drxandy's pickups

[drxandy | 3,225]

Here goes this week:

Cool thrift finds, was very stoked to get the gba dock. I debated leaving it sealed but since the cells are from 2001 and I actually want to use it, I opened it. One of the packs had leaked a bit, so after a cleaning I ordered new cells from the battery store, waiting on their arrival. Glad to get banjo kazooie and Viva combo, I am a sucker for pack in games and have a little set going. 

Also completed an xbox trade with nugfish here:

Got the 64 cases for 50c each, and happy to add megaman and bass to my gba stuff.

Will post soon with the gba dock after I change the cells, till next week!

[Tanooki | 4,929]

^^Nice selection.  I'm not sure you'd care, and it's not in perfect shape either, but I do have a loose manual for that MM&Bass game.  That's also an awesome Mewtwo figure as well.  I can't see me choosing to ever willingly buy that again if you wanted to do a cheapo trade of some sort.

[drxandy | 3,225]

This week, still waiting on the battery store because they are not very helpful in remembering to actually get my order in.

First off here's these rca y splitters! They're working great.

 

love the chunky ps1 svideo cable front and center, interact used acoustic research parts so they nice and shielded, look awesome on the tv. Everything else was hella cheap, monster optical cable and power block perfect for the entertainment center.

 

Part 2 of baten kaitos, some jpn GBA games and some not. The memory card thing is from Japan and I impulse bought; never seen one listed. Mini USB out and has pso save data, haven't hooked up to a PC yet but im hoping I don't need some crazy driver, something to play around with.

Edit from the future, it does need a driver that was on a 3.5 floppy.. if anyone out there has a file they could share it would be appreciated!!

knock a couple off the Xbox list, also thrifted the xbone Kinect for 6$

Have a wonderful week y'all

Edit: oo this just came in the mail

Edited January 23, 2021 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

Last week of February, happy leap day!

Found a bunch of dollar games at the thrift, some jpn soccer titles, crazy taxi for GBA plays pretty good, picked up the wavebird from eBay and fixed it up.

Added a couple hats to my small collection, GameCube version of the twilight princess guide

Replaced the cells finally with new ones and had a fun time shimming in electrical tape to make the ones I got fit properly, but they're all snug and fully charged now. Going to have to do a GBA build with a white back to match this bad boy.

Broken xbone stick for 3$, my first one to repair! Jpn custom robo, and set of shaman king legacy (shitty version of pokemon)

Looking forward to March, till next week.

Edited January 23, 2021 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

First week of March is over, here goes:

Ordered from fangamer, mainly for the flip grip but cheap 5$ cutsey undertale shirt also came with a button, and bonus napstablook sticker, child drawn mr.saturn postcard (which are both adorable), some cheapy bags and PS3 games from the thift.

flip grip rules d00d

More cheap thrift hauls, 5$ Wii u pro controller, the ever ubiquitous Wii fit

Most excited for the sd2sp2 adapter (gamecube serial port card reader) that finally came in the mail, will be playing with that probably this weekend. 

Happy hunting folks, till next weeeeekkk

Edited January 23, 2021 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

Continuing from last week, sd2sp2 works great and with the latest version of swiss loading times and video playback are great. Loaded this 128gb up and am pretty happy with it.

My parents found an Xbox I had at their house and brought it to me, will have to take apart and play with it. Found a really cool gamepro from 93 with some killerrrr ads in it. Golden eye cheapy guide! Wii 1$ component cables, Koro Koro happy panechu for the gba was the first game to use the tilt pak and is a pretty cool puzzle game featuring characters with huge lips.  The Gundam special disc! stoked to add to the gc collection. The mother 2 decal is from Etsy.

Weird Zelda bootleg book on the cheap, more Xbox of all kinds and toy story for gb.

Happy game hunting and here's to everyone's health and safety in these trying times.

 

[Tanooki | 4,929]

On 3/13/2020 at 4:19 PM, drxandy said:

 

Continuing from last week, sd2sp2 works great and with the latest version of swiss loading times and video playback are great. Loaded this 128gb up and am pretty happy with it.

 

 

Spill, I want some more info about what you have hiding there on the bottom of your gamecube.  It looks interesting and being external non-damaging which is a must.

[drxandy | 3,225]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Spill, I want some more info about what you have hiding there on the bottom of your gamecube.  It looks interesting and being external non-damaging which is a must.

Ok so how it works is you either have to get a modchip and burn a copy of swiss or get a newer copy of action replay for the cube that supports sd booting and get a wii sd/sdgecko.. basically a SD reader for the memory card slot. I am doing the second option. With that you need a 2gb or smaller sd card.. pop swiss on the root of it, I have mine set to autoboot swiss by changing the name of the swiss.dol file to autoexec.dol.. after timing it- took 26sec from power on to get to swiss with 1.96gb left on a 128gb card. After that it very quickly auto detects the microsd reader plugged into slot 2. Micro SD just has all the files in the root and any folders will appear at the top of the list in swiss. It's super fun to play with. I have loaded up all the kiosk demo discs today and gone through all of them just to relive the past.

