My Neo Geo story...

I'm fighting some stupid insomnia right now, so while I wait for the melatonin to take effect, here's my Neo Geo story.

I guess it started during the whole Street Fighter II craze. Everyone was lining up to play this pretty awesome fighting game. I'd always get my ass kicked, no matter who I played as. SFII was everyone's first foray into the fighting game genre.

One day after school on a Friday, my friends and I went to the arcade to hopefully get some time in before all the best players got there and occupied the SFII machine for the rest of the night. While exchanging cash for tokens, I noticed a big, red machine. It seemed to have 4 games that were selectable, including one called Fatal Fury. A few people were playing it. It looked Street Fighter like, but only had 3 selectable players. 

I took a chance and played a few rounds. The game felt...stiff...the first time playing it. I wasn't used to the scaling of the characters, being able to go to the background and foreground for the fight. The move marquee was there, so I practiced with Terry Bogard, getting the Power Wave and Crack Shot moves down. All in all, the gameplay was fun, but really didn't make it that far into the game before going back to SFII. 

A few months or so later, Art of Fighting came out on the big red. It had many attributes that were similar to SFII, but the whole stamina gauge, it felt more strategy than fighting, and I just wanted to spam fireballs at my opponent. I wasn't a huge fan of that game, so back to SFII...and I think Mortal Kombat was out then as well.

As time went on, more games were released for the Neo Geo. Fatal Fury 2 was the next game that I played, and immediately fell in love with. As a typical male teen, I used Mai Shiranui as my main. It was mainly for her sprites, but after learning her moves, I mained her because it was easier to do combo moves. Kim Kaphwan was my second. Just gotta love that air kick move he does.

Now, it wasn't just for the fighting games that were good. The Neo Geo had some action games and puzzle games that I loved playing. In college, I fell in love with Bust a Move. It was a unique puzzle game that I just couldn't stop playing at the arcade. Magical Drop II was another one that was fun to play. But the fighting game I loved playing was The King of Fighters '94. KoF brought all the Neo Geo fighting game characters into one fighting game. 

With the release of KoF '94, I felt I needed to invest into getting a Neo Geo AES (home console). My friend, Sam, had one that he was selling off along with KoF '94 and another game. I bought it from him and played the hell out of it. I wanted to get more games, but all the games were pricey. And, since it was before internet shopping became a thing, I had to mail order games. The risk was the same as it is today. In most cases today, you could always do a charge back or dispute it. When sending out a check for a mail order, your risk never seeing your game or your money ever again.

Since it was hard to get another game without major risk, I ended up trading the Neo Geo AES for a modified PlayStation and Tekken 2...Biggest mistake of my life. I do love that PlayStation (I still have that thing, modded with an Xstation), but I still miss having that Neo Geo.

To sate my Neo Geo appetite, I tried emulators with my slow Windows '95 machine. At the time, the better Neo Geo emulator was Neo Rage X. To get it to run on my old computer, there was a lot of setting that I needed to change on my computer in order to get it to run at a decent speed with minimal frame skipping. I also didn't have a decent controller, so playing Breakers (another fighting game) was hard with a keyboard.

From there on, I've been trying to get my hands on another Neo Geo home console. However, because of the niche market the Neo Geo has, it was very costly. I gave up on that dream and kept on using emulators to play games. I've even gone so far as to get Neo CD games burned and play them on my Dreamcast via emulation. That was probably the best I could do to play any Neo Geo game. 

It was probably about the same time I discovered Neo-Geo.com. It was there that I discovered their marketplace, but also, I learned about consolizing arcade boards. Through the market place, I bought some of the Neo Geo MVS (arcade) carts and an MVS board. That's about the time I started this blog.

I acquired all the parts that was needed to consolize the MVS board and built it up. I was very excited to be playing KoF '94 again like I did with my AES. Shortly, I bought a different MVS board and consolized that, using parts from my first project. I also went ahead and bought up a bunch of games as well, ending up with a very hefty collection of Neo Geo games to play.

Later, I was able to get a Neo Geo CD console for insanely cheap, including free shipping. It did not have an adapter for it, but I managed to find one that works fine. All the old burns that I made for the Dreamcast emulator all worked perfect with the Neo CD. 

