Messages

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Motoroader multiplayer]

Playing this game with more than 1 person is like playing a totally different game! A buddy of mine came over today and we played the PC Engine version a bit then the TG-16 version. After planning on what we were buying we easily beat the game lol. I could never seem to get far playing by myself. 

I only recently got a Japanese tap and a 2nd black/orange PC Engine controller for my American TurboDuo and I already want to buy more controllers lol.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working]

Does anyone have a spare disk magnet hub thing they can sell? I broke a tab on mine the last time I put it back it back in the lid.. and now I can't make adjustments "live" anymore and wanted to do so recently with probes hooked up to my scope when it acted up again.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working]

FIXED!!

(added videos to my Twitter/X account @Jizaboz showing how I applied the bread tie)

This was so fucking stupid lol. Very time-consuming for such an easy fix. Around the time I hooked my oscilloscope to see wtf was really going on, I noticed the other issues.

Main culprit: Wiring arrangement from previous work started to get underneath the disc level, making it well.. not level. I ended up using a bread tie wire to make sure the wires coming off the harness didn't get anywhere near the spinning disc.

Other suspect #1: Rails and gears dirty AF, cleaned and added new lithium grease as noted in previous post.

I hope this log helps current and future TurboDuo owners

Other Suspect #2: Pots did need adjustment after new caps "burned in" it seems. While I had to do all kinds of adjustment to v102 to even get the disc to spin in the right conditions, it would would not boot a game until I bumped the next pot over just a tad.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: My Modded PC Engine is no longer powering on.]

That is not an actual PC Engine lol

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working]

Update: No matter how I turn v102 nothing changes. Disk won't spin. Tried slightly moving pots nearby too and nothing.

Throwing in the towel. If at this point if the answer is "look at the board for XYZ" then I either need specific instructions or someone to send the console into again for repair. This fucking thing has frustrated the shit out of me for far too long off and on for years for me to be patient with it.

EDIT: NEVERMIND!! I just got the disc to spin! Pushing on wires around the CD-ROM ribbon cable and molex connectors while adjusting v102 again. HRMMMMM

Not reading games yet after playing some of a Van Halen CD, but I'll mess around with it some more.

EDIT: Bah won't spin again. I suppose I'll try hooking it up to the scope since I've proven I can at least sometimes get the drive to spin and see if that sheds light on things but I'm totally open to any ideas!

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working]

LOL weird ass DarkKobold.

Yeah, looking like I will have to reach out to Steve or Keith Courage, but I still have one more thing to try first. I feel like "the disk doesn't spin" issue would be a common thread in forums, but I've only come across one thread here on it https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=20808.0

While it wasn't resolved, I did notice it was recommended to try playing with the pots to get it going. I also noticed somewhere else that after a system is recapped after a few hours of "burn in" period the pots must be adjusted. I was just hoping to get a little more clear info before messing with it again.

I have the next couple of days off work and will try tinkering with it again soon.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / TurboDuo : CD-ROM stopped working]

Hey dudes! I'm in the middle of working on this, but figured it would be a good idea to relay to you all along the way.

My US TurboDuo was recapped by me and "The Steve" (And of course Steve had to fix a lot of my work due to me not having proper equipment for surface-mounted caps  ) a few years back. I've played it off and on since then, but recently have been playing the system a lot more with a new CRT setup.

Anyway, yesterday morning I'm playing Rondo of Blood and hit select+start after losing a round, then turn off the machine. An hour or so later I return and.. the CD-ROM won't spin a disk again.

Symptoms:

- Hit start button, see "Please check disk!" message.
- The drive would not move to the right initially.
- I don't see a light from the laser diode emitting.
- Disc does not spin.
- Laser lens moves up and down vertically a few times before giving up.

Suspects:

- Dirty rails and gears? Took the time to clean those up and add new lithium grease. In the process when I use the gear to advance the lens all the way to the right, it returns to the home position fine when the system boots.

- Dirty lens? Cleaned it.

- Perhaps pots need adjustment now that new caps have been used for many hours? (I have a scope and probe if that's the case)

- Dead laser? (I've gathered this is rare)

- Loose ground? Open via on board that just randomly occurred?

Open to all ideas and suggestions as I try to get it going again!

[Off-Topic / Re: What do you depise AT THIS MOMENT, literally....]

This is what I get for being a "hot glue cowboy" like thesteve, hot glue blister burn... ;)

Damn dude! 

