Modding March update!

Posted Wednesday, 21st March 2012 under Hardware modifications
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Okay, here’s the latest update on my modding to-do list:

1. Sega SC-3000H – Completed
2. Nintendo Famicom – Completed
3. Microsoft Xbox – Completed
4. Sega Master System 2 – Completed
5. Nintendo Gamecube – Completed
6. Arcade – Not started
7. Sega Saturn – In progress
8. Sega Mega Drive – In progress
9. Microsoft Xbox 360 – Not started

Not bad, huh? Since a few things changed up with the modding, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of what happened:

Sega SC-3000H

This one was time-consuming rather than difficult. The only drama I had was where one of the pads came away from the PCB when desoldering the old connector, but that was easy to fix by wiring the new cart connector directly back to the trace.

Nintendo Famicom

Composite AV mod came off nicely, the controller hum was also an easy fix and the controllers have come up nicely after being disassembled and cleaning the contacts and replacing the membranes (NES membranes fit the Famicom without any dramas). Since the controllers had some charming (but disheveled – see the image above) Dragon Quest sticks on them, I soaked the plastic shells in warm soapy water for a few hours and gave them a gentle scrubbing in some fresh hot soapy water and the stickers, along with their residue, came off nicely.

Sega Master System 2

I was working on my original Master System 2 I picked up well over ten years ago when I started getting into retro gaming again. As a result, it was also one of my early mods… actually, I think it was my third one – the Saturn was my first (50/60hz switch, 1999), followed by an unsuccessful SMD1 (language/refresh rate switches, 2000). My SMS2 mod was originally just a 50/60hz switch, then I got a bit more daring and added composite video/mono audio. After that, I decided to add another RCA socket and rewired it for dual-mono out (saved having to add a RCA splitter on the audio socket), and attempted to add a language switch but couldn’t get a clean cut on the IC leg that needs to be modded; these were all done in 2000, with the language switch mod being done ~2001. I also attempted to add s-video to the SMS2, but between butchering the back of the machine to fit the socket (that wouldn’t fit because the hole was hodge-podge and too big – see the image for the unfortunate result even after adding a new s-video socket!) and not having s-video on my TV, I left it at that. Looking at my past work was a little embarrassing, but at the same time it was also heartening as it’s demonstrated how much better I am with a soldering iron now compared to back then. Mind, it also helps that I have better equipment now!

So, as far as the new new mods went, it came off nicely – the simplified s-video mod by Viletim! looked great, with no jailbars visible on my TV (for reference, I used 27ohm resistors, as recommended by fellow modder Mamejay).

I also added the language switch, which proved a bit tricky as my anal-retentivity suggested I didn’t want to leave the leg on the IC floating, so I wired it up to go between +5v and GND off the voltage regulator. When this didn’t make a difference to the games I tested, I went back and thought the error was being caused by the leg on the IC itself, as my butchering of the leg in 2001 actually broke it off at the IC so the solder didn’t have much to hold onto. So out came the rotary tool and I gently ground back the IC around the leg to get started, then manually scraped a bit more away around the leg with one of my precision flat-bladed screwdrivers to get more of the IC leg visible and thus available for soldering. After getting a very solid connection, I went and tested again, and still no luck.

At this stage I was getting a bit angry, so I went and read up a bit on SMSPower, and realised everyone was saying to let the leg float – the tute I was working off just said to temporarily ground the leg, and I just assumed this meant the leg was otherwise getting +5v from the PCB; turns out if I flipped the PCB over and traced the path with my multimeter, I would have found that the leg is normally left floating when in English mode. So, I went and disconnected the +5v line, went back and tested it and voila, it’s working!

Sega Mega Drive

I said in last week’s post that I removed the old oscillator, added in a 12mhz one and had system stability errors. Since I know it’s important to keep clock lines short, I figured I’d jump in and reposition the oscillator by having it close to the switch/CPU and thus create a shorter line of the clock to travel along; I also added thicker-gauge wires to take the +5v/GND from the voltage regulators to ensure the oscillator was fed a good power supply. You can see the “before” picture of where I positioned the oscillator, which is next to the headphone socket. Unfortunately it didn’t make much difference, but I don’t consider it as a wasted exercise, as it’s best-practice to keep the lines as short as possible. Since the oscillator is on a bit of perfboard, it will be easy to desolder the existing component and add a 10mhz oscillator I have on the way. Should only be a 30-minute job, if that – I’m not the fastest at soldering/modding, but at least these days I’m more thorough 😉

Sega Saturn

The replacement cart slots are in the post, but I did succeed in adding a 3-way region switch and 50/60hz mod, which is a bit of an achievement for me as I haven’t had much success with the three-way switches in the past. Admittedly the last time I tried doing one of them was back in 2002 or 2003 and in a time where I had less experience and poor tools in comparison to what I have now. I’m very happy with the result, despite the unusual board design (it’s a very early model PAL PCB, with the JPs spread across both sides of the board). I was also able to use the veroboard to provide the +5v/GND for the 50/60hz switch, which helped make things clean. I’ve noticed the power supply on it might be on the way out owing to the rolling bars and CD-ROM issues that hit after an hour or so of testing, so I’ll either look at swapping it with another supply that gives the correct voltages (GND/GND/+3.3v/+5v/+9v) or replacing the caps to see if that helps.

