I love to imagine that there's a Japanese grandpa who bought this back in the day for long commutes and is still playing it every day in his rocking chair
This is a pretty specific but common polarizer degradation. but yeah if the glass panel itself was damaged, it's basically unfixable. It's covered in invisible microscopic circuitry.
He signed Bulletproof Software (publisher of all official versions of Tetris on Nintendo platforms) as a 2nd party developer when the CEO Henk Rogers said he could make go for the Famicom - which he did, and then promptly created the first ever JRPG, "The Black Onyx." The console already existed at the time.
my reply keeps getting shuffled off into the "newest first" shadow realm and I'm getting kinda frustrated because I don't know why. what's wrong with this text?: Yeah I got my anecdotes twisted, it's that online go was the prototype they used to convince him a famicom network adapter was a good idea, but while the peripheral did come out a final version of the game was never released. edit: wait this one's actually appearing? Yukiko for some reason youtube google thinks your name is a bad word, that's the only explanation I can conjure.
The duality of Mr. James... One second very delicately and precisely reflowing the connections on a fragile ribbon cable, the next taking an axle grinder to a PCB and going ham with the hot glue gun. And that's not even getting into the car shenanigans he and his mate get up to.
I was absolutely expecting him to go 'Fun fact, you can replace the ribbon cable with bare arcs, let me show you how!' or something else that would redefine 'unhinged' for me (again).
I’ve got my ass clenched and my face was in anticipation of massive disaster when you were fixing the screen. I’ve fucked up two screens of two that I’ve tried to repair. You’ve done amazing job! Wow! That’s a steady hands!
Holy cow, watching this was like watching surgery. I am impressed with how far you got with fixing this old technology since these things aren't exactly elegantly put together.
There is a Go game for GBA (Hikaru no Go) and games with a large board can take the computer opponent up to 10 minutes per move. So this is actually pretty amazing for the time.
Funny enough this is the similar approach to steaming milk (you need to keep it below 70 degree Celsius, so you hold the "body" of the steel milk jug instead of the handle, and steam it until it's hot enough to hurt).
I could be wrong about this - but I'm pretty sure in Japan the symbols X and O are equivalent to the English tick/cross - it's accept/reject button, basically. This is why Japanese a lot of releases of PSX games used O for OK and X for back in menus.
I know this comment will be lost in the mix, but god do I love everything you upload. Entertaining, educational, and unhinged. You're the best. Keep it up.
The X/O thing didn't come from the PlayStation - it's been a Japanese convention for a very long time. O = Maru = Yes/Confirm/OK X = Batsu = No/Cancel/Wrong - which is why it's so stupid that Sony changed over the use of those buttons on the Japanese PS5 to the ones used in the US.
@@rcmero I'm sure you're right - but it was an incredibly tone-deaf thing to do because the convention that's now being used goes directly against the intuitive expectation of what "X" and "O" mean in Japan.
I've read quite a bit of old timers question why someone would want or even need a soldering iron with adjustable temperature like a Pinecil, but this video is the example where such a thing is basically required to get the job done
I can't fathom people insisting you don't need temperature controls. If you want to make things more painful for yourself when you're forced to solder at hotter or colder than you want, that's just making things more inefficient
@@offbrandbiscuit That's the main argument for the Pinecil that I give out. Soldering is pretty hard already, and making things even harder with substandard equipment is infinitely harder to learn or even work with. Though the thing that separates the Pinecil from an AliExpress special is the digital readout and precision temp control.
I don’t know much about technical stuff when it comes to consoles, computers etc. so watching those polarising sheets was like actual magic, never knew that’s how they worked! Also the little loading bar when the CPU thinks is weirdly charming, I love when old games had to “think” due to memory issues 😂
the vinegar smell and the polarier degredation, is that a SHARP made LCD---- lets find out nope, hitachi, though sharp may have done the glass. rom dump the carts, see if it's just a dos app- this is basically a 286
you can get soldering iron tips for fixing these fragile LCD ribbon connectors that melt under high heat. It's usually called a t-bar soldering tip and it's like a horizontal piece of metal that you attach a strip of sillicone to, super useful to have
@@sammoore2242 apparently the CPU is a variant of the NEC V30 (XT-class), albeit clocked at a relatively sprintly 16MHz, so I'm sure it would perform like a turbo AT - based on what i could find, an 10MHz one should be a close match, which from what i heard seems pretty close to the minimum requirements of wolf3d
This video gives me PTSD. I bought myself used Fractal AxeFX Ultra, suddenly the screen started acting up so since I fixed a bunch of gameboys with that soldering iron technique I thought, heck may give it a go... I overheated the connection and liquid crystal poured out...turns out there's no replacements for these screen anymore so I got a quite expensive paperweight. I so wish I had the foresight you do while doing these repairs...Great job James!
