January 27th, 2024 marked our 50th gathering. We began in late 2019, had to take a few months off for Covid-19 restrictions, and since then we have been meeting about once a month. Although some members have moved or otherwise stopped attending, our membership has grown overall, with about 15 regular members, and around 10-12 members per event. And what better way to celebrate #50 than with a new blog?

Sean arrived first and, as he is kind of wont to do, although he brought a computer - the JR-200 - he forgot a critical component to play games on it - the smart phone containing said games. So he used his free time to make his exciting version of Pac-Man until Saburo saved the day by digitally supplying his collection of JR-200 games.

Colin came around with his Amiga Vampire, but had another stumbling block in getting it to work as desired. The Vampire worked fine this time, but the Raspberry Pi he was using as a router was not being cooperative. Despite Curt's efforts with his rich knowledge of Linux, they were not able to get the Vampire online. Next time, for sure!

Saburo undertook an ambitious project of repairing his Nintendo Virtual Boy. He had to replace a ribbon cable that is a known common point of failure on these devices. He and David took a look at it and gave it their best shots, but the position of the connectors and the manner in which they are to be connected turned out to be too difficult and he eventually had to give up.

Michelle brought in her PC-8801 for some gaming, such as the classic Return of Ishtar. She also brought along her partner, Ont, and friend Sara, who also seem to enjoy these relics.

Sven hooked up his TTGo VGA32 and used it with a PC emulator. It was running the GEM desktop in glorious monochrome! He also spent some time tinkering with communication setup between his Arduino and modern Mac notebook.

Tom brought in his MSX - a Panasonic A1ST Turbo R - along with some rare games, such as Tower of Cabin, for people to play.

Curt spent his time trying to diagnose his unhappy Victor MSX machine. He also tinkered with his TK-85.