14th April 2011, 1:29 AM
(This post was last modified: 14th April 2011, 2:00 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
There are lots of Atari fans, but the Jaguar is probably on the "Virtual Boy" end of that fandom. I myself have a decent collection of 2600 games, but never really considered trying to find a working Jaguar and CD addon. Before I did that I'd probably get the 5200 or something. There's actually a boxed copy of Frogger for the 5200 sitting at one of the Vintage Stocks here, so that'd be a good buy if I had a system to play it on.
It's becoming very apparent that proper repair is going to become more and more important to classic gaming. The Atari Jaguars are the front of that wave. If they are going to be maintained and still actually be around, people are going to have to learn to either repair them or find people that can repair them. The alternative is for all the remaining ones to slowly break down until none are left.
To that end, I'm starting to get a lot more proactive in repairing my own systems. I've figured out exactly which capacitor has broken down in my first Game Gear (marked with the exact specifications, which is fortunate) and intend to buy a replacement as soon as I can get a proper soldering kit (I need one for smaller circuitry). Beyond that I've looked into how to buff scratches out of plastic, including clear plastic like that which is covering the GG's screen. If all goes well, I'll have my first GG up and running again and scuff free, which will be nice since the plastic on that one is much smoother.
My Saturn also has a rather odd issue. Certain "shadowed" textures are oddly glitched. It's not a CD reading issue or a disk scratch, it appears to be some flaw in the processing. I think it's another capacitor issue, one that doesn't kill the system but just one small part of it that doesn't affect game logic. I can't locate it though because I don't see any that are suffering from the typical signs, like leaking fluid or swelling. The only alternative is to desolder and test every single capacitor in the system, but wow that's a lot of work. If you have the chance, just look inside a Saturn at some point. It's insane how complicated it is in one of those things. It's like in the mad attempt to catch up to Sony's 3D capabilities, Sega just slapped together every single processor they could find and stuck them all on one set of boards. That's aside from the fact that the graphics system uses rectangles as the basic unit of rendering instead of triangles. At any rate I get lost just taking the thing apart. There's like 20 screws holding it all in place.
Oh yes, there's also the matter of the damaged power port on my SNES. Technically I managed to get it working just fine by bending the now-exposed connector pins in the port so they contact the power plug, but that's only a temporary fix. That's going to be a huge pain to fix properly. The little plastic part in that plug was connected to the plastic section that covers the whole setup of power plug, a/v plug, and channel selector. While it's not connected to the rest of the plastic shell, it doesn't slide off. I have found I'll need to desolder parts off the main board just to get that plastic part to come off, and then I'll need to replace the whole thing with another from another SNES. Other than that, the reset switch isn't working. Something under the contact the switch hits isn't properly connecting. I had fixed it already at one point, but now that won't work. The plastic switch on the main board itself is one solid chunk of plastic fixed to the board, so getting in there is going to be rather difficult. It can probably be removed by desoldering something or other, but i haven't really checked that out too thoroughly.
My NES is in good shape already because while the US model does have some ridiculous design flaws, they are really easy to fix, if time consuming. The connector pins slowly get bent out of place and stop forming a solid connection (quickly if you use those really large connector addons like the Game Genie). The fix is simple as just bending the pins outward, all 72 of them. I also cleaned when while I was at it which was much quicker. My NES is also the only system I modded, since the mod has no down sides and the modification is actually documented in Nintendo repair manuals. Simply clip one connector on the 10NES lockout chip and it switches into permanent "key" mode, allowing all games to run (no games ever tried to "detect" this method). The unofficial games also all run just fine without it, though the ones with switches need to be switched to the second mode. Considering the Japanese system never had any lockout chip and the second model of the NES removed it, this is pretty much the most official hack there is, so I went with it and haven't looked back.
Oh yes, I need to find some way to repair N64 control sticks. Those things are far too fragile, and replacement sticks will eventually run out.
Other than this, I do basic maintenance on everything else. Every few years I take apart my old controllers and clean them out, which makes them a lot more responsive. I clean the contacts on my cartridge games and in the systems themselves, and do the same for optical disks and the laser lenses in the systems that use those. I've been fortunate in that I've never had to recalibrate any disk reading trays. Every now and then, I find a scratch on a disk and take it down to Vintage Stock to get resurfaced (that place is simply great for nerds around here), which works far better than those cheap "repair kits" they sell in stores.
I'm looking for a way to deal with a creeping rust issue that a couple of my systems are developing on certain metal parts. My SNES is probably the biggest culprit. The main board is mostly fine, it's the RF shielding that's suffering the most (and some metal parts surrounding the cartridge connector).
Oh yes, one thing I'm really looking forward to is 3D printing. When that's finally cheap enough for average people to have them, they'll change pretty much everything, and for the first time in a while, in a non-digital way (okay, partially digital). Replacing broken components will be a lot easier when intact ones can be scanned in and replicated whenever they are needed. It only works for solid forms from a single material (think T1000 limitations), but it already works for hard plastic, metal, and rubber. I could easily replace, say, the top plastic shell of my Genesis or controller buttons with one of those things. I could also potentially replace the rubber inserts inside controllers, though I'd have to add the metal contacts manually when they are done "printing".
