CrossBow
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Posts posted by CrossBow
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I did look and didn't really see anything on these yet posted so I will apologize ahead of time if there is. I've not said much about the mini arcade craze of the last 2 years but I do own quite a few of them. I own most of the basic fun series games and about 3 or 4 of the My Arcade series of games. All of them have been quite fun to pick up from time to time and show, but they are mostly just collectors pieces when you think about it since most of them do not play actual arcade roms and instead play the NES or other console versions of the games.
However, that isn't the case with the New Wave Toys line of Replicade mini arcades. These are literally 1/6 scale full replicas of the arcade original cabinets. I had the pleasure of seeing these in person and playing on them during the 2019 PRGE and I have to tell you, these things are pretty amazing. They have a price to match but I do feel they are worth it if you are a fan of any of the games they have released. Due to my experience with playing on these during PRGE I ended up buying one of their Tempest mini arcades and again, very impressive. I made a video dedicated to showing you the details of this particular mini arcade, but all of their replicade series games are just as detailed and well made oozing with quality. They aren't just for sitting on a shelf like an expensive executive desk toy, they are designed to be played and enjoyed! Check out the Tempest below to get an idea as I do plan to pick up more from them in the future!
- StormSurge, RickR and MalakZero
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ITC# 63 is published and available for view. In this non tech video, I go over in detail, the New Wave Toys 1/6 scale replica arcade cabinet of Atari's classic game Tempest. The New Wave Toys replicade series are very detail accurate mini arcades with full playable controls that play the actual arcade version of the games. They are emulate though I do not know the full details of what exactly is running inside to make the magic happen. Still, they are perhaps the most detailed of these mini arcades I've seen and they have another one on the horizon that I plan to get as well in the future. Enjoy this look at this wonderful adult toy for retro gamers and thank you for watching!
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ITC#62 was brought online this morning. In this video I got through the process I use for installing the new BennVenn LCD upgrade for the Lynx model II. This kit is simpler overall to install vs the McWill and much easier on the pocketbook as well. The video is not done as a comparison between the two and only details the install process. Both LCDs have their pros and cons and it is really great that we have the option between them to suit our needs. Thank you for watching the video and I hope they are of benefit to others now and in the future.
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Well..I took the plunge about a week ago and bought quite a few new components for my new PC home workstation/server/gaming setup. Just ran the user benchmark and these are scores...
UserBenchmarks: Game 96%, Desk 152%, Work 129%
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K - 105.1%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 - 84.2%
SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe PCIe M.2 250GB - 283.6%
SSD: Intel Raid 0 Volume 2TB - 177.7%
HDD: Intel Raid 0 Volume 2TB - 195.1%
RAM: Corsair CMW16GX4M2Z3600C18 2x8GB - 111%
MBD: MSI MPG Z390 GAMING PRO CARBON AC (MS-7B17)
So I should be good to go for awhile and ready for Cyberpunk 2077 next year!
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ITC#61 is now available for public viewing. It has been long overdue, but I finally put together my game play review on the wonderful little homebrew game for the Genesis known as Miniplanets! It is a fun overhead platformer with some great visual tricks to simulate rotating play fields. Originally programmed by Sik whom is well known at the Sega-16 forums back in 2016 and released in physical form back in 2017/2018. Hope you enjoy and thank you again for watching!
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On 7/28/2019 at 5:57 AM, kamakazi20012 said:
Mmm. I wonder if the PCE version will play here in the USA? It has the games I was hoping would be on the TG-16.
All variants of this mini will have the same games on them. So even the US Turbo Mini will have those games. It is really too bad that they didn't at least try and translate Snatcher though. Not like they don't have a decent translation already with the Sega CD version?! I actually own the PCE version of Snatcher in my collection, but that was only because it was way more affordable than the SCD version.
I haven't pre-ordered for this yet because I have pretty much all of these games physically that I can play on my TurboDuo that is part of the always connected consoles that I have connected up. But if it ends up being hackable like most of these others have been thus far, then that is a whole other can of worms completely. Because while I really enjoy my TG-16/PCE games collection and systems, I'm not nearly as attached to them as I am my Atari and Sega collections. I could see me unloading my turbo/pce collection at that point because there is quite a bit of value in the games and systems.
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I was tagged by a friend of mine that lives in Dallas. He first found out about it from a completely different FB group he is a member of that features pics people take of crazy stuff they find or see in Thrift stores. Anyway, once that original group posted that it was a salvation army in Tulsa (where the ITC exists..), he tagged me and other collects in this area about it. Since the nearest SA was literally only 1.5 miles from my work office, I went there after work and sure enough there they both were. 20min later one of them was loaded up in my little work S10 and headed home with me.
