Just a random thought to myself....

Now that PRGE has come and gone, I've been replaying the past 2 times I've gone. Most consoles being sold there are dirty, untested, and just downright gross.

With all the digging I'm doing, I had a thought of fixing up some of those consoles and in return modding them and selling them at possibly the next PRGE.

Probably gonna do A/V mods, region mods, maybe sell a flash cart or 2.

Just a thought...maybe I might do good. Who knows?

PRGE!

Hit up the 9th annual Portland Retro Gaming Expo this past weekend. I made out with a pretty decent haul for <$200. No consoles to collect other than a Yellow Gameboy Color and a Gameboy Advance that I got from a friend, but mostly got games to add to what I'm collecting.

This was from day 1 of the expo: I only picked up We <3 Katamari, Assassin's Creed III, Street Fighter II, Silent Hill, and Return Fire. Metal Gear Solid, the Gameboy Advance, the 2 Pokemon games, and the Wii U Pro Controller were from friends.

This was day 2's GETs: From the back, a TG16 shirt for my son, Neo Geo Battle Colosseum, Return Fire longbox and manual, The King of Fighters XI, a Harmony flash cart for the Atari 2600, a yellow Gameboy Color, Action Replay Plus for Saturn, a manual for Shinobi, and that NDS game is LoZ: The Phantom Hourglass.

Some Doctor Who themed earrings I found for my wife and daughter.

This wasn't from the expo, but I had to share it. I found this a day before the expo at a Goodwill for $3! The expo prices had them at $15...and that was the cheapest!

Some random pics about the expo floor.

The most absolute, absurd thing seen there?

This Turbo Duo setup. The price?

...ridiculous...

Bit of a hiatus...

I picked up a Wii U from a friend. Gonna dive in and play Wind Waker HD. I'm gonna be gone for a while. Mods are currently on break so I can actually play games.

A comparison...

I'm trying to solve a little problem I'm having with the encoder. There's some slight tilting going on on the bottom left corner of the screen, shown here:

See how the text on the bottom left is not spaced evenly as the top left? And then there's the screen shift to the left as well.

Been asking around (well, just the NG forums since I frequent there more), about this. Hopefully I can get a fix soon.

Anyways, here's a shot comparison with Composite and S-Video from my TG16 and RGB from the PCE.

I didn't see it on my phone, but looking at it on my computer makes a huge difference. The lines for the Vic Viper (shots taken from Parodius) get sharper and more detailed from top to bottom. Cool! 

...Now, if I can only solve my screen predicament here...

[EDIT]Upon further research, seems like that shift thing might be common. I'm still gonna look for a fix though.

Phase 2 pics...

As promised, pics...

8 pin mini DIN connector. Yeah, it's a little crooked. Wouldn't do that with a commissioned consoles, though. All the wires soldered on before I put the connector in place because it would've been easier that way. 

Connector soldered to the board. Had a heck of a time trying to get that soldered in.

I used a fiberglass pencil to scratch off some of the coating to expose some copper. Mmmonkey site goes over the procedure. After comparing my notes, I realized that I was going off of the site's suggestions and should've gone off of that. Next to the connector is an RGB amplifier I got from Broken from neo-geo.com's forums.

RGB, +5v for the RGB amp, Left and Right Audio connected. I used composite video instead of composite sync for this mod. The multi connector I made I've had wired so I could also have S-video and composite video...for the heck of it.

All hooked up ready to go

I had to change some settings on the TV to get a nice, sharp, picture. At this point, I'm happy with it!

I just had it done to a point that I could get RGB going on it. I still have a luma amp for S-video to build up as well as a S-video adapter built up...I may just do it tonight. 

Phase 2: Complete RGB/multi mod in PCE. Status: Complete!

It was a long time coming, but I finally finished it. I'm OK with how it turned out. Yes, I could've done better, but again, it's my own project.

Just thought I'd put up that I finished it up. Need some mental rest now. Post and pics will be up later on tonight.

Phase 1.5: 8 pin mini DIN to DB9 adapter. Status: Complete...

Ok. I'll admit it; I'm dumb.

The adapter I made a while ago (while shakey) wasn't wired to what I had planned originally on the notes I was looking at.

Unbeknownst to me, I redid those notes to be more clear and concise...on the back of the page of the original notes! So, I wasted most of the night redoing the adapter where I should've been working on wiring the PCE up for everything.

I've also updated my notes to make it easier from here on end. All that's left to do now is opening up the PCE and getting it wired up. Hopefully,  everything will work out on first try... HOPEFULLY *crosses fingers*