I might honestly get one. These days I use a butane iron for all my soldering just because you can't beat the thermal output, but for small delicate projects I could see it being really useful.
That vinegar smell is the acetate plastic layers decomposing into cellulose and acetic acid (i.e. vinegar), the acid is also then what oxidizes the surrounding metals.
For all the chaos that James does to the average component with absolute disregard over its safety It makes the times where he is shitting his pants for it all the more amusing
When James use's a Nintendo Switch USB-C Power Brick to power his Solder Iron to melt/iron a plastic ribbon connector is just peak James, and I love it
The Pinecil can be powered off a USB-C cable + a brick. That's the whole selling point of it. You can buy more official solutions like I did, plus a silicon cable for heat resistance but you can technically power it off any adequate USB-C cable and brick
18:32 if you play middle top spot, white is dead because they can't create two eyes. To create eyes, they would have to play adjacent to the stone you played but if they do that now, you would be able to capture a few of their stones.
Oh wow! i never thought about my soldering iron to repair the glued ribbons! the best part is my iron goes down to 50c, i have a laptop with screen issues! this will breath new life into it! Thanks boss
@@Games_for_James apparently the CPU is a variant of the NEC V30 (XT-class), albeit clocked at a relatively sprintly 16MHz, so I'm sure it would perform like a turbo AT - based on what i could find, an 10MHz one should be a close match, which even with doom8088's more optimized renderer is probably nowhere close to running well. wolfenstein 3d, on the other hand...
To call that an epic fail is outrageous. I'm beyond impressed with the craftsmanship and how well it really did work. Keep doing what you're doing your uploads are my favorite.
love Dankpods and all... but I find my self far more interested in "James" videos than I ever am for a Dankpods video. well maybe except for the lucky nugget dip, I love those.
Dankpods makes me watch things I never thought I'd be interested in because they're so entertaining. James' Channel is similarly entertaining, but its also about things I'm already interested in.
I bought one of these at Surugaya in Akihabara during my 2019 trip to Tokyo and I adore this thing! It is still in great shape, boxed and it came with a boxed AC Adapter and 3 games and paid about ¥11,000 for it! For as rare as this system is, I love it and looking to get the entire software set which is incredibly difficult to pull off!
James, I have duplicates of those three games for sale if need to open up those cartridges. I have been trying to get more of those titles but they are hellishly tough to find even in Japan.
@SonyPlayStation1SM Here's hoping you can preserve the ROMs and RE the cartridges so reproduction copies can be made. Though my real question is if it can run a PC BIOS.
@@No-mq5lw I think even more than preserving, is finding a way to get replacement newer types of LCD screens, as the prices to replace them are stupidly high and also they are not as reliable. Sadly, my system has started to get this problem but its nowhere near as bad as James' system but no system is safe and I kept mine in very safe conditions for over 5 years.
X and O were not borrowed from PlayStation. They just both use those shapes because in Japan O means is an affirmative symbol, and X is a negative symbol. For some reason outside Japan the meanings of those two buttons on the PlayStation ended up becoming reversed. It's strange to me because even as an American I see X as meaning "no/cancel".
So no joke, I was actually looking at portable soldering irons recently and saw the pinecil. I had some other ones in mind but I'll take a ringing James recommendation.
The green-ish polarizer reminds me of my nokia. it looks nicer than the purple in my opinion and purple is my 2nd favorute color! Thanks for the good video!
This video was great as an exhibition, but even better as a demonstration on how to repair LCDs with zero documentation! It might be an idea to highlight things like that in the title or description, as that kind of knowledge could be very valuable to a beginner hobbyist looking to learn. The delivery of it was perfect for a novice to understand, too
I looked into LCD repair a while back, you can get low temperature ACF on just regular tape rolls off aliexpress for super cheap. You might be able to give that a try to re-adhere the ribbon connector if you want a more permanent fix. Side note, I adore my pinecil. Wonderful iron.
