Classicamiga Forum Retro Edition
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Thread: Considering downsizing retro collection again
Harrison 03:45 5th August 2014
I know I've said this in the past, but I'm seriously considering downsizing my physical retro hardware collection again.

I tried to start doing this a couple of years ago, going through and working out which systems I never used any longer... in fact selling my Amiga A4000 and some A500's to reduce the number of Amiga's owned.. but since then people keep offering free collections of retro hardware I can't resist saying yes too as they are too good to turn down.. so I've now ended up owning 2 towered A4000's! with much higher spec than I ever had before, and more A500's and A1200's! It's mad.

I really have to resist more free retro gear offered to me and declutter.

I see photographs of people's gaming/room setups and they look so clean, tidy and uncluttered and I want mine to look like that, not a pile of consoles, controllers, a spaghetti tangle of 100s of cables.

Finally time to go completely emulation based for some I think. But can I actually do it?
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Teho 09:53 5th August 2014
The biggest problem with emulation in my opinion is that you're then using these old systems on HD displays. They all look terrible on them. I have kept an old CRT which I use to hook up all my old hardware to. Much prefer that. Of course, I don't own near as much as you do. I currently have a CD32 hooked up to it which I only recently got. I've never been that interested in acquiring other old consoles from Sega and Nintendo, but now that there are ways to run images on the original hardware it's more tempting. But haven't bothered yet. Have you looked at the RetroN 5? It's a console that emulates all the classic platforms, but it only accepts original cartridges. I wonder if the Everdrives will work on it. Also they make a big deal of it having HDMI output, can't find anything about it having a classic S-video or SCART which is what I would want.
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Harrison 11:32 5th August 2014
I think the Retron's only have hdmi out, but they do have scanline emulation which makes games look much better on LCD displays. But they are emulating systems, and are not 100% compatible. People say the build quality isn't brilliant either, so you wonder how long they will keep working. And as they are Linux emulators I think I would rather just emulate on a PC with interfaces to use original controllers.

I've got Everdrives for a lot of my systems: SNES, N64, Megadrive and they are brilliant devices, allowing all game roms to run and game saves being saved directly back to the SD cards, which is brilliant. Highly recommend them to anyone wanting to use an original console these days.. and more Everdrive's in development for things like the GB.

But as you mentioned the other thing is display quality. A decent CRT TV takes up a lot of room compared to an LCD, but a lot of retro systems look rubbish on an HDTV via SCART or SVideo. But I don't have the room for a large CRT any longer. I do keep considering getting an XRGB-mini Framemeister as they are meant to be the best, with scanline generation and the best upscaling available. At the moment I feed my retro systems through a Sony AV Amp which has an upscaler built in. It does a good job, but still looks blurry and stetched. I also have an inline scanline generator but not had chance to really play around with that much. It does mean a lot of cables and devices in a chain from the console to the display though. Plus it starts costing once you have to buy extra cables and hardware just to get a decent image.
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Tiago 13:27 5th August 2014
Why don't you start downsize the duplicated hardware? Why do you keep more then 1 A500 or A1200? For spare parts? Ok, but you can store then in a garage, loft or other, and just let it be a single A1200 in your retro room.
You can take the boards, floppys whatever out and store them in less space. Why would you need 3 or 4 A500 cases? Keep the best one, and sell the others.
2x A4000T ??? Boy, there are people killing to have one, and you have 2??? Keep one and sell the other. And so one...
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Harrison 16:40 5th August 2014
Regarding Amiga's I am definitely going to be downsizing them greatly as I only really use an A600 and A1200 regularly, and sometimes a CD32.

For A500's I actually don't have any need for them as I don't use them at all so will definitely be selling them all.. some are even still boxed. Plus loads of extras like external HDDs. I've also got quite a few other thing like external floppy drives.. and now that I've got a Gotek floppy drive emulator in my A600 and can convert all disks quickly into ADFs using my Kryoflux I don't even really need floppy disks! So, yeah probably most of my Amiga collect will finally be going to new homes.

I was thinking more of consoles in my original post though. Definitely keeping anything that still can't be emulated perfectly such as Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube but not sure about older consoles with perfect emulation.
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Tiago 17:23 5th August 2014
If possible post here first what you want to sell. Any C64 in there?
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Demon Cleaner 17:28 5th August 2014
He's not into C64
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zapiy 22:08 5th August 2014
It's a difficult one for me to give advice on as I have a vast collection like you (not as big I suspect lol) but vast to me. It's cluttered and all over the place and like you I want to get that resolved. Some years back I cleared out most of my systems I has doubles of and I felt relieved as did the wife lol.

Anyway whatever you decide needs to be right for you pal.
Oh and not wishing to jump on the ship before it sails. I would love chance at some of your Amiga gear.
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Demon Cleaner 11:59 6th August 2014
I could ask my friend who bought everything from me, and perhaps, if shipping prices are reasonable, and he need's something, he would buy it, just give us a list of what's for sale.

Did you post it on Amibay?
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Harrison 13:21 6th August 2014
I will try and sort out a rough list of hardware this week and will have everyone here on CA first refusal on it before I list on Amibay.

Shipping within Europe shouldn't be too expensive using couriers, and multiple items will obviously make shipping cheaper.

Off the top of my head I have the following which will be included for sale:

A500s:




Other Hardware:




Zorro Cards:




All A500's have their manuals, disks and PSUs I think but will again need to get everything together and check. Everything else is boxed with manuals and disks unless otherwise stated. But need to double check everything.
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