Crappy things about the classic gaming hobby.

[hellraiser]

I wanted to make a personal rant thread. Not just "overpriced eBay auctions" or "marker all over games" but personal experiences.

Allow me to share...

I have 3 copy's of revenge of Shinobi and none of them have batman.

I have 2 copy's of moonwalker and neither have thriller. (I paid more then I should have for both too)

My copy of street fighter alpha 2 for snes works when it feels like it.

Ive got a feeling my copy of super metroid is a bootleg. I bought it when I first got back into older games for 25 bucks. Now looking at it the label looks "off" somehow.

And that's just for starters...

So let's hear what you got!!!

[substantial_snake]

Finding proper compatible X'eye/CDX power adapters was fun. (though I think some site is selling compatible ones now at least)

Also I can't wait to spend 20 bucks or more for a Super Mario RPG instructions booklet.

[o.pwuaioc]

Ive got a feeling my copy of super metroid is a bootleg. I bought it when I first got back into older games for 25 bucks. Now looking at it the label looks "off" somehow.

Pics?

[SpaceHarrier]

Mysterious brown liquid that hides inside a NES cartridge only to leak out 6 years after I bought it.

Having to compete with dopey resellers while hunting at swapmeets and thrift stores. You know, the ones that buy common stuff and don't know the value but jack the price up anyway because if it's old it must be rare, right? Right?!

[Gameguy]

Buying broken stuff. Recently buying a spare video cable only for it to be defective, and today buying a Merlin handheld that won't power on. I don't have problems like this with books, you can look those over before buying them.

[The 1 2 P]

Trying to get a complete collection(even when limiting it to certain titles) can be a pain in the ass considering how many people threw out their Nes, Sms, Genesis, Snes, Gameboy, GBA and N64 boxes/manuals.

[markusman64ds]

Trying to get the best unmodded video out of my consoles on my HDTV. Everything works fine so far except for the Intellivision, with an RF connection. Not a bad picture but is extremely shaky, which is weird because my 2600 works fine with RF. Plus because of how expensive RGB will be, I can't get that either.

And if I did mod them, I would probably mess it up. I've already gone through 3 NES systems because I cut the wrong pin on the 10NES chip.

[wiggyx]

Changing out batteries on old carts. Boo.

Buying broken stuff. Recently buying a spare video cable only for it to be defective, and today buying a Merlin handheld that won't power on. I don't have problems like this with books, you can look those over before buying them.

This can be a plus, but that's only if you purposefully buy broken stuff. I've picked up at least a dozen "broken" GBA/GBA SP/GB micro/SNES/etc consoles this past month on eBay. People on eBay so often don't know how to just clean a cart port or change a battery.

[Graham Mitchell]

Arcade collecting can be especially shitty. I broke the monitor in a Tetris cocktail tab and had to pay $150 to replace. (It was kind of worth it, though cuz the new monitor is gorgeous !)

Soldering can be a pain in the ass. Flux on your hands never comes off, and I'm sure all the lead I'm inhaling from the smoke is making me a little dumber. I burnt myself a few times with it, too.

Also, I've been trying for months to get a proper gun wiring harness for my Nintendo VS system. I finally bought one which was advertised as the proper harness on Ebay, but doesn't actually connect to anything in my cabinet when it arrived.

Not to mention this stuff takes up so much space. I have some nice Sony PVM monitors for CRT gaming. They're awesome but they're huge, and heavy as hell. Sometimes I wish this stuff just worked well on a flatscreen TV. They're so much more convenient. I ended up buying an XRGB upscaer (not cheap) to make my old consoles look decent on newer sets.

[8bitgamer]

My broken XE, 32X, TI99, and Vectrex (the latter recently replaced).

[SparTonberry]

Also I can't wait to spend 20 bucks or more for a Super Mario RPG instructions booklet.

I'd guess you'd want it for collection purposes?
For informational purpose use, I just ordered a reprint for like $1.25 from Nintendo. While it is on nice thick paper, it's clearly from a scanned source.

[frogofdeath]

Trying to get a complete collection(even when limiting it to certain titles) can be a pain in the ass considering how many people threw out their Nes, Sms, Genesis, Snes, Gameboy, GBA and N64 boxes/manuals.

This. Two reasons: 1) finding N64 games with boxes and manuals in good condition, as I guess my standards seem to be a little higher than average-joe-seller & 2) trying to find just boxes for GameBoy games is quite difficult and my younger self tossed all my original GameBoy boxes.

Also, recently finding out my copy of Sonic Spinball is not the original release.

[o.pwuaioc]

The lack of basic information like release dates for early games, as well as the loss of the original code.

[wiggyx]

Soldering can be a pain in the ass. Flux on your hands never comes off, and I'm sure all the lead I'm inhaling from the smoke is making me a little dumber. I burnt myself a few times with it, too.

Most modern solder doesn't have lead. If yours does, you may want to make a trip to Radioshack to fix that

[Graham Mitchell]

Most modern solder doesn't have lead. If yours does, you may want to make a trip to Radioshack to fix that

I've been told unleaded solder is really tough to work with. I should give it a shot once though. Thankfully I don't have to solder too often (unless I need to make a bunch of Jamma adapters) so it may work okay.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.906300,-118.392469

[Loremaster]

Most modern solder doesn't have lead. If yours does, you may want to make a trip to Radioshack to fix that

Not to pick nits, but the fumes from solder are flux fumes, not lead. Lead doesn't boil at soldering temperatures. Still nasty to inhale though.

