At 02:00 AM 4/10/01 -0400, you wrote:
>
>i was cruising the Turbo List homepage, and looked thru the files. i finally
>found the one i was looking for: the instructions for modifying a US Turbo
>to play PCE hucards. the mod involves a switch, which looks rare, not to
>mention complicated. my question is, can i just reroute the wiring, and
>leave out the chip? i've got about 6 TG systems (of course i have one hooked
>up in the living room, and one in the bedroom), so i can definitely spare
>one for the mod. anyone know how reliable this would be, if at all?
[cut out stuff about Arcade Card]
>ideally, what i'd like to do is modify a TG16 to accept PCE hucards. then i
>could purchase an ACP, and attach my Turbo CD in order to play Super CDs.
>i'm fairly okay with a soldering iron, and this seems cheaper than either
>buying a convertor (which seem to have become atrociously expensive as of
>late), or laying out the fat cash for a 3.0 card. what's everyone's thoughts
>on all of this? any and all replies will be immensely appreciated!!
You've got a few options available - first off, the country switch
setup really isn't very complicated - it's just tedious and involves a lot
of wire. It's true that you will have to find the appropriate switch, but
once that's done it's quite straightforward. All you have to do is reverse
the order of the 8 data lines.
A local electronics store here in Toronto sells some 8pdt pushbutton
switches which work great for TG16s, but they're really huge and too big to
fit into anything more compact like a Duo or PCE.
If you can't find an 8-pole switch, you can just use two 4-pole
switches instead. It'll work exactly the same, except you'll be flipping
two switches instead of one when you change it to the opposite region. I
have done this to my PC Engine GT, as I couldn't find any 8-pole switches
small enough to fit. 4pdt switches are quite readily available.
Or, if you don't want to bother with switches altogether, you can
just cut the Hucard connector pins and rewire the 8 data lines in reverse,
effectively making your TG16 a Japanese-only machine. This is dead easy.
There's nothing wrong with this approach, except that it's less convenient
than having a single all-purpose machine. I did this (temporarily) to my
Duo; this was before I got a converter and I had a Tennokoe Bank I wanted
to test out.
Heck, maybe if you want, you could mod your Coregrafx to play only
US Hucards, modify your TG16 to play only JP Hucards, and you'd be set!
This might be a bit extreme, however.
Or, if all else fails, you could get a converter. I think it'd be
a bit of a wasted effort, though, since nothing compares to playing the
games on a real machine. Especially with the AC Pro - these are known to
be finnicky with converters. Plus converters will cost you an arm and a
leg, while a mod will cost you a few cents (for the wire) and a little of
your spare time. Whoever said that a converter is a cheaper option was
just plain wrong, as a used TG16 (especially a bare deck) is always cheaper
than a converter.
Matthew