Nintendo Gamecube

I ended up wiring the XenoGC chip to the drive assembly rather than soldering it directly to the PCB. Took a little extra time, but it made it much easier to double-check the solder points with the multimeter and avoid accidental solder-spillage onto adjoining pads.

While I had the GCNs disassembled, I gave the outer cases a wash and I also modded my purple Cube to have a shiny blue LED instead of the standard orange one – blue LEDs are fun 🙂

The machines successfully loaded PAL and US games directly, so I’m really happy with the result 😀

Microsoft Xbox

This one was an easy job, but was time consuming to get it setup in the way I wanted. It was also the first time using the Slayers disc to take care of everything (the machine was already chipped), so I didn’t have to worry about popping off the doors to my PC to run the usual HDD tools to prep a machine and found it ran nicely. With everything now configured (including adding the video.bin 0-byte file to the HDD to force UnleashX to run in 480i over component), I’m very happy with the machine. Now I need to sort out a save file for Dead or Alive Ultimate with everything unlocked because I’m lazy 😉

For those curious, I took photos of most of the mods I have done thus far and intend to write up tutes on them at some stage down the track, along with plenty of others I have in the wings.

Anywho, all that’s left now is the SMD1 overclock (oscillator to arrive soon I hope), XB360 DVD fix (need to get a laser assembly sorted) and arcade button wiring. If the oscillator comes in time, I’d say the SMD1 should be sorted this month; the arcade fix is pretty easy as well and should also make it. If the laser assembly for the XB360 comes in this month, I’ll get that sorted as well; can’t see this one happening though, so it might be a job for April.

March is the time for console modding

Posted Wednesday, 14th March 2012 under Hardware modifications
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In Adelaide, March is referred to as “Mad March”. Because we take a year’s worth of events, festivals and what-not, and cram it all into one month. With some exceptions. Still, it’s insanity. But that’s Adelaide.

So, to alliterate, I have decreed this month as Modding March.

Yes, that is awful. Get over it 😛

My aim this month is to try and mod as many consoles as possible to catch up on my backlog. Here’s where it’s standing at the moment:

• Sega SC-3000H: Replace the existing cartridge connector with one in better condition.
• Nintendo Famicom: Composite AV mod, controller 2 background hum correction, clean the cart slot and replace the membranes in both controllers.
• Sega Master System 2: Add in a language switch and add s-video off the CXA1145 encoder using Viletim!’s simplified video amp.
• Sega Mega Drive: Remove the existing colour mod now that I’m running a 32X and RGB in the setup, add a selectable CPU overlock switch along with the requisite halt switch.
• Sega Saturn: Replace a dead cart slot, wire in a 50/60hz switch, then add a 3-way region switch.
• Nintendo Gamecube: Install a modchip so I can retire my Freeloader disc and enjoy direct-boot imports. If I’m lucky it might even fix the font issues with some Japanese titles, but that might be wishful thinking! I’ve had the chips for ages, so it’s about time I sorted it out.
• Microsoft Xbox: Remove the existing 8bg HDD and upgrade to an 80gb HDD for laziness to save me swapping discs out.
• Microsoft Xbox 360: Repair the drive laser assembly that’s having a cry.
• Arcade: Rewire the P4 button off the JAMMA harness so it can be patch-connected to the JAMMA+ cabling panel already in my Astro City.

I think that’s the lot. I’ve already gotten started on some of these jobs (and finished one of them last week – the SC3000H), but that’s a pretty ambitious list.

Realistically, I’m confident I’ll get the Famicom, Xbox, Gamecube and arcade mods finished as I have all the parts around. The Mega Drive shouldn’t be too tricky if the oscillator comes in the post before the end of the month (my machine’s CPU didn’t like being fed 12mhz, so I’m going to try 10mhz), same with the XB360 and getting a new drive assembly.

That then leaves a few question marks – for the Saturn, I have some replacement slots from some dead Saturns in the post, but cart slot replacements are never quick jobs (not difficult mind, just time consuming); since I’ll need to desolder and remove the dead slot on my machine, remove and desolder the working cart slot from the dead PCB, then resolder it to the working board and then add the refresh rate and language switches, that’ll take a while.

