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The Retro Gaming Vault – May 2021

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Our first retro gaming vault feature proved successful, so we thought we’d keep things going!

For this month’s images, we delved further into our vault and dug up some cool and peculiar photos of items we have in our collection and from gaming parties we have attended and ComLynxed with our friends!

We hope you keep enjoying these blasts from the past!

Will always love the PC-Engine HuCards – they are so cute and packed with awesome gaming!

Keeping our N64 in tip top shape!

Got to get our monthly C64 fix (especially some World Class Leaderboard)!

Llamatron 2112 on the Jag or…..

……Revenge of the Mutant Camels?

Love getting some action on the little Neo Geo Pocket Color

ComLynx parties are always the fun!

The Neo-Vec controller is pretty darn awesome to use on the Vectrex

The rare and obscure Noun. Tempest 3000 is just sublime!

Our favourite Commodore 64 in our collection. The Suncom Thumbstick is a brilliant little controller, especially on Wizard of Wor!

Original image copyright: ausretrogamer



Documentary: The Making of GoldenEye 007 (N64)

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Back in 2017 there was a crowdfunded project titled Golden Era which was going to tell the story of the making of GoldenEye 007 on the N64. The project didn’t reach it’s funding goal, but thankfully onaretrotrip stepped in to offer all of us a a glimpse into the game that revolutionised first-person shooters (FPS) and defined the Nintendo 64.

So kick back and enjoy the making of one of the all-time best N64 games!


source: onaretrotip

 



Obscure Commodore Controllers

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We cherish our Commodore gear, from the Commodore 64 and Amiga 1200, to our Commodore watches, joysticks, CD32 and the obscure and gorgeous CDTV (aka: Compact Disc Television / Commodore Dynamic Total Vision).

Speaking of the Commodore CDTV, we particularly love its obscure controllers, the game pad that doubles as a remote control and the CD1200 trackball – both using good ole fashioned infrared (no Bluetooth here – Ed) for that true wireless gaming experience. There is also the CDTV keyboard, but that ain’t no controller, well, sort of.

The CD1200 trackball is peculiar in that it also has two DB9 joystick ports on the front so that you can hook up you fave joysticks, like the TAC-2, to play your Amiga games in comfort. However, the use of “C” batteries to power it in wireless (IR) mode is not that environmentally friendly at all. The remote control / game pad on the other hand uses “AA”, which means we can use our Eneloops for a more enviro friendly gaming session.

What obscure Commodore gear do you have? Hit us up on Twitter or our Facebook page now!

CDTV Remote Control

CD1200 Trackball

CD1200 Trackball – joystick ports

CDTV – Keyboard et al



Sega Scud Race Arcade Promotional Video

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We love finding these promo videos of arcade games we used to love and play at amusement centres back in the day.

The below promotional video is for Sega’s Scud Race arcade game from 1996. Scud Race (Sports Car Ultimate Drive) was also known as Sega Super GT in North America.

Oh yeah, keep an ear out on how “Sega” is pronounced in this promo video – long live See-gah!


source: Australian Pinball Museum

 

 



Recalbox 7.2 – The Awesome New Update!

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Recalbox 7.2 – released on April 23 at 9pm (GMT+2)!

Hey peeps, here is some awesome news that the Recalbox folks have shared with us – this Friday, April 23rd, at 9:00pm (GMT+2), they will finally launch their long awaited 7.2 update, packed with heaps of new features, new systems, functionalities and optimisations!


source: Recalbox via YouTube

To recap what is new and improved in Recalbox 7.2, which there are many, we thought we’d share the major highlights right here:

MAJOR NEW FEATURES:

Light-Gun Games!

Play more than 250 lightgun games on many different systems (Arcade, Megadrive/MegaCD, Dreamcast, and Playstation to name just a few), no configuration needed! Now gathered under a new “LightGun” virtual system.

Better 3D performance on Raspberry Pi 4!

The team has optimised Recalbox, allowing almost all N64, Dreamcast, Naomi & Atomiswave games to run at full speed on Raspberry Pi 4!

Overclock the Raspberry Pi 4!

And for even more performance, we’ve tested and chosen 4 optimal overclock settings on the Raspberry Pi 4. Overclocking your Pi will increase the frame-rate on CPU and GPU intensive games.

Improved PSX/N64/PSP performance on ODROID-GO Advance/Super

Play almost all PSX, N64, and PSP games at full speed on both ODROID-GO Advance & ODROID-GO Super!



NEW FEATURES:

New systems!

