Things you recently bought or got

[Woody211]

I bought a new soldering iron, have had the green 982 c210 iron for a while and have upgraded to the more powerful version that will also handle c245 tips. undecided if i keep both or deal with changing the handle for different tip types. Also some shiny new tweezers

 

[RAHelllord]

I have finally obtained this little thing to patch up the hole in my GameCube.

Many thanks again to @ELY_M for reminding me that Etsy existed in his now locked thread, so I could grab one before it sold out again. Couldn't have done it without their help.

 

[AncientBoi]

I have finally obtained this little thing to patch up the hole in my GameCube.
View attachment 415948View attachment 415949
Many thanks again to @ELY_M for reminding me that Etsy existed in his now locked thread, so I could grab one before it sold out again. Couldn't have done it without their help.

Just make sure those weren't Cooling Vents

 

[Scarlet]

it's been 3000 years........

Only just got back but it does look like it works, God bless.

 

[RAHelllord]

it's been 3000 years........

View attachment 416173

Only just got back but it does look like it works, God bless.

Neat! If you're on the newest firmware myself and a few other people put together a ton of palettes to color in regular GB games when they're run in GBC mode, which you can find and download neatly zipped up over at Reddit.
All of the official GBC and SGB palettes are contained, as well as a ton of others, I even threw together a few quick ones to attempt and color match all the limited edition releases.
Also the OpenFPGA stuff is highly recommended in general, these days this thing is a veritable console and arcade powerhouse.

 

[Scarlet]

Neat! If you're on the newest firmware myself and a few other people put together a ton of palettes to color in regular GB games when they're run in GBC mode, which you can find and download neatly zipped up over at Reddit.
All of the official GBC and SGB palettes are contained, as well as a ton of others, I even threw together a few quick ones to attempt and color match all the limited edition releases.
Also the OpenFPGA stuff is highly recommended in general, these days this thing is a veritable console and arcade powerhouse.

Yeah the FPGA stuff was always something I was interested in for the Pocket. When it originally came it neither worked with cartridges or FPGA cores, so I really did just have a brick lol

 

[Blakejansen]

Yeah the FPGA stuff was always something I was interested in for the Pocket. When it originally came it neither worked with cartridges or FPGA cores, so I really did just have a brick lol

I heard that these have problems with Pokemon saves getting deleted. Any idea why that is?

 

[RAHelllord]

Finally got this thing sorted out,

Not sure if that was really worth the $45 I've spent on it, it feels pretty cheap and the gold paint isn't even perfectly applied over the entire controller, but it'll at least give me another wireless option for N64, which will allow multiplayer now.

Yeah the FPGA stuff was always something I was interested in for the Pocket. When it originally came it neither worked with cartridges or FPGA cores, so I really did just have a brick lol

Only took them a little over 2 years to finally add in almost all features they promised before launch. The last big missing thing is the DAC support for the Dock, I believe. Supposedly even that will happen early this year, but we'll see.

I heard that these have problems with Pokemon saves getting deleted. Any idea why that is?

Supposedly that's been fixed with the latest rounds of firmware updates. From what I understood of the discussions online it appeared that the savestates functionality for the sleep feature didn't manage to write or read the entire SRAM before turning off, as some bank switching is required, and that allowed it to corrupt things occasionally.
I haven't encountered any of those problems myself recently, but I also haven't played any Pokemon games on the thing since I finished Crystal Clear early on.
If you plan on buying one and playing pokemon on it it might be prudent to keep a daily backup of the save, or not use savestates at all, including the sleep feature.

 

[Blakejansen]

IPS GBA SP or Analogue Pocket?

 

[bazamuffin]

Eldest daughter has been pecking my swede about a copy of Taylor Swifts RSD 2023 Folklore Long Pond Sessions vinyl, so had to sell a kidney to shut her up

 

[MohammedQ8]

I bought these and waiting for granblue fantasy relink reviews lol I am sensing 7/10.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Bought a handheld USB vacuum cleaner for the RV hope it's good like the one I have. Should be.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EJMSpzJ

I'm not expecting too much power, just enough to clean around small stuff and whatnot.

 

[Hanafuda]

IPS GBA SP or Analogue Pocket?

Laminated ITA original GBA (not SP)

ITA screen looks like a Gameboy (pixel grid) but with brilliant, bright color. IPS looks like an emulator.

Original GBA has much more robust shoulder buttons than SP, and you can use hi-capacity rechargeable NiMH's which can be swapped in a few seconds and will be available forever.