A few years later, I finally achieved something that I've always wanted since the first day I discovered the Neo Geo: An actual MVS arcade cabinet! I've already highlighted the plight I had with it to get it to where it was in a better working condition today...mechanically. Cosmetically, I still need to work on that. 

And here we are, about 30 or so years later. I still have my consolized MVS 2-slot board, my MVS-4 cabinet, and a Neo CD. I've since bought a 161-in-1 cartridge for the arcade cab, a NeoSD for my consolized Neo Geo, and a Neo SD Loader for the Neo CD. 

Once in a while, I will power on one of them and play a game of KoF, Metal Slug, or Bust A Move for hours, still having the exciting feeling that I had when I was a teenager. I don't think that feeling will ever leave me. 

....If the story went wonky, it's because the melatonin kicked in...

The story thus far...

It's been a minute...anyway.

Figure I needed to finalize the console collections by obtaining this:

 Yeah, I know I didn't need it, but I got it anyway. It's already set up underneath the PS5 where my XBox One formerly sat. I'm using the One to get my son to get better grades and clean his room.

I've also been working on some Sega Saturn stuff. My friend had some consoles, all taken apart. Optical pick ups on the disc drives are questionable. I figured I should test all the disc drives first, then figure out the mainboards after. 

Not gonna lie: it's pretty daunting.

I've made some nice discovery while testing the drives. Here are some of them:

- Without a disc drive connected or properly connected (properly seated FFC), the sound from the Saturn is slowed down to almost <50%. Video is fine, just the sound is eerie sounding. 

- Certain drives will work with certain board revisions. From what I thought wasn't working with one mainboard, it'll work perfectly on another.

- You can bypass the trap board with mainboards using Sanyo disc drives. 

Of the 17 disc drives I've tested, 8 of them work fine. All that's missing is the FFCs for said disc drives to finish up all the consoles up.

It'll be a bit.

Newest addition to the console collection...

How should I start this?

Oh yeah. After little over a year, I was finally able to get a PlayStation 5! I had to drive a little over an hour after work to a new store that opened. I kept checking inventory at said store throughout the day. By the time I was off, a little over half the inventory the store started with was sold. 

There was a 15 minute traffic jam that I had to navigate through. I was able to jam through an album in that traffic. I was starting to worry since everyone else was getting off of work and possibly racing there to pick one up. 

Long story short, the store still had inventory, and I was finally able to snag it at a good price for the bundle you see in the pic. It came with:

- PS5 Disc version

- DualSense controller

- Pulse 3D headphones

- 12 month PlayStation Plus card

- 1 month PlayStation Now

The drive back home was long, so when I did get back home, I just unboxed it to snap a pic of it, then went to bed. After I got home from work the next day, I rearranged my entertainment center and set up the PS5 to its final resting place. Turned it on, set it up, then let it update whatever needed to update.

I'll mess with it a little more in the morning. But yeah, a console that I thought I had to wait another year to acquire is now in my collection. I'm glad I started adding the free PS5 games for PlayStation Plus members to my library. Gonna start downloading some to the console tomorrow.

SNES Mini RGB + S-Video bypass installation...

My friend had some SNES Minis that he got that he wanted cleaned and checked. I suggested while I had it opened up for cleaning that I should get Voultar's SNES 1CHIP/Mini RGB Bypass Kit installed. He ordered some boards for me to install and as soon as they got in, I got to work.

I got the Minis taken apart, scrubbed the cases down, and brushed the mainboard and shielding clean. While waiting for the cases to dry, I went ahead and started the bypass mod.

That red PCB is the bypass kit that I linked to. Fairly simple to install. I had to snip some long component leads that would've gotten in the way. All that was left was soldering the PCB in place.

I was doing 2 Minis at the same time. These pics are from the second install. In this pic, although it's hard to make out, I changed out C11 for the capacitor that was ordered with the kit. To the left of R1/C1 are VIAs that was used to get the RGBS signals from.

Here's where the Luma and Chroma signals from. This is the top of the mainboard, so slightly longer wires were needed to route to the bottom of the board. Luma (red wire) was a little more hard to install. With the heatsink removed, soldering the wire was easier. 

