My Blog

Hey folks! Posting again after a week of time off, this blog is more like a vacation tracker for me by now lol.
Website got a theme update :) I've been listening alot to SNSD these last few months, so I thought my website should reflect that :D
I used to only listen to a few of their title tracks like Forever 1 and Lion Heart, but then I discovered that their discography is actually full of bangers, so I fell in love!!
As it's a pretty old group, it's somewhat difficult to find new merch or cd releases. I'm crafting my own as of the writing of this, and I did manage to acquire most of what they released on CD thanks to a secondhand listing of an SNSD CD collection on Mercari.
Special shoutout to Sunny ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ I hope she comes back to be more active in the future..
That aside, I picked up a new (to me) Sony Trinitron Multiscan 20sfII CRT monitor with low hours from a nice owner :)
I found out he was an enthusiast who bought several high-end tubes back in the day for gaming, including Diamondtrons and an FW900.
His claim seems to be right, the shell has yellowing, but the tube itself looks really nice and doesn't show any signs of age like my Multiscan E400 did.
I was initially hesitant due to the hour-long drive and the somewhat high asking price, but as fate would have it, my Multiscan E400 died a month later when I slightly moved it while it was on.
Needless to say I was very glad to have that Multiscan 20sfII that I could use lol!! it has a slight blooming issue which I solved by using a higher resolution, otherwise it's really good.
I haven't given up on the Multiscan E400 however. I've spent the last week dissassembling and re-soldering the E400 (thanks Sony for the extensive service manual). The issue seems to be power-related (the monitor doesn't turn on, and instead flashes the green led with a clicking sound) so I focused on resoldering power components specifically.
Sadly, it didn't help and the monitor still has the same issue :( the next step is to order replacements and solder them instead, let's hope for the best!!

Midway through June and my summer outing is already behind me! Was in Spain a few weeks ago to enjoy their sunny beaches.
It was much quieter than my previous outings, due to my visit being completely outside of normal vacation weeks.
Back home, I got rid of some old furniture which was long overdue, and expanded my retro gaming setup, allowing me to introduce a plasma TV to the mix :D.
I've wanted for the longest time to fill the 7th gen gap in my setup, and ended up picking up this Panasonic Viera TX-P42C2E for 20 bucks locally.
It fits the bill as its 768p, making it ideal for PS3 games and DVDs. I rewatched Lost in Translation on it and was blown away!.
There's just something quite exceptional about this technology, it has color reproduction and deep blacks similar to an OLED, but the natural look given by phosphor glow of a CRT.
Sadly, it seems the panel has been heavily used and shows signs of age. It has light 23:3 burn-in, but most importantly a sort of white edge around some pixels.
I didn't order the extron DVS 304 in the end, I'll be using the Plasma for 7th gen Games. I dont have the problem of region coding for Japanese games since its in component.
The beautiful Sony KV-16GW1 will stay in my collection, to be mainly used for japanese PS2 games on my backwards-compatible PS3. My other projects, such as the LaserDisc player and the mac mini CD station are sort of on-hold atm, life is getting in the way and its becoming harder to find time for it :( .

The year is well underway, and it's already anime convention season here! I attended one last week with a few friends :)
It's always a fun time ^^ We browse through the expensive stands, sing karaoke & meet new people who share the same passions!
That aside, I spent some time tinkering with some of my electronics (as I usually do) and almost broke my Sony Trinitron CPD-E400 :(
I initially opened it up to do some cleaning (as I ofc never cleaned it). I cleaned the shell and blew some compressed air, and re-assembled it.
I then let it discharge and tested it the day after - and my heart sank when I saw a distorted white picture instead of my beautiful aria wallpaper ;_;
I looked online for help, but to no avail. I re-opened it a day later, and this time brushed all of the dust by hand, and re-seated the shielding.
Lo and behold, it came back to life!! I suspect the slighlty loose shielding, or perhaps some dust bunnies creating a short. I breathed a deep sigh of relief ^^
I also acquired a Laserdisc player for cheap, which was listed as functional but turns out it has a problem opening the tray. Opening it up, it seems the laser assembly
doesn't move when I press the eject button, which could be due to a broken m-holder. The player was sadly badly packaged, so it might have been damaged in shipping :(
I'll of course try to fix it, but that requires ordering a replacement m-holder.
My quest for widescreen 480i from my PS3 onto my KV-16GW1 Trinitron continues ;_; The VSC 500 also has the same problem, and I realised that I simply need to feed it an RGBHV signal
instead of the RGB I have right now. Converting to RGBHV seems to be a pain in the ass, so I'm thinking I'll pick up a composite scaler like the Extron DVS 304, and bypass RGB completely.
I was able to install an SSD in my Mac Mini 2009 :) I now need to configure it to read/write to my NAS, as I'll be using to rip CDs and manage my music collection with the old itunes.

