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Author: Retro Wuggle

Nintendo DS ZX Spectrum

DSI XL’ing / ZXDS / R4i issues

So I have been doing a bit of DSI buying and selling this week which I will cover in another post later once the dust has settled but in the meantime, on the second DSI XL I have purchased (bronze/brown) I have just been playing around with getting an old R4 card to work on it.

Although there is a good hacking guide at https://dsi.cfw.guide/ which gets access to homebrew and all that good stuff by way of the SD card I hit a snag with this in that I could not get the ZX Spectrum emulator ‘ZXDS’ to work directly off the SD card. It seems from what I could read on the author’s page that his emulator was designed to work from Slot 1 (although there is also a Slot 2 version) but nowhere does it mention trying to run it on the DSI from the SD card…. and, for me at least, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

Now why am I so concerned about this? Well the Nintendo DS resolution is 256 x 192 which happens to be the same resolution as used by the ZX Spectrum so the DS is a great place to emulate this system and the touch screen is perfect to give you access to an emulated ZX Spectrum keyboard.

Although I’ve enjoyed this on the DS Lite, one of the prime reasons I wanted to get a DSI XL was to enjoy ZX Spectrum emulation on a larger screen….

So anyway, problem #1 seems to be getting ZXDS to run from an SD card so it looks like I need to revert to a flash cart which found me at problem #2 being the discovery that my flash carts are old and do not like the DSI being on firmware 1.4.5 which unfortunately both DSI XL’s I now have are on.

DSI XL / R4i card / Micro SD / DS Lite

The R4 card in the picture is a R4i 3DS ‘Revolution for DS’ card referenced to www.r4ids.cn. This again seemed to be yet another problem as the majority of R4 cards appear to be connected with r4ds.com rather than the .cn version I apparently had.

After a lot of runaround I have finally solved the problem and now have the R4 card working perfectly in both the DS Lite and DSI XL. For anybody with a similar set up here was my solution and I have hosted the needed files here so you don’t have to search like I did:-

  1. Download a copy of Wood v1.64 and install the latest R4i kernel on to the flashcart microSD card.
  2. Download 31507r4igold_ndsi145_ patch.rar and extract R4iGold_NDSi145_Patch_NDSL.nds to your microSD card
  3. Run your R4 card in a DS Lite (or similar) where it always worked with no problem and run the above patch file. After a bit of fiddling – I had to take the card out and put it back in for mine to work – it started to patch my R4 card. Takes a bit of time but said it succeeded.
  4. Try it again in the DSI, fingers crossed, it works! On my DSI the flash cart now shows up in the DSI menu as ‘DORASU’

If you are interested in the ZX Spectrum emulator you can find it at http://zxds.raxoft.cz/ and here it is in its full glory working on a DSI XL screen…. unless somebody has a better suggestion this does seem the most perfect way to play the ZX Spectrum in a portable format in 2020.

Manic Miner on the go!
Gameboy Advance

Gameboy Advance SP Screen Comparison

Picked up another Gameboy Advance SP today… not sure I need to keep it as I was not looking for another Gameboy Advance. I was actually buying a Nintendo DSI XL and the two came together.

The Gameboy Advance SP currently in my collection is a black one that has had a screen modification… thought I would compare it against the silver AGS-001 that I picked up today….

As you can see, the difference is night and day…. guess I had forgotten how bad the original AGS-001 screen was even though I must admit the silver one does hold some nostalgic value to me as that was the colour and model I originally used to own 15 or so years ago.

Because of the old nostalgic value I am not sure whether to keep or just flip the silver one yet….

Playstation 2 XBox 360

This Week’s pick ups…

So bargain pick up of the week is from Facebook Marketplace for ‘The Simpsons Game’ on XBox360 for AU$2.00 when it usually sells online for around AU$40 to AU$50.

The Simpsons Game (Xbox 360) – AU$2.00

Other new Xbox 360 games this week all picked up for around AU$1.50 to AU$3.00 each:-

  • 007 Quantum of Solace
  • Colin McRae Dirt 2
  • Kinect Rush
  • Murdered Soul Suspect
  • SBK-08 Superbike World Championship
  • Scene It? Box Office Smash
  • Soul Calibur IV
  • Superstars V8 Racing
  • Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground

That puts my Xbox 360 retail game discs at about 340 games now.

I also picked up a copy of ‘Rare Replay’ for Xbox One as I had an urge to replay Grabbed By The Ghoulies.

Also since picking up the Playstation 2 last weekend I have increased my initial retail games on that system to 26 now. Picking up some of the basic exclusives like Gran Turismo, SOCOM, Ratchet & Clank etc.

