The Blog

Sega Mega Drive Frenzy

Nix McRetro // 3rd July 2012 // Repairs, Sega

I do not think I could take apart another Mega Drive… at least not for a few days. I’ve gone ahead and taken some great quality pictures of the innards of five of my functioning Mega Drive Model 1s and two of my non-functioning Mega Drive Model 2s. I found... Continue reading

Sega TeraDrive Hard Drive Interface Investigation

Nix McRetro // 24th June 2012 // IBM PC, Repairs, Sega

Sega TeraDrive Hard Drive Interface Investigation

Above are some photos of a Sega TeraDrive hard drive. When I wrote this in 2012 I was trying to work out exactly what the interface was. IDE? ESDI? XTA? Something else entirely? The connector has 44 pins and carries both data and power, but the pinout does not match... Continue reading

286, 386SX and 486SLC Overclocking and Upgrade Ideas

Nix McRetro // 17th June 2012 // IBM PC, Repairs

286, 386SX and 486SLC Overclocking and Upgrade Ideas

Wow! My mind has been racing at 1000 miles an hour. I can barely keep up with all the ideas for future mods. I have more tabs open than a Firefox enthusiast right now! This is basically the notebook beside my computer turned into a blog post. These are ideas... Continue reading

Nintendo Famicom AV Mod Complete

Nick // 17th June 2012 // Hacks, Nintendo

The Famicom AV mod is complete. The first video is a demonstration of how the composite-video modification works and why I wired it the way I did. Next is an overview of the completed modification inside the console. And finally, some Spelunker. What an enjoyable game it can be when... Continue reading

Sega TeraDrive Puzzle Construction

Nix McRetro // 11th June 2012 // IBM PC, Repairs, Sega

To kick things off here is a video of my faulty WDI-325Q. Listen to it grind! I’ll need to be sending that back to the place I bought it from, not much use to me in that state! Next up we have the mysterious Puzzle Construction software. It definitely interacts... Continue reading