Will

How much are they? I quite like the Tech Moan videos of him replacing bands on Walkmen and various other devices. Really makes me want to buy more retro tech and do it myself too. Maybe if I ever have a house I will do so.

I hope you do! I have to say it’s one of the nicest bits of kit I’ve ever bought, really solidly put together and a bit for everything that I can imagine needing. Well worth getting imo!

My iFixit kit arrived today (a week early): So I’m ready to start taking things apart! The kit is really nice and will find many uses beyond the modding projects. Super excited to get started.

I think this is similar to the transporter in Star Trek. In that scenario, I am of the opinion that when someone uses it the original person is destroyed and in their place is an exact copy that thinks it is the original, has the memories of the original, and appears to be exactly the same as the original. But it's not. With Mario, I think it's a bit different. Mario has died many times before this, but is each new life of Mario the same re-animated Mario or a new Mario? If he's re-animated then in theory whenever all of the Marios have died then it is the original Mario that comes back and he still exists. If each Mario is a new Mario then the only real Mario was the first ever Mario and he is long gone. Personally I think Mario re-animates after death and so he continues to exist in the scenario you presented.

Was wondering about that, looks a bit of an uncomfortable angle to sit at the desk and use the monitor as it is. Looks very nice and clean though, I want to get a similar monitor and arm as part of my home office setup. What models are those two?

I did think about cables but for two key reasons will go with the mod. The main one is that the thing I’m interested in is doing the mods and seeing if I can make things work and the cable kind of removes the need to do any mods. The second thing is that I thought a nice theme for all of this would be to standardize as much as possible. After the GameCube I intend to move onto other machines and the mods I’ll try to do to everything is USB-C power and HDMI output. I figure if I can get those two into everything then managing retro consoles in my setup will be much easier.

Given that we’ve been trapped inside for the better part of a year and it doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon I thought it would be a good time to pick up a new hobby. I’ve always had an interest console modding but never done any myself. I thought now might be the time to give it a go and see what I can do. I posted in the “What Have You Bought” thread that I’d recently picked up a few tools to get started and @Happenstance suggested I make a thread to document my progress, so here it is! I have a few projects in mind and will document my progress, any ideas or suggestions are very welcome! Project #1: My Japanese GameCube I bought this GameCube back when I lived in Japan and haven’t used it in years. Given the simple nature of the console and the quite nice quick work you can do on it I thought it would be a good place to start. I have a few plans for things to do with this. Mod #1: Region Switch The first mod is a simple one, a US/JP region switch. I don’t actually have any US games here but this is a simple enough project to get started with and very easy to test the success of. I’ve ordered a pack of switches and some cable and hope this one will be pretty easy to get done. Mod #2: Region Identifying Power LED Linked to Mod #1 is installing multiple LED lights such that the power light will be a different colour dependent on the region selected. This is a little trickier than the first but should be easy to test and not cause me too many issues. The LEDs I need for this have also been ordered Mod #3: Controller Port LEDs This is a little trickier than the first two as it will require some gaps be made in the existing body. The idea is to make the controller ports light up when the console is powered on. I need to acquire a glue gun to help with this one but otherwise everything is ready for it. Mod #4: HDMI Output Currently I have to use this mess of bad quality to get my GameCube on my TV: Luckily, the GameCube I have has got the digital output which means there is a kit available that will turn this into and HDMI port. It seems I have a few options on this one so will be doing a bit of investigation into the best way to do this before I take the plunge. Whatever I go with this will be a challenging mod. Mod #5: USB-C Power There are a few parts to this one. A couple of years ago I totally forgot about power differences and managed to blow up... something. I bought a new power supply so the first thing to do was test everything actually works: Great, I have a working GameCube! Being more sensible I now have a step-down transformer but my god does it take up a lot of space: It also weighs a ton. So that I can avoid all of this in the future and not worry about power issues I’ve found a USB-C power board that matches the GameCube power adapter output that I will attempt to install into the console. This one is completely self-created so I have no clue if it will actually work. Based on my research it should do, but it’s untested. So that’s the plan for my first project. Looking forward to getting started on it. Have any of you tried anything similar? Any thoughts or tips?

Agree with the main points of both @Hero-of-Time and @Nicktendo. The only thing I’d add is that this is not a big corporation, nor are the people involved long term staff relying on these roles for their livelihood and career. Andre is not a fat cat CEO screwing over thousands of people to line his own pockets with millions of dollars. The way I see it is someone got successful with a YouTube hobby, brought in more people to help and when it needed to be run professionally they didn’t have the first clue what they were doing and things got messed up. Andre has definitely screwed up here but for him to be held to the same standard as experienced people running established companies is incredibly unfair. He seems pretty genuine in his apology and trying to do better in the future. The whole thing could have been handled a lot better and a lot earlier than it was. They really don’t sound like a very good group of friends.

Will put this whole thing in spoilers just in case.

