racketboy.com

Went to my favorite thrift chain last weekend and noticed a three Nintendo DS behind the glass. One of them had a screen that was too scratchy for me to care about it, but the blue one was in good shape. And upon closer inspection, the third DS turned out to be a small 3DS. It's official color name is Pearl Pink. Mom looked at it and called it Rose. I think I like that name better. Both still had their chargers and the 3DS had its memory card and still held a charge. They came home with me.

The next day I went and they had put out a stack of DS/3DS games that I can only assume came in with the systems. A couple of them were duplicates, so I'm guessing they belonged to (at least) two different kids. But they were very conscientious kids, because all the games still had their boxes and manuals. So hurray for non-distructive children.



I've been getting gift cards to this particular thrift chain during Christmas, so factoring that in, I only spent a little over $12 (plus tax).

So I guess my good luck with finding good stuff at this chain of thrift stores some time after Christmas still holds true

samsonlonghair wrote:

isiolia wrote:

marurun wrote:Can you send packages to the US more affordably through US military services than Japan international post? Cause right now international shipping from the US (and often to it as well) sucks balls.

Last I've done so (I lived on Yokota AFB in '95-97) it was pretty much like mailing things domestically. Military has APO/FPO, so basically, USPS delivers it to a depot and the Military Postal Service takes it from there (or vice versa).

Is this true? Hook us up, J_Will! Do you have a BST thread?

Yes, there is a USPS on base. Cost is the same with the extra annoyance of customs forms.

You realize now that this forum knows this, you will be inundated with requests to "pick stuff up" for folks.

J_Wil wrote:

samsonlonghair wrote:

marurun wrote:Can you send packages to the US more affordably through US military services than Japan international post? Cause right now international shipping from the US (and often to it as well) sucks balls.

Is this true? Hook us up, J_Will! Do you have a BST thread?

Yes, there is a USPS on base. Cost is the same with the extra annoyance of customs forms.

DUDE! Keep you eyes open for some Sega MegaDrive stuff for me, please. Especially stuff we can't get stateside like Alien Soldier or Golden Axe 3. Really, just anything cool or unusual. Maybe some cool Shoot 'em up that's rare/expensive in 'merica but is common and cheap in Nihon.

marurun wrote:You realize now that this forum knows this, you will be inundated with requests to "pick stuff up" for folks.

No shame in my game!

marurun wrote:You realize now that this forum knows this, you will be inundated with requests to "pick stuff up" for folks.

We can only hope. Now about finding us (and I mean me) some nice cheaply priced PC Engine HuCards? I've seen the yen stickers 300 this, 1300 that compared to $30-50 on ebay or more... Meh.

He could even use Amazon's JP market place and have it all delivered! No in-person hunting at all!

So there's a fairly new retro game shop by me that I finally got a chance to stop in and check out. There were 4 CRTs set up with various consoles. Two 19-ish inch, one with Goldeneye and the other with A Link to the Past. Then there were two 13-ish inch, one was off and the other had the first Castlevania. So I was playing Castlevania for a little bit.

Now, I have CRTs in the basement. Including a 27" Sony Wega. But I don't always get to use them for various reasons. I've been gaming mostly on an HDTV with an XRGB Framemeister for the past ~3 years. So being that I'm use to using the upscaler on an HDTV, any time I play on a CRT I remember how much more awesome it is. Also, I've been wanting to practice the first Castlevania to either speed run or do a no-hit run. But I'm not gonna bother doing that with the delay of upscalers and HDTVs.

So, long story short, I decided that I would get a 13" CRT to keep upstairs. I was gaming on this little 13" Sylvania at the game shop and was really impressed with it. The idea is that I would already have a 27" CRT some where upstairs if I had the room for it. But a 13" CRT ain't no big deal, I can fit one on a small table. So I decided I wanted a 13" Sony Trinitron, and I might have overpaid but sometimes you gotta treat yourself...

Ziggy587 wrote:...So, long story short, I decided that I would get a 13" CRT to keep upstairs.

Nice! I have that same 13" Sony CRT TV. Very portable. I remember I wanted to build a mini arcade machine with the TV...never came to fruition.

sevin0seven wrote:Nice! I have that same 13" Sony CRT TV. Very portable.

I got it in last night. It's as light as a feather! It looks great, too! It needs minor tweaks for the geometry and overscan, but I have to wait to get the remote (the TV didn't come with a remote but I ordered one separately).

The only con is that it only has a mono audio input for the one and only AV input. The TV itself is mono, which I don't care since a TV this small wouldn't have much of a stereo effect anyway. But the mono input kinds sucks outside of the NES or model 1 Genesis. You cannot simply use a Y cable to mash the L and R signals into the mono input, that'll mess up the signals in a bad way. A simple adapter will fix this problem, I just have to make another one with RCA jacks instead of 3.5mm.

Ziggy587 wrote:

sevin0seven wrote:Nice! I have that same 13" Sony CRT TV. Very portable.

Now, I have CRTs in the basement. Including a 27" Sony Wega. But I don't always get to use them for various reasons.

I got it in last night. It's as light as a feather! It looks great, too! It needs minor tweaks for the geometry and overscan, but I have to wait to get the remote (the TV didn't come with a remote but I ordered one separately).

The only con is that it only has a mono audio input for the one and only AV input. The TV itself is mono, which I don't care since a TV this small wouldn't have much of a stereo effect anyway. But the mono input kinds sucks outside of the NES or model 1 Genesis. You cannot simply use a Y cable to mash the L and R signals into the mono input, that'll mess up the signals in a bad way. A simple adapter will fix this problem, I just have to make another one with RCA jacks instead of 3.5mm.

Neat TV though hopefully you move your 27" CRT WEGA back to active status. I'm spoiled by larger flat tubes and preferred over the curved glass of my Sony PVMs and Commodore 1701. The smaller CRTs reserved as secondary screen of "Lan" play. Still, that 13" TV a good holdover to enjoy your retro consoles.

I looked over again on your modded stereo to mono adapter. If reading your schematic correctly, just resistors to reduce the attenuation? I do not see any diodes for one direction to prevent any possible cross feedback. Never have an issue of a signal too loud or distortion feedback with an RCA YPlug converting stereo to mono on the PVM or 1701. Some game manuals state to use just the white connector for mono TVs, I think some game sounds lost if leaving the red jack disconnected.

Going the other direction such as mono PlugNPlays, interesting that older stereo CRTs can detect just the one audio feed and send sound to both internal speakers. Out of habit, I use Y cables anyways.