Birthday Game Pickups!

I now have PS4 Spider Man and Genesis The Lost Vikings. Everything is pretty much checked off my lists now to be honest. I'm very fortunate. I was sooo stupid selling my original copy of The Lost Vikings in the first place and fortunate to finally find (via the hard work of my son) a version of this game

I also recieved a mini space invaders table top from my oldest daughter.

On my little spare time, I have been trying to update my game catalog that has grown significantly this year.

Another Pickup and more about last weeks Illinois Game Conference 2024

 I finally picked up KC munchkin for the Odyssey 2 this weekend.  My find list is now complete. I never owned that game, but it is the first game I played on that system.  Picked it up for $8 .

I have my TI-99/4A hooked up.  Let's face it -  How cool is it that in 1981 the TI had made a  computer with a16 bit processor and S-Video out!  Unlike everything else of that era, I don't need an RF demodulation.  Here is a photo of it hooked to a 60 inch monitor via HDMI. Better than that CRT TV I had when I was a kid.  But hey I guess it did me fine back then.

Here are some photos of my last week pickups. Yes there are duplicates of stuff I already owned, BUT, some of these are for display and not playing. The TI I had been wanting for some time.  Someone sold it to my for $60 and I could not turn that down.  Tore the TI down and apart - and it was amazingly clean on the inside.

And here are some pics of the Illinois Game Conference in Bloomington IL.  This conference was the best one yet! It has grown every year, so I'm curious about next years.

Illinois Game Con 2023

SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2023 AT 9 AM – 5 PM
Illinois Game Con 2023
1106 Interstate Dr, Bloomington, IL 61705

Great, but cheap golf games pickups and another working joystick.

Purchased these two PlayStation 2 Tiger Woods PGA for total $8. Enjoyed the PGA Tour 07 for PlayStation so much, I figured these were worth the risk at only $4 each.

I had picked this Atari 7800 Pro system joystick up on e-bay on the cheep as non working.  Only one direction was not working  - the left movement was not working.  Took the thing apart and cleanup a mostly already really clean joystick.  Works great!  For something this old, I was amazed at it's condition inside.  That said, I still enjoy using 2600 joysticks more, even for 7800 games.

 

This week's game pickup

I know that sports games don't hold their value and can be purchased on the cheap, but I do think I still got a good deal on these three PlayStation 2 games from EA for a total of $7.

