We all know this hobby gets expensive but I have to ask....

[Niku-Sama]

....are there ways to spend more to save more.

I've been pretty absent lately and for that I apologize. Things have been pretty hectic lately. I usually have things to share in the finds thread and things to add to a lot of places here and while they may not be worth while contributions they at east help things along here, that I am sure of. I am still working on a few hardware things but since life has gotten in the way those are slow going too.

A lot of you have probably noticed I like tinkering with hardware and getting first runs or revisions of particular systems or even odd ball off the way hardware is kind of my thing as well. Lately though I feel my luck with that sort of thing has run out. I have been fortunate with my finds whether it be a odd piece of game hardware or something to help along with my gamming in general I kinda feel the days of $15 Sony PVM finds, cheaply imported square button famicoms or dumpster find turbografx are over. How ever that does not mean I am going to stop, I am not going away (even though some of you may want me too) but I feel I may have to change my plan of attack when it comes to that sort of thing and possibly for once to not be the usual cheap ass I am.

Some of you may remember a while ago I had asked about flash carts and what would be a good route to go with that, how ever flash carts are expensive. Being a tinkerer with hardware like I am and trying to get the best picture out of any thing I can I also kind of dropped hints on rgb/component/hdmi mods on some of the systems, these too are expensive. My main focus is NES, SNES is shortly behind it but that's another story. I figure a cost break down to get what I want for the ultimate NES would go along something like this: (Prices Approximate)

NES-101 $80
Decent flash cart $150
HDMI mod $130
Working FDS $80
Famicom adapter $Own
Total= $440 (not incl shipping)

-or-

Sharp Twin Famicom $150
HDMI mod $130
Decent flash cart $150
NES adapter $35
Twin FC repair $20
Total= $485 (not incl shipping)

Sure I already own a NES-101 and a Twin Famicom but I wouldn't want to modify those and not easily get them back to their original glory. I feel getting a second for the purpose of making them something different would be better. However like I started this off, that's some expensive kit to get in the name of pixel perfect video and the ability to play hacks homebrews and translations, amongst other things.

I've not exactly been a big fan of emulation but lately hardware emulation has been taking off with FPGAs. In October I was tempted with the retro AVS at Portland Retro Gaming Expo. For $185 I could have picked up a pixel perfect NES/famicom machine for roughly $185. At the time I felt that was a lot of money for some thing like that and I passed. At the same time I felt like it was missing something as well. I saved up a lot of money for PRGE expecting to get loads and loads of stuff but the vendor scene is very hit and miss from year to year and last year, it was a miss. I had saved up nearly $800 to spend on the floor, not including what I saved up on travel food and hotel costs. I came back with $725 of that after buying selling and trading, it was a handful of stuff. Things I thought were cool or wanted to add to my collection but nothing spectacular.

Recently theres been some developments with high def NES and famicom stuff and I don't feel so bad about passing up on the AVS.

First off the NES mini, yes still hard to find but its a viable option, it caters to my tinkering ability, should only cost $60 and, as I predicted, some one found a way to hack it and add a crap load of games to it, how ever its kind of clunky and of course I cant use my own hardware and carts on it. Could be cool, will probably get one eventually but then theres this next one.

Analogue NT mini is a lot like the AVS but has what I felt was missing and that was the SD card slot, it costs as much as what I outlined above, about $450, how ever it would take up much less space and lets face it, would have a much better build quality than 30 year old hardware. I feel like I would be spending more here to save more in the future but is it excessive? I'm not one of the rich guys out there on other message boards who just throw money away to say that they have a thing and started collecting 5 years ago. I've been collecting nearly my whole life and I have all my childhood games except one. Kirbys dream land mysteriously disappeared.

Like I said earlier I feel my luck has run its course in terms of finds and I get the feeling a lot of you are thinking the same.


but I have to ask, how many of you are thinking the same thing now?
are FPGAs (hardware emulation) the way to go right now?

[celerystalker]

I'm glad to hear you'll be back more!!

