazy mixed numeratation : the Amiga 1000 was the first computer, with less RAM than the Amiga 500. But the Amiga 1200 is indeed "better" than the Amiga 600, which was a failure because it should had replaced the A500 but was partly incompatible... and The Amiga 2000 and more were better than all. Confused much?). In both cases, they had no need for flagship games. The reason why we remember as game machines today is because... well, it's why we're here after all. Also, no one but a few crazy people use a C64 daily for type letters or do accounting. For Sega, again, their issue was more a string of bad management decision, and more importantly, the growing gap between Sega Japan and Sega of America. 32X? Sega USA. Sega Nomad? Sega USA. Failure to sell the Saturn in the USA (and Europe?) Sega of USA (the unfamous early sale without warning and without stocks for the US sales, and taking over Sega of Europe for distributing games, which meant that any games deemed "not good for the US" would never make it to Europe; very jarring when grey market and direct import for the Master System and Megadrive where part of the appeal of both systems in Europe; also, most gaming zines would feature Japanese Saturn games, that European gamers would never see.) As for games with no identity? Sonic has a defined one. I was watching Sonic cartoons before I even heard of the word Sega. Probably less know in the US but European gamers still hope to see an Alex Kidd game at any point in time. Again, there is certainly mismanagement of the Sonic franchise (and total abandonnement of Alex Kidd and Shinobi) but when they were actual IP, they were huge and recognized by every console gamers.

For the difference between GBC and BG games, there are 2 things to consider (and those might explain why you saw that some people think they are the same). The GBC is more than "a Game Boy in color" it's a Game Boy with a CPU twice the speed, twice the RAM, and supporting thousand of shades of color (4096? Going by memory, though it's not very important for my explanation) as opposed to the 4 shades of gray of the Game Boy. It would be more clear if Nintendo had called it the Super Game Boy 😛 Now why does many people thing they are the same, save for the fact that most GBC games looks like Game Boy games? Well it's because there are two types of Game Boy Color games : The Game Boy Color "compatible" games, and the "true" Game Boy color games. GAme Boy Color compatible games are game that will run on the Game Boy, but when inserted into a Game Boy color, will reveal an adapted color palette. Those games are recognised with their "black Game Boy" shell : True Game Boy Color games won't work at all in a Game Boy. They use the translucent shell which lack the "corner notch" that physically prevent the Game Boy from powering on with a GBC game inserted. Ideally, you could have an original or Pocket Game Boy for Game Boy games, and a Color system for GBC games. Note that since the GBC was released in 1998 and the whole Game Boy lien terminated in 2001, there aren't so many great GBC-only games. Thoguh there are some gems amongt them, like Shantae, which is mind-blowingly so detailed it looks like an early GBA game. If you really get n love with the Game Boy, I can only recommand you to get a GB Boy Colour : it's cheap usually, it has a color backligth screen and very economical on batteries. Sure it's not original, but it's more useable unless you mod your original game boy for backlight, and if you break or lose it... not a big deal. The Everdrive GB is also recommanded; given the price of most GB games, the 100 or so Euros needed for the carts isn't so much considered that many big GB titles sells for 20€ each...

Maybe you've been hanging around too much Jaguarophiles boards. To me, the idea that the Jaguar was more powerful than the 3DO hasn't been a mainstream topic of discussion in most gaming forums and boards for the past 15 years at least, when people really delved into 3DO development (which was slowed alot due to both the custom chips, lack of documentation (at the time) and the locking key required for game to run on the real hardware (cracked around 2016). One place where it might be true is the 2D aspect of the 3DO, which appears to be less developped than on the Jaguar; but it make sense in the context that the 3DO was envisionned primarly as a 3D machine and sprites would be used for HUD. Still, with clever use of polygons, media displaying, you get games like Gex on the 3DO. For CD bottleneck, you can see an example here with the game stopping a second to load the animations of Gex. And it's not an emulation or hardware issue, I've seen the same thing happening on my own 3DO and a friend's 3DO.

I only ever saw the battery packs and GG using the older SMS/MD1 tip. Maybe (most probably?) your second GG unit was repaired, and whoever did it, be Sega or just a guy skilled in electronics, used the more recent connector available. Maybe thy guy had a SMS II or a Megadrive II and didn't want to buy another power supply. Maybe Sega changed the power supply tip on late models. Maybe it's a Jaleco model you got?