I'm just getting really into game collecting after getting my second console ever, and I love learning about these types of obscure systems. Some kid out there loved their Passago, and grew up to become an adult that occasionally thinks about it. One day, they might stumble upon this video and get a wave of nostalgia. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft rule, but you never forget your Passago, whatever it may have been called.
IIRC the (common simplified explanation for the) way an LCD works is that the LCD allows light through by polarizing it at a diagonal (45 degrees) between the two perpendicular polarizers. This lets almost all the light through, except where the LCD is *not* polarizing the light at that intermediate angle
From the front of an LCD, the first (1) polarizing layer is vertical, so the only light waves let through are those aligned vertically. (2) Glass with electrodes on it that are the shapes that appear when the LCD is on. (3) A layer of special liquid crystals, which twist light polarization by 90 degrees unless electrically charged. (4) Glass with an electrode film. (5) Horizontally polarizing film. (6) A reflective surface if the LCD is not backlit; if it is, the light source may fully or partially replace it. When an electrode shape (2) is turned on, its charge passes to the electrode film (4), passing through the liquid crystal (5) on the way. This means that if the shape is on, that part of the crystal does NOT twist light. But since the two polarizers (1, 5) are perpendicular from each other, the only way for light to pass through one and out the other is if that light is twisted on the way. Thus, the charged liquid crystals appear black, because any light that goes through them can't exit the polarizing filter on either end. In the case of a non-backlit screen the light you use to look at the screen is the light source that gets polarized and passed (minus the blacked out parts) through layers (1) to (5) before being reflected by (6), then bounce back through (5) to (1). But, if it's backlit most or all of the light will instead pass from the light source (6) to (1) and then to your eyes.
It's simple from a trigonometric standpoint: the cosine of 90° is 0, so two polarizing films rotated 90° from each other will let cos(90°) = 0 or none of the original light through. An additional layer (the liquid crystals in this case) at 45° means that you get cos(45°)*cos(45°) = ~0.276 or about 28% of the original light through. By flipping the crystals you can selectively add or remove that additional polarized layer from parts of the screen, making it appear dark or clear in those regions. The really weird part is WHY light gets spatially polarized like that.
@@dado__it seems to make sense until you flip the front polariser along the vertical or horizontal axis and the screen inverts. If the polariser is aligning vertically then flipping it vertically shouldn’t change the function right? EDIT: ohhh unless the polarisation is actually at 45° to the vertical, then it all falls into place
@@Games_for_James Yeah, I was talking about the more general case of how LCDs work, but liquid crystals have been developed into different versions that can twist at a wide variety of angles. For instance, twisted nematic liquid crystals (like this one, presumably) literally form a helix when off and then align almost perpendicular to the screen when voltage is applied, which makes their viewing angle suck since you have to be looking where they block the light. IPS liquid crystals always lie parallel to the glass layers, and when voltage is applied they rotate around their axes to allow the specified amount of polarized light. Since they're always parallel, they have a nice wide viewing angle correlated with the length of the liquid crystal molecules.
Having changed polarizers on Gameboy Pockets and tried to get rid of lines on DMGs with heat, I can say with certainty that that is not something I am looking forward to ever do again. I really felt this one.
Japanese strategy games are in the 5th Dimension of skills. I'm on -1. It's been years since I ever played chess or checkers. My wife likes playing Mahjong, I prefer Dominos.
The juxtaposition of videos of James very carefully fixing vintage video game electronics to videos of James building custom consoles with hot glue and duct tape is what keeps me on this channel
The components probably also cost 6 times as much. The GameBoy was a perfect design compromise of cheap but good enough. All of its competitors were more impressive but more expensive and constantly needed new batteries.
The Pinecil is excellent, I've used it for all my keyboard projects. I believe it's also compatible with TS100 tips! Fantastic value product and even though you need a good block to power it and a silicon cable for extra safety during work, it's the best iron you can buy that's reputable, has proper temp control and can be powered off a USB-C cable, not a whole station like bigger and more expensive irons.
Big ups for actually managing to fix the screen in it's entirety. I have three of those TRS-80 Model 100 portables but two of them will forever play blind because of one stupid reason or another with the LCDs lol
As someone who has modded his game boy screens before, I have found that you can use either orientation that you can see with (green or blue). I prefer the blue one when I use new displays since I do backlight stuff and the blue feels nicer.
