Old gaming console revival

vasselmeyer

After messing around with emulation on my Raspberry Pi, I quite fancied some more nostalgia gaming. I just pulled our old family XBox (original!) out of the back of the cupboard. It's dead, of course, so I opened it up. It's minging inside with dust-bunnies everywhere so I know what my weekend project will be. I reckon I know why it won't power up. I think these capacitors might be a tad past  their best

BigBearKris

Just when I got excited you're telling me "it's dead  of course...".

:-(

vasselmeyer

@BigBearKris it will live again...

spark240

Mmmmm.....

mudslide73

An original Xbox isn't old! I've still got my 70s Grandstand console somewhere! Loves me some 8 bit stuff too. 

vasselmeyer

The original XBox was launched in November 2001, it's nearly 17 years old. Quite venerable for electronic equipment. No valves though...

axisus

I've fixed the RROD problem on a few Xboxes in the past. 

Pretty much every day I fire up the Mr Do! ROM file on my computer to play the classic game from 80s pub arcade machines. 

We have an old Playstation, I'm dying to fire up Tekken again but we can never find the cables!

FX_Munkee

Coincidentally I pulled an old N64 Dev kit out of the back of a cupboard at the weekend.
It fired up no problem once I'd found the 110v transformer for it.
The kids quite enjoyed Mario Kart 64 although they thought Banjo Kazooie was too hard.
Kids these days eh?

terada

Been playing some n64 myself recently. Brilliant fun, but diddy Kong racing on a flatscreen isn’t particularly pretty!

FX_Munkee

terada said:

Been playing some n64 myself recently. Brilliant fun, but diddy Kong racing on a flatscreen isn’t particularly pretty!

You can simulate a 90's 20" CRT by extending the controller cables and standing in the garden.

strumjoughlamps

terada said:

Been playing some n64 myself recently. Brilliant fun, but diddy Kong racing on a flatscreen isn’t particularly pretty!

How is it hooked up? 

I play DKR a fair bit amongst others, Pilotwings 64 still gets a lot of play too. Love my N64

RedRabbit

vasselmeyer said:

After messing around with emulation on my Raspberry Pi, I quite fancied some more nostalgia gaming. I just pulled our old family XBox (original!) out of the back of the cupboard. It's dead, of course, so I opened it up. It's minging inside with dust-bunnies everywhere so I know what my weekend project will be. I reckon I know why it won't power up. I think these capacitors might be a tad past  their best

@vasselmeyer If you can't get it running and still fancy a bit of xbox action I think I've got one in my loft that's going spare. It's not been powered on for a few years so I'd need to check it still works. I bought it to mod it and run emulators on it but never got around to it. Let me know if you want it and I'll dig it out and check it over. Could easily drop it off in Marple at some point.

vasselmeyer

@RedRabbit That's pretty cool of you. I might do that if I can't rescue this one. 

RedRabbit

@vasselmeyer No problem.

I'm not at home tonight but I'll get it out and check that it works tomorrow.  I'm not sure what I've got in terms of leads and controllers but I'm guessing you've already got some?  Anything I find I'll bundle up with it.

57Deluxe

on a similar vein, now somebody has ported the old FastTracker II to Windows. It was the first audio software many played around seriously with on a C64:

http://cdm.link/2018/04/90s-alive-free-modern-clone-fasttracker-ii/

and in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tRH3gD52tM

Sesh

I know exactly where my N64, unfortunately it's on the other side of the loft, behind a six foot high mountain of stuff. One day, one day....

vasselmeyer

Sesh said:

I know exactly where my N64, unfortunately it's on the other side of the loft, behind a six foot high mountain of stuff. One day, one day....

@Sesh Do it fella...you'll be thanking yourself once you get Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64 or Goldeneye running again.

strumjoughlamps

And Mario Party 1-3, best of the series bar none

terada

strumjoughlamps said:

terada said:

Been playing some n64 myself recently. Brilliant fun, but diddy Kong racing on a flatscreen isn’t particularly pretty!

How is it hooked up? 

I play DKR a fair bit amongst others, Pilotwings 64 still gets a lot of play too. Love my N64

hooked up by the aerial cable thing to a 1080p 32" TV. 

Doesn't look great but still a load of fun!

Just wish the joysticks on the controllers weren't so loose!

strumjoughlamps

terada said:

strumjoughlamps said:

terada said:

Been playing some n64 myself recently. Brilliant fun, but diddy Kong racing on a flatscreen isn’t particularly pretty!

How is it hooked up? 

I play DKR a fair bit amongst others, Pilotwings 64 still gets a lot of play too. Love my N64

hooked up by the aerial cable thing to a 1080p 32" TV. 

Doesn't look great but still a load of fun!

Just wish the joysticks on the controllers weren't so loose!

Yeah RF is horrible on modern TVs, so is AV.. but AV into scart is great, easily the best way to connect to flatscreen without modding the console.

Sesh

vasselmeyer said:

Sesh said:

I know exactly where my N64, unfortunately it's on the other side of the loft, behind a six foot high mountain of stuff. One day, one day....

@Sesh Do it fella...you'll be thanking yourself once you get Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64 or Goldeneye running again.

Arg. Now I'm looking a the list of N64 on wikipedia trying to remember what games I had.

So far:
Body Harvest. Forgotten about that one. Actually pretty good.
F1 world grand Prix. Ok
Fifa blah blah
Forsaken. Tricky controls, but quite good.
Goldeneye. Truly great
ISS 64. I remember paying £65 for this game. Fuck me. Great though.
Zelda - OoT. Wow. One of the best ever
Mariocart. Classic
Perfect Dark. Goldeneye II. Better gameplay, silly story.
Premier Manager. Awful
South Park. Quite bad
Starfox. I'm sure I had this but can't remember anything about it.
Star wars- shadows... Good game
Star wars- rogue squadron. Good
Mario 64. Awesome
Top gear rally. Remarkable longevity considering it only had 4 tracks.
Turok. Fun shooting dinosaurs.

I wonder what other games I'd find?