Vectrex, she lives!

Many many years ago I purchased a Vectrex console from a local for a whoppin' $50 CAD.  The seller mentioned it didn't work, and that it exhibited the common "center dot" issue a lot of these Vectrex's eventually develop.  Looking online for the solution, I read that a simple capacitor replacement of all caps was the way to fix.

Not knowing much about the circuitry of the Vectrex, I tried repairing it myself. Now, I fancy myself as someone who can do intermediate skilled repairs, but I wasn't prepared to fix this machine. I didn't know how delicate the traces were, also dual layered, so I ended up causing more damage to it.

I let the machine sit for many years, until recently I found the urge to get this thing working again.  I found a seller on eBay that offers Vectrex repair services, and after searching on the internet any information about this seller, finding good reviews and success stories of repaired Vectrex's, I took the plunge. I'm so glad I did, because now my Vectrex lives!

I get to play one of my favourite homebrews for it, Moon Lander, which is a clone of the classic arcade game Lunar Lander by Atari.

In the picture below you can also see I'm using a custom built controller that has a buttery-smooth analog stick, arcade buttons and has a bit more comfortable form factor than the original controller.

Those beautiful vectors.

You'll never reach home. That's cold as ice!

Super Gameboy clock speed mod board

I recently installed Qwertymodo's Super Game Boy clock mod board into my SGB. The install was easy; remove a few resistors, solder the board to the exposed pads:

Sure you can do the old method mod of just replacing the oscillating crystal, but that breaks some cool features of the Super Game Boy where it's possible to speed up and slow down the gameplay using the Super Game Boy Commander controller from Hori.

One of the things I really like about the SGB is all the extra custom features they added to the games that support it.  Things like special palettes, custom borders, and in some games a 2-player simultaneous mode without the need of a second linked gameboy. This is particularly cool in some of the fighting games on GBC.  It was just too bad that the stock SGB that was released in North America had a different in clock speed, which introduced frame "hitching" and higher pitched sound.
I'm really happy with Qwertymodo's board and recommend it to anyone looking to do this upgrade to their Super Gameboy's.

Here are a few glory shots from my SNES Jr. running on a Sony PVM:

For Street Fighter 2, the border actually changes based on what stage you're playing!

Terminator 2 Pinball - alternate translite

Not too long ago a buddy of mine asked me to create an alternate image for his T2 pinball machine translite. Something that could replace the original (uninspiring) translite that incorporated multiple scenes from the film, in a movie-poster-like look.

The concept was to have multiple characters from the different scenes of the movie, in a collage type layout, with a bit more colour than the original. This was a fun one, for one of my favourite action/sci-fi films. It gave me an excuse to re-watch it multiple times!