What a hunk of plastic. Asia’s fascination with Go has always confused me, but then again Go confuses me too. I feel that comparing it to the gameboy is a bit erroneous; the GB is a foundation to build upon; this was made for Go. It’s like comparing a stock car to a tractor; one you build upon, the other hauls haybales.
The pinecil is great! I've been using mine for months and it beats the pants off of my more expensive Weller bench iron. It even seems to hold a temperature better despite not having a base unit.
This video reminds me of my attempt to backlight mod a DMG screen. I made lines, and my attempts to fix the lines just ended up introducing more lines. Good job fixing this.
I can second getting a Pinecil, for temperature sensitive work. I had to solder a clear plastic flex mod into a GBC, and I managed it without melting the flex at 185 degrees. They're great little soldering irons for modding.
I know you’re just mucking about on personal projects but your channel inspires me to tinker (safely!!) with electronics too. Thanks mate, have a sick juan in 2025
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
This was a very cathartic repair job to watch. Beautiful showcase of the inherent drama in fixing inanimate objects.
The alcohol and blade technique can also be used for "fixing" animate objects.... 😇
@@harveycreekin Alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems!
What... you actually permanently fixed the ribbon cable without causing more harm? I didn't know that was humanly possible. Major respect earned again
I was not confident 🤣
@@Games_for_James No one ever is! Huge congrats on tackling the job without a hiccup.
If James can fix a nugget after running on eggnog and pilk, he can fix just about anything
@@r.d.drowned9332A very sweet comment. However he definitely did NOT fix a nugget running on eggnog and pilk
@@1337bG01 Without hiccup? I'd say that was a series of hiccups that had to be masterfully flailed around.
"Paso" means "personal computer", and "go" means "go". And that concludes our extensive 3-week course.
And Paso is just a Japanese way to say Personal
Holy sh!t. I've been studying japanese my whole life and never realized that パソコン means パーソナル コンピュータ
Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
Mono means one, and rail means rail
@@nankininkthose both translate to personal computer according to google translate 🔥
I love to imagine that there's a Japanese grandpa who bought this back in the day for long commutes and is still playing it every day in his rocking chair
"How to stone"
"How should I play to kill white"
"This is a live oshitsubushi fish, it's a failure"
To be fair, I've yet to meet an oshitsubushi fish that wasn't at the very least disappointing.
@@yukikofujiwara2144 Or that I didn't wanted to stone, for that matter
LCD rebuild is wild I had no idea it was even doable
much less doable with most modern LCDs unfortunately
This is a pretty specific but common polarizer degradation. but yeah if the glass panel itself was damaged, it's basically unfixable. It's covered in invisible microscopic circuitry.
@@Aeduo ohhh so that's why James was so afraid of breaking it
Didn't even need to pull out the angle grinder!
Hiroshi Yamauchi would have _loved_ this thing. Man only OK'd the famicom when the engineers showed him he could play go on it.
From the creators who brought you "but can it run doom?" presents: "but can it play Go?"
He signed Bulletproof Software (publisher of all official versions of Tetris on Nintendo platforms) as a 2nd party developer when the CEO Henk Rogers said he could make go for the Famicom - which he did, and then promptly created the first ever JRPG, "The Black Onyx." The console already existed at the time.
my reply keeps getting shuffled off into the "newest first" shadow realm and I'm getting kinda frustrated because I don't know why. what's wrong with this text?:
Yeah I got my anecdotes twisted, it's that online go was the prototype they used to convince him a famicom network adapter was a good idea, but while the peripheral did come out a final version of the game was never released.
edit: wait this one's actually appearing? Yukiko for some reason youtube google thinks your name is a bad word, that's the only explanation I can conjure.
The duality of Mr. James... One second very delicately and precisely reflowing the connections on a fragile ribbon cable, the next taking an axle grinder to a PCB and going ham with the hot glue gun.
And that's not even getting into the car shenanigans he and his mate get up to.
I was absolutely expecting him to go 'Fun fact, you can replace the ribbon cable with bare arcs, let me show you how!' or something else that would redefine 'unhinged' for me (again).
Have you seen the latest Garbage Time video? We're well past shenanigans 😅🔥
I’ve got my ass clenched and my face was in anticipation of massive disaster when you were fixing the screen.