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Merry Xmas! Giving away a Rondo of Blood Blu-ray (No Strings Attached!)]

I don't get it.

LOL My thoughts exactly but whatever. Good luck to the others!

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Garbage Pail Kids sticker giveaway if Bernie doesn't want them. 176 in total. I might spot the shipping if I like or owe ya, if not, you pay it. Dunno if anyone here would want them, but I wanna get rid of them.

Now come on man you know me well enough to know I'd like to have these heh-heh.

What do you want for them? Or PM me.. whatever works 

Oh really ? Sorry brother, but Bernie Bro already got back to me with his shipping address in having decided that he'll take them. I'm gonna stop by the dollar store to see what kind of little shipping box or packet I can use later today.

I owe him for a lot of stuff he shipped to me over the years (Tobias bootlegs) and giving me paid freelance work in the past too.

I knew he was a fan from professing love of that movie they made of it eons ago and he Facebook-shared some sticker images in the past too I recall. ;)

Cool! Glad to hear they're going to someone who will appreciate them nonetheless. Lord knows I've got enough old stuff in this museum I live in haha

[Off-Topic / Re: Random Pictures Thread]

Garbage Pail Kids sticker giveaway if Bernie doesn't want them. 176 in total. I might spot the shipping if I like or owe ya, if not, you pay it. Dunno if anyone here would want them, but I wanna get rid of them.

Now come on man you know me well enough to know I'd like to have these heh-heh.

What do you want for them? Or PM me.. whatever works 

[Off-Topic / Re: Husband/wife ordered to pay $12m to Nintendo for ROM sites...]

ITSA ME, LAWSUIT!

Ha, someone should meme that line with a photo of Mario stomping on this couple where $12 million flashes on their heads post-stomping and maybe also show photos of famous ROM sites getting stomped on that buckled under fear removing all ROMs, not just Nintendo ones!!

I doubt it ends with this ridiculous amount, they have the appeal process of course. It's absurd to hold them responsible like this when they just got ROMs from other sites and have no connection to the manufacturer of ROM copier devices that allowed dumping a NES/SNES cartridge to disk in the first place those many eons ago late 90's...

Shame, looks like the good ole days of ROM collecting are going extinct. Back to shady IRC groups trading with other dudes to build your ROM collection then ??

Yeah that and bit torrent apparently.

Speaking of funny memes, this one cracked me up lol:

[Off-Topic / Re: Husband/wife ordered to pay $12m to Nintendo for ROM sites...]

ITSA ME, LAWSUIT!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Biggest find ever]

Did we scare Ryan off ?? This was the first time he posted in 2 years, then went back to lurker mode again...

I just assumed he was busy playing Turbo Grafx lol

Yeah if he's got the money then whatever. I wouldn't be much better about it if I had 8000$ to spare. About half of it would instantly burn a hole in my pocket at the next arcade auction if there was a nice Funhouse pinball machine up for grabs haha.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: 16 game lot . bunch of classics]

I'd be all over this but yeeouch that 30$ international shipping from Canada! lol

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: WTB Cotton Fantastic Night Dreams]

I've had the JP version of Cotton for years and I had no idea there was an option to change the text. I wonder what other JP CD games have this option? I think JB Harold and Carmen Sandiego do. Are there any others?

I can confirm it does work in JB Harold Murder Club as I recently bought an unopened copy I've been playing. The menu option is actually shown in the instruction book but I came across a link that also explains it.

First I'd heard about an English option Carman San Diego. Would make sense though.

[Off-Topic / Re: What do you depise AT THIS MOMENT, literally....]

The dudes breath standing behind me in line today.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Dead of the Brain I & II]

I played some of the PC-98 version then paused on that because I got into X-Girl (heh-heh) for a while. There's a video of a dude playing DOB for PC-98 in Japanese but he reads it aloud in English which might be helpful.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Does anybody already have an UperGrafx UGX-02 ? (memory card compatibility)]

Very unlikely I'll ever have one of these, but interesting project nonetheless!

Just curious.. are you mainly planning on using it for actually playing stuff, or for possible development stuff?

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: (UK) WTB good old original PC Engine console]

I don't do Facebook or any social media stuff, so that isn't an option.

Forums do not count as social media? I'm not too keen on FB but you are limiting your buying options since a good number of ppl have migrated to it for trades and deals.