Arcade titles in collection

100 Top Arcade games that I have in my collection.  Not in any paticular order.
    Game                 Year   Link                                                                     .
#1  Dig Dug              1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Dig%20Dug
#2  Pac-Man              1980   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Pac-Man
#3  Donkey Kong          1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Donkey%20kong
#4  Smash TV             1990   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Smash
#5  Frogger              1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Frogger
#6  Galaga               1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Galaga
#7  Robotron: 2084       1982   https://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Robotron
#8  BurgerTime           1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Burger
#9  Tapper               1983   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Tapper
#10 Golden Axe           1989   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Golden%20Axe
#11 Space Invaders       1978   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Space%20Invaders
#12 Joust                1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Joust
#13 Ms. Pac-Man          1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Ms.%20Pac-Man
#14 Defender             1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Defender
#15 Spy Hunter           1983   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Spy%20Hunter
#16 Donkey Kong Jr.      1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Donkey%20Kong%20j
#17 Asteroids            1979   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Asteroids
#18 Pole Position        1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Pole%20Position
#19 Stargate             1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Stargate
#20 Galaxian             1979   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Galaxian
#21 Gauntlet             1985   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Gauntlet
#22 Tempest              1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Tempest
#23 Pong                 1972   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Pong
#24 Double Dragon        1987   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Double%20Dragon
#25 Centipede            1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Centipede
#26 Battlezone           1980   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Battlezone
#27 Xevious              1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Xevious
#28 Missile Command      1980   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Missile%20command
#29 Berzerk              1980   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Berzerk
#30 Arkanoid             1986   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Arkanoid
#31 Zaxxon               1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Zaxxon
#32 Q-bert               1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Q-bert
#34 Millipede            1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Millipede
#35 Street Fighter       1987   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Street%20Fighter
#36 Gorf                 1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Gorf
#37 Elevator Action      1983   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Elevator%20Action
#38 Space Fury           1981   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Space Fury
#39 Rally-X              1980   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Rally
#40 Choplifter           1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=choplifter
#41 Popeye               1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Popeye
#42 Gravitar             1982   http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=Gravitar
#43 Turtles
#44 Space Panic
#45 Venture
#46 Pole Position II
#47 Pepper II
#48 Jungle Hunt
#49 Frenzy
#50 Bump n Jump          1982     http://mrgibson.com/GameRoom/games_db.php?syst=%20&game=bump
#51 Mappy
#52 720 
#53 Rolling Thunder 
#54 Klax  
#55 Marble Madness
#56 Paperboy             1984                           
#57 Rampage              1986               
#58 Rampart              1990 
#59 RoadBlasters         1987    
#60 Rompers              
#61 The Tower of Druaga  19 
#62 King and Balloon
#63 Mortal Kombat
#64 Super Breakout
#65 Warlords
#66 Black Widow
#67 Asteroids Deluxe
#68 1942
#69 Mario Bros
#70 Ninja Turtles  
#71 Snow Bros
#72 Mortal Kombat II 
#73 Golden Axe II
#74 Altered Beast
#75 Sinistar
#76 Mortal Kombat III 
#78 Vanguard
#79 Polaris
#80 Night Driver
#81 Dodge Em             1979
#82 Crystal Castles
#83 Breakout
#84 Jr. Pac-Man
#85 Marble Madness       1985

Some game pickups this weekend.

A little Activision Friday afternoon pickup from the local game store. What I got was Activision's modernized remake of Atari's Asteroids for PlayStation One and Activision's Barnstorming for the Atari 2600.  I have never played either game before. 

Additionally, I picked a replacement for my Pick Axe Pete for the Odyssey 2.  Also looking for a replacement for my UFO game.

 

This week's pickups

 I picked up Star Wars Battlefront for the PlayStation for $3 in really good shape.  Picked up a very high quality Sony VCR for my Atari 2600 for the RF Demodulator. $15 and it looks great on my 70" 4k TV.

It has been a while since I picked up baseball cards, but I picked up nearly 5 thousand of them, and many Chicago Cubs players and HoFers.  Happy with the pickup, but getting to the point I need to start to consider selling.

This week's new bargain purchase

This week's bargain purchase all came from Monster. I purchased each disk for a dollar each:

- Rapala Pro Fishing for PlayStation 2
- Q-ball for PlayStation 2
- Destiny 2

and the PlayStation 2 8MB memory card for $3.

My top 10 PlayStation 1 games (that I have played)

Fist here are 5 really good PlayStation 1 games that did not make my top 10 list that I play:
- Tekken 3
- Final Fantasy VII
- Ridge Racer Type 4
- Wild Arms
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six


#10 Star Wars: Episode One
#9 Triple Play 99
#8 TOMB RAIDER 2
#7 ODDWORLD: ABE’S ODDYSEE
#6 Rayman
#5 Rayman 2 The Great Escape
#4 Spyro The Dragon
#3 Crash Bandicoot Warped
#2 Atari A.E.R.
#1 Mr. Driller

Monday PlayStation Bargain Pickups

Today I went bargain shopping for PlayStation 1,2, and 4 games. I was not able to find any PlayStation 1 games, but I came home with 10 game disks (11 games) for $20.

For the PlayStation 4, I picked up these three new and factory sealed games for $15 at Five and Below:

- Monkey King, Hero is Back        (2105231)
- DCL Game, Drone Champion League  (2105534)
- Risk of Rain and Risk of Rain 2  (2105557)

For PlayStation 2, I picked up the following used games at $5 for 7 disks at Monster Pawn:

- Ford Racing 3                    (SLUS 20976)
- Gran Turismo 3                   (SCUS 97102)
- Kinetica                         (SCUS 97132)
- Medal of Honor Rising Sun        (SLUS 20753)
- Medal of Honor Frontline         (SLUS 20368)
- Power Drome                      (SLUS 20978)
- Madden NFL 07                    (SLUS 21476)

Additionally, I didn't have a PlayStation 2 football game, so color me happy with these adds.