The story of the one you see posted doesn't quite end there. It met with a horrible accident when the wife came home. I spent the rest of Friday night and all day Saturday getting some lumber and channeling my inner carpenter skills to fix it hehe!
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Well, while my current 7 year old rig can still play most modern games at high to ultra settings at 1440p, the real issue is how long it takes to edit and render videos. I have a 4k camera but my PC just cannot handle trying to edit large 4k video on the fly. Scrubbing the video is next to impossible and I end up having to put the preview windows at very low resolutions. That sucks because I sometimes cannot see something that might be off in the video because the resolution isn't clear enough to see if in the preview. Also, all effects such as the fades cause the CPU to hit 100% for a seconds making it impossible to view such effects in the preview in real time. Most of the stuff I do or edit into the video, I don't even get to really see until I render them.
Also the video card is not on the list of components to be changes. I really only have to change out the mother board, CPU and RAM as the old case and pretty much everything else I have can still be used. But damn..just getting a nice high end i7 with a modern motherboard and 16gb of medium speed DDR4 RAM is basically a grand. Eventually I would like to get an all different and smaller case as my Antec 902 is beast along with an nvME SSD as a new boot drive in place of my aging Intel 320 series SSD I've been using for like 4+ years now?
I currently have a 1050w Corsair PSU in my PC..yes...that is 1,050watts and I know that is still usable. But it too is 7 years old and not nearly as efficient as a newer 850w gold rated one would be these days. And if I were to basically build an all new PC, then my youngest can have this current one that would still be faster than his 2 year old gaming laptop he now uses.
I know the newer AMD CPUs and chipsets seem to be wiping the floor with Intel these days, but I've never had very stable AMD setups in the past whereas all of my Intel based builds have been solid with this current one simply the best I've pieced together.
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This was mentioned by someone on the AtariAge FB group, but someone also tagged me to tell me about it as well. It has been a long time since I bought anything from a thrift store, but one of these from the local Salvation Army...
Now resides here...
... at the Ivory Tower Collections game room.
- jmjustin6 and Atari Creep
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Realized I never posted my results in this thread. Do keep in mind that my PC was originally put together back in 2012. The CPU, RAM, and Motherboard are all over 7 years old at this point. Not sure why the MBD: isn't showing but my mother board is an old Intel DBZ68BC gaming board.
UserBenchmarks: Game 90%, Desk 60%, Work 37%
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K - 69.5%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 - 109.8%
SSD: Intel 320 Series 120GB - 45%
SSD: Marvell Raid VD 0 2TB - 48.6%
HDD: WD Black 1TB (2013) - 178.1%
RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 C9 4x4GB - 59.6%
MBD: bin binOverall I've been very happy with this build and the main component have served me better than any other PC I've pieced together since the mid 90s. But, as you can see from the specs of this thing, it is getting very long in the tooth and it is time to think about a new motherboard, ram, and CPU at minimum.
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Wanted to mention that I recently did a BennVenn LCD upgrade in a clients Lynx II. It is a much simpler installation as only one easy to remove component has to come out and with the new brackets for the LCD they essentially drop in easily now to replace. Still requires nearly the same amount of soldering, but it is all along one side and area of the Lynx II making the installations look cleaner overall.
The picture from this newer LCD is softer but I think I like that more. It does show horizontal pattering across the image but not enough to really detract from the game at all. You can adjust the brightness levels of the BennVenn LCD but on the one I did the changes were very subtle and I'm not sure it needs it.
But yeah, for roughly the half the cost you can get excellent output from a Lynx II with the new BennVenn kit.
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5 hours ago, kamakazi20012 said:
The controller cover and controller port cover are both transparent plastic that's smoke colored. Hold them up to the light and you can see through them. Its that transparency that allows the power led to shine through.
Oh I know that... it is the smoked plexi that prevents me from using one of my favorite UV LEDs as a power indicator. Because the UV LED through the smoked plexi just looks blue again! LOL. But you can get 3D printer filament that is transparent. My VecMulti uses a clear colored filament. Sure it won't be mirror smooth on the section with the LED but it would still be transparent enough to allow the light to be seen and diffused in a pretty cool way I'd imagine.
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The controller door cover is really the most requested I would imagine. I've seen more 5200s lately missing that cover than with and it was the same on both models so only one design would be required.
The most difficult part of something like that, is how to give it a finish that doesn't look 3D printed because on such large objects it might take away from the overall aesthetic of the console.
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8 hours ago, Jinroh said:
I hope Lance at Video61 can help, he is a great guy.
