Monday, January 5, 2009

New Years Update

JESUS H CHRIST

this blog hasn't seen an update since SEPTEMBER.

I'm on winter break right now, maybe the school year got in the way?

I can't even remember all the things I did that I wanted to post. For the extreme few who read this, I apologize. However, not that much has happened really. I stopped K'nexing.

Very recently however, I recased my cmoy headphone amp, now I can finally fit 2 9v batteries in there! Still need to mount an LED somewhere in there though, and replace the duct tape with electrical tape.









I also bought some new fountain pens

A Pelikan Future on the left and a Pilot Petit1 on the right, nothing special, just more cheap fountain pens. I did get some gift cards this christmas, maybe I'll get a nicer fountain pen.

Whenever I'm at home, I like to go to what we call the Monday Sale. It's basically a flea market.

A week ago I grabbed a few things on impulse:


That's right, this is A TURBOGRAFX 16 BUNDLED WITH A BUNCH OF GAMES. This is a video game console from the 80's. THE 80'S. Since it didn't lead to a lineage of other successful consoles (I think), this is quite the novelty. Only one controller port is on the console itself (there's a huge port on the back, I have no idea what it's for, multiplayer with multiple consoles maybe?) Also, instead of cartidges like the Sega and Nintendo consoles of the time, it uses nice thin huCARDs. That game on the lower right STILL WORKS! It looks sunburnt and has CHEW MARKS ON IT. The game on the far right I've had for years, my dad found it thinking it was a PC game, and I can remember trying to shove it into my old beige IBM trying to get it to work. I can finally play it after all these years.

I got it for a steal at $10 (ok, I paid $5, my friend owns the other half, lol we're so cheap).

Anyway, the games are really, REALLY fun and addicting, and have the BEST music. Bonk's Adventure is my favorite so far, but I really would like to get farther in R-Type, it's so difficult.
(Bonk's Adventure)


I also bought an old sony Discman after hearing some hype on the audio forums I frequent (not so frequently, lol) about their sound quality and it works sans for a few tracking errors on the first few tracks of some CDs (fixable with pot adjustments I have no idea how to do), and some heavy distortion, which I'm guessing is due to bad caps. I really hope I don't have to replace any SMD caps, as that would be a pain and I'd probably just throw the thing away instead of continuing with the repairs.

After reading into the forums more, however, I sadly found out apparently only the legendary cd players are worth fixing, and this unit from 1993 isn't one of them. Why did the CD players get worse and worse as the years went on? Big business and cutting costs? Units such as the D-25 by Sony are fetching insane prices still.

For $5 though, I have no regrets. After listening to it, I can hear a lot of potential through the line-out (yes it has a separate line out) and headphone out. I hope replacing the electrolytic caps and twisting some pots will do the trick.