SNESNESCUBE64

A7X's newest album is a bit odd compared to the rest of their stuff, but they have several pretty good songs. I'm not as much of a fan of them either, can't say I've heard that song. I would have figured if you were looking for a popular song from them you would have found "bat country" or "welcome to the family", which are pretty alright.

Gamma Ray is probably my favorite band and Power Plant is probably my favorite album. It kicks all the ass and you can't really go wrong with any choice in that album. Excellent choice.

This was probably one of the nastier 20EZs I've worked on. I don't know what this thing's past life was but it was pretty rusty and coated in dirt. Regardless of how dirty it was, it will clean up fine. The problem is that the picture was screwed up. It was dim in and had partial vertical collapse. You can even see some waving. One thing that is super common on 20EZs is that the electrolytic capacitors go bad. This is especially common with the higher voltage (160V) capacitors. Typically the burst on the bottom like these. When they go bad they can cause brightness and deflection issues in my experience. Just replacing the capacitors will fix a lot of these issues. After a good wash and a recap, the monitor was back to working like it uses to back in the day. Lots of times with these it just needs new capacitors.

Was cheated on and it messed your life up, but are sleeping with married women. Ironic. I'm not going to sugarcoat this or anything. If you are deathly afraid of these husbands, be ready for nonsense. If they are what you say they are, they WILL try to hurt you or even worse (hell they might even if completely sane). Like what happened to you, it unravels a whole life and screws everyone over. The thing about cheating, is that it is shitty all around. It's one thing if you didn't know, but you are willingly and knowingly sleeping with married women, that's on you. Also remember, it is easy for you to hide it, but it is a lot harder for them to hide the affair. It's not a matter of if they find out, it's a matter of when. I'd break it off.

Mastodon and Gojira was last night. They kicked ass! I'm not sure who I am going to see next, but I think Aveneged Sevenfold is on the list for october.

It might be the power supply, I've had those fail on me before. If you have another or can have someone else test, I'd check that.

There are always risks, the ribbon cable connector is really fragile and they are all baby parts on the board. Your best bet is to watch a couple tutorials on youtube before doing it. Don't just watch one, watch a couple, quick cut tutorials always miss things.

I had this happen once to my ds lite after I dropped it. I was able to fix it by reseating the ribbon cable. Ds lites are kind of a pain to disassemble, but the lower screen is a lot easier to replace.

They shouldn't mess with it, they are just extenders to raise the cartridge, it shouldn't need active circuitry as super famicom and north american SNES are compatible other than the shell. I don't have one to tell you for sure though.

This isn't an easily measurable topic. Hence why I said "in my opinion". It's an opinion piece.

I feel like general electrical stuff like your house wiring and whatnot won't change much (at least in our lifetime). Something tells me in order for that it has to be easy to make and cheaper than the copper/aluminum. Where I see this having the biggest impact is with semiconductors and computing technologies. Anything to improve efficiency in that is a big deal.

Core gameplay differences make it a different game in my opinion.

I saw Helloween in May, best show I've been to do far. I have Mastodon/Gojira in August and Baroness in November.

It will probably be fine in all reality. You can't really test the quality, quality comes from it's rating (how many hours at max specs it will last), if you don't know where the parts came from it's hard to know how good they are until they die. Although I remember reading something about lower ESR capacitors lasting longer. Higher quality capacitors also tend to be rated for 105°C or higher, but that's not a great indicator as even the cheapest capacitors advertise that. Anything will be better than what was originally in game gears, so no harm no foul. Try to stick with name brand ones like Nichicon, Chemicon, Rubycon, Panasonic, and Würth. They hold to much higher quality standards than ChongX for example (no that is not me using a slur).

Like @T-Pac, mine is also bosconian. Except it is just a bosconian cabinet. It's my favorite namco release and probably something I am going to have to piece together, I already have a boardset, so now to get the rest of it. BLAST OFF!

I'd avoid buying kits from ebay, they are often of lower or unkown quality. Bootleg and remarked parts are a serious problem to the point where even capacitors have fake markings. Not worth the hassle. Always buy from a trusted distributor if possible. Consider buying from console5, they will hook ya up with the good stuff.

I've heard of pins becoming bent or more commonly cold solder joints occur on the port due to lots of inserting and removing of controller. Solder is not a very good material for mechanical stress. That issue sounds like a cold solder joint that had broken. By pushing down that pin would move slightly, making the connection again.

