Finds (All Others)

[MS-DOS4]

Reach down into where the batteries of the PowerJoy III go and look for a switch. Should be in there. Flip it and then try to boot the system!

[tankexmortis]

Thanks. I believe I tried the switch already with no luck, but I'll put it back together tomorrow, try again, and let you know how it goes. So does that switch have something to do with the power input, or what? I'm a total newbie to this stuff.

UPDATE: All right, I tried the switch in both positions with no luck. Just to verify, the Power Joy takes (+)--c--(-), right? Would 800 mA be too much for it, or should I try to find something with less? I haven't actually tried it with the 350 mA power supply that came with it as it looks totally unreliable and borderline dangerous. If none of that stuff's the problem, I suspect either the DC in or the power switch to be faulty. I'm sure I can find a switch to replace the one on the board, so that may be the next step. I dunno why I'm even bothering, I guess I just need something to do. I also took some pictures of the guts and can post those if anyone thinks that'll help.

APPENDUM: Just got an Atari 7800. Guy I bought it from said it was working a week ago when he tested it, but when I tried it the power flickered on for just a second, then turned off. I'm gonna look for a replacement button and see if that fixes it. I'll probably call the guy tomorrow to let him know, dunno if I'll ask for some of my money back or what. It was cheap and I won't mind doing this if it works, but it would've been nice if it had just worked like it's supposed to.

ADDITION: Got the Atari working, sort of. I'm not convinced the power button isn't faulty, but the main problem seemed to be with the power supply. Fiddling with it a bit got it working, but the picture and sound produce some noise while playing.

[Cam3ron@FW]

2 Dreamcast VMU's.

[Nightstar699]

Wow, I made a great find today. At a store near my house, I found a Complete in Box Secret of Mana for the SNES for just 10 dollars! It sells for so much more on ebay, it even comes with the poster. Here is a pic:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40402573@N08/4607070047/

Pretty cool, but I dont really like RPGs. So I guess I might sell or trade it.

[nensondubois]

Madden 96 (Game Boy) Only played if for the enhanced SGB sounds.

[133MHz]

After a long time of not going flea market hunting, I went to a big one with a friend yesterday and here's what I found:

Old Compaq laptop, really dirty but in good condition sans charger. Looks like it could be a 486 or early Pentium with a color display. I love me sum old computer stuff and it was so cheap I couldn't let it pass up, even when I noticed that the power connector got loose and it was rattling inside the computer.


The battery was of course completely dead, so the only way I could check if the lappy was working at all is by repairing the power jack and plugging some laptop charger into it. I opened it up to find that the power connector was completely broken and mangled beyond repair. Not having a suitable replacement and since I only wanted to know if it did anything at all before spending money on replacement parts, I soldered two wires directly to the motherboard which I routed through the charger plug hole, so that I could apply some direct power into it.


Yes that is speaker wire coming out of the computer's power jack.
I used an old IBM charger to apply some power to the bare wires and lo and behold, it worked!
It's a 75 MHz Pentium with 40 MB of RAM, 2 GB hard disk, 640x480 color display, 16 bit sound and Windows 95 OSR1.
The built in trackpoint isn't working and the CPU fan sounds like a coffee grinder, but everything else works fine. Old Compaq lappy will get a full cleaning and restoration job sometime in the future.

Here's a really weird one for us in the New World. An European SCART lead!


Of course the seller didn't have the slightest clue about what that thing was so I got it for next to nothing. This is the first time I've ever seen a SCART plug in person, they're virtually non-existant around here so I consider myself quite lucky on finding this one.

Another mini NES clone. Satoshi had me looking around for one so I picked it up for him.


Aside from being extremely dirty, it's missing a plastic piece and the power input jack was loose. After resoldering the power jack I fired it up to see if it worked and if it had some built in games. It turned out to have the elusive "double menu" multi game, the one that displays a 20 in 1 menu on power up and a 22 in 1 menu with different games after a reset. It's got some sound problems (sounds really tinny and distorted). Oh and it's a discrete clone with a socketed UMC chipset, and it seems like the built in games are soldered-on Mask ROMs instead of a removable internal Famicom board.

I'll finish to clean and fix this one up when I get some free time. This week will be chocked full of exams for me.

Also I found a Famicom pirate which I posted on the specific Famicom/FDS findings thread, and a replacement TV remote that I needed which is too boring to take a picture of.

[tankexmortis]

Cool stuff! That Compaq looks pretty similar to one I had years ago. I miss that thing.

[Marlon]

Nice NES Clone

[FamicomFreak]

I always love your finds 133mhz, great stuff.

[linkzpikachu]

megaman X for 14.00 today

[nintendodork]

Went and spent some of my birthday money on Amazon.  Just pre-ordered the limited edition of DeathSmiles (a horizontal maniac shmup by Cave, same people who made Mushihimesama) for the Xbox 360.  The pre-order comes with the soundtrack and a faceplate.  The soundtrack will probably be pretty cool, but I doubt I'll ever use the faceplate.  I also bought a Hori Real Arcade Pro EX-SE arcade stick, which I've read nothing but positive reviews about, and I like the color scheme too.  I was trying to stay away from the EX2 because of that, and because it's the most common stick around.  I wanted something different!

[tankexmortis]

Got a tri-wing screwdriver for my Game Boy (the heat gun trick seems to be working and I oughtta have it pixel perfect soon), a bit to take apart NES games (I think it works for N64 games too, what about SNES games?), and THIS:


3 Ghz quad-core processor, 8 GB RAM (12 or 16 max, can't remember), 1 GB video card, 500 GB HDD (hoping to get a solid state drive when they get bigger/cheaper). Oh my goodness I love this thing. Can't wait to get some new games to really push it.

A state program that helps the disabled pay for electronics and other support devices helped me pay for it. Wonderful people.

[FamicomFreak]

Love the new laptop, I'm probably going to be upgrading laptops next year, mine is getting quite old(3 years already)

[tankexmortis]

My old one was 5 years old. It was running pretty well but its fan died and it was just time to replace it. I'll miss it though, it was one of the last Thinkpads that IBM made.

Update on the Power Joy: it's definitely dead. Went over it with a volt meter and everything is working fine; the wires, the switch, the power connector, everything. In a last ditch effort I tried the terrifying power supply that came with it. It had actually been rattling really loudly when shaken, so I opened it up expecting to find something blown apart. To my relief, it appeared that a bunch of glue had overheated, become brittle, and fallen apart, and that was what was causing the rattling. I also noticed that whoever assembled the (remarkably primitive) power supply neglected to cut the ends of the wires soldered to the diode bridge. I removed those and gave it a shot, but the Power Joy still wouldn't power on, so I'm giving up and I'll just use it for parts, unless I decide to try and rig up something to see if it'll run off battery power. It's missing the battery cover, so I don't have the positive, uh, thingies (I forget the actual term), and I don't know what kind of batteries it takes.

[Nightstar699]

Today was a great day, this morning I got a package from Speedy06car, we traded and here's what I got:

Super Mario Bros 3 (NES)
Legend of Zelda (NES)
Shinobi (game gear)
G-LOC Air Fighter (Game gear)

the game gear games were kinda freebies. After school I picked up these:

Resident Evil 2 (PS1)
Memory Card (PS1)

Plus, more stuff later this week. I am happy.