January 2020

Circuit bending. Don’t you just love the colours? Sega! CONIC TEOM, GAROC ONTC! Blue streak? More like garbled blue smudge! Casino Night Zone? More like… I can’t even! I am pretty sure this was done on a Mega Drive Model 2. However, I don’t seem to have labelled my source... Continue reading

I knew I’d eventually get around to setting up some sort of gaming live stream! Too bad OBS on my Mac doesn’t run terribly well and tends to crash when in the background. Yet when booted to Windows 10, it’s perfect! As a result I’m on the hunt for a... Continue reading

There’s always another Super Nintendo around the corner. This time I’ve got an SNS-CPU-GPM-02 board on the bench for an electrolytic capacitor replacement, since they’re at that ripe age of olden times. It’s only a spare motherboard without a proper case, and it’s been doing some rather strange things, so... Continue reading

It’s time to learn about cicadas in Australia! Wow! What an amazing video! So many awesome facts about cicadas! Please enjoy my video about cicadas. The cicadas are out in force today! Continue reading

Talk about deja vu! I set a New Year’s resolution to lose some weight… again. To do that I’ve employed my good friend salmon. Don’t worry he won’t get any kickbacks. 2016 was the year of weight loss where I managed to get my weight way, way down into the... Continue reading

Ahh yes, trusty old EarthBound also known as: EARTH BOUND NTSC 24 Mbit (3 MB) ROM 64 kbit (8 KB) SRAM HiROM / FastROM English SHVC-1J3M-20 1 = one ROM chip J = HiROM 3 = 64 kbit / 8 KB SRAM M = MAD-1 family decoder After realising my... Continue reading

The last step in every mod is testing, and probably something about region locks if the title of this post is to be believed. I’ve got the Phantom Universal modchip installed in my Japanese Saturn, so it’s time to find out which discs it will actually boot. There are a... Continue reading

We’ve reached the most important part of the Phantom Universal installation, the installation itself! So grab a bucket of popcorn and watch in real time as I work out what cables go where. I’ve spent plenty of time identifying the drive and examining the hardware, so it’s about time we... Continue reading

A deeper dive into the installation of the Phantom Universal. After ASSEMbler Games burnt down, Bad_Ad84 was selling these through Retro Gamer Stuff, which later closed. I was very happy with the Phantom, especially paired with a region-bypass option such as Pseudo Saturn Kai. The console for this adventure is... Continue reading

This one went into a Victor V-Saturn that had recently been unmodded. We’ve fitted the much newer Phantom Universal, developed by Bad_Ad84 and Zer0-2k11. If he’s still out there, here’s to you, Bad_Ad84! The chip lets CD-R backups boot, but the region lock is still there; imports need something like... Continue reading

This week we’ve got a bunch of Phantom Universal videos recorded way back in 2016. Hopefully they’re still relevant to the Saturns of today! With Rhea already around and the Satiator on the way, we’re definitely getting closer to a CD-less society. The Phantom Universal sits between the Saturn motherboard... Continue reading

Ah yes, the old Apple 341-0813 ROM, stored in a TC534200P-F749 mask ROM. Its pin layout matches the M27C400 EPROM, whose programmer profile worked for reading it. The GQ-4X’s D27C4000 / uPD27C4000 profile also produced usable reads. These were read profiles for this ROM, not programming settings for a mask... Continue reading

After three and a half years I can finally put this one to rest and purge it from my mind. Remember that ridiculous green line appearing on my Super Famicom? Well, it turns out things aren’t quite as straightforward as a faulty motherboard. Here’s my Japanese Super Famicom with an... Continue reading

My then-current Retina MacBook Air, with its butterfly keyboard, was already showing the familiar w and Return-key symptoms covered by Apple’s Keyboard Service Program for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. Annoying. I really did miss my old MacBook Air sometimes. It had superior key travel. When did Apple announce... Continue reading