NEC PC Engine/Turbografx |OT| – No friends to bring controllers? No problem!

I love that suitcase setup, looks like 80s hacker equipment or something.

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Yeah I like it too. It totally unconventional, which is it’s charm.

I love the briefcase!

This is more what I was referring to :nauseated_face:

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Looks like it’s giving birth or squeezing out a tricky one :rofl:

I always hated it, personally, but to each their own! Moving it around always felt like a super delicate operation. I had the briefcase setup for about 25 years before I finally opted to go for a Duo R which was much nicer and less unwieldy. I’m happy to be back to the Core Grafx now, but more compact.

I can see that for sure. It looks delicate and there’s multiple connections there for things to go wrong.

I’ve always had a want for that Coregrafx II set up but at the time when I had other pc engine systems never got the justification to get it then… maybe one day …

Popped a bit of Gradius gameplay on the pce tonight

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What’s the black NEC box?

It’s Memory base 128 back-up RAM unit which only works with certain games that support it. Also requires 4 x AA batteries. Batteries need replacing every 6 months otherwise your save files will be lost

Koei also released their version too called Save Kun KH-1001

How do you pull out the batteries and put new ones in without losing the save games?

on the memory base there is a little LED light that will light up faintly to let you know the batteries need replacing and you will have a few seconds to swap out the old with new.


As neat as this is I can’t help but feel that maybe it wasn’t exactly the best design, lol

Yeah, the only save solution I ever really liked was the Ten no Koe Bank. It’s not perfect, but at least you could keep saves around for more than one game at a time.

There is a thread on another forum discussing what is your fave SHMUP series and I started craving Gradius on the pce and just had to try and do a playthrough of it.

This is probably the best I’ve managed to play and capture of Gradius but the final stage just messed me up big time and so I decided to leave in all them deaths.

I was hoping to unlock and capture all 4 of the bonus stages tucked away in the pce version however on this playthrough I just managed to unlock 2 of them. I added the 3rd at the end since I unlocked that on 2nd play. The 4th now just alludes me as I cannot fathom how to unlock It anymore…

during those bonus stages the coloured power ups;
green = 1up
purple = autofire
gray = stops screen scrolling forward
yellow = points/multipliers

I’m now looking at the possibility of getting a TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine in the future.

Why does the best looking console have to be the one with the most issues?

  • Bad caps that need replacing
  • Tons of great games on CD (which has it’s own issues)
  • No RGB natively (or Svideo!?)
  • Expensive aftermarket options that fix these issues that are shoddy

So it looks like the best way to get into the original hardware is to buy a pre-modded late-model system like a Duo-R, right? Looks like I’ll be emulating for a while!

I really think the PCE/TG-16 has the most to gain from the Analogue treatment. How is MiSTer support?

and we haven’t gotten to the memory management yet for this system!

Some of those CD games do not run unless their is sufficient memory for a save file in the systems main memory and Maybe a few of these CD-rom games will just format the system memory wiping away all save files

Just a little repair some of you might be interested in.

I have found over the last while since a friend and I both bought TG16 systems, that the controller d-pads and buttons are extraordinarily stiff. I’ve had a NES controller like that too. They become really painful on the hands, to play after a few minutes. I’m not sure if this is the same with all TG16 controllers, or I’ve just got unlucky with stiff ones.

Turns out the NES silicone pads fit almost perfectly into the TG16 controllers, so you can swap in some official NES ones or if you don’t feel like modifying authentic NES pads, just pick some up cheap on eBay.

I bought some for $1 a set, with free shipping.

The TG16 D-pad silicone is split into two pieces from the factory, but is almost exactly the same as the NES one.

NES on top

TG16 on top, and a good demonstration of the modification you need to do. Two tiny cuts with an exacto knife around the hole, and it fits perfectly.

The buttons side by side

All back together and feeling much nicer!

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