– Retrodrömmar
I recently puchased a few Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES) together with some games. These were sold “as-is”, and the seller(s) reported problems such as the consoles were just blinking etc. In this post I will summarize what you can do to get your NES games running again: from simple cleaning measures, to more advanced solutions, which require you to disassembly your NES. Clean the cartridges!…
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In this post I will cover how to fix a Dreamcast controller port not working. Essentially, it involves replacing a broken fuse at the controller port board. While you are doing this, you can also replace the Dreamcast cmos battery. I will not describe how to disassembly the Dreamcast, since it is quite trivial (see, Dreamcast disassembly). What you need for this fix is the…
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In this post I will show how to repair the Super Nintendo (SNES) power supply. I am working with a psu for a PAL SNES unit. This psu also fits the PAL Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). If your SNES is not powering on properly, you will want to check if your psu is functional. To do so, use a multimeter set to measure “AC”, and…
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The RedOctane X-Plorer is possibly the best guitar controller ever made, suitable for games such as Guitar Hero, Band Hero etc. I spent many hours with this controller, together with my two favorite GH games: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and GH: Metallica. So, when I found a broken RedOctane X-Plorer for ~$5 in a charity shop, I was pleasantly suprised! The guitar had…
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ScummVM is a neat little application that allows you to run classic point-and-click adventure games on a variety of platforms, including Dreamcast. That means, you can run your old favorites such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry, on your Dreamcast! To do so, you need to create a Discjuggler CDI-file (see, guide for burning cdi-files for Dreamcast). In this post I…
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I rarely like to to major modifications to original old hardware, with a few exceptions. A couple of such exceptions were a paint job of a Game & Watch Donkey Kong in horrible condition, and a VGA-mod of an original Gameboy. In this post, I will to some modifications to a Super Nintendo (SNES), which I bought from a local seller. As seen below, the…
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The original Xbox, launched by Microsoft in 2001, is still a popular console to run homebrew games and emulators on. However, as with any old hardware, the console’s weaknesses are starting to show. One of those weaknesses is the optical drive, a common source of error on old video game consoles. One common errors are that the DVD-tray is stuck, and won’t eject. Another common…
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This information is based on http://theinstructionlimit.com/installing-ms-dos-6-22-on-a-486-without-a-floppy-drive-using-a-cf-to-ide-adapter and is more of a note to self. Anyway, as a retrocomputer enthusiast I often find myself in the following situation: I have a compact flash to IDE adapter with a suitable CF-card. However, I do not have a floppy drive on the retrocomputer that I want to install MS DOS to. Furthermore, I also need to install Ontrack…
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I have a tendency to buy broken Gameboys on Swedish eBay for around $20-$25, and then fix them. They usually suffer from two faults that are easy to repair: corrosion on the battery connectors, and vertical lines on screen. However, in some cases, the screens are beyond repair (if they have dead horizontal lines, or damaged flexible PCBs). Then, a VGA mod may come in…
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I bought a Compaq Contura 420C laptop for a fairly good price at Swedish eBay. The downside? Both hinges were broken. It seems like this is a common problem on these old laptops. In this post I will show how I repaired them. It is by no means a pretty fix, since I lack the tools to weld metal pieces together. But it works. I…
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