Finds are pretty well dried up in my area. I get one or two decent scores a year. I think part of that is that I don't have a huge want list these days, but also that sellers have easier access to channels like ebay to make a premium, and more buyers are competing for what little is around.

There are still things to exploit, though. There are the usual cycles where a system at the end of its life bottoms out, and I've been snapping up the PS3 and 360 games I want for super cheap; most at less than $5. There are still games on systems like PS1 that are really great and largely unknown, and most people are getting their info from the same handful of sources like a few YouTube channels. This leaves a lot of room for discovery for people who actually bother to play games, whether from buying a cheapie as a risk, playing old demos, or re-reading old magazines on the toilet and taking a shot at something. Think of how many NES games were less than $5 for 20 years, then exploded in 2010. It's good to stay ahead of the collector curve by knowing what games are actually good by playing them.

Also, there are always sectors of the import market that haven't hit mainstream yet. Buying some lots of games that look odd or searching ebay for PS1 or PS2 imports that cost the least, then researching them has yielded some really fun buys for me in recent years at extremely low cost. I try to share about the games I play here in case other folks want to look at the parts of gaming that the mainstream hasn't noticed yet.

The thing is, the internet at large seems to just assume that everything there is to be said has been said about classic games and systems, and that's just not true. I pay less than $50 for most of my arcade pcbs (with some obvious exceptions... there aren't cheap TMNT or GI Joe boards out there). My POW board cost me $15 shipped. Others, like Devastators and US Championship V'ball, were $25. Why pay hundreds for Aero Fighters on SNES when you can get the actual arcade board for $40? My Neo Geo MVS cabinet with Metal Slug was $150 on craigslist just a couple of years ago fully functioning, and other cabs or boards were cheapies that only required rudimentary repair skills. You can easily build your own supergun with legit arcade parts for $60 and enjoy whole new segments of gaming. Plus, PS2 has so many awesome compilation discs that you can play and try hundreds of classics for pennies a game.

You have to keep in mind that no amount of YouTube or Wikipedia can replace the experience of playing a game for yourself and forming your own memories and opinions.

[StealthLurker]

Since you're willing to go the flashcart route, you can maybe save a little money on the first option by going with an FDSStick. You won't have to sacrifice sound with this option or deal with drive belts/faulty disks/cost of fds games/etc. Though you will also need to get a fds cart with cable though. Fortunately, some eBay sellers do offer them separately.

http://www.tototek.com/store/index.p...roducts_id=196

I know emulation is a dirty word to some, but you wouldn't just be ok with that save for a few games that are meaningful to you? I don't mind it and I actually do all three... the real stuff, flashcarts, and emulation. Each has something nice for different situations. I've got a lot of various emulation setups, but the best experience get is with a PC I built using an ArcadeVGA card to output 15khz RGB low res video to a Sony PVM (I didn't want to fuss with an old ATI card and softkhz software). Then various USB console like controllers/adapters/joysticks. It's basically the same idea as a MAME cab using a real arcade CRT. Plus it will run quite a few consoles, portables, and arcade platforms.

As a side note you mention $15 PVMs... I find it a little funny how almost every retro gamer is about them now. I remember I couldn't convince anyone they were worth a hoot back in the late 90s and early 2000/2001 era. It was always bah, you gotta check out the s-video on my KVblahblah WEGA! Haha

Continuing a bit on what celerystalker said....

That has always been my collecting strategy when I started back into the game collecting hobby in the early 2000s (Though I focused purely on Japanese imports this time around). Whatever platform was hot at the time (import Saturn for example), I avoided and collected something most people weren't into at the time. Nowadays it's a bit harder because it seems collectors and probably more so, western flippers of Japanese gaming goods are buying everything up. About 6-7 years ago I focused on collecting obscure Japanese PS1 games, especially the 2D ones. Though awareness has gone up, especially with the Harmful Parks, Ralphs, Gaia Seeds, Panzer Bandits... besides the "big" names like those it's still a bit undiscovered terrority and might yield a few more diamonds in the rough... maybe... but heck the awesome 2D Gegege no Kitarou game goes for a small fortune now. Back in the day it was 20 bucks with obi

[Bratwurst]

Where do you figure a flashcart for the NES/Famicom would run you $150? Direct from krikzz it's $118 + $6 shipping, it can't be much more for a 2 gig SD card which is the most you would need. In my humble opinion it's worth every penny and has completely replaced my original collection.

