– Retrodrömmar
Nintendo 64 was released in Japan and USA in 1996 and Europe and Australia in 1997. It was the successor the Super Nintendo and introduced 3D graphics similar to other popular consoles at the time, such as SEGA Saturn and Sony Playstation. The reception of the console was generally good, and the transition from 2D Mario to 3D Mario in Super Mario 64 was deemed…
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I got my Hewlett Packard 1040 G1 laptop back in 2015-ish, and it is still a quite competent machine with its Intel I7 cpu. However, over time, it may require some service, including changing thermal paste on the cpu, add memory, replace battery and so on. In this post, I will disassembly my machine and add new thermal grease on the cpu. The reason for…
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The Gameboy Advance SP (“SP” stands for SPecial) was an upgraded version of the Gameboy Advance, with a different form factor, and most important of all: a backlit screen. The backlit screen make the GBA SP a great choice for playing Gameboy (GB), GBC and GBA games. In this post, I will briefly show how to replace the battery in the GBA SP, and focus…
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The NES controller with its characteristic D-pad, select, start and A and B button is liked by many, and is considered a standard for how a digital controller should function. As these controllers are 35+ years old at the time of writing, they need maintenance to function properly. In this post, I will write a few notes about how to perform such maintenance. The post…
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Previously I wrote a post about replacing the capacitors of a Game Gear (see, Game Gear re-cap). I recently bought another Game Gear that would not power on, so I made another re-cap, with a slightly revised routine for replacing the capacitors. For instructions on how to disassembly the Game Gear, and how to identify the capacitors, please see the post linked above. In this…
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The Wii classic controller was a welcome addition for Nintendo’s console since it resembles a more conventional gamepad unlike the Wii remote + nunchuck combination. I recently bought a classic controller with a broken cable on Swedish eBay, and in this post I write a few notes about the repair. To disassembly the connector, you need a special “triwing” screwdriver, also used to disassembly a…
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In another post about the Playstation Portable, I write about how to softmod the unit. In this post I will demonstrate how to replace the analog thumbstick, which becomes subject to wear and tear over time. A symtom of a failing analog stick is “drifting”, that is, in a game, the stick will pull in a direction without you touching it. Although there are guides…
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Like any other old controller, the SEGA Master System gamepad can be worn over time, which causes faults such as non-responsive buttons, or directions on the d-pad to stop working. One of my controllers would not react when I pressed up on the d-pad, and in this post I will describe how I repaired it. Disassembly the SEGA Master System controller To disassembly the controller,…
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The Amiga series of computes were created by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s as 16-bit successors to iconic machines such as Commodore 64 (and Commodore 128). In this post I will write some notes about how to keep the keyboard membrane of your Amiga 500 in good condition. I recently bought an A500 on Swedish eBay in relatively good condition, but the keys did…
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In this post I write some notes about fixing a Game Gear with a very dark screen. The dark screen is one of the symtoms of failing capacitors in the console. This is a common problem with the Game Gear, and the procedure to replace the capacitors is pretty straight forward, although challenging in my experience, as I will further describe below. Step 1: Disassemble…
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