For the sake of preservation, I personally see a MUCH bigger issue. 15-20 years ago we went on online forums and post our ideas and findings in threads. Some of these (old) forums are still online and can be searched. But especially in the field of computers and electronics, there is already a huge part that is just lost forever. I remember certain websites that were absolutely essential and that are just lost forever incl the valuable information. This is one of the reasons why I am not so super fan of Discord and similar platforms, it's a great place to chat, but all ideas and messages are gone. In fact even today, nobody ever searches around and back anymore to see if something has been discussed or talked about already before. Even platforms like YT are privately owned and important information on there won't be around forever. All these media channels is what a lot of people get their information from these days Like video games, I sometimes worry a lot that in like 20-30 years not much information can be found anymore. Just gone forever if it's not being backed up or preserved.
I went to the Trocadero a few times in the early 90s, it was amazing. I saw full size Ridge Racer and Galaxian 3 cabs. HUGE things, we're talking about a real Mazda MX5 in the ridge racer set up. And Galaxian 3 was a mini walk-in cinema for 6 players. I dont imagine there are as many impressive machines to install these days?
The Cave should set up a partnership with Retro Rewind to have a UK franchise there in the cave. That way they could benefit from all the experience they have.
The thing I've put by far the most amount of time into, since around the age of 12 or 13, is programming. First on my VIC 20, then Spectrum, then ATART 800XL, then various things on a PC, and years later the Vectrex and ATARI 2600. To the point where I actually did it for a living for a few decades.
A shame the cave isn't going to be doing repairs now and again as was previously mentioned. Because I have a broken CRT and a few that could do with having their picture centered a bit better. I'm really not comfortable opening up a CRT with the fear of electrocuting myself! :)
Great to hear that you managed to buy the Arcadia, I sent you a tip on your website contact page, but I guess that I was not the only one doing this. Super that it will get into a museum instead of a private collection.
That bbc video I’ve got to see. I wouldn’t trust Cex with my retro consoles or whoever they hired. I had my mega cd repaired by a nice fella on eBay was 50 quid and worth it. Cex don’t have a clue with retro they often have rare games in the window getting sun drenched. I’m glad I’m lucky enough to have a local retro game shop as I’d hate them be my only option.
The addiction story reminds me of when I was in boarding school and I was only allowed to play video games for 15 minutes a day. they said if I wanted to play more I was addicted. so now it's hard to take video game addiction seriously. because it seems like older generations had an irrational hate of video games and computers.
Sounds like CEX is trying a Best Buy 'Geek Squad' sorta thing. Never used them so no idea what in fact they actually did. I have to admit it's a bit discerning seeing a guest with hair. 🤣🤣🤣 At least he was in the middle so my OCD didn't blow up.
Absolutely do a secret shopper on cex repair. As others have mentioned here, we expect the experience will be. "interesting". Do it blind, don't go yourself, send someone that's not been on the show. Perhaps get a working unit and set a known fault and see how honest they are. Lots of options for this. Look forward to the results.
@this week in retro. I worked in a local cex. Repairing in-house. And I was told to exaggerate to the customers about repairs. One on a iPhone that wouldn't charge it was just dirt in the charge port I told the owner it was nothing and to charge a fiver took me 1 minute. He told them charger port had to be replaced and cleaned ect.. and charged her £80. It was the same as he would by obviously stolen copies of games in bulk call of duty came to mind and sell them at full price the 2 year guarantee I was told to fake water damage to get out of the warrentee and signs of tampering. It was a franchise. So I reported him to head office. And then I was let go. Cc
I could see Lara Croft as iconic, but then I'm under 40 so I was a teenager when the early games were coming out. Sonic would probably be my pick over mario, and probably link - specifically as of Link to the Past. I had a C64, but the games I had didn't really have an recogniseable characters (aside from a terminator 2 cartridge game that ran surprisingly well).
For $50 I wouldn't swap out the card connector on someone's NES. Maybe if they brought the system in already disassembled and didn't want it re-assembled when returned. I have no idea how much Frank charges, but I live in the same area (GTA) and if I spent 3 hours repairing an Amiga, that's at least $300 labor only. For the systems listed that CEX will work on, most aren't worth even paying for one hour of repair time as you can simply buy a replacement. Certainly for NES, SNES, Genesis/Megadrive, PS1,PS2,PS3,PS4,XB, XB360 and XB One
I saw that BBC documentary, and I thought the people featured were poorly done by. But I do want to know if Phylis ever finished her hardware project - more chops to her for sure
I would argue that if a publisher wants to stop supporting multiplayer for a game (let's say, Riot decides to stop supporting League of Legends), they should be required to release the server software freely to anybody who might want to run a server of their own.
CEX can't even test the hardware you want to sell them most of the time, so no idea how they're going to manage to pull off anything like this. Not to mention the 2 decades of horror stories from both customers and staff.
And that’s what I am doing Neil, I got electrocoin cabinet but not the rest. I am hoping to have something ready for revival. However the only game that doesn’t suck is Xenon and it’s single player. There is a project on KLOV
If you look at the Electrochoice leaflet, bottom left, not the Bar Line. It is Jamma converted and the control panel got drilled for 6 button layout, but overall its great and small ! I need some SF2 boards lol.. might need to rummage thru ur boxes there... could do a swap ! However want to show it off at Revival first
It was slightly critical, but from a "let's make an interesting and critical story of this" kind of journalistic point-of-view. Of course, time tells that the journalists should be slightly ashamed, and that we were right. ... Today, most would just ignore the "journalistic narrative" of this, and just go with the great stories and personalities of the people that was interviewed by the BBC journalists at the time. Great video :)
SUYU is using Nintendo's code - I mentioned that would be a huge problem the first time it was announced. They're going to have their arses handed to them in short order as their web page not only mentions plenty of Nintendo IP by name, but includes graphics, full cover art and direct links to download a lot of game images in multiple formats. These jokers are ruining it for other developers of Emulators who know better than to poke Nintendo directly and so overtly.
In reguards to current era games, WoW isn't origianal WoW so people reversed engineered their own servers to be able to play the release version of the game then got shutdown when Blizzard when they decided to come out with WoW Vinilla Same with many other online games, it's not just an abandonware issue Like Fortnite today is very far from the original release Fortnite
Were there any good Arcadia arcade games? Answer is NO. easily the absolute WORST Amiga expericence imo, what on earth were mastertronic smoking at the time?
dis-repair. do you need to stop. someone is addicted to work, and cant stop. tech has gone backwards if its now even more difficult. do you live in the addict. trading addict, only optional, and not required. watch fallout for drama then :). stay sensible with the freedoms. the products should be self-sufficient. like you cant lock out a wood log remotely. in other words, license agreements of merchandise should not be there at all.
