A grave has been dug!
I'm going through a round of (weeping) letting some retro-gear go; I just have too much stuff, and need to make some room for the kids to have their stuff .. and get some $$ for more current hobbies. So, trying to shave another layer off the retro (every other year it seems, I decide I can handle letting a bit more go, slowly edging towards my core collection.) Just let go a turbo-grafx, and a MAs supernova SuperGun (arcade pcb on TV) system. Next up some Atari 8bit stuff I think, and maybe a vic-20. (I was a 2600 -> Vic-20 -> ST -> PC fellow..) -- I used to work for Atari back in the day (they hired kids as salesmen, since we knew what we were talking about
, so managed to take my pay in hardware so have quite a pile of awesome rare stuff.
On topic?
Sure! As an emu author, I'm a fan of virtualization. But as an arcade collector I'm sort of a purist .. I like the tactile feedback of the real controllers, and the 'feel' of standing in front of a real machine and having a go. A modern emu can do wonders on a big LCD though .. adding scanlines and warping the display or adding fake cigarette burns! The big arcade-controllers that plug into USB are swank. Using a SuperGun (or an emu on your laptop) to fire up a Neo Geo game on a 50" TV is amazing!
We used to have the dichotomy .. use an emu and no need for giant space eating 30 year old hardware, but lack the 'trueness' and tactile feel; or go for the big power eating hardware!
But now we have a blend of options .. you can get FPGA which is not an emulation (more a simulation at hardware level), but that adds a little of both sides; its not the real deal, and is much more easy to come by sometimes.. even cheaper. (the MiST has an excellent price, compared to say Suska or FireBee). Machines like Firebee add much more potential, but are less true to the origins so don't do gaming, but let you run more modern stuff on there.
So a whole spectrum exists.. affording more choices. In the end.. just more to acquire, not less
I'm trying to cut down ... identify the core equipment I want to have, anbd keep it plugged into a TV say; then rely more on emulation and FPGA-simulation for 'fun, not as important to me' stuff. Let the rest go to a good home.
MiST is a great machine, and quite flexible. It annoys me that it has display issues with my various TVs..
.. but ED needs to stock Gonbes and other upscaler units now
The GBS-8220 and similar are very affordable (like $20 on ebay) and good for taking in arcade signals, or old consoles, upscaling them to a high res LCD and even adding scanlines.
MiST + GBS-8220 is the hotness
jeff