Heh yeah I wouldn't put forums in the same boat as FB at all. I totally understand not using FB. I never created an account and never will. Sure, you limit yourself but at least you aren't part of that awful horde hive. There are plenty of other outlets on the internet to find what you are looking for. I didn't realize there were a few people as into arcade machines in my area as I am but learned about these things just by searching the internet and talking to people.

[Off-Topic / Re: AVGC obey preaching]

That's a lot of cool stuff Majors! I liked those boxy CRT monitors but never owned one.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: It's been a long time... recent finds and collection update turbo duo & more]

I strongly agree with Nightwolve. I was of the same opinion of "Well it's not broke, so don't fix it" about 14 years ago. When I finally opened mine to work on it once the colors were off and the sound kept cutting off I discovered a LOT of stuff had leaked from the old surface-mount capacitors and I was lucky it didn't eat up the PCB traces and such.

Some old stuff is just like that. Neo Geo MVS-2 boards have a "save game" battery in them originally that are notorious for leaking and ruining otherwise completely fine PCBs. If you acquire one with that battery intact, the first thing you do is cut that devil out and clean the area.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Weird bug in Super Dodgeball]

Yeah it was a very competitive game for NES growing up. I have a friend who still thrashes me in it every time.. yet can't do quite so well in Super Dodgeball for Neo-Geo which has different special moves. Not knowing the special moves when your opponent does is frustrating.

I don't have the actual Hu-Card myself to test unfortunately. I can only load it from EverDrive.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Thanks for the extra advice guys.

Well it arrived today.. a few days earlier than expected. Plugged it up, popped in Y's III disk and BOOM worked instantly. I've been playing for about an hour.

Thanks for the great work, thesteve! 

[Off-Topic / Re: What are YOU watching on YouTube.com?]

Hm I'd have to see more gameplay of that to decide..

Samurai Shodown II on MVS is still my all-time favorite 

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Oh that's cool.. I forgot you even had a Turbo Express that didn't get stolen like mine did!

Not only does it sound like Steve got me fixed up proper, but knowing exactly what I did wrong is also great to know. It's silly to be shameful of these things considering the learning curve. I think this scenario worked out OK. Big mistakes I made was not removing every bit of old solder even though I knew I should be  (I was TERRIFIED I'd lift one of those little pads), not using a hot enough iron (didn't want to burn something!), pretty crappy tools (even my smallest tip felt too big and I was leaving the cap legs too long just so that I could install them without burning my fingers) and ultimately not having nearly enough experience with this sort of work. Should have found a cheap, crap PCB with surface mounted caps to practice on first.

Working on things like Wells Gardner arcade monitor chassis I've always been keen on using at least a 30 watt iron and removing every bit of old solder. When it comes to parts like the flyback transformer you have to get all that crud off anyway or you aren't getting the old flyback out without breaking something haha. Working with that stuff though in no way came near the "Oh god don't ruin it!" paranoia that came with working on this little Turbo Duo PCB. Stuff is just much bigger and looks less fragile too on something like a monitor chassis PCB or even a Famicom PCB. I've got 2 spare K7000 chassis laying around.. I do not have 3 Turbo Duos in my house heh. So, I did a janky job of doing things like just cleaning old solder on a pad with a big of old leg still in it with alcohol, adding new solder to stick to that, and sinking the cap legs into it (which of course is wrong. Even if it sticks the connection is weak at best).

Best case scenario is that I helped things by getting all those old caps off about 2 years ago before any more corrosive stuff leaked out. Worst case would have been lifting multiple pads and burning up traces being aggressive with it.

I'm going to add notes like these and what Steve has told me to that blog. One of my pet peeves is when someone puts instructions or guides out on the internet, it's discovered that part or all of it is wrong, and the author refusing to admit their mistakes! Thanks again to The STEVE!

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Haha I figured as much! I didn't exactly have a lot of faith in my work. I've done a lot of soldering but that's the first time I've attempted surface-mounted.

I was using a 15 watt iron with no temp control and I've never used liquid flux!

Thanks again for diagnosing this and I will include your notes in my blog for reference.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Just a quick followup..

This has been sent off to TheSteve. Besides hitting a wall with getting the CD-ROM working, it would give me peace of mind to have someone with a lot more experience than me working on these things to take a 2nd look at my work to confirm what I did is right or if I missed something.

[General Gaming / Re: Pinball Arcade to lose rights to Bally&Williams Tables]

Yeah pinball emulation has come a long way. When I first started tinkering with it I was using pinMAME and Visual Pinball. These full 3D pinball emulators totally sucked when they were first introduced but the rough edges have been polished out.