I’ve fucked up two screens of two that I’ve tried to repair.
You’ve done amazing job! Wow! That’s a steady hands!
Holy cow, watching this was like watching surgery. I am impressed with how far you got with fixing this old technology since these things aren't exactly elegantly put together.
So you can play Go on the go?
Neat!
This is the perfect gift for Hiroshi Yamauchi (he was a master at Gō).
He came back and attached himself to a a descendant making them play Go. I could be thinking of a Manga...@@clementpruvost8670
Neat 📸
There is a Go game for GBA (Hikaru no Go) and games with a large board can take the computer opponent up to 10 minutes per move. So this is actually pretty amazing for the time.
I believe there was a Go game for super famicom, which had an ARM CPU embedded on the cartridge.
I LOve that "IT Hurts me" counts as "its the right temperature and should work"
Funny enough this is the similar approach to steaming milk (you need to keep it below 70 degree Celsius, so you hold the "body" of the steel milk jug instead of the handle, and steam it until it's hot enough to hurt).
I could be wrong about this - but I'm pretty sure in Japan the symbols X and O are equivalent to the English tick/cross - it's accept/reject button, basically. This is why Japanese a lot of releases of PSX games used O for OK and X for back in menus.
Yes and Sony switched the logic for Western markets where "X" is "accept" and "O" is "cancel"
@@Halfpipesaur That's because X is what alot of Western nations uses for accept.
@@Halfpipesaur then they made everything accept on X since PS4 or 5 I don't remember and Japanese gamers were pissed.
not just PSX games, i'm pretty sure most japanese playstation games still do this to this day
@@minirop oh didnt know that
I know this comment will be lost in the mix, but god do I love everything you upload. Entertaining, educational, and unhinged. You're the best. Keep it up.
I really appreciate that!
The X/O thing didn't come from the PlayStation - it's been a Japanese convention for a very long time. O = Maru = Yes/Confirm/OK X = Batsu = No/Cancel/Wrong - which is why it's so stupid that Sony changed over the use of those buttons on the Japanese PS5 to the ones used in the US.
Sony probably changed it so the buttons are consistent across all regions.
@@rcmero I'm sure you're right - but it was an incredibly tone-deaf thing to do because the convention that's now being used goes directly against the intuitive expectation of what "X" and "O" mean in Japan.
All I ever wanted was to press triangle for cancel in the system menus
@@rcmero Asian PS games prior to the PS5 still uses the Japanese layout, only the West uses the reversed one.
i’m a huge fan of Go, i’ve been playing for like 12ish years, and i absolutely love obscure bits of old technology. this is why james is fantastic
Nintendo Switch charger on the soldering iron. Beautiful.
Having changed the polariser on a Roland PMA-5, I can confirm that it’s no fun. This repair was heroic.
I've read quite a bit of old timers question why someone would want or even need a soldering iron with adjustable temperature like a Pinecil, but this video is the example where such a thing is basically required to get the job done
This video single-handedly just sold me on one.
I can't fathom people insisting you don't need temperature controls. If you want to make things more painful for yourself when you're forced to solder at hotter or colder than you want, that's just making things more inefficient
@@offbrandbiscuit That's the main argument for the Pinecil that I give out. Soldering is pretty hard already, and making things even harder with substandard equipment is infinitely harder to learn or even work with.
Though the thing that separates the Pinecil from an AliExpress special is the digital readout and precision temp control.
I don’t know much about technical stuff when it comes to consoles, computers etc. so watching those polarising sheets was like actual magic, never knew that’s how they worked! Also the little loading bar when the CPU thinks is weirdly charming, I love when old games had to “think” due to memory issues 😂
Yeah, I would appreciate that in a chess game VS a computer. Not having that instant counterattack makes it feel more human.
Factory bodge wires just make me so happy.
We have Steam Deck at home
I think the Steam Deck is the “Koei Pasogo at home”
Waiting for Bringus studios SteamOS install on the Koei Pasogo
the vinegar smell and the polarier degredation, is that a SHARP made LCD---- lets find out nope, hitachi, though sharp may have done the glass.
rom dump the carts, see if it's just a dos app- this is basically a 286
you can get soldering iron tips for fixing these fragile LCD ribbon connectors that melt under high heat. It's usually called a t-bar soldering tip and it's like a horizontal piece of metal that you attach a strip of sillicone to, super useful to have
come for the tech repair, stay for james being confused by japanese board games
The 'but I don't know any clever moves, I had to brute force level one' line killed me
This thing could run Doom ...