Circumstances are everything. It's hard to test everything especially considering games made before the adoption of Jamma. That is more acceptable to me. It takes a lot of effort ans time to build these test harnesses. That is not the scenario I am talking about though. There are plenty sellers trying to sell jamma boards as untested but have other listings that are jamma that are tested. It is incredibly easy to test it and the people have the equipment in this scenario. And with as much money as people are charging for these boards, I feel like it should be a courtesy. The thing about circuit boards, especially in the arcade and pinball world, is that a lot can go wrong. Unlike cartridges, the boards are exposed for the most part. Making it easy to them to be damaged via static or physically because people just throw them on piles. Plus these for the most part all came out of machines that were left on for extended periods. This isn't even accounting for other failures in the cabinet. Taito power supplies from the late 70s and early 80s for example have a bad reputation for taking out boards. I'm not trying to be a pessimist here. It's just what I've seen and experienced as a technician. Seldomly do I get untested boards that just work. All I am saying with the boards is that it's just setting you up for disappointment to expect an untested board like this to work. That said, I have been lucky before too! My Taito F3 board with Bubble Memories was an "untested special". It's just luck of the draw at that point.

I've had a lot less issues with untested video games. It is a little frustrating when the seller has, for example, plenty of "tested" nes games and "untested" ones also. It doesn't take a whole lot of time to hook up a console and turn it on. Granted I haven't been buying actual cartridges in quite some time now. It also depends on which part of the hobby. For example, with arcade boards I treat untested as not working based on my experience. On top of that, there is a lot that can go wrong. *ANYWAY* Regarding whether or not ebay cares, I don't know if they COULD care. I severely doubt they have the expertise at their customer service. I'm also sure that one single report won't do much, you can't just take down someone's listing because one person says so, that leaves the opportunity for false positives. The best thing you can do is be smart about your purchases and do the research. There is no shortage of info.

The schematic for the external soundboard, I had to make some guesses because it was damaged it seems, but this is my best guess. I attached it as a screenshot and as a PDF because VGS compresses this. Head On N Mod Board.pdf

Here are my notes from the deconversion, I had a rough time finding pinouts and stuff online, so I figure I can post it here. Unfortunately I don't remember the buttons for actual gameplay, I just kind of poked around with a ground wire to test it. I apologize, but it is a bit disorganized as this was just transcribed from my handwritten notes. Pinouts CPU Board - P1 Power GND Key GND +12V +12V +5V +5V Unused 12V Coin Counter / Lockout coil Voltage Counter/Lockout return Voltage Active Low Reset CPU Board - P2 Sound Sound out GND (Sound Return) Unused Unused CPU Board - P3 Sub Controls - - - - - GND GND GND GND GND CPU Board - P4 Main Controls - - - - - 1P Start 2P Start GND GND GND GND GND GND GND GND CPU Board - P5 Coin Blocker Coil Voltage Unused Coil Return CPU Board - P6 Coin Counter Coil Voltage Coil Return CPU Board - P7 Coin Switch Coin Switch Common Coin Switch Normally Closed Coin Switch Normally Open Video Board - P1 Video Out (Inverted Video) Green Red Blue GND GND Negative Composite Sync Video Board - P2 Power In GND Key GND GND +12V +12V +5V +5V -5V Mod Notes These were the mods that were done to the board. Stacked Chip at E4 - 74175 Connected to lower chip Unconnected/Cut Unconnected/Cut Unconnected/Cut Connected to Lower chip Floating Connected to daughtercard GND F4 Pin 9 R74, E4 Pin 7 Side Unconnected/Cut F5 Pin 17 F5 Pin 8 Unconnected/Cut Connected to daughtercard +5V 5A - LM1458 removed 5C pin 2 - Remove pin from original circuit, removed pin to +5V R42, R43, R50, R40, R41, R48, R49, R65, R21, R26, R15, R55, R66, R83, R77, R7, R8, R9 - 100k resistor removed (perhaps parts board removal) C32, C31, C18, C24, C25, C78 removed D1 - Removed (probably because parts board, replaced with 1N4007) C78 to R61 Cut C44 2.2uF -> 3A - LM741 Op Amp removed (probably because parts board) 4A - LM1458 Op Amp removed (probably because parts board) 1C pin 10 -> diode - 3B - Pin 4 1C pin 8 cut from circuit 3B-2 Pin 4, cut from circuit Trace from R67 to C43 cut Trace from R67 to 2C cut R67 -> 2C pin 15 added C40 capacitor replaced with 2.2uF 35V tantalum connected to 100k R56, R79, R89, R34 10k resistor removed R80 -> slid over to 1C pin 8 R33 -> 5E pin 15 cut, jumped to pin 14 P6 pin 10 -> Cut, jumped to RM1 pin 7 C23 10uF/25V tantalum -> .47uF electrolytic P2 pin 1 cut, 10uF tantalum added inbetween C26 -> Chagned to .0022uF mylar P4 pin 13 cut, jumped to RM2 pin 6 P4 pin 15 cut, jumped to RM2 pin 8 P3 pin 5 cut, jumped to 1G pin 5 P4 pin 5 cut, jumped to RM2 pin 7 P4 pin 6 cut, jumped to 2F pin 15 P4 pin 7 cut, jumped to 1G pin 3 C48 .047uF mylar -> 10uF 35V tantalum

