Portland Retro 2024

Last weekend I went to Portland, OR for the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. This was my second time going and I managed to spend a little less money this year than last year, but at the same time, it felt like a lot of prices were a bit higher this year.

For me, the best part of the trip, besides being able to haggle on prices a little, is seeing friends that I basically only see at the expo. It was great seeing Gene and Candice as well as my buddy Dennis who comes out from NJ.

Luckily, I did manage to find some good deals, though. I managed to pick up an N64 (just the system, no peripherals or even a power supply) for $50, a Game Gear that is having some display issues for $30 and a GBA in pretty good condition for $45. Later in the expo, I found a power supply for the N64, which took a lot of hunting.

I always forget how much grinding is necessary to make progress in Dragon Warrior. It’s been probably 15 years since I last played it. But I have very fond memories of grinding into the wee hours of the morning on this game when I was like 9 years old.

I’ve been working on filling out my Zelda cartridge collection, so I got my hands on A Link to the Past for a decent price, Oracle of Seasons in bad condition, but a good price and even Majora’s Mask for a decent price. Unfortunately, the Majora’s Mask cart is crumbling and doesn’t even hold together, which I didn’t notice until I got it home. I need to superglue a screw post and another support to get it back together.

So I think my plan is to recap the Game Gear and hopefully get that working again, do an HDMI mod to the n64 so I can actually play some games and then do a big upgrade to the GBA, adding a nice screen and maybe a new shell. I’ve been on the fence about whether I actually want to do a USBC upgrade to my handhelds anymore. At least, the various Game Boys. It’s nice, but it’s also kind of destructive and who knows if in the future there will be something better than the USB-C thing. But the rechargeable lithium poly batteries are pretty nice. So I dunno what I’ll do.

I’ve got a stack of DS and Gameboys that I want to hack on, but just haven’t had the time. But maybe it’s time to do it.

Lastly, I managed to get my hands on some goofy carts. Namely the old Atari ET cart and some meme-worthy GBA carts.

Anyway, I’ll hopefully post something when I get some work done on the N64 or get the GameGear working again.