Wow that was a speech...
It's becoming very apparent that proper repair is going to become more and more important to classic gaming. The Atari Jaguars are the front of that wave. If they are going to be maintained and still actually be around, people are going to have to learn to either repair them or find people that can repair them. The alternative is for all the remaining ones to slowly break down until none are left.
To that end, I'm starting to get a lot more proactive in repairing my own systems. I've figured out exactly which capacitor has broken down in my first Game Gear (marked with the exact specifications, which is fortunate) and intend to buy a replacement as soon as I can get a proper soldering kit (I need one for smaller circuitry). Beyond that I've looked into how to buff scratches out of plastic, including clear plastic like that which is covering the GG's screen. If all goes well, I'll have my first GG up and running again and scuff free, which will be nice since the plastic on that one is much smoother.
My Saturn also has a rather odd issue. Certain "shadowed" textures are oddly glitched. It's not a CD reading issue or a disk scratch, it appears to be some flaw in the processing. I think it's another capacitor issue, one that doesn't kill the system but just one small part of it that doesn't affect game logic. I can't locate it though because I don't see any that are suffering from the typical signs, like leaking fluid or swelling. The only alternative is to desolder and test every single capacitor in the system, but wow that's a lot of work. If you have the chance, just look inside a Saturn at some point. It's insane how complicated it is in one of those things. It's like in the mad attempt to catch up to Sony's 3D capabilities, Sega just slapped together every single processor they could find and stuck them all on one set of boards. That's aside from the fact that the graphics system uses rectangles as the basic unit of rendering instead of triangles. At any rate I get lost just taking the thing apart. There's like 20 screws holding it all in place.
Oh yes, there's also the matter of the damaged power port on my SNES. Technically I managed to get it working just fine by bending the now-exposed connector pins in the port so they contact the power plug, but that's only a temporary fix. That's going to be a huge pain to fix properly. The little plastic part in that plug was connected to the plastic section that covers the whole setup of power plug, a/v plug, and channel selector. While it's not connected to the rest of the plastic shell, it doesn't slide off. I have found I'll need to desolder parts off the main board just to get that plastic part to come off, and then I'll need to replace the whole thing with another from another SNES. Other than that, the reset switch isn't working. Something under the contact the switch hits isn't properly connecting. I had fixed it already at one point, but now that won't work. The plastic switch on the main board itself is one solid chunk of plastic fixed to the board, so getting in there is going to be rather difficult. It can probably be removed by desoldering something or other, but i haven't really checked that out too thoroughly.
My NES is in good shape already because while the US model does have some ridiculous design flaws, they are really easy to fix, if time consuming. The connector pins slowly get bent out of place and stop forming a solid connection (quickly if you use those really large connector addons like the Game Genie). The fix is simple as just bending the pins outward, all 72 of them. I also cleaned when while I was at it which was much quicker. My NES is also the only system I modded, since the mod has no down sides and the modification is actually documented in Nintendo repair manuals. Simply clip one connector on the 10NES lockout chip and it switches into permanent "key" mode, allowing all games to run (no games ever tried to "detect" this method). The unofficial games also all run just fine without it, though the ones with switches need to be switched to the second mode. Considering the Japanese system never had any lockout chip and the second model of the NES removed it, this is pretty much the most official hack there is, so I went with it and haven't looked back.
Oh yes, I need to find some way to repair N64 control sticks. Those things are far too fragile, and replacement sticks will eventually run out.
Other than this, I do basic maintenance on everything else. Every few years I take apart my old controllers and clean them out, which makes them a lot more responsive. I clean the contacts on my cartridge games and in the systems themselves, and do the same for optical disks and the laser lenses in the systems that use those. I've been fortunate in that I've never had to recalibrate any disk reading trays. Every now and then, I find a scratch on a disk and take it down to Vintage Stock to get resurfaced (that place is simply great for nerds around here), which works far better than those cheap "repair kits" they sell in stores.
I'm looking for a way to deal with a creeping rust issue that a couple of my systems are developing on certain metal parts. My SNES is probably the biggest culprit. The main board is mostly fine, it's the RF shielding that's suffering the most (and some metal parts surrounding the cartridge connector).
Oh yes, one thing I'm really looking forward to is 3D printing. When that's finally cheap enough for average people to have them, they'll change pretty much everything, and for the first time in a while, in a non-digital way (okay, partially digital). Replacing broken components will be a lot easier when intact ones can be scanned in and replicated whenever they are needed. It only works for solid forms from a single material (think T1000 limitations), but it already works for hard plastic, metal, and rubber. I could easily replace, say, the top plastic shell of my Genesis or controller buttons with one of those things. I could also potentially replace the rubber inserts inside controllers, though I'd have to add the metal contacts manually when they are done "printing".
Wow that was a speech...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)