Worst pick-up of the week goes to the PS2 though where I purchased a copy of ‘Fruit Fall’ which is a simple puzzle game that I think is really quite good…. only problem is I now realise the disc in the box was actually ‘Super Fruit Fall’ which isn’t exactly the same so now I need to find a ‘Super Fruit Fall’ box with a ‘Fruit fall’ disc in it to bring balance back to the universe!

On the PS2 I also received a FreeMcBoot memory card I had purchased from Ebay this week. That works amazingly well….. I always thought the original Xbox was easy to softmod but the PS2 is probably even more simple with this magical little memory card. I may now have to go buy a network adapter so I can fit a hard drive in the PS2 – I currently have a 640GB SATA one sitting around doing nothing so seems like a good opportunity for it to be useful again!

Nothing much else to report… still waiting on a few items from AliExpress. I am beginning to understand people’s comments on how long postage takes from that platform…. oh well, sure things will start to arrive from there eventually.

XBox 360

XBox 360 Game Collection

The first XBox 360 console I purchased was in October 2008 and it was probably my number one console through to about 2014. I probably purchased about 40 to 50 retail games over that period.

Although it then took a back seat to newer consoles I still occasionally would play the XBox 360 and around October 2019, on a bit of a whim, I felt like buying Rockstar Games Table Tennis. I found a copy at my local EB Games and realised just how cheap XBox 360 games were now selling for there (basically about AU$5 per game on average)…. after further investigation at my local Cash Converters where I discovered games were selling at AU$3 per game I decided if I was going to start collecting XBox 360 games, now might be a good time!

Speed forward 6 months and my collection has now grown…

Collection as of May 2020 after finally moving to a shelf unit of its own.

Currently the collection consists of about 330 games (excluding more that I own digitally) grown mainly between October 2019 through to February 2020. Unfortunately due to the Coronavirus pandemic the collection has stalled over the last few months but hopefully I can start growing it again soon…

RG350

Anbernic RG350

There are many options out there for playing retro games… PC emulation, hacked game consoles, MAME arcade cabinets, etc. But, if you want retro games on the go there is perhaps no better option than the RG350.

Ok, so I already have several hacked PSPs, Vita, DS and 3DS consoles at hand as well as a BittBoy…. why would I need this too? Well speaking as someone who has all of these other options I’ve never been fully happy with the results, particularly with old arcade game emulation. After watching several reviews about the RG350 I figured I’d give it a try so picked one up new from EBay Australia for AU$128.

Yes you can buy these from China and I may have been able to trim a few dollars off the price but with a delivery of only 3 working days as opposed to 30+ from China I am glad I opted for a local eBay seller.

So, having now owned the device for about a week, here are my initial impressions.

WOW.

This thing feels very premium for a Chinese retro console. It is built very well and is equally matched by great performance. Games that I had trouble emulating with other handheld options have all tended to work first time so far and with smooth non-tearing scrolling, good FPS and clear sound. So far, so good…

Over the next few weeks I will try and make a few posts and videos demonstrating the unit… stay tuned!

ANBERNIC RG350 3.5 inch IPS Screen 64Bit 16GB 2500+ Games ...

Playstation 2 PSP

Mother’s Day bargains…

99% of the time I look at Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace and laugh at the price that some people expect to sell their old game consoles for. Just because you paid A$400 for a Wii and a few games back in 2007 does not mean that when you sell it in 2020 it is worth A$250!!!

However, I do occasionally find a bargain, particularly if you can get in quick before someone else snaps it up.

Perhaps it was just because it was Mothers Day and people were not watching Gumtree but I managed to pick up what I think were two good bargains today….

First was a lot of 7 x PSP games for A$10 and a ‘non-working’ PSP thrown in for free…. the reason the PSP was considered broken was because the lithium battery had gone bad and swollen…. the battery cover was also missing.

I figured the games alone were easily worth A$10 but happily took the PSP off their hands too….. turned out to be a PSP-2000 model. I got it home and tested it with the battery from my working PSP-1000 and discovered the ‘non-working’ PSP works perfectly! Next step, Ebay for a battery A$11.90 and AliExpress for a new battery cover A$1.71….. so, consider the haul of the picture below to be A$23.61 for 7 PSP games and a working PSP-2000. Methinks that was a great deal!

To make the system a little bit sweeter I have now also ordered a microSD adapter (AliExpress A$2.85) and a 64GB micro SD card (Amazon A$16.95). Coupled with a permanent CFW hack thanks to Infinity 2.0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-pZeWV5Q8E) and this is going to a nice little edition to my console collection.

And, if that was not all, I also ended up picking up a Playstation 2 with 2 controllers and 8 games for A$40 from Gumtree on the same day. A paler bargain when compared to the PSP but still another great deal. Embarrassing to say that despite the Playstation 2 being the world’s best selling console, with 155 million units sold, this is the first time I have acquired one! And so today starts my Playstation 2 collection…