So, on the first install, I got the wires to go through the VIAs and RGB working perfectly. For this console, after soldering the wires the first time, I got off colors, on all connections (composite, S-video, RGB). I removed the wires from the RGBS and tested again with just composite, thinking that something might be wrong with the PCB itself. With composite, the colors were back to normal. Trying S-Video was also displaying proper colors. 

...

As shown in the picture above, I used different wire and soldered the wires to the top of the VIAs. I tested it once again. This time, all connections showed the proper colors!

Final installation. Not as the clean of an install as the first one, but still cleaner than what I used to do.

There's one more Mini that I have to do (my own), but that's being sidelined for now. My friend also asked me to clean up and test a Sega Saturn. I just finished the teardown before posting this blog, so I'm gonna dive into that next...after a nap...

Updating mods...

I've been taking the time to update all (well, most) of the softmods of Nintendo consoles I've done. Voultar on YouTube did a tutorial on softmodding a Wii U and 3DS. Seeing this video inspired me to get my 3DS and 2DS updated.

In that video, he basically followed the guide(s) that are online. I started with my Pikachu 3DS XL. Following the guide, all that was really needed to do was update the a few things...really, just a few steps to update it. The 2DS was the the same for the update. Fairly simple.

I decided to attack my DSi XL next. It was a bit more convoluted than I remember. There were apps that I didn't need anymore, which lead to changing configurations that I didn't mess with for a few years. That lead to some options not being available or resetting to the wrong app. It took a few minutes to figure out what I needed to do, so now I have it back to a working state. 

I figured at this point that I should update my Switch as well. For some reason, I can never get a smooth update done with the Switch. At first, when I was trying to get it to go into dev mode, it wouldn't do it properly. Come to find out that the fist USB-C cable that I was using wasn't a proper data transfer cable, just a charging one. After changing that out, the Switch took a bit longer to boot up. Updated the official firmware, did a reboot, then nothing loaded. 

I started to get all the SD card stuff ready to redo the mod, but it turns out that just a few apps were corrupted. I ended up just removing what wasn't working then re-uploaded the apps that I knew that worked back on it. A few hours later, and I'm done.

There's some things that I have to take note. There are a few files, after updating, that I have to replace. Mainly, a .ini file. I have to be more proactive about doing the updates as they come.

...I really need to order those RGB amps for the PC Engine Duos so I can recap and mod them in one go. Soon...

Atari 2600/7800 Joystick revisted...

Back when I made a thing, the 4-way restrictor that I printed was...good enough. However, recently playing Joust and Defender on the revived Atari 2600 Jr, I found that it was really hard to move around. 

Here's the old 4-way restrictor out. I had to break off a a part of it to be able to remove it from the joystick. I though I could use the joystick without a restictor, but...

The switches here are loose. There's nothing to keep the switches in place while using the joystick. So, off to Thingiverse to find a new restrictor to replace the 4-way. 

I found an 8-way restrictor that was similar to the 4-way one. This print took a little over an hour to complete.

Here it is installed in the controller. It fit pretty good, but after printing it, I noticed that the actuator isn't touching the main directions of the controller. 

I mean, the gap isn't a huge deal to me. It does have a decent 8 way feel, but I still have to test it. I already have a remixed version that has a smaller hole ready to print, just in case I don't like the feel of this restrictor. 

Return of the Atari 2600 Jr...

I've been sidelining the Jr for a while. If you recall where I left it, it was essentially finished, but not without issue. Mainly, the color black was appearing gray.

...upsetting...

Fast forward to February 2nd. My Reddit post got answered! User u/bgianninoto figured out that the original UAV installation instructions had different jumper positions for the Jr. 

Looking at the UAV with the IC markings up and the IC notch to the right, I desoldered the original jumpers I had (following the guide for the 2600 jumper positions) to these jumper positions. It was a trial to get the old jumpers out since I already had the pin headers installed, but I made it happen.

So, did it work? 

So much better! I know, it's not Joust like the original pic, but the Defender background looks nice in S-Video! Composite looked just as awesome too (thanks to some tweaking with the RetroTINK 5x!)

Because of the pin headers, I bent some component leads and installed them underneath between the pin headers. I then soldered the connection from the top. 

So happy that the color issue was solved! Big thanks to user u/bgianninoto for figuring out the issue. Next thing that I need to work out is the controller that I made from spare parts. I need to print a new restrictor gate for it because the one I put in there isn't working that well for old Atari games.