If I may offer some personal experience regarding the NES HDMI kit, beware that you could end up with a system with CPU & PPU chips that aren't compatible. In spite of the E, G and H revisions listed as supported, I had to mix and match chips from different systems before I got a working setup. I also do not believe the kit works with the Sharp Twin (for unknown reasons) and haven't seen any news to the contrary since last year.

The FDSStick works excellently and is cheap provided you have a Disk System Ram Adapter or can find one for $20-$25 shipped. It compliments the Everdrive's current inability to properly emulate FDS sound.

The NES Mini is essentially a Raspberry Pi in a pretty plastic shell, it also has quirky sound issues inherent to the emulation.

I personally disagree with the perception that the Analogue NT sports better build quality vs '30 year old hardware,' if anything I would put more stock in product manufactured in the 70s and 80s for their robustness, vs something made in China now where a philosophy of cheaping out at the factory dominates. It's cool that Kevtris released so many cores for people to play other systems but it simply costs too much for a milled block of aluminum.

Regarding the AVS, it also suffers from some quality control issues such as the USB power jack lacking enough reinforcement to not come loose from the motherboard. I haven't looked into whether this was getting fixed in a later production run, but check out pictures of the FDS Ram Adapter plugged into the thing and you'll see the cord wedges awkwardly against that hinged lid.

[Niku-Sama]

I'm glad to hear you'll be back more!! ...

I said I wasn't going away, I probably wont be able to be more active until I find a new job, which hopefully happens soon

[QUOTE=Bratwurst;2044706]Where do you figure a flashcart for the NES/Famicom would run you $150? Direct from krikzz it's $118 + $6 shipping, it can't be much more for a 2 gig SD card which is the most you would need. In my humble opinion it's worth every penny and has completely replaced my original collection.

If I may offer some personal experience regarding the NES HDMI kit, beware that you could end up with a system with CPU & PPU chips that aren't compatible. In spite of the E, G and H revisions listed as supported, I had to mix and match chips from different systems before I got a working setup. I also do not believe the kit works with the Sharp Twin (for unknown reasons) and haven't seen any news to the contrary since last year.... [QUOTE]

I was looking at getting one of the fancier ones from StonAge Gamer, different color shell, fancy sticker and maybe a case. kinda figured why not.
Also I thought they showed (game tech) a installation on a Twin, either way its totally possible if I get a non supported revision (which I think is kinda odd its like that) its entirely possible to swap from one of the probably way to many famicoms/NESs I have. last head count was something like 5 famicoms and 12 NESs, not including bare boards

I know emulation is a dirty word to some, but you wouldn't just be ok with that save for a few games that are meaningful to you? I don't mind it and I actually do all three... the real stuff, flashcarts, and emulation. Each has something nice for different situations. I've got a lot of various emulation setups, but the best experience get is with a PC I built using an ArcadeVGA card to output 15khz RGB low res video to a Sony PVM (I didn't want to fuss with an old ATI card and softkhz software). Then various USB console like controllers/adapters/joysticks. It's basically the same idea as a MAME cab using a real arcade CRT. Plus it will run quite a few consoles, portables, and arcade platforms.