I've got Pinball Arcade for steam mainly to play Funhouse. It's ok for a quick game but still nothing like the real thing. Much cheaper than 3,000$+ for a real Funhouse table though haha.

[General Gaming / Re: Sega CD advice ( model 1 vs cdx)]

Yeah I got a CDX when I was 14 or 15. I originally wanted to play Lunar and Night Trap. Remember showing it to this older kid that was a bit of a bully thinking he was going to tear into the whole thing.. instead while watching the intro when cat says "Alex! Aaaalex!" the dude looks at me with glee and says "IT TALKS?!?!?" lololol

Played a lot of Night Trap and Double Switch. I actually liked those stupid FMV games. Sewer Shark was only good for comedy. I still quote some of the lines with old friends I used to play with. Stupid, hard game. Never finished it.

I later pawned it and 4-5 games for about 75$ about 3 years later. Honestly the only regret I have about that is that Snatcher was one of those games. It was actually my first CD player too. Listened to a lot of CDs while riding in the car on that thing.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Good shooters]

Salamander is so hard that you are lucky to stay alive 5 minutes lol. It's one of my favorite shooters.

[PC/Console/Mobile Ports / Re: My Text Adventures]

Not many people are fans of text adventures haha

I actually didn't play them when they were popular. When Return to Zork came out I was so interested in the backstory that I bought "Lost Treasures of Infocom" when I was about 14 and always thought it would be neat to make my own game like that one day.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Please close cover! Audio issues!]

Yeah that's impressive! If I can't sort out the issue with my CD-ROM I may end up breaking down and sending him mine too 

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

How well does it read audio discs? Does it seem to have trouble when skipping from track to track?

That's actually what I'm testing with. I've got an old Van Halen disc with no scratches I'm trying. I also tried with the 4-1 disc. It's like it just isn't reading the disc despite it spinning and the laser moving. It never even begins to play.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Tinkered with this some more today. Made sure all caps on my first few batches were before I had better surface-mount soldering practice ;) Not seeing any more "floating legs" or anything crucial like a backwards cap.

Messing with the v102 pot again I've got nothing but a spinning audio disk. I slight adjusted pot v103 as well but I can only get the laser to behave differently rather than better. For instance I figured out a position of those 2 pots that would make the laser stay in one place longer before reading. (of course I marked the original northern position of the pots)

I haven't messed with the other pots yet. For all I know the laser is finally dead. This thing did load a lot of CD-Rs about 17 years ago  It did work a few years ago but just barely with a real game CD (random failed load on real 4-1 with Gates of Thunder hanging and/or audio skipping, random fail to load on Sherlock Holmes then locking up seconds into an FMV on a CD-R, real audio CDs skipping all over) before I started the cap process and I want to say about 2 batches into my repair blog.

Other notes I may should mention is I have not completely removed the PCB (only raised slightly and shined a flashlight in to look for leaky cap evidence) as I didn't want to replace anything but the surface-mounted caps yet at this stage. That should eliminate the chance of ripping ground wires off the bottom.. hopefully? I also have not replaced any cap in the original power supply yet.

Part of me says something I did in the re-cap phase messed something up as the CD-ROM used to read discs barely.. but another part of me says perhaps with proper voltage my worn-out laser is just failing for some odd reason. Totally open to any more ideas and opinions. Should I go about just trying to replace the laser? Try to adjust more? I can't get this thing to even start reading the data it seems despite all the spinning.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: FS/FO: Prices lowered! PC Engine CDROM2 Boxed Complete, PCE and Turbo games]

Payment sent for Ys III via PayPal 

[Off-Topic / Re: Famicom Collection.]

Hahaha

Sounds like something from an episode of Law & Order SVU

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: PCE Duo-R hum]

Yeah, I would agree with nopepper. This sounds like common quirks of the system in my opinion.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Today I wanted to clean the case so I thought I'd look into this again. Checking my work again near the CDrom area, I saw 2 of the last caps I installed had loose legs  Yeah, surface mount soldering isn't exactly my best skill heh. So, I fixed that and got them nice and snug, then removed the magnetic hub from the case so that I could test a CD with everything open. I posted a video of that test here:

If you turn up the volume, you can hear the sounds of the drive.

I haven't touched any pots yet but I did go ahead and mark their current positions with a sharpie for later. Wanted to go ahead and show you this vid before I proceeded. It's not exactly an emergency anyway because I don't have many CD games to play at the moment.

