General Arcade & Retro Chat' Special Championship Edition

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118833429#Comment_118833429

Are you being contrarian, let's see....do you know anyone who has a Sega Nomad with a composite fed car reversing camera screen in place of the original screen, powered by camcorder batteries?

☺️

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118833853#Comment_118833853

Actually speaking of those batteries, I see the one in this mod gives 4 hours of battery life - the creator of that mod needs to get in touch with whoever you ordered your perpetual energy batteries from!

Steve X2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118834167#Comment_118834167

That's a small internal battery. You can stick the external battery pack on as well.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118834305#Comment_118834305

Nice - reckon you'll pick one up yourself? I wonder how much Nomads with completed kits will be clocking in at. (I think the usual screen / battery mod ones go for about 500 eurons)

Steve X2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118834433#Comment_118834433

Yeah I'll go for one I think. Not fully clear on how you order it yet but will figure that out fairly handy. I want all the extras with it, and my soldering skills are passable at best so I'll probably find someone who has the proper skillset to do it for me.

Not this person though 😀

Spooch

Would I be mad thinking this tv would be suitable for an Snes/N64/Ps1 setup?

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/tv-and-home-entertainment/televisions/televisions/sharp-1t-c32bc5kh2fb-32-smart-hd-ready-led-tv-10192437-pdt.html

Has SCART, Composite and Component inputs. I've a Retrotink 5 on the way aswell.

Jack burton

Always wanted a nomad but always missed out on picking one up. I'd assume they are mental money now?

KeRbDoG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118836368#Comment_118836368

SCART is rare on new TVs these days, lots of set on Adverts.ie here though prob also have a mix of those sockets for over half the price

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118836368#Comment_118836368

If you've a retrotink 5 on the way just commit to HDMI in for all your scart based stuff. I haven't gone near scart on anything that's not a CRT, the retrotink does an amazing job.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118836853#Comment_118836853

Just had a look on ebay and prices are all over the place.

Going by the sold ones, there still looks to be some deals had around the 200-250 mark. Main annoyance being they're all coming from the US so tax might be an issue.

CiDeRmAn

Kerb' modded my Nomad screen years ago and it's good enough for me!

I did the battery mod and, while it's no where near as neat as that one, it does have an immense capacity and works perfectly.

If the mod was more affordable, I might give it a go, but if it is around 300/500 I'd have to pass

o1s1n

Fairly sure my one has exactly the same mods as yours as it's still trucking away perfectly. I actually quite like the fact that it has composite video instead of RGB too (never thought I'd ever say that!)

The screen is crystal clear due to the tiny size and you also get to see all the composite dithering effects that are missing from RGB.

DaveyDave

I regret not getting a Nomad years ago, The Rage had one back in 2014 or so and the lads in work actually encouraged me to hop on the bike and cycle into town on my lunch break to get it. Should have got it...

Doge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118747112#Comment_118747112

That’s absolutely gorgeous looking Andrew, thanks for sharing!

Super EF2000 came with our first pc in the 90s and was a flight sim with low poly graphics that was ahead of its time. You got to simulate flying the Eurofighter jet in advance of it being commissioned in 2000 I believe and this game has a similar look. It had a large Scandinavian map and don’t ask me how it managed to run fine on a pentium 166 with 16MB’s of RAM! It was the first sim or game where you could see all the cockpit controls from outside the jet exactly as they appeared in first person view, even racing games on the PS1 didn’t do that for ages.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118838848#Comment_118838848

To be fair, I'd largely agree. Even the composite screen is a biblically good upgrade over the original screen, and because its small, the games still look crisp and sharp. I'm not entirely sure I'd go to the trouble of the full RGB kit (unless it was really attractively priced), especially given I'd never use a Nomad as a 'daily driver' anyway.

I might pick a Nomad up at some stage, but it'd likely be living life as a display piece/curio rather than something I actually play Megadrive games on.

