@“antillese”#p42161 Lol, yeah…that phone came as a package deal with the cable and I figured why not have something around as a backup. Practically speaking, though, it exists only to hoard junk voicemails intended for whomever previously claimed the number…
But yeah, come on over for a playing/listening party...Tekken Tag Tournament and Mr. Nutz vinyls have freshly arrived, so we have all tastes accounted for.
@“kory”#p42156 dang dude it looks so awesome. yep get us seattle area folks over immediately…or at least before i move to bellingham in 6 weeks. what's the speaker setup?
@“tapevulture”#p42184 Aww, sorry for the misunderstanding, I‘m actually in NYC…I know its probably a bit excessive to ship cross country for mod/recap work, but I’m familiar with Christa's work and trusted her to do a good job!
As for the speaker setup, it's a 5.1 setup that's been been cobbled together over the years and hasn't been updated in a while, but it gets the job done! The receiver is a Yamaha RX-A3060, which I bought several years ago along with my first 4K tv (LG C7 I think is the model). If and when HDMI 2.1 receivers become more common I may upgrade, but without a new TV to take advantage of it there's really no urgency there.
The front speakers are Polk floorstanders (RTI A9) that I acquired about 10y ago now and have awkwardly followed me through several moves. The center channel is a Polk CS1 that I found on a firesale a while back. I have small white Polk rear speakers (OWM 3) on floor stands, wired up with some nice flat speaker cable under the rug. My oldest component is the 10" powered subwoofer, a HSU Research STF-2, which I bought back in 2008 and is just a real monster. I'm barely a casual audiophile, so I make no claims about the superiority of the system (for example, I would probably be getting much more quality sound out of the RTI A9s if I drove them with an external amp rather than relying on the receiver).
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@“kory”#p42156 i did not realise until seeing this picture that my ps5 should be stood upright on its foot stand!
@“rootfifthoctave”#p42226 yeah, that thing isn’t super intuitive…I heard the redesigned it in the new revision that’s been popping up. Sony has this problem with trying to be too clever with their stands imho! That blurple gradient one for the original PS2 was probably the peak.
PSA: the pvm 2030 has 2 dedicated guncon 2 holsters
edit: i should probably clean my pvm it's very dusty on the outside
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@“穴”#p43324 Now I'm imagining Shadow the Hedgehog with lightgun support.
@“exodus”#p43326 I mean both shadow the hedgehogh and time crisis use gunshots as sound effects in their menu screens so that's something
I figured I‘d tell Insert Crediters first rather than post on Twitter because y’all are cool folk but Analogue have Super Nt systems available to be shipped in a week, and they seemingly just didn't tell anyone.
If anyone was wanting one, of course.
Yeah, both the Super Nt and Mega Sg have stayed in stock since they restocked them last month.
Analogue have also said that once the Pocket becomes available their intent is to keep the it in stock as best they can too.
They make lovely products.
@“Geoff”#p43747 I picked up a Mega Sg. I hadn't realised that they come with an adapter for Master System games and I have an awful lot of fond memories of playing games on that system during my formative years.
I do already have a Mega Drive too but I feel like it might be at the end of its life soon and this feels like a sensible back-up for that.
Good news about the Pocket too - I missed out on the initial orders and dearly wanted one. Hopefully they won't have quite the same demand when they make the Duo available because that seems like a fantastic way for someone like me to get into the PC Engine library.
I got a gaming laptop with an RTX 3060 and can now play Dark Souls III, Sekiro, FFXV, Nier, anything I want in glorious high frame rate, max settings, and highly efficient power consumption for my solar van setup. I'm ready for whatever the next generation brings.
Hey! I thought to put this here: if anyone‘s in the market for an expensive case for their 3DS or 2DS XL, Waterfield are putting out a last run of their cityslicker for every model but the slab 2DS. I don’t know when this went on offer, but there is a deadline for orders of tomorrow. I don‘t know if that’s the 26th inclusive or not.
I've already got a padded gear pouch by them for both my eighth gen handhelds and I can vouch for the quality.