Edit: And upon inspecting again I see on leg on c507 is loose. (jeez). c201 and c200 were the ones with loose legs earlier.

Edit: Leg of c507 fixed. Tried turning V102 a bit to the left but didn't see any positive change. Put pot back at original position for now. Something really still nagging me is I don't think the lens ever moves to the outside of the disk! Like previously mentioned, I used to recall a "groaning" sound the drive would make that isn't present anymore.. I think that occurred when the lens moved all the way to the outside of the disk. Perhaps my gears are bound up some how? I have yet to apply new silicone grease to them.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

Ok Keith, I did another test today after playing some card games.

I was actually hearing skipping auto and barely loading the bonk/Gates of Thunder disk before I replaced all the capacitors just to clarify things. It was still skipping around a Van Halen audio disk and trying to load games at the time I had about half the caps replaced. I did not have the caps nearest to the CD-ROM replaced yet at that point.

Now that the re-cap job is done, I don't even get skipping audio. However, the disk doesn't just spin continuously. At one point testing tonight I opened the tray and the bonk/GOT disk was completely stopped as well as seeing the CD-ROM LED kick off and on occasionally. Listening to the mech of the drive, I hear that "sik sik sik sik" sound at intervals as if the laser is seeking.. but I never hear that familiar groaning "errrrrr" sound that the drive used to make as it loaded a game. I've cleaned the lens again too btw.

I haven't adjusted any pots yet but wanted to go ahead and share this with you in case it gives you any clues. I also have an oscilloscope if you can tell me what/where to measure. I saw an old thread talking about this but some details are still vague to me.

[Off-Topic / Re: Famicom Collection.]

I bought a Famicom a couple of years ago because I always thought they were just neat systems.

I've got maybe 20+ games because yeah, you can get them really cheap for most titles.

Still stuck in the Famicom Jump RPG game if anyone can help! According to a walkthrough, at some point you want to a grave yard headstone thing it's supposed to trigger an event introducing another character.. but I can never get it to trigger.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: FS/FO: Prices lowered! PC Engine CDROM2 Boxed Complete, PCE and Turbo games]

I'd like that Ys III CD if you still have it. Sent PM with my location.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Your favourite games no one talks about.]

Kato-chan & Ken-chan haha

As a kid I only knew it as JJ & Jeff on TG-16. Once I discovered what it was actually supposed to be as an adult I can't even look at JJ & Jeff. Sure the controls are a bit wonky, but I like the Adventure Island feel (I also really like New AI as previously brought up), the goofiness, and the music. If it's fun to play to me that's all that matters.

I also looked up the Kato & Ken TV shows a while back after realizing this and oh man is it funny!

[PC/Console/Mobile Ports / My Text Adventures]

If anyone here digs old text adventures like Infocom's classics, my text adventures are free to play locally or online here: http://jizaboz.com/projects/if/index.html

Note that the last one in the list is only playable locally and is a short demo for an upcoming game that also has graphics, sound, and music.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

I would need to check again to be sure but I think it's the latter. The last time I tested it in between a few batches of caps it would try to load my Bonk/Gates of Thunder CD but had seek probs and audio was skipping all over on that and audio CDs.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Blog of my Turbo Duo repair]

I took some time to write up some notes and things I learned along the way while I did a recap job on my Turbo Duo.

http://jizaboz.blogspot.com/2018/07/nec-turbo-duo-repair.html


Please feel free to critique or humiliate! I'll update the post with anything you all think is important to add or is just plain wrong.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo - 1 second of audio then cut to silence (Hu and CD)]

Check c604 and c610. Are they make making a solid connection?

Does the audio work correctly through headphone jack?

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: REPAIR GUIDE - TurboDuo/PC Engine Duo: Total capacitor replacement chart]

I really need to get around to replacing the caps in my TurboDuo (the all-black model). Everything still functions fine but the audio is really, really weak.

I just dread starting the job as everything looks so tiny and I've never soldered on anything surface-mounted. I'm more used to replacing caps in things like arcade monitor boards and Commodore 64 floppy drives.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Who was lucky enough to have TG16 rentals in your area?]

I was happy to have ONE friend who had a Turbo Express. That was the entirety of my childhood turbo experience.

I owned a Turbo Express before some *person* stole it when I was a teenager.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Who was lucky enough to have TG16 rentals in your area?]

Huh. I don't recall any store ever carrying NEC stuff around the NC/SC area. I remember one store having Sega Master system stuff when most others only had NES but that was it.