The SMS2 mods shouldn’t be hard and I’m pretty sure I have the parts lying around, so I should be able to squeeze that one in too.

So if I’m being ambitious, then the following’s my ordered list to tackle everything:

1. Sega SC-3000H
2. Nintendo Famicom
3. Microsoft Xbox
4. Sega Master System 2
5. Nintendo Gamecube
6. Arcade
7. Sega Saturn
8. Sega Mega Drive
9. Microsoft Xbox 360

So, with all that in mind, here’s the progress breakdown:

1. Sega SC-3000H – Completed
2. Nintendo Famicom – In progress
3. Microsoft Xbox – Not started
4. Sega Master System 2 – Not started
5. Nintendo Gamecube – Not started
6. Arcade – Not started
7. Sega Saturn – Not started
8. Sega Mega Drive – In progress
9. Microsoft Xbox 360 – Not started

I’ll update during the rest of the month as I make any progress, and since the work is likely to continue into April, I daresay there will be more updates next month too.

But the important bit was to at least get started in March 🙂

Retro Core Season 3 is up!

Posted Wednesday, 15th February 2012 under Video game shows
Comments Off on Retro Core Season 3 is up!

Yes, it’s belated, but I was checking up on some stuff over at Assembler Games and Yakumo has started up Retro Core Season 3. I finally finished catching up on Retro Core SS just the other day and am about to dive into the new series. He’s also started uploading them in lovely 720p if you have a display that can take advantage of it 🙂

Can’t wait to see what he has in store, I’m sure it’ll be awesome! Everything’s up on the Retro Core site, including all the old episodes as well.

Mind, it’s also reminded me that Yakumo’s also running a Saturn store (which I’ve blogged about previously), so I might have to drop past to see what he’s got to add to my collection 😀

Response to Hyper’s Complete History of Racing Games

Posted Wednesday, 8th February 2012 under Soapbox rants
4 Comments »

I want to pre-empt this post with a foreword.

I continue to admire Hyper’s presence in the Australian market – it’s amazing that it continues to hit shelves each month with plenty of great content and coverage of the gaming sector and flies in the face of the downturn being experienced locally and overseas. Even in the wake of US stalwarts, our amazing piece of home-grown gaming journo goodness still comes out each month. Amazing stuff. So this post isn’t meant in any way to take a jab at the magazine, because I have a huge amount of respect and nostalgia-infused love for the publication.

I finished going through the Complete History of Racing Games special in the February 2012 issue (#220) this morning and wanted to write my thoughts on the piece. On the whole, it’s a very nice read – there was great attention paid to the early development of the genre in the arcade and at home, and I really liked the attention given to the home computers of the 80s (especially the C64!). My issues come with a lack of coverage and a bit of bias once things heat up and we hit the mid-90s.

On the arcade side, Virtua Racing was given it’s due, but Daytona was given less attention than Ridge Racer. While the latter’s important as a response to Daytona, the impact Daytona made was enormous as it arguably became the peak of racing games in the arcades, with no title that followed proving as successful. In fact, the success of Daytona was a huge boost to the Model 2 arcade platform Sega used in the mid-90s and saw it become one of the most successful arcade platforms ever, easily putting it in the same realm as the MVS and the Naomi. Namco still did well with Ridge Racer and the System 22 platform, but it is no way comparable to the magic of AM2’s accessible creation.

Another area of contention was the complete disregard to the Saturn. Multiple paragraphs are dedicated to the PSone, and that’s fine – the machine played host to some amazing output from Psygnosis, Polyphony Digital and Namco. But the only mention of the Saturn is comparing Daytona USA to Ridge Racer at launch; while the comparison is apt that the Daytona port looked several shades of rubbish, the game actually plays really well, surprisingly so (especially when played at 60hz). The Saturn also played host to an amazing port of Sega Rally, but going beyond that is a bit of an arguable stretch. Sega Touring Car had a lot of promise, but CSK ruined it with the frame rate issues, and Tantalus’ port of Manx TT didn’t do the machine any favours (though it’s still really cool that an Australian developer got the opportunity to do the port – they also handled the House of the Dead, Wipeout and Wipeout 2097 ports). Daytona USA CCE was highly anticipated, but ultimately failed to deliver in the gameplay stakes (though technically, it looked really nice).

I guess there’s nothing wrong with the amount of space dedicated to the PSone, but it does show things to be a little one-sided. Even Mario Kart 64 rated barely a mention, which I thought was a little odd.

