What retro things have you done today?

almoststew1990 · 20 Dec 2021 at 22:34

LewisRaz said:
Spent quite some time away from retro PCs as I was having a poor time with my mental health and obsessing over youtube views/subs and ebay bargains and trying to do many things ontop of an already busy lifestyle.

That sounds familiar (except for the YouTube sub bit) and the reason why I stopped mostly. I found that having a bit of a reset helped a lot and now I'm back to not really doing much retro stuff after getting into it in November (again).

Actually I bought a "Core 2 Pentium" of whatever it is called for my very basic G41 board. It's a E6700 3.06GHz so 266* 11.5 but considering I had success running other 266 chips at 333 I gave this a go (the reason why I bought this chip) and I'm now getting 4GHz by doing 333 *12 (for some reason this chip lets me go 0.5x and 1x higher than stock multi...) So now I have a 4GHz dual core for... Some reason.

nands · 21 Dec 2021 at 13:03

I played Xenon 2 (Amiga version) for the first time in 30(?) years last night.

Downloaded Antstream Arcade and had a blast!

Firestar_3x · 21 Dec 2021 at 14:06

Tis the season so a few things for the collection:

IPS modded GBA
Everdrive
Some assorted boxed games across a few platforms
Complete in box NES.
Complete in box SNES.
Complete in box Black Wii.
Complete in box Black Wii U.

Just want the boxed stuff for display reasons.

!bluetonic! · 22 Dec 2021 at 09:08

Dear all,

I'm sorry to read about @LewisRaz and backed up by @almoststew1990 with regards to mental health.

In a related story, I was watching the repeats of the 'Hoarders' programme on Amazon Prime. It is yucky, yet facinating.

Although I'm self-righteously a vintage computer collector

NOT a hoarder

, I can see the issues I face.

Once again, I was stood in my garage thinking I've got far too much stuff. It needs to go. And then sobbing into the lawn mower's grass collection box, promising that I will not sell things and I will get around to using each and every item that I bought.

All I want to do is show this stuff off to friends. I would love to set this stuff up in my village hall for a 'retro weekend', but I can't help thinking some scrote will steal my MegaDrive Everdrive or nick some good bits of my PS1 collection. I don't trust many strangers. To hire security for the event seems overkill.

And that horrible feeling of putting it on Ebay for £100s and it being sold for pennies.

Recently, my MP32L has arrived, but I haven't had time to play with it. And I bid and won on a VIA Artigo A1000 Pico ITX Mini PC for £25 including post/packaging. I didn't need it, but that's what you get from browsing Ebay late in the evening.

And to top it off, I finally found some time to get back into X-Plane 11, with the amazing FlyJSim Q400 which is immense. Too many things, not enough time.

Anyway, Merry Christmas. Feel free to chat about issue. Keep the conversation alive.

paradigm · 22 Dec 2021 at 18:33

Having spent the last week moving house, all my retro bits are in various boxes in the garage now, I’ve also not touched most of it for months, so it’s sods law that I now want to start messing with some bits but have no idea where (in the impenetrable garage) it all is!

LewisRaz · 23 Dec 2021 at 13:34

paradigm said:
Having spent the last week moving house, all my retro bits are in various boxes in the garage now, I’ve also not touched most of it for months, so it’s sods law that I now want to start messing with some bits but have no idea where (in the impenetrable garage) it all is!

I bet there will be many moments of "Wow I forgot I had this!"

cee-S-dee · 23 Dec 2021 at 17:38

I'm also in the process of moving house. All the retro stuff is packed in boxes too! I do have a place in the new house where I'm going to build a area for my Retro rigs. I also need to sell a ton of stuff too! My rigs are completed now and I haven't seen nothing I want to buy on the bay for ages!

almoststew1990 · 24 Dec 2021 at 14:07

The elderly couple that I got that £10 Soundblaster 2 from called me today saying they had found more computer things when clearing their loft. Hoping this time the woman would miraculously pull a Gravis Ultrasound out from her magic Sainsbury's bag, I walked over and was given possibly every naff 'productivity software OEM New PC Megabundle' from the early 2000s, plus Lemmings, Oh no! More Lemmings, Lemmings Tribes, Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, Zoo Empire and Atari Arcade Classics. Plus maybe 30 blank (probably) floppies, a SB Microphone. Ah well, you can't win them all and I saved them their trip to the tip.