No more Xbox

 This really is not new news.  This is to address why my entire Xbox library is gone.   We got rid of Microsoft products.  Why?  It becomes tiresome repairing all Xbox platforms.  Microsoft does not patch or support the 360 anymore making it unusable... on purpose.  Microsoft only care about the now.  Microsoft want their customers to only use the newest.   So we purchased more PlayStation hardware and games.  Added more PlayStation I, II, and IV games to the game room.  

Simply Microsoft stuff breaks more than any other platform.  There is no longer any incentive to repair Microsoft game systems.  I will no longer purchase Microsoft game systems. 

Video game console release time line

Here is a list of the major video game consoles that have been release starting with the very first, the Magnavox Odyssey. Also the first to use cartridges, and idea that was abandoned till Atari and then Magnavox again started using them.

Company    Console         Year released
Magnavox   Odyssey         1972
          
Atari      Pong            1975          
Magnavox   Odyssey Series  1975

Nintendo   TV-Game 6       1977
Atari      VCS/2600        1977         

Magnavox   Odyssey 2       1978

Mattel     Intellivision   1980            

Coleco     ColecoVision    1982
Atari      5200            1982

Sega       SG-1000         1983
Nintendo   Family          1983

Sega       Mark III        1985
Nintendo   NES             1985

Atari      7800            1986           
Sega       Master System   1986

Atari      XEGS            1987

Sega       Genesis         1988         

Nintendo   Super NES       1991
Sega       CD              1991

Atari      Jaguar          1993

Sony       PlayStation     1994      
Sega       32x             1994
Sega       Saturn          1994

Atari      Jaguar CD       1995

Nintendo   64              1996

Sega       Dreamcast       1998

Nintendo   64DD            1999

Sony       PlayStation 2   2000

Nintendo   GameCube        2001
Microsoft  Xbox            2001

Microsoft  Xbox 360        2005

Nintendo   Wii             2006
Sony       PlayStation 3   2006

Nintendo   Wii U           2012

Sony       PlayStation 4   2013
Microsoft  Xbox One        2013

Nintendo   Switch          2017

SNES Classic vs PlayStation Classic capabilities

Someone suggested to me that it would be better to play PlayStation games on a SNES classic instead of a PlayStation Classic. This would not be true. Upon evaluation, the PlayStation Classic uses considerably more powerful hardware.

What hardware does the PlayStation classic use?

Internally, the console uses a MediaTek MT8167a Quad A35 system on a chip with four central processing cores clocked at @ 1.3 GHz and a Power VR GE8300 graphics processing unit.

It includes 16 GB of ECC flash storage and 1 GB of DDR3 memory.

The A35 processing uses Quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A35 cores and an Imagination PowerVR GE8300 GPU.

The MT8167A designed to provide high processing and graphics performance specs, with support for 1080p video decoding at 60fps and support for a Full HD+ (1920x1200)

What hardware does the PlayStation classic use?

It uses an Allwinner R16 system on a chip with four ARM Cortex-A7 40-bit central processing units and an ARM Mali 400 MP2 graphics processing unit.

The CPU is designed for 32-bit operating systems such as Linux.

The ARM Mali-400 MP4 is an OpenGL ES 2.0 capable GPU for ARM SoCs. The GPU is primarily designed for tablets and smartphones with mobile operating systems like Android.

It includes 512 MB of flash storage and 256 MB of DDR3 memory.

PlayStation Classic Controllers

1) Can you use the USB PlayStation Classic controller on a PC?

Yes, yes you can. Despite what several YouTubers have claimed. At least it does work on Linux and Windows PCs. I have not tested on a Mac. Don't believe me, plug it in and test the device through the device settings. Once you plug in the controller to the PC, on Windows the system will show a quick windows stating "setting up controller". You can test and see the actual buttons being pressed under Devices and Printers Test tab.