If not I could take a look at my 5200 and possibly model up a replacement in Fusion360 that could be 3D printed.
Jin if you start 3D printing replacement 5200 case parts like the controller door and front controller cover, you will have yourself a nice little business indeed!
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Yeah... again I'm quite lucky to have a retro game shop just around the corner from me that deals in all systems including old Coleco Tabletops. As a result of this, they have a small store room full of consoles. They don't really like to spend time fixing anything older than NES (Because it just doesn't sell for them honestly), so they end up with small piles of semi working Atari systems. I've gotten small stashes of 2600s for like $5 a piece in the past and as I mentioned 5200s for pretty decent prices. Hell, the ICs in these consoles alone are worth more than what I pay for them. Even a 5200 at $25 is worth it for the Pokey and GTIA plus the case shells if they are intact.
However, most 5200s that have been sent to me for service work, usually do NOT have the controller cover as that seems to be the first thing to break off.
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I'm still using the controller quite a bit and it still works great! I might see if Curt will provide me with the high res source files for the top graphic because mine is starting to peel in the corners and bubbling starting to appear under it. I would look into getting a high quality vinyl made label done to replace this original one to see if it might not hold up better over time. Then again, vinyl can shrink up over time so...ehh...
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Is that the guy in Turkey? I;ve only used his Intellivision AV composite kits as I find his to produce the best overall results. But on the CV I've used the Retrofixes boards and those are excellent!
As to your issue, make sure you still have it all working through RF just to make sure the RF modulator and the rest of the logic is still good. Otherwise there isn't much there to check. Just make sure nothing is bridged where it shouldn't be and that your grounds are properly in place. Also I don't grab the audio from the RF modulator, I grab it from the right leg near the upper right corner of the RF modulator near the back of the main board PCB.
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Just wanted to give a quick update that I will be receiving a Lynx II with a BennVenn kit that I've been commissioned to install for another AA member. I should be able to provide a good non bias comparison once that is completed. I know that there is a little less labor involved as not as many components are required to be removed on the BennVenn mod as the McWill but ultimately it about the quality of how the games look and that I'm most curious to see. I do know that the BennVenn version does feature something I really like. The ability to adjust brightness on a few different levels using the backlight button plus the same scanlines feature that the McWill has as well. I rarely play my lynx without the scanlines because I do find the display to be a bit bright and using the scanlines feature reduces the brightness down.
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Totally recommend updating your lynx with the new firmware as well. It really does improve the operation to get the 1-9 presets or what Rafal calls Speed Dialing the games working more concisely.
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Also there is a proper way to adjust that Pokey adjustment detailed pretty throughly in the service manual. It really works best with the controller loopback board but can still be done with a proper calibrated 5200 controller as well. While there is nothing wrong with the quick adjustment you made, be aware that to get everything properly calibrated, you should go with the service manual procedure and then afterwards use the games Bounty Bob, Gyruss, and Popeye to make sure all the directions work well. Bounty Bob and Gyruss especially are crazy sensitive to being properly calibrated.
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That is what I ended up having to do with a 5200 that was sent to me for an AV upgrade and power mod. I'm guessing it wasn't packed very well and it suffered quite a bit of damage in shipping. Luckily the client had put a ton of insurance on it (Which I found strange BTW). Anyway, I didn't want to send their system back with a broken front panel and cracked to pieces lower shell so I bought a junker 5200 from the local retro game shop here for like $25 and swapped the guts into it. So it might be cheaper to go that route. Just hope that whomever ships it to you does so with plenty of packing around it!
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Yeap..and I see that Rick has already requested to be on the order list hehe. Just so you know...Rafal is out of country until I think Monday evening so if you don't get a response from him over the next day or two, you know why.
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ITC#60 shows you the awesome AgaCart designed and sold by Rafal Jankowski for your Atari Lynx! The AgaCart is pretty feature packed micro SD flash cartridge that initially comes preloaded with lots of roms and programs to play on your Atari Lynx. I show you the cartridge up close so you can see the 3D printing on it and how it looks when in use. I also go into some details on the different operation modes the AgaCart supports. Enjoy!
Starpath Supercharger seems kind of cool....
in Atari 2600
Posted
I would like to have a Supercharger cart...not really for collecting, but for use as part of my suite of games and items I use for compatibility testing when working on 7800s. I saw one at PRGE for about $35 but passed on it and I likely shouldn't have.
The Harmony does have versions of the starpath games that have been combined to work on that cart. But then you can do the same with the Unocart as well and I think the Uno is still a tad cheaper overall. It can't play any of the advance homebrews that are using additional hardware, but it can certainly play all of the released titles and protos that are out there.