Happily outbid on eBay

Even though I spent the next few months' entertainment funds and have yet to make up the difference, I've been keeping an eye on eBay for some reason.

First there was a DVDO Edge that I made small bids on, but was then going to try to snipe with a max bid of $80. Then someone who hadn't bid before in that auction sniped it with $148. I could deal with that, especially after realizing that moving the DVDO Edge that I already have to the gaming room wasn't as big of a deal as I thought. (Note to self: write post about the DVDO Edge with the Panasonic Tau and experiments with Duck Hunt and PSP)

Then there was an auction for a VGI to DVI scaler, which this site says I need if i want to use a scanline generator (SLG3000). I made the starting bid at about $50, but I instantly regretted it because it turns out the SLG HD= YUV Edition was probably a better option for me. I saw some guy outbid me in the last few hours (I was awake at 3 a.m. because of work, and I will not go into detail). I let it slide and that guy won by $1. Thanks, guy!

So enough of this foolishness. No more getting sidetracked with NES or Atari eBay pickups. No more "bargain-hunting" on eBay for hardware purchases that would make my gaming life only marginally more convenient. It's time I settled down and seriously* started saving for the installation of the PlayChoice-10 PPU NES RGB mod (I already have the part)... which, despite the existence of the cheaper, more versatile NESRGB mod, I'd still like the original RGB mod so I could see with my own eyes its "flaws." The PlayChoice-10 is still original, official Nintendo hardware that I obtained for my own selfish purposes (the actual PlayChoice-10 arcade machine won't work without it), and this new NESRGB seems to have its own problems. And can I get the expanded Famicom audio with that mod or not? Who knows.

*I still need to get Final Fantasy III and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, which are now/will be on sale, respectively...

Weird-ass dream (2014-01-22)

I dreamed I was hanging out with Kei Hosogai. That in and of itself wasn't too surprising since I saw him make an appearance on NHK World in a segment about bus travel.

Now, the really weird thing is that I was saying I remembered that I watched the NHK segment about bus travel in the dream.... so yeah.

Panasonic Tau, Part 2

Remember that Panasonic Tau (CT-36HL43G) I got a while back? Some new thoughts and discoveries:

I picked up a wood dolly at Home Depot for about $20, so now I can actually use it whenever I want instead of it just being a huge, immovable eyesore in the middle of the room. It took the whole family to put that 250-pound TV on that dolly (which is supposed to be able to support 1,000 pounds). Now that it's on wheels, I have a better viewing angle sitting on the futon couch, and it tucks away neatly. I don't worry about it slipping off the dolly either.

I got my old Gefen Home Theater Scaler back and I'm using it for its underscan function, and that one function makes my PC gaming experience on the Tau that much more enjoyable:

• I can see more of the floor in Mega Man Unlimited. It looked good before with its proper fullscreen aspect ratio, but now it's perfect.
• Street Fighter X Mega Man couldn't fullscreen properly with the laptop directly connected to the TV; Mega Man looked a little fat, even though this is a 4:3 game and the TV is also 4:3. With the scaler underscanning and locking the aspect ratio, all is well.
• Life bars and remaining lives in MAME are now visible.

Incidentally, it's because of MAME and lifebars that I finally ventured into the TV's settings and played around with the tilt. Turns out I need it +6 to eliminate the heavy curve on the upper-left corner. Now both of the top corners are only very slightly and evenly curved and it looks much better. I wouldn't have been able to calibrate it without seeing the life bars in Street Fighter 2. I also turned off "VM" (velocity scan modulation) because (1) the less processing, the better for gaming, and (2) some guys said it's better to turn it off.

Another game I tried was Cho Ren Sha 68K (超連射68K). I had to run it in Windows 95 mode on my Windows 8.1 laptop, and JoyToKey is still acting a little finicky with my MLG joystick, but the thing I was most curious about was the scanline option (F5). The TV and/or the scaler seemed to deinterlace that anyway, so all I got was a (IMO) worse picture than if I had just left it alone. 

Speaking of scanlines, there's an old video on YouTube showing some guy playing Duck Hunt on an HD CRT. He mentions he's using an XRGB-3 for the scaling from 240p to 480p and/or to add scanlines. I'm still not sure what part of that makes Duck Hunt work all of a sudden, but used XRGB-3 units still go for a little under $500 on eBay, I'm not exactly dying to play Duck Hunt (or Time Crisis) on the Tau, and who knows if the TV would just deinterlace those scanlines anyway, so I don't think I'll be getting more equipment for light gun games.

