SNK Neo Geo
When I made my MV2FS ready for home-use, I also added a ball top to my Neo Geo CD Controller Pro. This was supposed to be handled in an article in 2018, but it somehow got lost. Anyways, here it is:
The SNK Neo Geo CD Controller Pro (aka kidney bean stick) doesn’t have a regular ball top like the arcade stick. Instead, it has an indented head, probably to rest your thumb on.
I recently acquired a cheap Top Hunter MVS cartridge with graphic glitches for repair. When I plugged it into my Neo Geo MV2FS, it had the mentioned graphic glitches and a mostly green-tinted image.
This is a quick fix for dusty environments, to have at least some kind of protection: MVS Cartridge Slot Covers.
When I finally fixed my consolized MV1FZS last month and was able to play some games again, I noticed that it outputs mono sound only. It is now time to make some additional modifications to it.
MVS boards need both 5V and 12V voltages, and 12V is used for the audio amp only. As I’m going to add a new stereo audio circuit, there is no need for the 12V feed anymore. This consolized MVS draws the 12V from the now obsolete XL6009E1 DC-DC converter:
After having a great time with my MV2FS, I was looking for something more compact that I could use in the living room. I came across a pre-consolized MV1FZS and played the entire Neo Geo library with it.
Then it suddenly stopped working:
BACKUP RAM ERROR
ADDRESS WRITE READ
00D00000 5555 B255
Neo Geo games and hardware have been a part of my life for many years. As I was looking at store displays during the early 90s, I was amazed at how huge these game carts were in comparison with other consoles, such as the Nintendo GameBoy.
In the late 90s, the emulators NeoRAGE and NeoRAGEx introduced me to the world of Neo Geo and arcade emulation. At that time, MAME didn’t yet have the capacity to emulate those games properly and at a decent speed. Later on, when MAME finally became a useable Neo Geo emulator, it became quite easy to add new released games and dumps to the source code, and play them as well.
Continue reading Neo Geo MV2FS at Home