5 new supported systems are added to the nearly 120 systems already supported in Recalbox:

  • Watara Supervision: This cheap Game Boy clone was manufactured by Watara in 1992. It was later licensed to several third-parties, and released under many different names. 69 games have been officially released.
  • PICO-8: A virtual console similar to the TIC-80 with over 4000 games available, largely popularised by the incredible success of “Celeste”, the famous platformer initially developed by Noel Berry and Maddy Thorson on Pico-8 in 2015, before being released on all modern platforms in 2018!
  • Pocket Challenge V2: A Japanese handheld console that specialises in educational games.
  • Elektronika BK: BK (БК), Russian abbreviation for “бытовой компьютер” – “home computer” is a series of Soviet 16-bit home computers, developed under the brand Electronika by NPO Scientific Center. Elektronika BK was the only “official” Soviet home computer. The BK-0010/BK-0011 and Terak 8510/A were manufactured from 1984 to 1993 and sold at the price of 650 Rubles, which was… almost 4 months of average salary!
  • EPOCH SuperCassette Vision: The 2nd generation EPOCH console released in 1984 and counting a total of 30 officially released games and 3 unreleased. The porting of this Japanese emulator to Libretro is a Recalbox exclusive!

Dual JoyCon support (Nintendo Switch controllers)

Recalbox now supports both left and right JoyCons! In addition, you can use both JoyCons as a single combined controller!

Bluetooth Audio

Connect your Bluetooth headphones or speakers! (just pair them like you would a controller, for now).

New cores

3 new emulators are also available, depending on your hardware:

  • Libretro NeoCD added as NeoGeoCD core: loads CDs so much faster!
  • Libretro DOSBOX Pure: Don’t struggle with complicated DOS setups anymore! These games
    have never been more plug & play!
  • Libretro-craft: A Minecraft clone available on x86 & x64 platforms only.

Hide pre-installed games

Pre-installed games are no longer copied into the user share. They stay on the system and can be hidden/shown using an option from the settings menu.



IMPROVEMENTS:

Main menu

The main menus have all been rewritten. They’re now faster, consume less memory, and are more intuitive. The most useful options have been moved so they’re faster to access. Reboots can now be delayed. This way, you can configure everything you need to before having to restart.

New options have been added:

  • Swap A & B buttons: change the way you validate and cancel actions.
  • Factory reset: reset all configurations (only keeps your games, saves, and scraped data)

Sound

In-game video sound/music is now available! You can choose between the following sound mode:

  • Background music only (EmulationStation music)
  • Video sound only (scraped videos)
  • Background music AND video sound mixed
  • Background music OR video sound (when playing videos in the new Gameclip screensaver)

Internal Scraper

The internal scraper has been greatly enhanced:

  • Improved menus. Now more intuitive, less clicks required to get things done.
  • Better region priority management: get better metadata for your region.
  • Ignore file referenced from .cue/.m3u and other multi-file roms: no more scraping the same
    game twice!

System

  • Check image integrity when updating Recalbox
  • Added a new Reset to Factory Settings option to reset all Recalbox & emulator settings
    without losing any user data: games, saves, screenshots, music, etc.

Emulators

Many emulators have been updated and/or reconfigured for new features, or to achieve better performance.

  • Dolphin updated to version 5.0-13178.
  • Stella (A2600) updated to fix lots of bugs (eg: Pitfall II)
  • Supermodel updated to version 839
  • UAE updated to support CHD
  • Np2Kai (PC98) updated to fix several issues
  • Odyssey² updated to add Europeans/French models (new RetroArch options)
  • Mupen64plus-next updated for better compatibility and performance! This core is now available on almost all platforms and performs very well!
  • FBNeo updated to support latest game additions
  • Libretro Duckstation is now available on all platforms!
  • Beetle-Saturn updated to improve compatibility (PC only)
  • Amiberry updated to version 3.3 for better performance & new options
  • Libetro-Parallel-n64 updated and fixed on almost all boards (except low-end PIs)
  • VIC20 is now shown as its own system, instead of only being available under C64
  • Videopac+ is now available as its own system, instead of being available as Odyssey² sub-model
  • Libretro MAME has been optimised to run full-speed on low-end PCs.
  • ScummVM updated to v2.3.0 and merged with ResidualVM



BUG FIXES:

Lots of bug fixes, as usual:

  • Fixed the ODROID-GO Advance v1 controller
  • Fixed the 8bitdo NES30 Pro rev1 controller mapping
  • Fixed missing BIOS MD5 & other minor errors in BIOS database
  • Removed useless BIOS files (PalmOS)
  • Fixed the Retroarch shortcut on ODROID-GO Advance
  • Fixed shaders on ODROID-GO Advance
  • Fixed lost support of open and WPA-PSK-SHA256 WiFi keys
  • Correction a fan problem with the NESPi 4 Case

TECHNICAL FEATURES:

Buildroot

Buildroot has been bumped to version 2020.11.

