XRGB Framemeister japanese SCART to european

Now here’s a quick one. Something which should definitely come in handy if you’re looking to convert a japanese SCART cable to an european one. Perhaps off general interest too. Certainly not the only one of these floating around on the internet.

The XRGB Framemeister-Mini is about the most awesome thing ever for hooking up your RGB-outputting retro game consoles to any modern HDMI equipped screen. It does have one minor problem for us europeans though: The device ships with a SCART adapter pinned for japanese systems, and plugging your european gear to that is a big NO-NO. Good thing: it’s easy to mod into something euro-compatible!

The Framemeister-mini. Photo by the internets.

MAME cabinet, system upgrade part 2

On to some testing results with the MAME cabinet computer upgrade. The new hardware was almost a “no fit” inside the cabinet (silly considering the size of it!), but I got the hardware installed eventually. The coin return slot had to go, but it’s not like there was any actual use for it in the cabinet.

New computer installed!

MAME cabinet, system upgrade part 1

The Esprimo P5916

Heh, just a little over month gone by, since I announced the hardware of my MAME project complete and I already find myself working on it again. But.. as it happens, I managed to get my hands on a Core2Duo PC (E6320 CPU @ 1.86GHz) for next to nothing. Decent performance upgrade and possibly the end of motherboard-related-video-problems?? Sure, sign me up!

The PC I got is a Fujitsu Esprimo 5916 and summing up its specs, well.. Most importantly, the mobo has a serial port! Never thought I’d say this, but it’s actually a much needed legacy feature, as the spinner I have is built around a serial mouse. Little less upgrades this way, perhaps :).

MAME cabinet, end

About time to wrap this one up! Plenty of software config is still pending, but what the hell.. ;)

The completed cabinet feat. CD lamp :)

Atari 2600, video mod

Frustrated by the results of my slightly unsuccesful Atari 2600 video mod, I ended up buying a RetroKidz composite / S-video mod from (the nowadays ceased) 8-bit Domain webshop shortly after. The specs available there stated that this mod had been tested to work on both PAL and NTSC systems, so it seemed like a hassle-free solution.. Not that it proved out one, really. If you have a PAL system and this mod installed, you should definitely read on!

The RetroKidz Atari 2600 video mod PCB