Anal Pocket is cool, if they make a horizontal format model someday I'll buy. But shoulder button longevity is ?, and ergos are not good for most people.

 

[Scarlet]

Laminated ITA original GBA (not SP)

ITA screen looks like a Gameboy (pixel grid) but with brilliant, bright color. IPS looks like an emulator.

Original GBA has much more robust shoulder buttons than SP, and you can use hi-capacity rechargeable NiMH's which can be swapped in a few seconds and will be available forever.

Anal Pocket is cool, if they make a horizontal format model someday I'll buy. But shoulder button longevity is ?, and ergos are not good for most people.

View attachment 416809

I will also agree with this. I think the Analogue Pocket is a fantastic handheld (when it works lol) but it's the perfect GB(C) console, not GBA.

If anybody is looking for a modern system that's a good fit for GBA games, the KT-R1 is something worth keeping an eye on. Think the store is closed atm while the creator makes some improvements but it's a 3:2 aspect ratio Android handheld that can play some GC/PS2 with pretty good battery. Expensive for what it is but there's not really much else like it. For solely GBA though, a modded GBA will likely be king. Especially given the HDMI kits that are available nowadays.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Laminated ITA original GBA (not SP)

ITA screen looks like a Gameboy (pixel grid) but with brilliant, bright color. IPS looks like an emulator.

Original GBA has much more robust shoulder buttons than SP, and you can use hi-capacity rechargeable NiMH's which can be swapped in a few seconds and will be available forever.

Anal Pocket is cool, if they make a horizontal format model someday I'll buy. But shoulder button longevity is ?, and ergos are not good for most people.

View attachment 416809

That screen looks amazing it's what I wanted the original GBA screen to look like.

 

[Hanafuda]

That screen looks amazing it's what I wanted the original GBA screen to look like.

Haha yeah I'm all googly eyed just looking at it every time I play. Sometimes I just stop on a menu page or "dead time" moment in a game and just stare.

I should add, for @Blakejansen since he asked, I still love the SP. I have two AGS-101's - one has needed a reshell and the shoulder buttons wore out and were replaced and the replacements suck, and the other is near mint w/ box manual etc. and I basically never touch it. But the original GBA, if you get one in decent shape internally, with a FP laminated ITA, is tough as nails and will just keep on trucking.

 

[RAHelllord]

IPS GBA SP or Analogue Pocket?

Depends on what you want. The screen on the pocket is basically the best on the market, and also the biggest in case your eyes aren't the best for any reason, similarly the sound out of it is superior to real hardware, though if you're willing to mod a GBA for cleaner output they're very comparable. It also does a crapload of things a GBA can't do by itself, like playing seamlessly on a TV with the Dock or emulating gaming consoles up to the PS1 and a lot of arcade machines damn near perfectly. There is also an Amiga core already, and someone else is working on a C64 one. The biggest downside to it is that it is big, it's basically DMG sized and can't be folded down. Unlike the SP the screen is also exposed entirely which makes it inadvisable to just chuck it unprotected into a bag.
Though my favorite party trick of the device are the display filters. With that stupidly high pixel density they can make the screen look like an idealized version of any device, and it's very convincing. If you're a fan of the older Game Boys those are great to have and play around with, I use the GB Light mode for basically every DMG game.

But if none of those features really matter to you then an SP or an AGB might be the better choice. Modern replacement screens are great and the newest versions seem to have gotten a hold on most of the last remaining issues, like flicker retention. Both an SP or AGB are a good deal smaller and lighter, and particularly an AGB is more comfortable for actual Game Boy Advance games.

For me the Pocket is the perfect portable gaming device for older games. It looks great, it sounds great, it emulates basically everything perfectly, and input latency is unmatched bar actual hardware. And for the most part everything is plug and play. That thing and my Steam Deck are basically the only entertainment devices I bother taking with me on trips, and the Steam Deck pulls double duty as a work laptop.

 

[SylverReZ]

My Picofly HWFLY chip came today. All of the parts are in there, nothing missing.

Comparison to an SD card - its fucking tiny.

 

[Blakejansen]

My Picofly HWFLY chip came today. All of the parts are in there, nothing missing.
View attachment 416952View attachment 416953

Comparison to an SD card - its fucking tiny.
View attachment 416955View attachment 416954

This looks like an older model rp2040 lite. Why not the newest revision?

 

[SylverReZ]

This looks like an older model rp2040 lite. Why not the newest revision?

This is the newer revision for the Lite models. Regardless if its old or not, works exactly the same. Only one chip is doing all of the work plus the firmware is upgradable.