It's not 100% still, some videos chug and or freeze but a good majority do not.

Edit:

@Tanooki here's a really good resource for Homebrew on the cube

https://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Booting_Homebrew

For my non modded cube I use the disc from: https://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=Datel's_SD_Media_Launcher and one of these $3 https://www.ebay.com/itm/143553172973 (search Wii SD, any number of sellers) and an old regular sd 2gb card (high capacity or other kinds don't work?) with swiss loaded on it. 

Then the sd2sp2 which is open source but I got a china version for like $2 and loaded it with a fast 128gb microsd

Edited March 15, 2020 by drxandy

[Tanooki | 4,929]

Ok thanks, now that is interesting I'll take a look.  That small part sticking out there on the picture just caught my eye with the memory card and I had to know.

[drxandy | 3,225]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Ok thanks, now that is interesting I'll take a look.  That small part sticking out there on the picture just caught my eye with the memory card and I had to know.

No worries! It's super easy and really fun to play around with, I love getting carried away with projects haha

[drxandy | 3,225]

Even as things are getting weird in the world, here's this week's gets.

Couple off the Xbox set, jikkyou power pro baseball 10, SD gashapon Gundam wars (tactical rpg) that finishes off my Gundam cube stuff pretty much (there's always hardware haha) and zatch bell go go mamono fight

 

Japan only rechargable battery set for the original GBA, very cool.

 

Picked up Animal crossing today and have been playing for hours, it's wonderful. Pre-ordered from best buy and got the metal kinda sticker deal, which is super cute. I saw they had bell bag plushies but didn't bother to ask more. The Tetris was a Japan exclusive and is a really nice version of the game.

Hope everyone has a smooth and easy next week!!

Edited January 23, 2021 by drxandy

[Tanooki | 4,929]

Very nice, so so few know of let alone have any appreciation of Minna no Tetris on GBA there.  Those disgusting people at THQ kept the real and not just good but great Tetris game on the GBA out of the US with their garbage Worlds title/contract.  Not sure where you found that and I hope you didn't have to pay up on it either, but it's a truly excellent mobile version (and overall really) of the game.  Nice phone stick on thing too.  I'm waiting on my game, was worth saving 20% with Amazon.

[drxandy | 3,225]

14 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Very nice, so so few know of let alone have any appreciation of Minna no Tetris on GBA there.  Those disgusting people at THQ kept the real and not just good but great Tetris game on the GBA out of the US with their garbage Worlds title/contract.  Not sure where you found that and I hope you didn't have to pay up on it either, but it's a truly excellent mobile version (and overall really) of the game.  Nice phone stick on thing too.  I'm waiting on my game, was worth saving 20% with Amazon.

Yess it's so much better than world's, I got it off eBay for like 5$ shipped but I got lucky. Don't blame you on waiting, gotta get those deals.

[Jeevan | 8,908]

I dont wanna sound jealous, although i am, but how the hell do you all get nice scores like this, is it all local or do u do a lot of online hustlin'?

[drxandy | 3,225]

6 hours ago, Jeevan said:

I dont wanna sound jealous, although i am, but how the hell do you all get nice scores like this, is it all local or do u do a lot of online hustlin'?

Thank you! Anything Japan is usually from eBay, I haven't dipped into proxy buying or forwarding service. I hit the thrift stores a few times a week until as of late, so a lot of the cheapies are local. A lot is patience, I love the hunt and spend time on browsing be it online or in-store and very rarely buy to resell.

[Tanooki | 4,929]

On 3/21/2020 at 1:58 AM, drxandy said:

Yess it's so much better than world's, I got it off eBay for like 5$ shipped but I got lucky. Don't blame you on waiting, gotta get those deals.

Actually no wait, I've had it about a decade now.  Back when I had to return to CA for 3 years I went into one of the BookOFF stores Japan seeded into the US in a few places and I found it on a shelf in a cute little bag for like $2.  I didn't know what it exactly was, but it was Tetris, GBA, and not the utterly shitty and broken Worlds game so I bought it.  I've held onto it ever since as it's one of the best handheld versions made.

[drxandy | 3,225]

7 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Actually no wait, I've had it about a decade now.  Back when I had to return to CA for 3 years I went into one of the BookOFF stores Japan seeded into the US in a few places and I found it on a shelf in a cute little bag for like $2.  I didn't know what it exactly was, but it was Tetris, GBA, and not the utterly shitty and broken Worlds game so I bought it.  I've held onto it ever since as it's one of the best handheld versions made.

Oh I meant animal crossing my bad!! 2$ heck yeah that's a score. I learned about it from the internet, looking at jpn exclusives and saw tetris.. figured it would be pretty English friendly (it is!) 