Happy new year! Here I am updating this low effort blog just in time for the new year :)
This site will probably undergo a small makeover for the new year, with new designs for some of the pages. Stay tuned...
As for me, I've been busy with a few new computing projects. Notably, I recently acquired the 2009 mac mini pictured in this post :D
I've always wanted an older mini mainly to run OSX lion or Snow Leopard, as these are my favourite versions of OSX.
I was able to wipe it and reinstall OSX lion with a DVDRW I burned more than a decade ago, that I used to use for my first mac, an old 2008 Macbook.
I don't know exactly what I'll be doing with it, I'm thinking of turning it into a CD/music station device connected to my AVR. I could then rip my CDs for example, something I've yet to do...
In other news, my old phat PS3 has had its AV port fail, which means I can no longer use it directly over composite on my CRT :(
This has motivated me to get a Slim CECH-2504B to game on my CRT, as these are much more reliable than the phat models.
I also used this opportunity to get two new 512gb SSDs which I'm planning to install in the slim, and in a backwards-compatible CECHA00 which I've imported from Japan,
and have been using to play japanese PS2/PS3 games on the KV-16GW1 Trinitron. That 60GB HDD was on its way to be completely full, so it makes sense to replace it as well.
In the last post, I talked about wanting to use an Extron VSC 500 to output widescreen 480i from my PS3 to my KV-16GW1 trinitron.
I ended up buying a used Analog way XTD-625, as I couldn't find any VSC 500s for a reasonable price. This ended up being a big mistake tho ;_;
The XTD-625 is meant for a 19-inch rack, and is therefore super noisy. It also doesn't work for my use case, as it seemingly only supports 33khz PC VGA signals and timings,
and refuses to process anything else, like the RGB signal from my PS3. Luckily, a new listing for a used VSC 500 at a good price popped up on ebay, so I bought it in the end.
Here's hoping it provides a widescreen 480i solution for me!!

I got my hands on a 16:9 CRT! I had long been contemplating getting one of these HD CRTs which I (rarely) see pop-up from time to time, but ultimately decided not to.
The incredible bulk of them, added input lag and weird scaling that some models produce turned me off (at least for now).
This here is a Sony Trinitron KV-16GW1, which is a japan-exclusive model I imported using buyee. It therefore natively supports NTSC signals, which is great for me.
The downside is that this is an SD CRT, and devices which output actual SD Widescreen 480i (720X480) are uncommon. I could not get my PS3 to play along nicely with it...
To fix this, I'm planning to get the Extron VSC 500 RGB scaler, which can be used to output widescreen 480i and adjust the picture.
The resulting setup should be PS3 -> HDMI Video/Audio splitter -> HDMI to VGA -> Extron VSC -> composite 480i output to KV-16GW1.
That being said, I had a blast playing 4:3 games extended to 16:9, and 16:9 japenese titles (letterboxd) on the PS3.
The TV is in exceptional condition, it looks brand-new. It was exceptionally packed, with the only issue upon arrival being a misaligned yoke.

After having an alert set-up for months, I finally managed to get one of these old alienware laptops from the early 2010s.
I distinctly remember being a kid and taking the train every wednesday afternoon to go to one of the biggest malls of the country with my mom,
and seeing these alienware laptops on display. As a kid, my dream was owning one of these beasts and playing battlefield 3 with it on the go.
It didn't help that they were prominently featured in a hardware magazine I used to read religiously back then, alongside the first-gen razer blades.
I've wiped it and installed reunion 7, which is now my favourite version of windows that I'm running on my main gaming machine and home server.

This summer, I got into vintage digital cameras as I was looking for good options to document my vacations abroad.
I ended up getting an HP Photosmart, which was basically CIB with all accessories, and an Olympus FE310.
I initially wanted to go for something like a Nikon Coolpix or Sony Cybershot (which I had as a kid),
but the prices for these have gotten ridicilous as of late. Overall I'm pretty satisfied, both cameras
have a distinct look to the pictures they produce, with the photosmart being softer, more colorful
and with a sort of "smoked glass" look to it. The olympus is sharper and produces more "clinical" looking images, but still looks nice.
I've never been into photography, partly because every modern DSLR basically produces perfect wallpaper-like pictures,
and it all ends up looking quite same-y. The big appeal of these old point-and-shoots is how much imperfection and character
is brought out by these old digital sensors, and how wildly different the output can look like from one brand to another, regardless of content.
I intend to create some sort of website exclusively to display photos which I've taken with these, it will most likely be linked from here :).

The year's gotten underway, and I keep forgetting to update this blog xd.
So far, I've attended two anime conventions, which was super fun :) altho ticket and item prices are skyrocketing which isn't fun :(
As you can see on the pic, I picked up a Sony Trinitron Multiscan E400 to use as my main PC CRT monitor. It was painful (two hour train trip), but worth it.
It's an absolute beauty, and can be driven up to 1440x900 @ 85hz which looks drop dead gorgeous.
Aside from the gorgeous Trinitron color reproduction, I also love that it's a flat-screen CRT. It feels like looking through a window into your computer :O
Otherwise, I've recently started playing Gamecube games on my modded Wii. I definitely understand why people feel it's underrated!

Happy new year! I haven't posted in a while, so here's a brief update from me :)
Previously, I posted about me picking up a used Mac Pro 3,1 to do my next build in it.
Due to how impractical it was to modify that beauty to accept ATX, I decided to use it instead for my home server.
I ended up buying a used Alienware Area 51 Predator 1 case, also on auction, and simply migrated my existing build into it.
My old, and frankly boring lian-li is now out. I figured there's no need to re-do my build, as my current config is still up-to-date.
The only component I did end up changing was the cooler (out of necessity), went from a 360 AIO to a Be Quiet! Pure Rock 2 FX.

Out of the blue, one of my friends tells me his company is looking to get rid of some equipement.
He knows I'm into CRTs, so he messaged me to ask if I wanted to pickup a philips 21PT351A for free. Of course I couldn't refuse!
Having tested it, it's a clear upgrade from my previous Daweoo. The tube is in good condition, and the colors are vibrant.
The sound system is also pretty good, thanks to the built-in subwoofer and the 2 speakers. The turbo-drive VCR is a nice touch too.

Today I went to pickup a Mac Pro 3,1 that I won in an auction, for a total of 5$.
I've stripped it of all of it's components, and I'm thinking of doing my next build in it.
It looks like it's gonna be a hassle tho, I'm going to have to dremel and maybe buy the laserhive kit for it.

Finally launched my blog :)