My best one isn’t so much a bargain as I didn’t pay for it. One day at work someone opened up an old store cupboard and found a ton of unsold Dreamcast stuff. It got dealt out to people that wanted it and my haul was the following: Unfortunately I gave it all (apart from the broadband adapter) to a friend when I left the US. Was pretty amazing to get all of that brand new for free. Other than that I don’t think I’ve ever really managed to nab a great bargain. The one I really regret not picking up was a few years ago a ton of new in box Virtual Boys found their way to the stores in Japan and initially went for about $100 each. I was traveling back and forth between Japan and the US at the time and they were just way too big for it to make sense to buy. They gradually went up in price until they were around $500 and then disappeared.

Totally agree, @Mr_Odwin. That’s actually very similar to the type of program I was following for 10k at the start of last year and making good progress with. Will definitely be figuring out something similar for the 5k and see how it goes.

Looks like some interesting moves on the calendar are being talked about: Australia being postponed Portugal replacing China Imola replacing Vietnam It will be a big shame if we don’t get an Australian GP again, if they don’t do it on the proposed slot I really doubt they will do it at all. The other two replacements I think I prefer to the original plans. Given things seem like they’re going to get worse before they get better I can totally see another jumbled up race calendar, at least in the first half of the year. I almost wish F1 could be like this every year.

Will definitely do so! If I fail massively at least it will provide some entertainment.

Decided I wanted to have a go at modding some of my consoles so ordered some tools: iFixit driver kit and... A soldering kit. The soldering kit was fairly cheap and I’ll probably upgrade at some point in the future. Availability of the known kits seemed pretty bad here so thought I’d spend some time sourcing something that will last. I also bought a few easy to get components and plan to do a region switch mod on my GameCube as a first project.

For sure. I’d even go a bit further and say it should be done behind closed doors at this point. Given what’s been happening I really don’t know how they can control it if they hold it as usual.

I’ve only taken part in one or two rounds in the many years that this has been running but I hope it continues for many years to come. I’m in a similar position to @Londragon and it would be far too selfish for me to say the timing is an issue. If the league happened at the weekend I would absolutely try to join but that’s my issue and not something for you to think about. @Glen-i I think you do a fantastic job of running the league and I hope everyone will continue to take part as much as possible. I think it’s great we have this sort of thing running and bringing us all together. I would love to play more with all of you.

I’d say your degree has relevance for the first and maybe second job you have, and probably a limit of five years before the work experience completely outweighs it. Certainly by mid-career it doesn’t really matter, I don’t even look at education stuff on a resume when I’m hiring. Totally agree with this. You need to keep up with advances in your chosen field, if you go to an interview and have no idea what is going on in the industry it will not look good at all. “Computers” is a fair wide subject, it would definitely be a good idea to do as much as you can specifically related to the area you want to be working in.

It’s definitely better in person, and it is growing on me, but I’m still not super keen on it. I reckon the half second I save not needing to plug it in will be eaten up by the half second longer it takes me to get to the charging station. I do want one of these when they become available though, nice to get rid of a loose cable.

Will see how the 20 minute thing goes at the end of the month. Not sure there is enough time in the day for anywhere close to 300. I’d also probably die which I’m not super keen on.

My DualSense is way better than my DS4, not charging it anywhere near as much as I used to. Not sure how fair it is though as the DS4 was a few years old.

Tried the beep test today and my god it was harder than I remember. Really struggled and managed to get to 7.2 almost dead. I’m just hoping that my rough distance measurement was wrong and actually I can do better. Will take a tape measure with me next time to ensure I do it properly.

That sounds like a good one too. Will give it a go once I’ve completed the current challenge.

Decide to start it this morning. Definitely seems like it’s not enough during the ‘training’ part of the challenge. The 20 minutes on the final day is going to be considerably longer than anything that’s gone before it. Will let you know how I get on.

Although the 2020 season finished less than a month ago it’s time to get ready for 2021. Let’s take a look at what’s planned for this year: Will keep the above updated as more is available. I really enjoyed 2020 and hope this season will be another close midfield battle. It would be great if Mercedes can be reigned in a little but given the minimal rule changes this year I think that’s very unlikely. Things I’m looking forward to: Hamilton becoming the (statistically) outright greatest of all time. I’m not a fan but glad he’s the one doing it. The return of Alonso, my all time favourite driver. With the progress of Renault/Alpine I can see him winning a race this year. McLaren continuing their good form and Ricciardo maybe getting back on the top of the podium. More random things happening due to the ongoing pandemic situation. Of course with the avoidance of any harm to people. Schumacher in F1 and hopefully doing well. Mazepan hopefully being gone soon. More great stuff from Russell and the deserved promotion to Mercedes for 2022. I enjoyed doing the predictions for 2020 and want to continue something. Not sure whether we do something similar to last year of just forum predictions or find a fantasy league to take part in? Any suggestions on that one? What are you all looking forward to this year?

Thanks, will give it a go! Maybe start in the middle of the month on that one. Managed to find an app to measure the bleep test, going to set my target as getting to level 15 on that. When I was a kid I used to get to about mid-way through level 12 so I doubt I can make 15 but got to set a tough target. Did my first 5km run of the year tonight to get a starting time to measure from. Managed to do it in 22:06 which is not too bad.