[Tanooki | 4,929]

On 3/23/2020 at 9:20 AM, drxandy said:

Oh I meant animal crossing my bad!! 2$ heck yeah that's a score. I learned about it from the internet, looking at jpn exclusives and saw tetris.. figured it would be pretty English friendly (it is!) 

Ahhh alright ok I thought we were just talking Tetris.  Anyway yeah it is very very english friendly and the various modes that game has gives it some good variety to stay interesting.  It's horrible what THQ did keeping that blocked from leaving Japan, yet another good reason to be happy they're done for.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

Ok now I need to pick up this Minna No Tetris

[Tanooki | 4,929]

3 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Ok now I need to pick up this Minna No Tetris

Yes you must, watch(skim) this to see all the modes of the game as it's insane.  Amazingly solid visuals and jammin sound track and lots of things to do as it just does not get stale.  https://tetris.wiki/Minna_no_Soft_Series:_Tetris_Advance

Oh and another screw you to THQ for burying this for their awful WORLDS dumpster fire we got stuck with.  Not that it contributed, but the company eventually did fail after one dumb decision after another so like karma?

Edited March 28, 2020 by Tanooki

[drxandy | 3,225]

^^ trooof

So my state is locked down due to the virus so non essential businesses are closed..  no thrifting or visiting the local game stores for the time forseen. I did get a few things in the mail, so here goes!

Kirby and the amazing mirror jpn GBA, promotional disneys magical park GameCube pin, a tick off the Xbox list with Hunter the reckoning redeemer,

Monopoly jpn exclusive is a much much better game with various modes of play including classic compared to the us Monopoly party, I originally thought they might be the same game because there's licensing from Hasbro and infrogrames but after watching YouTube vids comparing the two everything was cleared up and it was obvious they were different. I happen to have the us version of monopoly party as well so earlier in the week I tried them back to back. I played a round against the CPU in both games and party is just so clunky and ugly compared to the jpn release. Couldn't finish the party round after playing the jpn.

Oh yeah also sfc sf2turbo on the cheap.

Hope everyone is safe and healthy!!

Edited January 23, 2021 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

Hey y'all, so this week I have no pickups! I have a few things floating in the mail somewhere but nothing came this week and I sure as crap did not go anywhere except work. So if this continues as a trend due to the virus, I will share projects and stuff from the past (pre vgs days) so here goes.

I picked up this snes classic arcade stick - eimo the edge super joystick.from t.j. maxx of all places clearanced to $12 - a copy of the score master stick for the sfc in pal land. As it stands stock, the overall feeling is cheap and the controls/buttons not good.

However as a project, it's a neat shell to work with and ever so easy to swap all the controls with real arcade gear.

I was working on a few madcatz arcade sticks and one happened to have a clone sanwa lever with omron switches, after swapping that with a real sanwa I had a left over part that was much better than the stock from this stick. I picked up new sanwa buttons and swapped em out.

Then my favorite, adding weight. I had been given thought to the easiest way to give the stick a little heft so it didn't fall right off my lap or table. I had a nice jar of change sitting close by...

So I rolled up some pennies and settled on taping them in like a maniac. After the bottom of the stick was screwed back on they sit nice and snug. Feels great on my lap!

Plays like a champ now! 

Here's more arcade stick projects:

I bought this Xbox 360 street fighter x Tekken pro stick from the local game store on the cheap and discovered that it did not infact work on the x360 - the inside had been modded and someone padhacked a xbone controller scrapping the 360 functionality. I actually wanted it for 360.. because shmups. So I went to eBay and found a cheaper smaller street fighter iv madcatz stick and swapped internals. They pretty much were the same anyway and the pro shell is much nicer on the lap.

Sanwa jlf lever and bat top (or pink ball) w/ 2lb spring and octo gate, sanwa obsf30 for the main buttons and seimitsu 24 for the start and select. Was planning on doing custom art but it's kinda nice how it is.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

PS3 madcatz brawl stick original had wrestling art but I vinyl wrapped it and swapped buttons, sanwa lever and buttons, octo gate, foam base and new feet.

Sf IV madcatz stick with the guts of the pro above padhacked xbone controller, sanwa lever, octo gate, seimitsu buttons, foam base

Edited April 5, 2020 by drxandy

[drxandy | 3,225]

One thing I take issue with the smaller madcatz sticks - they have metal base plates that end up very cold on the lap as well as slide. I picked up some adhesive craft foam and went to work on both of 'em.

I also got some stereo equiptment feet and replaced the stock rubber. These sit flat, I didn't like how the stock dug into my legs.

Ok, enough with the arcade sticks.

Until next week, happy gaming and stay blessed.

Edited April 5, 2020 by drxandy

[Tanooki | 4,929]

Interesting with the pennies.  That little cheat book with that joystick looks fun.  They bundled one of those with their NES gamepad when it came out, the joystick I think too.  I wonder if that joysticks book came with their SNES pad as well as I'd be tempted to pay for it just to get that for the fun of it.