Galactix or Galacta? Or maybe it was renamed. Galacta : the battle for Saturn for MS-DOS. Released in 92 or 93 apparently, but a very early 80's feel. I had it, enver got far, but a friend of mine deeply into shooters (they made a few "10 top world records" on obscure - obscure in Occident, that is - Japanese shooters from Cave, to situate the player level ) knew of it and said it was a very decent shooter, so that's enough for me to say it's worth checking

Power supplies are always a bother. For the Master System, it use a standard 9volts power supply, so you can replace it with an European 9V power supply (or any 9V DC PSU delivering at least 1000mA). The Neo Geo CD also have a replaceable power supply but it's a two-voltage thing with a proprietary connector. I'm not sure how easy or hard original European PSU for the NGCD are to find. There is one on Aliexpress : https://www.aliexpress.com/i/4000134189016.html but it looks kiiinda dodgy. I have one question tho, do you really need those systems to be plugged on all the time? Don't get me wrong, but, save for the Saturn and Master System, none of the system you list really grant much need to be kept ready to fire 24/7, unless you score a Laseractive with the PC-Engine and Megadrive modules. And as I said, you can replace the SMS power supply easily. Else, your idea isn't too bad. Just be careful to see which of your system draw the more power and check if your step down converter can stand it. The msot commno ones are a little short in power sometime, and I suspect the Laseractive is quite beefy in power requirements. In the long run tho, I'd advice you to check if you can replace the power supplies of your machines if you aren't 100% standing on "original" and/or don't plan to resell the machines. 3DO is rather easy to replace, Saturn is a PITA due to multiple revisions but some boards can be switched to 230 volts easily. I have no idea about the PC-FX or Laseractive power supplies.

It was true for early versions of the Microvision (games, since the CPU is in the game, not the system) used a TI TMS 1100 CPU which was 4 bits, and the CPU used in the Telstar Arcade console (which is then a microprocessor-powered console and not a Pong) is a MOS MPS-7600-001, which SEEMS to be 4 bits.

Most light guns won't work. Some early models will work, like Pong guns, if you set up light and contrasts in the extremes (they rely on the presence of light, not timing), and light guns using a receptor (like the Philips CD-i gun and the Wiimote) will work because those use the receptor and not the television.

The nonsense was to use bits and not bytes/octets, for a journalist. 4.4 gigabits amount to 550 megaoctets, which is what you would expect for a CD of the early 90's. For the background, given there a quite a los of numbers, I feel like that, along with the 4,4 gigabits disk, that this was just copied from a Sega press statement more than bad journalism. Very interesting nonetheless. Well, that isn't wrong, it's really a gaming experience unlike anything before! He doesn't state (in your quote at least) that it was a GOOD thing

There were alot of games, including good ones, but lots of FMV games and most other games were ports of cart games with a few added things and music. Also most of those games were NOT from Sega. Looking at a list of games, there were about 200 Mega-CD games, with about 20 developed by Sega. For comparison, on about 700 games for the PC-Engine Cd-ROM², Hudson made over 70 games (most of them between 1988 and 1991). Sega aexecutives I think, meant that Sega themselves didn't made oustanding games and created original licences to support the support, not that globally, there weren't enough games. There weren't enoguh games from Sega themselves.

Did Sony approached Nintendo? Wasn't that the othey way around, when Nintendo got worried to see that the PC-Engine Cd-ROM addon was getting big, and that Sega announced their own already? In the long run, I don't think it would have changed much. Atari didn't had (at least at this time) the mindset of encouraging developers (I remember reading interviews of French developers working on Atari Falcon and Jaguar games, and they all said that working with Atari was an uphill battle. Though, they might have been communicating with Atari France, not Atari USA) and the success of a peripheral is supported also by providing games. NEC-Hudson had, well, Hudson, churning games for the CD-ROM², which encouraged sales, which encouraged other develoeprs to step in, which encouraged sales, etc... On the other hand, the failure of the Mega CD is attributed by former Sega executives to the lack of games by Sega on the add-on. Ultimately, unless Sony went out of their way and made games for an hypothetical "Sony Panther CD", it wouldn't have changed much.

Did I wrote to those guys telling them my opinion? Did I said it was bad and should be stopped? I don't see the relationship with that and "kids so fat and not playing baseball" since it's pretty much what I experimented myself (and I do see the shortcoming of that way of life, but it's not what I said, not even what I hinted at). I just pointed out that what they did so far was NOT new, and that, IMO, it wasn't going anywhere. I also said "it's certainly a neat project and a fun thing to tinker with". I'm sure that those guys will go out and learn new things from tinkering with it, but that, by itself, this EnGage project as it's currently made won't go anywhere interesting outside of a limited circle (engineers, technicians, etc). Unless they improve it a bit and make it useable.

Hmmm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_panel#History "Novel ideas indeed". Also, novel in video gaming : And yes, those don't use the panels to charge a battery, they are entierely relying on the solar panels. And they work as long as they are exposed to the sunlight, or a reasonnably powerful home light source. AND THEY HAVE SOUND! I do'nt see what those guys are trying to prove. Batteryless devices? They exist. Powering electronics on and off constantly wear out said electronics. Same for their "quick saving" : efficient flash is more fragile and costly to manufacture. I mean it's certainly a neat project and a fun think to tinker with, but this isn't gonna go anywhere. If you wanna play with your Game Boy without batteries, there is a solution :