That said, it's mostly a vanity list where I can talk about in progress stories and story ideas. Let's go!Retro console modding · 4:19am February 28th
Have I talked about this here yet? I don't think I have. This is just a ramble about another hobby I have, retro game console modding.
So I'm a weird nerd bun with some super niche interests. One of them is retro console modding, which I hope to do as a side job someday. Currently I'm learning but having a pretty good time of it. I have successfully modded my Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System. The SMS is an FM sound expansion mod (makes the music sound better, but harder to show off here), the NES is an RGB visual mod.
So real quick, what this means: If you're not in the US you may be familiar with SCART cables. They look something like this:
But in the US, well, we don't have those. We had a number of worse options, though! I'll come back to SCART, but we had RF cables (also called antenna cable), which was the most common in the 80s
And composite (also called RCA cables), which was the most common in the late 90s early 00s.
We also had about half a dozen other formats, but generally when talking common TV hookups pre-HDMI that we had in the US, this was what we got. RF was the worst of the worst when it came to signal, but boy howdy did we use it, and composite was a fair step up but not particularly good either.
"But Krickis, what does this mean and whu do I care?"
Look, I don't know why you care, aside from maybe being a nerd like me, but what it means is that we got shafted in the US when it came to video clarity. A good rule of thumb is the more wires something has to carry different types of signal, the more clarity you got (until HDMI). RF was shit because, in part, it carried all the video and audio on a single wire. Insane! Composite carried all video on one wire and then stereo sound across two wires. Component would later use five or six wires to do the job.
So let's go back to SCART. See, the SCART format actually used a bunch of wires housed inside a single casing to transfer all sorts of info. Let's illustrate!
So this may look complex but the core concept I'm conveying is that each pin carries different info, unlike the single prong video cable in composite video.
"Erm, actually, S-Video is a single cable and it is very good!"
Yes yes, I did say a rule of thumb.
"Well, I understand this stuff better than you and you're explaining it poorly."
Right you are!
Anyway, let's just for now ignore the haters and take it as a given that when it comes to 80s consoles (and often 90s consoles), SCART is the best format. Cool, get some SCART cables and sit back!
Except that TVs don't support SCART in the US, so many consoles don't use them, preferring the more universal composite or, Hell forbid, RF cables. Some systems, like the Sega Master System do support SCART with just a cable, others, like the Nintendo Entertainment System, do not!
Yup, the NES only supports RF and composite. So even if you have a SCART to HDMI adaptor for just such an occasion (note: most adaptors are not fucking good and the good ones are prohibitively expensive), which I do (...it did not prohibit me, specifically...), then you're screwed on getting a crisp clean signal out of Super Mario Bros unless you're using an emulator.
Or unless you mod the system to support RGB!
"Wait, RGB? I thought this was about SCART?"
It's about both. SCART is a cable, the signal it carries is only as good as what it gets fed. Feed it a shitty signal, it'll output a shitty signal. RGB though... RGB is beautiful. RGB conveys the entire color spectrum and tells the TV where to display each color flawlessly. Or as near to flawless as we could get in an analog world.
(Real quick, HDMI is a digital signal, RGB is a type of analog signal. Basically HDMI transfers data, not visuals, and your TV knows how to display that data. Analog transfers actually visuals, or at least, it's easier to explain if we simplify it to that. This makes it, generally, inferrior)
But what good is talking about it without examples! This is what the NES looked like on my digital TV with the composite cables:
Blurry! The best we could expect from a system made in 1983 though, so that's just going to have to accept—lmao nah I accept nothing.
So this is an RGB signal from my physical NES playing an actual cartridge carried through SCART cables to my OSSC Pro (that's how I display SCART on my US HD TV), intercepted by my cheap as hell capture card and screenshotted on my PC. Which is also how I captured the other image; nothing was changed in between these two except the use of the RGB mod and SCART cable!
Anyway, I just thought that was neat! This all involved learning to solder and drilling holes in my case, btw. But yeah, I hope to do this as a side job someday, for the moment I'm still practicing and learning (so if anyone has any retro consoles they might be willing to part with...)
Next up, I'm going to do the same thing with my Famicom!
Can you modify the NES system to run Duck Hunt on the new TV's?
5833339
Afraid not. The only way to play Duck Hunt, or any other classic light gun game, on a modern TV is emulation and the use of something like a Sinden Light Gun. Which I do think works rather well, but there's nothing doing for playing something like that on native hardware.
This takes me back. Those retro consoles had the weirdest hookups. Thankfuly my dad is handy with electronics.
5833345
They definitely did, and the difference can be pretty wildly extreme in some cases! It's always nice to have someone handy who knows about that sorta stuff
Hardware modding is such a neat topic ^^
I watch a lot of videos about them 'cause it's just so darn fascinating and I don't have the resources to do so
Softmodding newer consoles though, that's something I've done! It's amazing how these mods exploit little flaws in the software in such a way that allows you more control over your system!
I've done the letterbomb exploit for the Wii and have installed the Luma3DS firmware by myself on my and my siblings' consoles. It's quite cool being able to play modded games on real hardware, installing your own theme in your console (I have an Antonymph theme on my 3DS
) and to see what people can achieve with their homebrew games!
5833359
Oh absolutely, I love the soft modding community so much and have been an avid participant for ages. My first one was my PSP way back when, but I've soft modded most Sony and Nintendo platforms.
These days I mostly emulate games on PC, but there's something really cool about being these old consoles to look and sound as good as they possibly can. I don't have the funds to do a lot of it normally, but I'm about to buy a handful of Famicoms, mod them, and try to sell them for profit. If that works then I'll be trying to grow DustBunny Games as a console modding business. That way I get to play around with all the consoles and I don't have to worry about having them cost an arm and a leg!
5833361
Ooh! I wish you luck in that project, then!
It's always great to see someone's hobby become self-sustaining ^^
5833341
Thanks for the info! I guess I'll have to look for an old TV then!
5833372
That's really the only option, I'm afraid. If you're interested in why, I can explain to the best of my ability. If not then feel free to ignore this!
Basically traditional light guns only work on CRTs because of how CRTs operate in terms of creating a picture. I'm not 100% on the details but something to do with the frequency that they flicker at, which is just not something that HDTVs do at all. The Sinden light gun works because it's basically a camera that puts a border around the screen and then can tell where you're pointing relative to the border. Much now high tech than old light guns, but works on modern displays. Unfortunately, the NES will not registered the Sinden Light Gun as a controller (plus as a USB device, it will not be possible to plug in haha)
There's also Wii light gun games, or PlayStation Move ones, but ultimately those are much less responsive than traditional light guns and work via infrared technology, tracking the light gun position not relative to the TV, but relative to the sensor bar or camera.
All that said, I do recall there's a port of Duck Hunt on the Wii U, if you just want to play it on a console. I wouldn't recommend it, it won't be as responsive as I said, and certainly isn't anything like the experience of using a Nintendo zapper!
Best of luck finding a good quality CRT to play on!