Lead-free can damage soldering iron tips not designed for it, and you'll run into tin-whiskers problem later on down the road. Just don't lick your hands while soldering. It is also more difficult for inexperienced solderers to get a good, lasting connection with lead-free. A cold joint will mean another repair job down the road, possibly within a year even.

I guess that is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. You see all these people who do mods or repros, and some of them quite clearly don't know what they're doing electronically. If you don't know what you're doing, maybe don't destroy classic hardware trying to learn? Some of those repro carts can be the worst. I'd bet that if you accidentally dropped one, you'd have a decent chance of breaking an electrical connection.

[wiggyx]

I've been told unleaded solder is really tough to work with. I should give it a shot once though. Thankfully I don't have to solder too often (unless I need to make a bunch of Jamma adapters) so it may work okay.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.906300,-118.392469

I only use it and I don't have any issues at all. The only time it may be hard to work with is with anything 30g or smaller. It takes a bit more work to heat up, and as you may know, spending time with a hot iron on something that small isn't exactly what you want to do.

Still, I use it for some pretty tiny joints (SMD LEDs, mod chips, etc) and I haven't run into any serious issues.

Not to pick nits, but the fumes from solder are flux fumes, not lead. Lead doesn't boil at soldering temperatures. Still nasty to inhale though.

Lead-free can damage soldering iron tips not designed for it, and you'll run into tin-whiskers problem later on down the road. Just don't lick your hands while soldering. It is also more difficult for inexperienced solderers to get a good, lasting connection with lead-free. A cold joint will mean another repair job down the road, possibly within a year even.

I guess that is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. You see all these people who do mods or repros, and some of them quite clearly don't know what they're doing electronically. If you don't know what you're doing, maybe don't destroy classic hardware trying to learn? Some of those repro carts can be the worst. I'd bet that if you accidentally dropped one, you'd have a decent chance of breaking an electrical connection.

The fumes from the flux are indeed nasty and not so good for ya (and the nastiness will vary depending on the flux that you use), BUT the lead does burn off too in the form of lead oxide. Nasty, nasty stuff.

Tips are cheap, so I rarely even worry about them. I tin 'em when needed and clean 'em as best I can when I'm done. I've found that lead-free is a tad harder to work with when not using a flux besides what may be in the solder itself. But, when used with an external flux, things go just as smoothly as they do with leaded.

I'm 110% with you on people leaving it to the pros instead. The same goes for the automotive world. I've been building "tuner" cars since the late 90's and the shit that comes out of what I think of as reputable shops can often be a disaster. The old twist-and-tape is my ultimate peev along with butt connectors. Those things are useless and I wouldn't even hook up something as non-vital as a head unit with 'em.

I think the problem, at least a good chunk of the time, is that people think that they're doing a good job. I.e. They don't know that they aren't doing it correctly

[XYXZYZ]

I've been told unleaded solder is really tough to work with. I should give it a shot once though. Thankfully I don't have to solder too often (unless I need to make a bunch of Jamma adapters) so it may work okay.

The problem with lead free solder is that the iron must be much hotter to get the same flow as leaded solder. And that wears out your iron faster, so you end up soldering with this chunky oxidized mess of a tip before you know it. It's the condition of your tip that makes lead free soldering difficult. The key to working with lead free solder is to keep that tip tinned all the time. I mean every time you put the iron back in the holder, coat the tip with solder. And as wiggyx said, flux makes a big difference as well.

At work we had some really nice Hakko soldering irons, and they replaced them all with cheaper Oki irons. They're supposedly designed for lead free solder, but they wore out much faster; I mean after a couple of hours that tip was completely useless, the lead free solder would not wet to it at all. I found a solution- I keep a jar of lead free solder paste to tin my iron tip... I give that sucker a solder/flux bath after every use, and now I can go for months on that same tip. And the lead free solder flows just as easily as the old leaded stuff now. I can't tell the difference.


By the way, apologies to Hellraiser for turning this into a soldering thread.

[hellraiser]

By the way, apologies to Hellraiser for turning this into a soldering thread.

No worrys....

Pics?

Sorry can't take a good enough one to show what I'm talking about. The colors just don't seem right.


Back on subject I forgot this gem...

My copy of Mario all stars won't hold a save for more then a day or two. I had to find this out the worst way possible. To this day I've never attempted to beat super Mario world again.

[Edmond Dantes]

Early CD-ROM games (Sega CD especially). Too often I get a damaged disc, or a broken case, and the only thing you can do is cannibalize a perfectly good game (I try to mitigate this by cannibalizing games that have good cases, but are missing the manuals, or have torn ones). Worst is when there's just ONE SCRATCH that causes audio skipping or whatever. I've heard that burns will play fine in a Sega CD, but I have never EVER seen this to be true--every burn I've ever played either has weird glitches or just plain locks up after awhile. I can see the Sega CD library completely disappearing one day.