The last issue I wanted to point out was the lack of time dedicated to the Dreamcast or Sega’s arcade movements post-Sega Rally. Model 3-based games such as Daytona USA 2, Scud Racer and Sega Rally 2 were part of the final wave of arcade games where the arcade visuals were unable to be matched at home. While Crazy Taxi earned a mention, it was distinctly offhand – Criterion’s Burnout series arguably owes more than a little inspiration to Crazy Taxi, so it’s a little disappointing when the latter gets a lengthy (and deserved) amount of attention despite the former’s influence and success in the arcade and at home. Also on the DC worthy of discussion are Daytona USA 2001, as it was the first game to almost nail improving on the arcade original’s visuals with almost getting the handling perfect (Daytona HD wins the prize for getting everything perfect) and Le Mans 24 Hours for bringing 24-hour racing in real-time for the DC (plus it was developed by Melbourne House and also looked very pretty). In addition, Bizarre Creations’ Project Gotham Racing is given acknowledgement, but the spiritual predecessor, Metropolis Street Racer on the DC, is given none.

Beyond this though, there’s no mention of OutRun 2/SP/2006, which brought the OutRun franchise back to life in the arcades (powered by the Chihiro board, which closely resembled the Xbox architecture) and also came to home consoles.

Now that I’ve written this little whinge out and have looking it, two things are apparent.

Number one, where I’ve decried Playstation bias in the original article, it’s clearly obvious I’m being just as bad (if not worse) with my bias towards Sega. Thus, my arguments above can be taken as tentative at best if my grand vision for the article was to have the space dedicated to the PSone retracted for Sega ramblings.

Number two, most of the above, when not defending the Saturn, has focused on arcade gaming, which in the late-90s was in serious decline; Napieralski rightly gives the reader a literary cue that discussion was naturally going to start focusing on home platforms instead of covering the last desperate sighs of the arcade sector, so the lack of coverage is definitely acceptable (and to his credit, the Initial D and Maximum Tune series’ were given mention to cap off the discussion).

So, I’ve effectively gone around in circles and have espoused in areas that probably didn’t need to be expanded in the original article. Except for maybe MSR 😉

But then again, this is the internet, where passionate discussion on unnecessarily niche topics are allowed to flourish. Thus, it’s better to look at this as purely a response rather than a criticism of the article (hence the title of the post). Accordingly, with this in mind, props to Napieralski and Hyper for giving some dedicated space covering the history of the genre, as it made for an otherwise great read 🙂

Setting goals

Posted Wednesday, 1st February 2012 under Soapbox rants
8 Comments »

Yes, I’m still here 🙂 A busy January has kept me from jumping back in, so let’s see how February goes. It also means my favourite blogs (all linked on the right) have had multiple updates I need to catch up on.

In thinking how to start off this year I thought about setting goals and how that plays into my gaming habits. I often overwhelm my spare time with a multitude of things, some of which is productive, some of which isn’t. Taking on big projects should be done accordingly, without going overboard.

So, with all of this in mind, I thought I’d make a few goals for this year:

Blog:

• Update at least once a week; possibly two if I’m being ambitious 😉
• Catch up on some tutes – I have stacks of photos from some Mega Drive 2 mods (including doing the colour mod), Famicom AV mod tute, Saturn Virtua Gun button repair mod and probably a few others I’ve forgotten.
• Start posting up gaming session images using the video capture thingie I bought ages back.
• Make some video tutes showing how to hack Phantasy Star: Generation 1 and Generation 2 on the PS2.

Gaming:

• Play through Phantasy Star 2 in Easy Mode on the Sega Ages Phantasy Star Collection on the PS2.
• Catch up on downloadable titles on PSN/XBLA.
• Play more old games, especially Famicom stuff.
• Get better at Panzer Dragoon Zwei to relive my past glory/skills 😀

Modding:

• Finish my Famicom mod (need to swap in a fresh transcoder) and fix the controllers.
• Replace the dead cart slot in my Saturn.
• S-video mod my SMS2.

Projects:

• Rebuild my gutted Taito Space Invaders cocktail cabinet that’s been gutted and sitting idle for well over 12 months.
• Finally build the huge switchbox I’ve been wanting to assemble for a few years now.

Shopping:

• Fellow retro gamer Frank might have convinced me to look into getting a Twin Fami owing to its amazing composite video output; will definitely consider it if the composite video mod on my Famicom doesn’t look comparable.

Oh, and those last two projects will be covered in full on the blog 😀

In addition, there’s also the usual domestic stuff – Wifey has been extremely patient for the last couple of years while I’ve landscaped and irrigated in the gardens, and this year it’s time to start inside the house, so the above will have to be done in conjunction with the house renovations 🙂

Hopefully by putting these down, it will encourage me to actually tackle the issues and not flounder around staring in wonder at the nerdy pile of carts and floppy disks in the nerd room instead of doing something more productive… which happens more often than it really should 😉