Evaluating the USB, I found that it registered to the USB port as:

Descritpion: USB Input Device
Device Type: HID (Human Interface Device)
Vedor ID:    054c
Product ID:  0cda
Vendor Name: Sony Corp.
USB Class:   03    [x03h is Keyboard, mouse, joystick, game controler]

Triagle=button 1
Circle =button 2
X =Button 3
square =Button 4
ect...
That said, if you purchased the PlayStation Classic solely for the game controllers, that would be $30 dollars each and that would be a bit expensive for their capabilities.

2) Can the USB PlayStation Classic controller be mapped to keyboard output on PC for emulators?

Yes, yes you can. There are many ways of doing this. I used the Keysticks application. With Keysticks (http://keysticks.net/site/) application, I was able to map the Sony game controller to use on my Z26 emulator and/or generally control my PC.


A free alternative: http://atzitznet.no-ip.org/Joy2Mouse3/
Joy2Mouse3 is more difficult to setup but much more powerful/configurable (plus free) :)

3) Can other game controllers be used on the PlayStation Classic?
Probably. For example, the XBox 360 game controller works very close to the PlaySation classic game controller. I also know the Xbox 360 Game controller can be programmed to be used on the PC.

PlayStation Classic and BleemSync

I'm going to keep this post updated as I test and play. These are games I have gotten to run on the PlayStation Classic with BleemSync. If the game is having problems, you could be a tweak that needs to be made and I will post that here too.

So Far,
I have gotten these games to run and play:

Discs     , Title                    , Publisher  , players, Year
SLUS-01427, Atari  Anniversary       , Atari      , 2      , 2001
SLUS-00884, Star War Episode I       , Lucas Arts , 2      , 1999
SLUS-01235, Rayman 2 The Great Escape, Ubi Soft   , 1      , 2000
SCUS-94228, Spyro The Dragon         , Sony       , 1      , 1998

I have gotten these games to run, but not play:

Discs     , Title                    , Publisher  , players, Year

Games that I have for the PlayStation 1 Classic listed HERE.

PlayStation 1 Classic Menu Icons

On my PS1 Classic
I was curious about the menu icons and have learned a few new things other than they should be 226x226. The PNG files should be RGB and don't have much limitations on colors. So I reworked the menu icons. For example, the Atari icon I had made:

So I remade my menu as:



These look much better on the screen.

This is the information I used to create the config file (Game.ini) for the menu:

Discs     , Title                    , Publisher  , players, Year
SLUS-01427, Atari  Anniversary       , Atari      , 2      , 2001
SLUS-00884, Star War Episode I       , Lucas Arts , 2      , 1999
SLUS-01235, Rayman 2 The Great Escape, Ubi Soft   , 1      , 2000
SCUS-94228, Spyro The Dragon         , Sony       , 1      , 1998

On my SNES Clasic
For my SNES Classic, I have added the Doom ROM using Hakchi2 CE 3.5.2 tool. Honestly, since Nintendo and Sony made the classic consoles so easy to mod, I believe they expected the community to do so. If everyone was going to buy Raspberry Pis, and play their own ROMs, why should they not get some cash out of an official product.

PlayStation 1 Classic Game add

This article is how to install more games on your PlayStation Classic from your PlayStation media disks. I did these instructions with pre version 1.0 - I have done each step and tested. I collected this information from several sites and people. I then compiled it here on this blog.

I purchased the PlayStation Classic so I could play PlayStation games on my HDMI television using actual PlayStation controllers. So the first thing I wanted to figure out was how to add purchased disk games to the system and this blog entry is exactly how to do that.
Since your PlayStation Classic does not have a disk drive, the first thing you will need to do is create a .bin file from the disk that you wish to add. The disk image .bin file will be placed on a flash drive (USB stick) and play on the PlayStation Classic. The larger the flash drive/USB stick, the more games you can fit on one stick.

