Retro Gaming

up-n-atom

up-n-atom

DARKLY Regular
Over the holidays I traveled back to the 1980's and 90's without the use of a flux capacitor. On Christmas Eve, at my grandparents, my cousins 3 and 5 year old children wanted to play Sonic the Hedgehog on the derelict Sega Genesis, which we hooked up and collected coins. On Christmas Day, at their grandparents, they had their fathers NES hooked up and playing their favourite game: Contra (from the 3 year old: "because you never die" - their father enters a cheat code). On Boxing Day, at my parents, we hooked up the Sega Saturn and crashed a lot in Daytona USA and wipEout.

After travelling back to the present day each of those evenings, I googled various systems and stumbled up on the retrofitting scene. It was all it took to set me on the journey to get all my systems back into tip-top shape. That final evening on Boxing Day, I poked and prodded my parents home looking for my consoles and handhelds. I've decided to keep my consoles relatively untouched as they're more valuable, but I ordered various hardware advancements for my oldest handhelds: Game Boy and Game Gear.

I've begun with the Game Boy which I bought on Boxing Day 1989 (25 year anniversary) and is easily modifiable. Nintendo has a thriving scene from retro-fitters to chip-tuners and there is an abundance of retrofits and mods available, but I started with the most crucial which is a edge-lit backlight mod. Below is the final result and I've put up an album with various stages of dis-assembly and testing with more photos coming.

15637151143_1c641470a1.jpg


If Darkly continues to be DDoSed I will work on the Game Gear this week. If any of you have a Game Gear you will probably need to retrofit it 1 day because the capacitors go bad.
 
14bux

14bux

Senior TF2 Admin
Nice, I've been meaning to retrofit my NES for a long time, as I have an extra. Not sure what I'd want to do with it, but I've seen some fitters that made a portable N64 handheld, so I'd be surprised if couldn't be done with the NES. Neat though, how it works.
 
up-n-atom

up-n-atom

DARKLY Regular
14bux said:
Nice, I've been meaning to retrofit my NES for a long time, as I have an extra. Not sure what I'd want to do with it, but I've seen some fitters that made a portable N64 handheld, so I'd be surprised if couldn't be done with the NES. Neat though, how it works.
Click to expand...

That would be cool, I've seen it done. Had some great times with the NES and my favourite game is a toss up between Super Mario Bros. 3 and Galaxy 5000, leaning more towards the former. I'd love to get my hands on an Analogue Nt or a Super 8 v2 but I'm content with my old faithful gray box.

EDIT: That looks neat.

 
Last edited:
$alvador

$alvador

TD Member
man flickr fucking hates me, i can't view the album on any browser :\ this stuff is pretty cool, i haven't done too much myself but i did mod a PSP a bit, just removed the UMD drive since it was a bunch of dead weight
 
up-n-atom

up-n-atom

DARKLY Regular
When I initially purchased all the mod hardware for the Game Boy, I was out of luck in sourcing a clean-mod bi-vert PCB because all the shops were sold out and pending new inventory, due to the holiday season. I decided to cut my loss and use the plain old 7404 IC, but I was never satisfied with the result (IMG #1). I knew the cost was negligible to manufacture my own PCB and that's exactly what I ended up doing (IMG #2). The final result (IMG #3), is a lot more desirable and easier to install. I may try to sell off the excess units, but for now I'm satisfied with 1st the fab and their quality and 2nd that it's so damn fun and affordable to toy around. I am already scheming a soft-latching iteration of the PCB (aka. button to switch between negative/positive display), and for the Game Gear: a custom cut acrylic bracket to complete its backlight mod.

16078660790_52ec2e5ccc.jpg

16503763112_40ed35bce1.jpg

16344685209_6dd0eb4108.jpg


Full versions of the images can be found in my flickr album.
 
Last edited:
amanshotme

amanshotme

TD Member
Hooked up my NES and SNES to my LCD TV a few years ago and damn...you really need to play these on CRTs. Was feeling some weird input lag when playing action platformers which just drove me nuts lol.
 
Brains

Brains

TD Admin (and LiR)
amanshotme said:
Hooked up my NES and SNES to my LCD TV a few years ago and damn...you really need to play these on CRTs. Was feeling some weird input lag when playing action platformers which just drove me nuts lol.
Click to expand...
Should hook my old consoles on my 55 inch CRT. Things like 200lbs :smug:
 
Brains

Brains

TD Admin (and LiR)
amanshotme said:
A friend of mine has a 55 inch CRT in his basement. He can't get rid of the thing so he uses it for his home theatre. Thing is almost 30 years old lol.
Click to expand...
Haha. I don't use mine anymore after I got my 60 incher. I'm not exactly sure how old it is but I think its early 2000s. Still nice though lol
 
up-n-atom

up-n-atom

DARKLY Regular
amanshotme said:
Hooked up my NES and SNES to my LCD TV a few years ago and damn...you really need to play these on CRTs. Was feeling some weird input lag when playing action platformers which just drove me nuts lol.
Click to expand...

Mostly everyone uses a XRGB Framemeister (Reviews 1 2) from what I've read. I purchased my grandparents a new TV so I could acquire their Sony Trinitron CRT but my grandpa has been complaining a lot about it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top