Life has been rough these past few years and many things were put on the back burner. Recently though, I have started working on new projects. The latest project involves Gameboy flash carts built using a cpld, as well as a discrete logic rom only mbc1 cart that I built for fun. The plan for the future is to update the various pages as projects are completed and to release documentation once things are tested and working as intended. 

In addition to the gameboy flash carts, I have also taken the time to work on modding a TurboGrafx 16 I bought as an early birthday gift. It will end up getting a region free cartridge mod, as well as an internal AV mod. Both of which were done for as cheaply as possible while still maintaining proper precautions to protect the electronics.

With Uni taking a large portion of my time, this site was no longer my priority. Now that I've finished that chapter of my life, I should finally have more time to update this site, and add more projects

Today I started documenting the differences between the PVR-502W and PVR-702W lasers that I had previously acquired. This involved removing all of the optics from the laser pcb as well as the ribbon cable connector so that all there was was a blank pcb with the laser potentiometers on it. From preliminary observations, the laser receivers, laser diodes, and laser coils are identical between the two models, but the pinout of the ribbon cable connector is vastly different. The only parts that match up currently are the 4 pins for the laser coil which makes sense given previous attempts of using the laser as a direct replacement. Only the laser coil seemed to work. In the future, the connections will be documented and an adapter will have to be made to convert the ps2 pinout to the PVR-502W pinout.

I finally managed to get the Comsoft V4 like mod installed, and can say that it does work in my consoles. Though I hope when the project is released, that others can also test to make sure it works. For now though I need to make sure my code is as good as it can be, and I need to document the hardware side of it so that a dedicated board can be made in the future. The microprocessor used in the fix is the Atmega8 found on XenoGC clones, hence the name XenoGC-takeover since I repurposed old XenoGC clones I had on hand. A dedicated project page will be setup once I finish the required documentation.

While I may not have done more work on trying to figure out laser replacements for my Japanese scph5000, I have been working on doing preventative maintenance to my scph50001 units as well as my scph70011 slim.  This has involved some research into mods that prevent the laser coils from burning out when the mechacon crashes. What I have found so far were the Pic fix, Comsoft v4, and Subzero fixes. All of these mute the coil output when the mechacon crashes, and protect the coil from burning out. https://www.obscuregamers.com/threads/comsoft-v4-fix-confirmed.2978/ has been a big help in learning about these fixes.

The PVR-502w lasers came in today, and unfortunately they did not work. After swapping the stock laser out, I came to the conclusion that the laser diode was not lighting up and was therefore not detecting the discs. I have a feeling that they are wired a little differently than the pvr-502w lasers, but future experimentation will help with that conclusion.

A while back, I bought a Japanese exclusive midnight blue ps2, and when I was cleaning it and testing it, I came across an issue I never even took into consideration. Once the power supply was swapped out for a North American power supply, the issue that cropped up involved the dvd laser. The ps2 struggled to read any games, and when I went to swap out the laser, I realized that the laser was not standard. It seems I was unlucky and got a ps2 that used the dreaded PVR-702w laser.

I started hacking TheC64 mini last week, and have made great progress into gaining full control of the device. I managed to install and SD card slot and make it boot standard u-boot and Debian. This was all new for me, and was quite fun even though it was quite frustrating.

Recently I ordered a Japanese Midnight Blue SCPH-50000 PS2 from Japan and it finally came in. While I was quick to admire it, it didn't come without its issues.

When I received my mail yesterday, I wasn't expecting to find ram chips for the original Xbox. They weren't supposed to be in until at least middle of next month. Not complaining though as it means I can go through with installing ram mods to a few of my original Xbox's.