As a side note you mention $15 PVMs... I find it a little funny how almost every retro gamer is about them now. I remember I couldn't convince anyone they were worth a hoot back in the late 90s and early 2000/2001 era. It was always bah, you gotta check out the s-video on my KVblahblah WEGA! Haha

I had always known the monitors they used in a TV station would have been better infact my parents worked at television stations for a long time when I was a kid and my dad would say thing like how a game system would work so much better if they could get one of those, problem was this is when they were still new and by the time a tv station would be dumping them they didn't work there any more and other things had come along. now being in a small town I wouldn't doubt that the local stations are still using those same PVM/BVMs that are probably nearing 25 years old.

now here is where the "get off my lawn" part is going to start. back in the say when I used emulators you downloaded the emulator, which took about 30 minutes, then you downloaded the rom, another 45 minutes, you made sure your modem actually disconnected from the phone line (old ISA 33.6k modem) and then you opened up the emulator, configured your keyboard or controller and then opened the rom in it and it worked.
now you download an emulator, and a rom and then try and open it up and it bitches about some bios bull shit. and then you hunt, and hunt , and hunt and eventually you get fed up and say eff this and delete everything.

I just don't get it any more, an emulator is a stand alone piece of software (or hardware depending) that works as something else, but if you down load it and then it requires some other piece of software that's not readily available then its just old visual basic code waiting for a plug in that's no where to be found. and then calling it "bios" it is not "bios" it is in it self the emulator because the fucking software isn't doing the emulation its this supposed "bios" file.

I get that bios is basic input/output system or a low level OS but that runs above the hardware level and calling it some thing else to get it to work in some other chunk of software is just misleading since the supposed emulator doesn't work.

I mean at least I know my motherboard is still a motherboard and what its supposed to do if I take a soldering iron and rip the bios chip off of it...


any way tangent. emulation has its place but they way its done now just pisses me the hell off plus playing the real deal or otherwise on a dedicated system feels better to me, and getting an upgraded version of it to play on modern TV's is kind of where I want to go. my 20M2MDU might last another 10 or so years but HDMI as a standard seems at this point in time, be pretty far away from its revisional limit and will probably be around a lot longer.

I am curious though is the NT mini's aluminum shell (the silver one) is raw or hard anodized with out colorants, and if it is hard anodized if I can get one in its raw form and then maybe have something done with it.

[Bratwurst]

I was looking at getting one of the fancier ones from StonAge Gamer, different color shell, fancy sticker and maybe a case. kinda figured why not.

Well, it's your money. StoneAge Gamer has always struck me as an unnecessary middleman and I go out of my way to avoid those.

Also I thought they showed (game tech) a installation on a Twin, either way its totally possible if I get a non supported revision (which I think is kinda odd its like that) its entirely possible to swap from one of the probably way to many famicoms/NESs I have. last head count was something like 5 famicoms and 12 NESs, not including bare boards

That video is over a year old and all Jason did was open the Twin up, puzzle over where he could put the HDMI board and shrugged his shoulders. If you feel inclined on desoldering multiple through-hole ICs to mix and match a working set be my guest, but I was not impressed with having to do it myself.

[FieryReign]

[QUOTE=Niku-Sama;2044745]I said I wasn't going away, I probably wont be able to be more active until I find a new job, which hopefully happens soon

[QUOTE=Bratwurst;2044706]Where do you figure a flashcart for the NES/Famicom would run you $150? Direct from krikzz it's $118 + $6 shipping, it can't be much more for a 2 gig SD card which is the most you would need. In my humble opinion it's worth every penny and has completely replaced my original collection.

If I may offer some personal experience regarding the NES HDMI kit, beware that you could end up with a system with CPU & PPU chips that aren't compatible. In spite of the E, G and H revisions listed as supported, I had to mix and match chips from different systems before I got a working setup. I also do not believe the kit works with the Sharp Twin (for unknown reasons) and haven't seen any news to the contrary since last year....

I was looking at getting one of the fancier ones from StonAge Gamer, different color shell, fancy sticker and maybe a case. kinda figured why not.
Also I thought they showed (game tech) a installation on a Twin, either way its totally possible if I get a non supported revision (which I think is kinda odd its like that) its entirely possible to swap from one of the probably way to many famicoms/NESs I have. last head count was something like 5 famicoms and 12 NESs, not including bare boards




I had always known the monitors they used in a TV station would have been better infact my parents worked at television stations for a long time when I was a kid and my dad would say thing like how a game system would work so much better if they could get one of those, problem was this is when they were still new and by the time a tv station would be dumping them they didn't work there any more and other things had come along. now being in a small town I wouldn't doubt that the local stations are still using those same PVM/BVMs that are probably nearing 25 years old.

