I'm back here again after quite a long time. There were some things in the last months that I could have probably written blog entries about, but those last months were quite troublesome for me, so I never found that bit of motivation to write anything in my blog, especially considering that GBAtemp's blog section is kind of dead at this point. But thanks to @KleinesSinchen, I got motivated to write about my adventures in this blog again. I might "catch up" and write some more entries about other things I've done in these last months. I'm also considering hosting the blog on my own website, so that it could reach more people, outside of this fairly hidden GBAtemp blog section. Of course I'd still post them on GBAtemp alongside my website, since there are at least a few good people here who will still read my blogs.
Anyway, without dragging that on further, I recently bought a PS1 (PSone version) at a local retro-gaming event. It was kind of an impulse buy, but I really couldn't resist that cute little thing for the good price it was listed for together with its accessories, and I knew there would be some games I could enjoy playing on it. That was also just after I bought an imported Japanese Nintendo 64 to play the collection of Japanese N64 games that I've built up before I knew it (that's what I get for bidding on random auctions...), and I'll probably be doing a blog entry on that sometime soon as well, since I plan to at least do a power supply mod on it. And, since the PS1 games I plan on playing are also for the Japanese region, I'll have to install a modchip in the PSone.
Just look at it! Isn't it the cutest thing in the world? I think it's the cutest home console I own now.
Here are the controllers I got with it:
The Logitech-branded controller doesn't feel so bad, it'll work perfectly fine for me for the rare occasion of having a second player.
I also just love how easy the console is to disassemble. Just 6 screws, and the entire thing comes apart into all of its separate pieces. I really wish more electronics were like this.
First of all, I had to get a new video cable for it, since it was the only crucial thing missing from the set I bought (it didn't come with the power supply at first too, but that was because the seller forgot to bring it to the event, and he was kind enough to ship it to me later). The cheap SCART cable I got was advertised as being wired for actual RGB (instead of composite), but as it turns out, for some reason the most-likely Chinese manufacturer decided to omit a single resistor that actually makes TVs detect the signal as RGB... Would be so annoying, if I didn't have my soldering tools and a pack of various resistors...
The picture quality was in fact absolutely terrible before the modification, even worse than what I'd usually expect from a composite signal, but adding the 180 Ohm resistor between pins 8 and 16 quickly solved that. The quality is so much better after this simple modification. Sorry for not taking any photos of the quality difference, but I did the mod before deciding to write this blog entry, and didn't feel like desoldering a leg of that resistor again just to take photos of the difference.
And now the reason why I'll need to install the modchip:
Stupid region-locking features. I could go on a dumb long rant about that, but that's not worth it. Oh well, I am here to defeat this enemy anyway...
Bought a OneChip, so now I've got all the required pieces to get the whole setup working.
Here it is at my dirty, uncleaned soldering desk.
Soldering wires to the chip was easy enough, but of course the hard part comes next, and that's where things will go wrong!
So, I was just tinning all of the places I would have to solder the wires to, and of course I didn't think of rotating the board for spots where that would have made it easier... And there I go, bridging things I shouldn't and almost knocking some tiny resistors and capacitors off the PCB...
If I didn't already have quite a bit of soldering skills, this would have probably been a death sentence for this PS1. But I already had to fix tiny things like that before, so I was fairly sure I would be able to fix this with enough patience. "Patience" is the key word here, since I think I did spend at the very least 15 minutes just on fixing that...
Well, while it doesn't look great, here is the end result of fixing my mistakes. And yes, I did make sure that the PS1 still boots up before proceeding with the actual modchip install. Thankfully it did, so I could continue as before, being a bit more careful onwards.
Fast-forward, here's the modchip installed, and I'm attaching this photo in higher quality so you can judge my bad soldering skills. Yes, I did clean the board with alcohol after taking this photo.
Thankfully I didn't mess up anything else, and the PS1 does boot up. Weirdly, the image quality (at least of the boot screen, since that and the BIOS were the only things I was able to see before anyway) has increased once again, so I guess the chip might actually be applying some other BIOS patches besides just fooling the disc verification. More precisely, the jagged edges on the boot logo disappeared after installing the modchip.
I'd now show you some exciting photo of the console being fully assembled again, but since this is a home console, it doesn't look any different at all, and it's not like it has its own screen to show that Beatmania does run... I do have a video of the first boot-ups with the modchip, but that'd be a bit too tedious to attach here (and I'd have to edit the video a bit). But well, here is a photo of Beatmania running anyway. I'm quite happy that I got this to work.
For now, those two Beatmania discs are the only game I can play on the thing. I do have some other niche Japanese game, but it's far too text-based for me to understand and enjoy playing. If any of you who know me at least a bit have any recommendations for me, feel free to post those in the comments. Although, being honest, I have a hard time properly getting into any games other than rhythm-games these days.
