Although there are still a couple of unfinished projects lying around, at least I want to finish this adapter before the end of the year. This is a list of things needed:
Five months after the v500/v500a firmware removed all homebrew capabilities, while SNK Playmore and Tommo are busy arguing about the contract they once made, finally a jailbreak hack has been released. On the Facebook page Neogeoxjailbreakhack you’ll find links to the hacked image (based on the v500a firmware), instructions and sample content for a SD card with settings for many emulated consoles and arcade systems. Systems supported so far: Nintendo Famicom/NES, Super Famicom/SNES, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy/Game Boy Color, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System/Game Gear, Atari 2600, Capcom CPS1/CPS2, Sony PlayStation, SNK Neo Geo.
Before messing with the Timekeeper chip or exchanging the battery, it is very important to back up game saves you don’t want to lose from the NVRAM. With a null-modem cable hooked up to a PC, there are two options to communicate with the CD-i player:
To build a cable, we need a standard serial extension cable and a male 8-pin Mini-DIN connector. Remove the male D-Sub connector and keep it for later (we will need it for the Atari Jaguar mouse adapter).
When looking for a modification to improve the video size/quality of DVC games on my PAL CD-i player, I’ve found that only two tutorials are covering that kind of modification (here / here and here). The modification enables a PAL player to display full screen video without the black bars on top and bottom. NTSC players benefit from this modification too, as there are PAL exclusive software titles that already have full screen video (e.g. De Zaak van Sam) – without the modification, parts of the screen are cut off.
Unfortunately, the mainboard of my CD-i 220 differs from those used in the tutorials, so I had to get a service manual to figure it out myself. The service manual I found is valid for the Philips CD-i players CDI 220/20 220/25 220/39 (PAL) and CDI 220/31 220/37 (NTSC). It says there is an unimplemented switch 1201 in square C6 of the mainboard:
Elansar is a new game for Atari Jaguar. It was released on other platforms before and got ported to the Atari Jaguar 4MB cartridge format. Luckily I’ve got one out of 75 copies. It came enclosed in an universal game case (ironically all kinds of retro cartridges fit well, except Atari Jaguar’s…) with a small manual booklet and a sticker:
To have a full control experience I’m going to build the mouse adapter by Matthias Domin as soon as a new D-Sub15 connector (VGA) arrives. Unfortunately all spare connectors I’ve got have one or more important pins missing.
Today the brand new Neo Geo X Classics Vol. 1 was in the mail. It contains the games Metal Slug 2, Sengoku and Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy on a special SD card.
Also included are the Rocket Cable for charging and upgrading the handheld, firmware v500 (on the SD card) and two manuals (two pages each):
Today I got a sealed new in box relict from an era where Microsoft made great gaming peripherals for computers. It’s the SideWinder Strategic Commander:
Yesterday I got two huge accessories for the Wii (see the Wii game on the right for a size comparison; only 3 of the 9 dance mat segments are shown in the picture):
