Jet Get Radio!!!! post here when you get something new!

I've gotten a few from this lad - https://en.retrogamesupply.com/collections/nintendo/products/power-supply-all-in-one-for-nintendo-famicom-disk-system & can't fault them at all

Got a tip about a charity shop with a mega drive mini off a friend.

€25 so happy to finally pick one up

'M4 Board' for the Amstrad CPC

A year ago an Amstrad 464 was thrust in my hands by Ciderman, in unknown condition. After a lot of tinkering, Z80 replacement/tester and Discord help from Noel of Noel's Retro Lab using his diagrom, it was highly likely that the custom gate-array was at fault and there isn't a readily avaiable replacement yet so that machine went to gather dust...but then I had a want to experiance the 464 again like I did in a mates house so started to look for another. Lots in the UK but not worth the customs fun but I found a Schneider version (Wikipedia has info to why it wasn't Amstrad selling them there) from Germany.

About the same time I started to search for a SD loading method and boom, the 'M4 Board' popped up from Duke of Spinpoint.org. Supply chain issues meant he didn't have any stock but I was on a waiting list. A week ago I got a tap that he had them again and ordered one up. Borrowed image below as I forgot to take a photo; The CPC Reset button seems to have been knocked off mine, ho-hum.

It has wifi so you can start games from disk images from your phone which is nice. The less typing you do on the keyboard the better. Yes, you can do 100% of this from the MiSTer but the MiSTer can't give you the really crappy audio from the built in speaker in the 464 :D

Roland On The Ropes and Harrier Attack brought back memories.

That is too cool!

I've seen a lot of Harry Potter bookshelf alleys like that on Etsy but this is far, far cooler.

Does it plug in or is it battery powered?

Ultimarc psx to VGA cable with audio breakout

Picked up a Game Boy DMG-001 which has a bad screen, so will look to upgrade it with an IPS LCD. Was going to replace the shell but its in decient shape after 30ish years :)

Picked up a loose copy of TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist for Sega Megadrive for buttons from a local retro game shop last week. I don't normally buy loose carts but for £30 it was too good to pass up given the stupid, stupid prices found on ebay. I have it on Steam (via both the Sega classics - courtesy of workshop mods - and the Cowabunga collection) and also a Dreamcast fan-made copy (uses beats of rage) but nice to have an original legimate copy. Need to get a repro manual & case now (even the real deals command daft prices online).

Also got a C64 mini for the birthday, courtesy of the missus. My dad was confused when I plugged in at the family home to play Impossible Mission; wanted to know what film I was watching. Definitely need to load more games onto it; some Last Ninja & Bubble Bobble shall be first ports of call I think.

Yeah cable management is simple these days. Even budget cases make it easy. My first build was in an Antec 900, the 'cable management' was two holes side by side in the middle, it was pretty pointless. It didn't help the board I was using had the 24 pin at the back side between the PCI and CPU, plus the 3 hard drives and a DVD drive.

Just checked prices there, you'd get a 2TB WD Black Gen4 for ~€130 so even in a budget build you don't need a HDD. A decent budget board will have 2 slots so you can expand in future. Outside of people hoarding games that's plenty.

I prefer the simplicity of an air cooler. When I overclocked my Core 2 Duo E4300 from 1.8Ghz to 3Ghz with an affordable Xigmatek Dark Knight cooler I didn't feel the need for more and there was always higher end coolers from Noctua or Scythe.

Built my missus a PC a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe how much empty space there was inside the case once it was finished. Was the first PC I've put together in years and years, think mechanical HDD and CD/DVD writer years ago (!), so I'd no idea how small everything had gotten really.

Only thing that takes up actual space is the GPU.

Well, my missus got a Fractal Design case (Meshify; XL variant iirc) - her requirement was that she wanted space to be able to add water cooling when she wanted to go down that root but for now just using air cooling, along with having tons of space for hard-drives (she has a few for her work ... ). The case can literally be disassembled every which way which was quite impressive. You can get smaller meshify models and tbh I can imagine they'll be similarly well thought out. I think hers was around the £200 mark; smaller ones will obviously be less, and a cursory glance on scan.co.uk shows prices ranging around £80-150 depending on what you go for that isn't the XL model for that particular range of case. Before the Fractal Design case, the missus had a Thermaltake case before that; decent case and well ventilated. Not as good in the cable management stakes as what is expected now since the case model was probably in excess of five years old. That case was around the £120 mark.

Just avoid a case that has glass with fans directly underneath/behind the glass. It may all look pretty but the airflow will be pants next to something covered in mesh (for example).

By contrast, my current case is a Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL and cost a lot more than the Meshify at £315. Very much designed with water cooling in mind since the front and side are tempered glass, and the PSU & any 2.5/3.5mm hard drives sit behind the motherboard out of sight. It's a smaller case in some respects than the Meshify XL, but I could quite merrily use the Meshify for water cooling too; I just like the aesthetics afforded by the O11 more.

PSU-wise; how long is a piece of string? It will depend greatly on the hardware going into the PC. Couple of things to bear in mind;

1. Don't cheap out on the PSU; this thing can smoke every other component in your PC if it throws a fit. You don't need to go mad either selecting a 1000w+ platinum rated monster costing a few hundred yoyos.
2. Get a PSU that is Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum/Titanium rated; they tend to be better quality and will have minimum rail voltage throughput levels (hence the rating codes). Aim to give yourself around 150-200w of overhead on whatever wattage requirements you think your niece's PC needs to run. The price points will increase with rating levels as well as wattage. For help; here's a list of PSUs ranked by reliability relative to where they sit in the marketplace price points:

I swear by Seasonic PSUs; their core business is power supplies and they know how to make them with rail voltage levels that just do not fvcking move under load; they also have decent warranties on them (for example my PSU has a 12 year warranty). That being said, there are more than a few capable offerings out there from the likes of be Quiet, Corsair, Thermaltake, etc. etc. Pick a price point you are happy with vs. the needs of the PC and accounting for overhead and then check against the above list for a sanity check.

Apologies for not giving a more concise "pick X" answer. If you are undecided between case or PSU options, feel free to message me.

Hah, that's gas, the case I used was also a Fractal Design Meshify Compact. Design wise it's nice and modern without looking like a space ship.

Only complaint I have is the power button on the front is way too sensitive, cats keep standing on the case and pressing it!

I'd hear cursing and swearing coming from the front room only to hear vague references to a save state in a game not having been reached yet and the cats had turned off the PC again. 😂

I also used a Corsair PSU in this build. A nice chunky one, for if the day ever arrives that a nice gpu won't cost four digits (not holding my breath.) Until then, my 1080Ti can hold the fort. But PSU wise, I've used EVGA and Seasonic in the past for other builds....never cheap out on a psu.

The last Gamecube memory card I'll ever need.

Can't test it because I put my last spare SD card in the Wii U to jailbreak it.

You haven't played through the Half Life games? Wow you're in for a treat!

If I were you I'd start with the first Half Life and then work through HL2 and all of the episodes. Best games in that list.