2Thumbs · 24 Dec 2021 at 23:51

Finally got the G4 set up together after spending a few months getting what I needed to make it complete. Unfortunately the flyback transformer on the CRT is knackered which I expected as it's a common issue, but I've already ordered a brand new replacement and a local ex TV engineer is going to fit it for me and get it all calibrated in the next few weeks.

koolpc · 24 Dec 2021 at 23:53

Used my outside toilet

TheOtherOption · 27 Dec 2021 at 12:31

Got my SNES out from the parents loft and a few games + plus my original boxed Gameboy - wish I'd taken better care of it (grey screen surround is long gone) but hey ho the SNES is in pretty good condition though and boxed!

Not likely to ever play it again and I tested it all works last weekend so was going to head to CEX and just get rid as could get a couple of hundred for the whole lot!

Got an old ATI 9800 Pro card boxed but no way to test it - not sure what I'll do with that!

purplesky · 27 Dec 2021 at 15:34

TheOtherOption said:
Got my SNES out from the parents loft and a few games + plus my original boxed Gameboy - wish I'd taken better care of it (grey screen surround is long gone) but hey ho the SNES is in pretty good condition though and boxed!

Not likely to ever play it again and I tested it all works last weekend so was going to head to CEX and just get rid as could get a couple of hundred for the whole lot!

Got an old ATI 9800 Pro card boxed but no way to test it - not sure what I'll do with that!

Sell your SNES and buy either a US NTSC version, or maybe a Super Famicom. There's no going back to the gimped PAL versions once you've played NTSC. Most CRT TVs will accept NTSC also so no probs there if that's the route you choose.

PAL is now banned in my house. I cringe at those game collectors on youtube with their large crappy PAL releases. Such a shame that many games were just ported to play in PAL territories when they should have, and could have done so much better.

Choimaloy75 · 28 Dec 2021 at 09:45

purplesky said:
Sell your SNES and buy either a US NTSC version, or maybe a Super Famicom. There's no going back to the gimped PAL versions once you've played NTSC. Most CRT TVs will accept NTSC also so no probs there if that's the route you choose.

PAL is now banned in my house. I cringe at those game collectors on youtube with their large crappy PAL releases. Such a shame that many games were just ported to play in PAL territories when they should have, and could have done so much better.

Agree

jayjayuk · 29 Dec 2021 at 13:06

nands said:
I played Xenon 2 (Amiga version) for the first time in 30(?) years last night.

Downloaded Antstream Arcade and had a blast!

Don't you mean a megablast?

nands · 29 Dec 2021 at 13:39

jayjayuk said:
Don't you mean a megablast?

Well done!

Anyway, played and completed Wizball last night, that was fun.

jayjayuk · 29 Dec 2021 at 17:23

nands said:
Well done!

Anyway, played and completed Wizball last night, that was fun.

I remember that one, had it on the spectrum.

I modded my Arcade 1up machine and stuck a pc inside it with tons of retro games. Too many actually

Guest2 · 30 Dec 2021 at 08:45

jayjayuk said:
I remember that one, had it on the spectrum.

I modded my Arcade 1up machine and stuck a pc inside it with tons of retro games. Too many actually

Nice. Pics?

Check this, 6k for a PC inside a slim cabinet?!
:eek:

https://store.bespoke-arcades.co.uk/products/nu-gen-elite-arcade-machine

It says you get 10,000 games. Do they even have the rights from all the companies to do this as im sure they’re all ROMs instead if it coning with original jamma / other hardware boards!

I reinstalled OpenRA yesterday.
Not retro really because it has a more active community with the game being updated by admins more than current day games. Still, Redalert is quite old now. I remember getting my big boxe edition from Meadowhall in 1997

LewisRaz · 30 Dec 2021 at 08:54

Very ambiguous with the wording, says "access to" 10,000. Seems you get about 800 with it and have to add more yourself.

Also a dual core i7?? Isnt that a laptop cpu

Guest2 · 30 Dec 2021 at 10:38

LewisRaz said:
Very ambiguous with the wording, says "access to" 10,000. Seems you get about 800 with it and have to add more yourself.

Also a dual core i7?? Isnt that a laptop cpu

It seems like a right scam doesnt it. 6k plus you can pay stupid money for things like 2 official snes pads for £150

You're right, probably a £400 laptop inside a cabinet with speaker that was £600 tops. Then they add an external (probably old and slow) drive to store all the legally questionable ROMs that were downloaded from piratebay. Great purchase!

I'm tempted to email them to see if it can be used in a corporate environment to see if all the game/ROMs are legal and can be used

almoststew1990 · 30 Dec 2021 at 10:43

That's ridiculous. A dual core i7 is probably going back a few generations too (maybe to 6 or 7?)

I'm looking for inspiration to build something having spent all my holiday not really doing anything retro related. Maybe a Pentium M or something