Tom Mann Centuria

Fine line modding retro gear isn't there, I always have Trigger's Broom in the back of my mind. Personally I like that old stuff still gets used, even if one or two (or possibly more) parts aren't original, I appreciate the other side of course, that there's something lovely about having it like it came out of the factory, even if you can't use it or that its an inferior experience to modern emulation etc.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841664#Comment_118841664

Yeah definitely, it's always going to be very subjective. In more recent years, I've taken a huge disliking to destructive mods like drilling holes for switches etc. I'm far more interested in preserving the original aesthetic of a machine, and if needs be, a few nice modern conveniences under the shell.

Things like switchless region/display mods, mod chips for region free/backup play, ODE's/GoTek devices and the likes are all thumbs up from me. All the better if the mod is reversible if possible.

I don't mind dipping into things like IPS screen mods on handhelds with abysmal/unusable screens though, provided the logic board (the brains of the machine) is kept. Those old screens are a mere byproduct of crap technology of the era, and don't enhance the experience in any way. That said, it should be reversible and not be destructive. Secondly, I've absolutely no problem buying a broken machine/handheld, and bringing it back to like with a new shell and screen....that's actually the ideal reason to perform these upgrades....rather than the device ending up dead, it's given a new lease of life and preserved.

Emulation has taken a separate path, with many many modern conveniences, and that's fine, but original hardware offers a different experience. Emulation is brilliant to just play and enjoy a game. Original hardware captures the experience of playing it as it was meant to be. Two very different, though equally enjoyable things.

Andrew76

Decided to plug in some of my handhelds not in the attic, just to keep the batteries ticking over and remembered the Nomad being mentioned here. Of course the battery is still going strong, think it will out live the lot of us. 😂

CiDeRmAn

I'm thinking of investing in the screen/battery mod for my Turbo Express, it's a great grail handheld for me but the stock screen is awful, and it eats batteries

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118842323#Comment_118842323

Atomic power ftw ☺️

Colonel Panic

I have at least two of each console I play. One I usually mod, the other I keep stock.

Not possible for rarer stuff, of course!

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843115#Comment_118843115

I find myself definitely slipping into that train of thought, but try to refrain these days. I'm trying to stick to one nice clean example of each (either stock, or else non destructive/reversible internals mods done) unless it's something significant like an IPS mod.

KeRbDoG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118837819#Comment_118837819

Surely thats my Nomad you are are looking after right? :) Hopefully this won't go all Mega-CD

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118842559#Comment_118842559

Now there's one console I've always lusted after but never owned. Do I remember correctly or are the caps prone to going on them similarly to the Gamegear?

Speaking of the PCE, my own one is on the fritz, switched it on for the first time there recently in about a year and it's only booting to a grey screen unfortunately. Might look into picking up a nice refurbished one.

Edit - and now I am looking at Duo-Rs on ebay! that escalated quickly.

o1s1n

Trying to make a decision re the best way of playing my NGP games, what would you dudes do?

Option 1: Buy a screen modded NGP on ebay now for about 220-250 euro.

Option 2: Pre order an Analogue pocket for fulfilment sometime in 2023 and hope the NGP adapter thing is released for it.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846358#Comment_118846358

I think I'm going to buy a standard PC Engine & CD Rom adapter myself actually. I had an RGB modded Duo-R I bought from Andrew years ago, but never really 'bonded' with the console. It's a nice machine, but for whatever reason, I prefer original consoles with their external addons, as opposed to all in ones. The same thing happened me with the Twin Famicom I had, lovely machine, but felt a bit 'empty' to play....hard to explain. I've a Famicom & Famicom Disk System now instead, which I much prefer.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846388#Comment_118846388

Tough one to call. Option A gives you original hardware with some modern niceties to enjoy it all the more. Option 2 gives you an FPGA Rolls Royce handheld machine, that'll give you many more options to enjoy games on. Truthfully, and in all seriousness, get both??

CiDeRmAn

I've a TG16, Turbo Express and one of those PC Engine Mini consoles.

I've also got one of the first Turbo Everdrives as well, which works a treat.

Colonel Panic

i got a CoreGrafx Mini, but MiSTer is how I’ll be exploring the PC Engine. I can’t start collecting For yet another console!

Jack burton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846358#Comment_118846358

Had a duo in my basket years ago and didn't pull the trigger....seeing prices now I wish I did

Found this c64 in my garage and it's on the chop. Anyone have an idea of value? Box is knackered