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Hong Kong gadget flea market: a blast from the past
If you've seen our Hong Kong feature from awhile back, then you would've already heard about my favorite gadget hangout Sham Shui Po. By chance, my post-flight stroll in said district yesterday coincided with Apliu Street's Chinese New Year flea market, which featured many vintage items like jade figurines, paintings, jewelry, video tapes, vinyl records, etc. Naturally, what really caught my attention were the old gadgets that were literally piled up along the street, and from just HK$30 (US$3.85), you could easily pick up an old classic such as a Sony Clié, an HP iPaq, a WonderSwan Color, an original GameBoy, a MiniDisc player, or even a proper old school laptop or camera. Hell, some guy even had a couple of Nintendo Micro VS Systems (Donkey Kong Hockey and Boxing)! The catch? Well, there was obviously no warranty for these old timers, plus the broken screens or the lack of compatible batteries for some meant that most were more suitable as collectibles. Regardless, we took a $6 gamble with a Sony Clié PEG-NR70 Palm PDA with docking station and boom! It works! Well, except for the battery that only lasts for an hour, but I'll figure something out. %Gallery-115754%
[E]mulate seven consoles in one homebrew application
Sorry for the lack of updates. Joystiq & engadget hit the scene at NYC's Wii launch party (coverage continues throughout the next few days). At the after-party at my place, we were horrified to see how pathetic the selection of Virtual Console games were (Where the heck is my Gunstar Heroes? When do Mario RPG and Super Metroid come out?). I'm glad to pay my hard-earned dollar on retro games, but damn it--I can't do that if they're not being offered right now!Interestingly, if I so chose to embrace the Dark Side, I could use [e]mulator, from homebrew developer "e". This application includes emulators for a wide variety of systems: Wonderswan, Lynx, PC Engine, Neo Geo Pocket, Game Gear, Game Boy, and Famicom (NES). If one is so inclined, they can visit the site, download the file, and use a program like WinRAR to extract the files. Don't worry, there's a very Engrish read-me that should theoretically walk you through the process.[Via PSP-Vault]
Profile: foreign systems that America missed
1UP profiles four systems that never made it to the US: MSX (1983) - Metal Gear and Dragon Quest debuted on this platform, which had a enough support to compete with Nintendo's Famicom in Japan. X68000 (Sharp, 1987) - its power came with a price: $4,000; it did feature some impressive ports of Castlevania, Ghosts 'n Goblins, and Strider. PC-FX (NEC, 1994) - TurboGrafx-16's successor; easily trumped by PlayStation, degrading into "a breeding ground for crappy anime and porn games." WonderSwan (Bandai, 1999) - Bandai had an exclusive license to port the original Final Fantasy titles ... until the games eventually landed on GBA. Good news is Americans didn't miss much.
Handheld history reveals PSP's slim figure [Update 1]
Joystiq, the attention-craving parent site to PSP Fanboy, recently compared the sizes of history's greatest handhelds. When looking at the handhelds in size order, one can see that the PSP sits smack in the middle. Game Boy micro: 5.6 cubic inches Game Boy Advance SP: 9.81 cubic inches DS Lite: 12.96 cubic inches Wonderswan: 13.33 cubic inches Wonderswan Color: 14.1 cubic inches Wonderswan Crystals: 14.68 cubic inches Neo Geo Pocket Color: 17.35 cubic inches Sony PSP: 17.52 cubic inches Game Boy Advance: 17.64 cubic inches GP2X: 19.61 cubic inches DS Phat: 22.01 cubic inches Game Boy: 26.39 cubic inches Gamepark 32: 26.83 cubic inches Sega Nomad: 49.36 cubic inches Game Gear: 50.86 cubic inches Atari Lynx: 68.53 cubic inches We should be thankful that the PSP is no monstrosity like the Game Gear... Then again, I did love my Game Gear (pictured).[Thanks, Zebulunite!][Update 1: Whoa, how did that HTML glitch happen? It totally wasn't like that when I typed it. Anyways, fixed.]