now here is where the "get off my lawn" part is going to start. back in the say when I used emulators you downloaded the emulator, which took about 30 minutes, then you downloaded the rom, another 45 minutes, you made sure your modem actually disconnected from the phone line (old ISA 33.6k modem) and then you opened up the emulator, configured your keyboard or controller and then opened the rom in it and it worked.
now you download an emulator, and a rom and then try and open it up and it bitches about some bios bull shit. and then you hunt, and hunt , and hunt and eventually you get fed up and say eff this and delete everything.

I just don't get it any more, an emulator is a stand alone piece of software (or hardware depending) that works as something else, but if you down load it and then it requires some other piece of software that's not readily available then its just old visual basic code waiting for a plug in that's no where to be found. and then calling it "bios" it is not "bios" it is in it self the emulator because the fucking software isn't doing the emulation its this supposed "bios" file.

I get that bios is basic input/output system or a low level OS but that runs above the hardware level and calling it some thing else to get it to work in some other chunk of software is just misleading since the supposed emulator doesn't work.

I mean at least I know my motherboard is still a motherboard and what its supposed to do if I take a soldering iron and rip the bios chip off of it...


any way tangent. emulation has its place but they way its done now just pisses me the hell off plus playing the real deal or otherwise on a dedicated system feels better to me, and getting an upgraded version of it to play on modern TV's is kind of where I want to go. my 20M2MDU might last another 10 or so years but HDMI as a standard seems at this point in time, be pretty far away from its revisional limit and will probably be around a lot longer.

I am curious though is the NT mini's aluminum shell (the silver one) is raw or hard anodized with out colorants, and if it is hard anodized if I can get one in its raw form and then maybe have something done with it.

What kind of garbage emulators are you running? There's only a few that need bios files and they're easily found.

[SparTonberry]

now here is where the "get off my lawn" part is going to start. back in the say when I used emulators you downloaded the emulator, which took about 30 minutes, then you downloaded the rom, another 45 minutes, you made sure your modem actually disconnected from the phone line (old ISA 33.6k modem) and then you opened up the emulator, configured your keyboard or controller and then opened the rom in it and it worked.
now you download an emulator, and a rom and then try and open it up and it bitches about some bios bull shit. and then you hunt, and hunt , and hunt and eventually you get fed up and say eff this and delete everything.

I just don't get it any more, an emulator is a stand alone piece of software (or hardware depending) that works as something else, but if you down load it and then it requires some other piece of software that's not readily available then its just old visual basic code waiting for a plug in that's no where to be found. and then calling it "bios" it is not "bios" it is in it self the emulator because the fucking software isn't doing the emulation its this supposed "bios" file.

I get that bios is basic input/output system or a low level OS but that runs above the hardware level and calling it some thing else to get it to work in some other chunk of software is just misleading since the supposed emulator doesn't work.

I mean at least I know my motherboard is still a motherboard and what its supposed to do if I take a soldering iron and rip the bios chip off of it...

Are you talking about emulators not including BIOS ROMs?
Well, that's because a BIOS ROM is copyrighted code and including it would give companies like Nintendo an excuse to shut them down.
It is more accurate to run the actual ROM, but some emulators will have the option for a kind of "simulated BIOS" where it runs its own code to produce a similar effect that works for most games but can have some small differences (like timing) that a few games might care about.

[Niku-Sama]

Well, it's your money. StoneAge Gamer has always struck me as an unnecessary middleman and I go out of my way to avoid those.



That video is over a year old and all Jason did was open the Twin up, puzzle over where he could put the HDMI board and shrugged his shoulders. If you feel inclined on desoldering multiple through-hole ICs to mix and match a working set be my guest, but I was not impressed with having to do it myself.

Ah not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last. When i do it i socket them in case i run into another bad ppu/cpu

What kind of garbage emulators are you running? There's only a few that need bios files and they're easily found.

Apparently some real fucking shitty ones