That's all for now. I'm enjoying the PS1 and playing Beatmania on it. Anyway, you can expect the N64 entry sometime soon, and I guess you can generally expect some more blog entries on other topics from now on, whenever I'll find the motivation. There are quite a few topics I could write about. Well, thanks for reading, and thanks for still being here.
Anyway, without dragging that on further, I recently bought a PS1 (PSone version) at a local retro-gaming event. It was kind of an impulse buy, but I really couldn't resist that cute little thing for the good price it was listed for together with its accessories, and I knew there would be some games I could enjoy playing on it. That was also just after I bought an imported Japanese Nintendo 64 to play the collection of Japanese N64 games that I've built up before I knew it (that's what I get for bidding on random auctions...), and I'll probably be doing a blog entry on that sometime soon as well, since I plan to at least do a power supply mod on it. And, since the PS1 games I plan on playing are also for the Japanese region, I'll have to install a modchip in the PSone.
Just look at it! Isn't it the cutest thing in the world? I think it's the cutest home console I own now.
Here are the controllers I got with it:
The Logitech-branded controller doesn't feel so bad, it'll work perfectly fine for me for the rare occasion of having a second player.
I also just love how easy the console is to disassemble. Just 6 screws, and the entire thing comes apart into all of its separate pieces. I really wish more electronics were like this.
First of all, I had to get a new video cable for it, since it was the only crucial thing missing from the set I bought (it didn't come with the power supply at first too, but that was because the seller forgot to bring it to the event, and he was kind enough to ship it to me later). The cheap SCART cable I got was advertised as being wired for actual RGB (instead of composite), but as it turns out, for some reason the most-likely Chinese manufacturer decided to omit a single resistor that actually makes TVs detect the signal as RGB... Would be so annoying, if I didn't have my soldering tools and a pack of various resistors...
The picture quality was in fact absolutely terrible before the modification, even worse than what I'd usually expect from a composite signal, but adding the 180 Ohm resistor between pins 8 and 16 quickly solved that. The quality is so much better after this simple modification. Sorry for not taking any photos of the quality difference, but I did the mod before deciding to write this blog entry, and didn't feel like desoldering a leg of that resistor again just to take photos of the difference.
And now the reason why I'll need to install the modchip:
Stupid region-locking features. I could go on a dumb long rant about that, but that's not worth it. Oh well, I am here to defeat this enemy anyway...
Bought a OneChip, so now I've got all the required pieces to get the whole setup working.
Here it is at my dirty, uncleaned soldering desk.
Soldering wires to the chip was easy enough, but of course the hard part comes next, and that's where things will go wrong!
So, I was just tinning all of the places I would have to solder the wires to, and of course I didn't think of rotating the board for spots where that would have made it easier... And there I go, bridging things I shouldn't and almost knocking some tiny resistors and capacitors off the PCB...
If I didn't already have quite a bit of soldering skills, this would have probably been a death sentence for this PS1. But I already had to fix tiny things like that before, so I was fairly sure I would be able to fix this with enough patience. "Patience" is the key word here, since I think I did spend at the very least 15 minutes just on fixing that...
Well, while it doesn't look great, here is the end result of fixing my mistakes. And yes, I did make sure that the PS1 still boots up before proceeding with the actual modchip install. Thankfully it did, so I could continue as before, being a bit more careful onwards.
Fast-forward, here's the modchip installed, and I'm attaching this photo in higher quality so you can judge my bad soldering skills. Yes, I did clean the board with alcohol after taking this photo.
Thankfully I didn't mess up anything else, and the PS1 does boot up. Weirdly, the image quality (at least of the boot screen, since that and the BIOS were the only things I was able to see before anyway) has increased once again, so I guess the chip might actually be applying some other BIOS patches besides just fooling the disc verification. More precisely, the jagged edges on the boot logo disappeared after installing the modchip.
I'd now show you some exciting photo of the console being fully assembled again, but since this is a home console, it doesn't look any different at all, and it's not like it has its own screen to show that Beatmania does run... I do have a video of the first boot-ups with the modchip, but that'd be a bit too tedious to attach here (and I'd have to edit the video a bit). But well, here is a photo of Beatmania running anyway. I'm quite happy that I got this to work.
For now, those two Beatmania discs are the only game I can play on the thing. I do have some other niche Japanese game, but it's far too text-based for me to understand and enjoy playing. If any of you who know me at least a bit have any recommendations for me, feel free to post those in the comments. Although, being honest, I have a hard time properly getting into any games other than rhythm-games these days.
That's all for now. I'm enjoying the PS1 and playing Beatmania on it. Anyway, you can expect the N64 entry sometime soon, and I guess you can generally expect some more blog entries on other topics from now on, whenever I'll find the motivation. There are quite a few topics I could write about. Well, thanks for reading, and thanks for still being here.