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Also yes hi I am a bag nerd but it is a manageable condition.
@“connrrr”#p44020 heck yeah! Great brand, love my canvas Waterfield switch case
So, a few weeks ago I completed what I feel is my first “real” console mod, and the start of what I hope to be some more fun projects! I have been pretty satisfied with the S-Video to RetroTINK 5x output from my N64, but I really wanted to do better than that. After looking into my options for RGB output (from a US console), it seemed like the easiest to install option was Voultar's N64 RGB kit, which is only compatible with earlier consoles (serial # beginning with NS1). My personal launch console would probably have worked, but I wanted to keep that stock, so I tracked down a reasonably priced functional console on eBay. Just for fun, I also decided to differentiate this from my original N64 by opting for a very authentic-looking Nintendo Ultra 64 badge. On top of that, just because I am a crazy person, I decided to order a brand new OEM N64 shell off of eBay. With all the items assembled, this is what I ended up with:
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The install process is pretty straightforward for anyone with a reasonable amount of soldering experience, but I'm really just getting started (the most I've done is replacing some cart batteries and joining some wires and other basic stuff like that) so I watched and rewatched every instructional video I could find on the process. [Voultar's own video](https://youtu.be/I1mtcbfGzV8) is, of course, the best, but I did find some utility in seeing how a few less experienced modders tackled it.
One little thing I was apprehensive about was the prospect of removing some tiny surface mount devices in the csync circuitry, but it turns out my model was one of the revisions that totally lacked them, so I was starting with a nice clean board for the install. Armed with the right tools (a nice Hakko iron fitted with a small chisel tip, leaded solder, a decent wire stripper, and a heck-ton of no clean flux). I managed to get a decent looking install done. It's not as clean looking as it could be, but I was satisfied enough (I filled in some of the joints with a bit more solder after this photo, but this is basically the finished board):
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After this I mostly closed it up, just for testing (but NOT all the way...I know WAY better than to ever totally reassemble before testing, it's an automatic curse). I attached it to my SCART switcher, turned on the PVM and RetroTINK/OLED, jammed in Wave Race and the cheap SCART cable I had gotten off eBay a while back and........._nothing_. Nothing at all happened. Well, almost nothing--the RetroTINK went black, so _something_ was getting through, but clearly there was no sync, no audio, nothing to speak of. Needless to say, I was pretty dejected at this point. A bit desperate, I remembered that I actually had ordered two SCART cables and madly rummaged through my pit of cabling to locate the other. _Glory to Mankind_ this time it miraculously worked...I guess it was a bum cable (let me be clear, these SCART cables were SUPREMELY cheap). But still, that Wave Race opening track never sounded quite so beautiful:
https://twitter.com/koybones/status/1446873303914778624?s=20
So anyway, I proceeded to reassemble it (and then disassemble and then reassemble it because I realized I forgot to transplant the little LED light guide into the new case--word to the wise, don't forget this little dude, you must completely remove the motherboard to get it in!) and all was good in the world. I proceeded to play some Shiren, Castlevania, Star Fox, Mario 64, and of course (at the request of @fridgeboy) one of the system's raisons d'être:
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The image is absolutely superb, just about the best I can imagine (and even better now that I have acquired a well-made properly shielded SCART cable). Some might scoff at the choice of badge, but this really resonates with me, as it evokes those first mysterious teaser images I ever saw in Nintendo Power. I truly reached the apex of N64 as far as I am concerned
(Brief epilogue: it turned out shortly after the completion of this project that I was not completely done with the N64, as a rare opportunity to acquire what is considered the _absolute_ best output from the N64 arose and, well, I had to seize it. More on that in "What's in the Mail?" later, perhaps. Either way, this is still my handiwork and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!)
@“kory”#p46171 That‘s amazing! And such lovely soldering too (mine tends to be… let’s say “well intentioned”)! I‘m so glad that’s all worked out for you 
@“kory”#p46171 awesome job dude for real
@“kory”#p46171 The Ultra 64 badge is fantastic.
@“robinhoodie”#p9535 Rad scientist.
I ain't scoffing!