If I really need scanlines, BuckoA51 says if I want to use an SLG3000, I'll have to get yet another scaler, this time VGA to DVI. Those cost $200 to $400 on eBay, and I may or may not need that instead of/in addition to the XRGB-3 because the XRGB-3 can only add scanlines on 240p content. And I'll need to bring my HDFury3 out of retirement and buy the VGA adapter at the highway robbery price of $50 because the SL3000 is VGA only. Too many things to plug in at this point. Sure, there's the LKV351 too, but a little more digging shows that it's locked at 720p, and the Gefen I already have doesn't do 240p, so instead of figuring that all out I'll just stick to the trusty Samsung DynaFlat. 

More on the Gefen scaler: It's the only way I can view my sources on the Tau in 1080i. Unfortunately there's no way to zoom in and cut off the sides (ideal for Hulu); you'll always have a letterboxed picture, and I'm always worried about burn-in. I've tried the options in both the scaler and the TV. When the input is 1080i and I choose "4:3" on the TV, it's just a sort of reverse stretch-o-vision (panorama stretching) in 4:3. Yuck. But on the other hand, thanks to the scaler, I have another way to play those pesky PS3 games that lack a 1080i mode on the Tau. Games nowadays are optimized for HD displays (read: 720p and 1080p), and games with actual 1080i support are rare. If the PS3 can't detect 720p or 1080p, it will just fall back on 480i or 480p. In my case, the Tau lacks 720p and 1080p, so even though I might be able to have the PS3's XMB in 1080i 4:3, once a game is started, the PS3 will default to 480p. But theoretically I could have the PS3 output at 720p as always and have the scaler turn that into 1080i, which should still look loads better than 480p.

Definitely, the more I use the Tau, the more I love it! Now to find those IR codes. More on that (and using my old PSP as a remote) later.

Atari 2600 package complete, just in time for Christmas

I grew up in the NES era and I have no nostalgia for the Atari 2600. Heck, I don't even like Atari (the company), and the more I read about the company, the more I hate them. But today my Sega Genesis controller arrived (it's compatible with the 2600 without modification) and I have to say I'm enjoying those wacky games with primitive graphics and no music quite a bit. The thoughts in my mind are not, "Man, this is just like I remembered," but rather,

• "People must have been easily entertained in the '70s." 
• "I'm having to use my imagination quite a bit with these graphics." 
• "I'm actually quite impressed with what they did with these graphics."
• "I like seeing how big of a difference there was between arcades and home consoles at the time."
• "I'm not expecting to see an ending screen any time soon" (indeed, these games just got harder and harder until the game forced you to lose), and, 
• "There's no way I can mess this up with only one button on the controller." 

The Atari 2600 controller is pretty awful, but the Genesis controller, while still a bit stiffer than my Saturn controller, makes the Atari 2600 feel like a real console. And appreciating it for what it is and was, it's pretty fun and amazing. I might have to thank James Rolfe for steering me in the right direction.

Why did I buy an Atari 2600? Ostensibly for my brother for Christmas, but it's really for me and my brother for Christmas. I won the eBay auction (console, original power supply, two joysticks, paddles, games, and their manuals) by sniping with a max bid of $66.67, but I ended up paying just under 50 bucks. (50 BUCKS!) Free shipping.

When it came, there was a bunch of rattling. There actually wasn't any packing material! Also, the power supply was missing, one of the joysticks was broken, and one of the paddles was broken, but since the paddles came in pairs, both were worthless to me. I messaged the eBay seller and he was very apologetic and sent me the rest of the stuff and a game he forgot to include the first time around, and later on sent me replacement paddles. Driving paddles, so I still need to shell out for the regular paddles, but whatever. I spent an extra $6 or so getting a coaxial adapter, which apparently could be had for $1 or so, but it was still cheap enough so whatever. My Sega Genesis controller was under $10 shipped, so that was cool too. I'll keep the broken joystick if I ever want to mod my NES controller for the Atari 2600 like this guy.

The manuals are pretty useful to have because of the switches for the difficulty settings (a concept which I'm still wrapping my head around). Luckily Atari Age comes through for this. I can't believe how many variations Space Invaders has!

What's left? Get the system modded for s-video, pause, and LEDs, buy adequate storage for games, collect more games like Pac-Man 4K, and maybe learn how to get started on building a custom joystick for all my legacy consoles. Foehammer looks good for this purpose.

Weird-ass dream (2013.12.13)

I dreamt I was popular.

Was kinda nice, actually...

Embracing the YouTube / Google Plus Integration

I don't care what anyone says; this new YouTube / Google Plus integration is great! It gives those of us whose accounts were banned (which is, to say, all of us) a second chance, and now I might actually purchase movies and other videos on YouTube.

Here's my first video on my main account.

Getting my free PS+ PS4 games without a PS4

I doubt I'll be getting a PS4 anytime soon, but that doesn't mean I can't get my free PlayStation Plus games for that system right now. I just have to go to the Web site:

http://us.playstation.com/psn/playstation-store/