December 31, 2010: Pregame

RetroChallenge Eve has once again arrived, and the cooler is stocked with beverages that will no doubt stifle any RC progress I might actually make tomorrow.

I don't think this is really jumping the gun, but today I ordered one of those non-standard security bit screwdrivers that I will need to crack my Game Gear open. I had hoped to order my capacitors today as well but that hasn't yet happened. Oh well, no rush, right? Got all month...

On a related note, I remembered that I have three Turbografx 16 consoles. Two of them don't work (eBay fail), but may be coaxed back to life (think one just needs a fuse). They, too require that same obscure security bit. If I can get one or both of them going I would like to modify it to output something cleaner than the RF signal that it comes with (composite at the very least, but perhaps S-Video). My soldering skills...er..don't exist yet, so we'll see how comfortable I feel with this when it comes down to it.

Again, on a related note, I have a flash cart for the TG16 on the way, which I think will fairly easily allow me to do some homebrew development. I took an ANSI C class in college that I very nearly failed, but I think it is at least worth looking into. Perhaps if I aim pretty low on that one....

So, not a lot of certainty here, but at the very least I have given myself some options. We'll see where it leads!