Kernels

Linux kernels have been bumped to:

  • 5.4 for the ODROID XU4
  • 5.8 for both x86 and x64
  • 5.10 for all Raspberry Pis
  • Both ODROID-GO Advance & GO Super use a special Rockchip 4.4 kernel.

PulseAudio

We’ve moved from a purse ALSA audio backend to PulseAudio! Recalbox now supports more audio devices — and even Bluetooth audio!

image source: Recalbox

 

There you go peeps, to say we can’t wait for Recalbox 7.2 would be a massive understatement!



Rare Atari Lynx Handy Development System Documentation

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It’s amazing what you find when trawling eBay late at night!

During one of our insomnia induced evenings, we stumbled upon a rare piece of history, a listing for an Atari Lynx / Epyx Handy Specifications, Development System and Schematics document from the late 80s! Looking at the listing, it seems that this folder belonged to or came from Atari Corporation Executive Producer, Richard (Rich) Robbins, who was responsible for developing and managing products for the Atari Lynx.

We see a lot of eBay listings that purport to be rare, but this one definitely deserves that moniker, even if it is a pricey bit of history!

As with any eBay listing, they do disappear after a while, so we thought we would preserve this listing by saving the images here for posterity (click on each image to see them in their full glory).

PS: If you procure this rarity, please let us know (privately or via social media)!

Atari Lynx Handy Specs Doc

source: eBay

 

The Mini Vectrex VideoSystem

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We know this is OLD news, but who doesn’t like seeing this again?

Back in late 2018, the National Videogame Museum (NVM) in Texas (USA) tracked down the much rumoured Mini Vectrex VideoSystem. Once it was found that this was a working system, the NVM secured it as part of their Vectrex archive, ensuring all could see this lost treasure on display!

GCE designed and developed the Mini Vectrex just after being purchased by Milton Bradley in 1983. The mini system was to offer a slim alternative, much like contemporary mini console revisions of video games systems from the past. Now imagine if this actually made it to retail stores……….

We definitely could never get sick of watching the Mini Vectrex in action!


source: National Videogame Museum

 

Play Freecell64 on your Commodore 64

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UPDATE: Fritz has informed us that FreeCell64 version 2.2 is out now! Fritz has also advised us that this awesome game is now complete, which is now more colourful, has mouse support and comes with time counter and statistics included. Grab this latest version and enjoy!

Whoa, developer Friedrich “Fritz” Philipp has released his first version of Freecell, titled Freecell64, for the Commodore 64!

What is so impressive is that Freecell64 has been totally written in BASIC! So don’t just sit there, go and download Freecell64 via GitHub right now! Oh Fritz, what have you done to us, our productivity will surely take a tumble!

For those that need some quick instructions, to move cards, click anywhere on the respective pile and then onto the destination pile. Double-clicking is also possible where cards are moved to the Aces pile (as a priority) or to the repository. When you think you have won, click on the “Game” menu item and select “Check” – good luck!

Being version 1.0, Fritz advises that Freecell64 still requires:

  • A time counter;
  • High scores; and
  • Sound

To say we’ll be watching this eagerly will be a gross understatement!



Retro Gaming at Sears in 1982

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Absolutely adore these kinds of videos of news reports from department stores in the early 80s featuring some awesome footage of their home and entertainment departments from back in the day.

The best part about this video is that it is a b-roll (raw footage) taken from inside a Sears store in mid-December 1982 (just before the Christmas rush for that year), which features clips of Atari computers and kiosks, a Vectrex store display and Donkey Kong being played on the Intellivision amongst other great clips!

Check it out and let the nostalgia wash over you.


source: btm0815ma

NEO GEO Games Infographic

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There are some images that need to be shared for their informative awesomeness, and this NEO•GEO games infographic is one that definitely fits that bill.

Created and shared by Ange Albertini of the Corkami Reverse Engineering and Visual Documentation github repository, this image speaks to us loud and clear! We love the fact that in one image, we can see the timeline of all the games that were released for SNK’s mighty NEO GEO.

To get a sense of this amazing graphic creation, please click on the image below to see it in its native resolution!