I actually did get it up and running to test with sounds. I ended up redoing my test harness so that way the power lines hooked up to a separate Happ power supply. Surprisingly I only had to make one correction, I forgot to fix one cut trace. It was involved with the pellet catching sound, which sounded really flat before I fixed the trace. After that, the pellet catching sound was as correct as I could guess. The only one that I might look into is the crashing sound. it almost sounds like it is too high pitch, but it is close enough to where I don't mind. Other than the cut trace, the only other thing I did to the board itself was replace the two onboard potentiometers. I was getting a lot of inconsistencies with adjustment so I just went ahead and replaced them. One thing that I did learn, is that on the power connector, there is a reset pin. What's weird is that as long as the coin switch is hooked up, it will reset on it's own as long as that reset pin is tied high on the connector via a pullup resistor. I already had a little PCB designed though that I use for external resets on my test harnesses though. To explain the circuit, it uses a BD47xx series power supervisory IC. How it works is it monitors the 5V rail, once it crosses the set threshold, I used a BD4746 so 4.6V, it pulls the reset line low (pulled up via pullup resistor). Some games, like space invaders use an inverted version of this, hence the second active high RESET signal. Head On N uses the first active low /RESET signal on this board. By adding this reset circuit to my harness, it will be a more properly set up harness. For now, I just have an old junk microswitch hooked up as it is required for the game to operate correctly as it uses all three pins on the microswitch. At this point, the PCB deconversion is complete. It was a cool project that I hope to put into a cabinet one day.

I've seen arrests several times just while driving to places. Happened a lot more when I lived in Flint (pretty rough area.

Prices listed, better pictures of individual cartridges available upon request. Shipping is not included in these prices. International shipping and local pickup (Detroit area) available. If you see a game not on the list, it has been sold. Take the entire lot for $175 plus shipping ($50 off) Game Price (USD) Notes A boy and his blob $12.00 Bases Loaded $5.00 Bayou Billy $3.00 Blades of Steel $3.00 Championship Bowling $5.00 Deadly Towers $5.00 Dejavu $8.00 Double Dribble $3.00 Fester’s Quest $5.00 Fighting Golf $2.00 Hollywood Squares $5.00 Hoops $5.00 Hydlide $8.00 Infiltrator $1.00 Torn Label Iron Tank $8.00 Jack Niclaus Golf $2.00 Jeopardy 25th Anniversary edition $2.00 John Elway’s Quarterback $3.00 Kings of the Beach $3.00 Little Nemo The Dream Master $5.00 Lunar Pool $3.00 Magic Johnson’s Fast Break $1.00 Cartridge blistering Milon’s Secret Castle $5.00 MLB Baseball $2.00 NARC $8.00 NES Play Action Football $2.00 Nintendo World Cup $5.00 Othello $2.00 Paperboy $15.00 Racket Attack $4.00 Rambo $5.00 RBI Baseball (Licensed) $8.00 Ring King $1.00 Cigarette Burn on bottom of cartridge Super Glove Ball $5.00 Super Spike Vball $2.00 Super Team Games $5.00 T&C Surf Designs $3.00 Target Renegade $5.00 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles $7.00 Tiger-Heli $5.00 Top Gun Second Mission $5.00 Top Secret Base: Golgo 13 $7.00 Track and Field $4.00 Track and Field 2 $5.00 Vegas Dream $3.00 Wayune Gretzky Hockey $5.00 Wheel of Fortune $3.00 World Class Track Meet $3.00 Wrath of Black Manta $5.00

But that's the thing, they just add that to artificially extend the game. It's inconsiderate of people's time and just makes me think the game isn't very good. I'm at a point now where I'd rather not finish a game if it is wasting my time since I have so little of it to actually play games. The other thing that I forgot to mention is that with all this grinding you have to do for digital content in online games is that it is just going to have been for nothing when servers go offline. Same with buying all these cosmetics and battle passes.