[1] To get started, you’ll need to head to the Magic ISO website (http://www.magiciso.com/) and download on a Windows machine.

[2] After downloading run "Setup_MagicISO.exe"

[3] After installation, run Magic ISO Maker and click "Try It!" if you are not ready for purchase.

[4] On the Menu, Select "Tools" and then "Make ISO from CD/DVD-ROM"

[5] Select the DVD/CD drive with PlayStation CD in it. For "Output format", select "BIN image file(.BIN/.CUE)" and save to your C:\temp directory (my suggestion, make it your desktop if you want). Give a short name for the game. For example, my Atari Anniversary Edition Disk, I just used "atari". This will create a .bin and .cue file that you will place on your USB stick. In this case atari.bin and atari.cue was created. In later steps you will need to rename these files, but this helps track the files while on your computer.


Now let proceed with how to build your flash drive/USB stick.

[1] To get started you’ll need to head to GitHub and download BleemSync

https://github.com/pathartl/BleemSync/releases/latest

[2] Download the ZIP file and extract the contents to the root location of a FAT32 or ext4-formatted USB drive plugged into your PC (Windows, Linux or Mac will work).

[3] Name the flash drive “SONY” in upper case - this is a requirement.

[4] In the same root directory you extracted the ZIP file into, you may need to create a folder labeled “Games”, but the extraction of the zip should have done that for you.

[5] Inside the Games directory, you need to create a folder for each game you'll like to add to the system. Each folder needs to be numbered sequentially. Each of these folders also need to contain a “GameData” folder with a “Game.ini” file, cover art image, “pcsx.cfg” file and the game’s “bin” and “cue” files. A template for how game folders should look is located in the initial ZIP file and the GitHub page has an outline for indexing too.

A proper folder structure looks something like this:

Games/
    1/
        GameData/
            Game.ini
            pcsx.cfg
            SLUS-01066.bin
            SLUS-01066.cue
            SLUS-01066.png
    2/
        ...
    3/
        ...

The file prefixes for the .bin, .cue, and .png must be name from the disk's SLUS (or SCUS for some Sony games) label that is on the Sony disk. When you stick the disk into the machine, the disk will have this ID as the label.

So for Atari I created a directory "3" under games/ and "GameData" under 3. I then copied the atari.bin and atari.cue to Games/3/GameData/

I then I renamed the files SLUS-01427.bin and SLUS-01427.cue based on the disk's label.
Next, I created a game.ini file with the following content:

[Game]
Discs=SLUS-01427
Title=Atari Anniversary
Publisher=Atari
Players=2
Year=2001

For "Discs=", I used the label Sony had assigned to the disk and copied the additional information from the CD cover.

I used this default pcsx.cfg file:

Bios = SET_BY_PCSX
Gpu3 = builtin_gpu
Spu = builtin_spu
Xa = 0
Mdec = 0
Cdda = 0
Debug = 0
PsxOut = 0
SpuIrq = 0
RCntFix = 0
VSyncWA = 0
Cpu = 0
region = 0
g_scaler3 = 2
g_gamma = 64
g_layer_x = 0
g_layer_y = 0
g_layer_w = 0
g_layer_h = 0
soft_filter = 0

Lastly, I created a png file for the menu icon, named "SLUS-01427.png". This file must have the resolution of 226x226. I'm not sure of color requirements, so I kept mine simple (limited colors).


[UPDATE Jan 3 2018: PNG should be RGB and no know color limitations I found ] NOTE: More specific details on the nitty-gritty of how to format files and where to find them is outlined in the GitHub page, so make sure to read through that carefully. It also outlines how to install multi-disc games too.

[6] Insert the flash drive into your PlayStation Classic (second joystick slot) and turn it on, the new games should be on display. Don't worry, if you need to use multiple joysticks, you can use a USB hub.


NOTE: Make sure to not remove the Flash Drive while playing or while the unit is in use. Also, it’s not known if all games will run on PlayStation Classic without issues so don’t be surprised if you encounter some problems.