Not enough RAM sorry. Is wolf3d okay?
@@sammoore2242 fastdoom and doom 8088
@@sammoore2242 apparently the CPU is a variant of the NEC V30 (XT-class), albeit clocked at a relatively sprintly 16MHz, so I'm sure it would perform like a turbo AT - based on what i could find, an 10MHz one should be a close match, which from what i heard seems pretty close to the minimum requirements of wolf3d
@@FavoritoHJSwow. And all of it is for a relatively simple game of Go? The Japanese are crazy
@@sammoore2242 if someone is motivated and doesn’t have anything to do for like a few hours or maybe days then i’m sure someone could port it
The pincil is sick, back when the TS80/100 were
This video gives me PTSD. I bought myself used Fractal AxeFX Ultra, suddenly the screen started acting up so since I fixed a bunch of gameboys with that soldering iron technique I thought, heck may give it a go... I overheated the connection and liquid crystal poured out...turns out there's no replacements for these screen anymore so I got a quite expensive paperweight.
I so wish I had the foresight you do while doing these repairs...Great job James!
I remember seeing this on a Worst Games Ever Wiki and was confused as to why a simple handheld for playing Go needed a Wiki article for bad games
I love my pinecil. Small enough for delicate work, but powerful enough for larger projects.
My pinecil v2 is so good, I even flashed a custom boot screen for it.
I might honestly get one. These days I use a butane iron for all my soldering just because you can't beat the thermal output, but for small delicate projects I could see it being really useful.
That vinegar smell is the acetate plastic layers decomposing into cellulose and acetic acid (i.e. vinegar), the acid is also then what oxidizes the surrounding metals.
3:38 This kind of screen damage is actually called "vinegar syndrome" because of this!
18:45 "Like Mister or Mister" 😂
Great work as always! That LCD rebuild was masterful.
For all the chaos that James does to the average component with absolute disregard over its safety
It makes the times where he is shitting his pants for it all the more amusing
4:55 make it run DOS! make it run DOS!
Call Bringus
It could be a PasoDos!
When James use's a Nintendo Switch USB-C Power Brick to power his Solder Iron to melt/iron a plastic ribbon connector is just peak James, and I love it
The Pinecil can be powered off a USB-C cable + a brick. That's the whole selling point of it. You can buy more official solutions like I did, plus a silicon cable for heat resistance but you can technically power it off any adequate USB-C cable and brick
Watching James fidling with the polarizer layers was some of the most entertaining RUclips content I've seen in a while
15:30 I love my pinecil man, its so useful for so many things. Im planning on using it with wax for casting enclosures eventually soon too.
18:32 if you play middle top spot, white is dead because they can't create two eyes. To create eyes, they would have to play adjacent to the stone you played but if they do that now, you would be able to capture a few of their stones.
22:00 Woah! I didn't know the KOEI PASOGO was this capable in terms of video output!
Oh wow! i never thought about my soldering iron to repair the glued ribbons! the best part is my iron goes down to 50c, i have a laptop with screen issues! this will breath new life into it! Thanks boss
Nice to see a madman risk it all so that we don't have to.
Considering this thing could run DOS, DOOM seems not too far away
I agree
@@Games_for_James apparently the CPU is a variant of the NEC V30 (XT-class), albeit clocked at a relatively sprintly 16MHz, so I'm sure it would perform like a turbo AT - based on what i could find, an 10MHz one should be a close match, which even with doom8088's more optimized renderer is probably nowhere close to running well.
wolfenstein 3d, on the other hand...
@@FavoritoHJS I think it’s mostly to tick the box rather than to run properly 😂
To call that an epic fail is outrageous. I'm beyond impressed with the craftsmanship and how well it really did work. Keep doing what you're doing your uploads are my favorite.
love Dankpods and all... but I find my self far more interested in "James" videos than I ever am for a Dankpods video. well maybe except for the lucky nugget dip, I love those.
james channel
Dankpods makes me watch things I never thought I'd be interested in because they're so entertaining.
James' Channel is similarly entertaining, but its also about things I'm already interested in.
No need to compare them.
James can be brutal and delicate, Wade can only be brutal
Wade's hyperactivity gets old pretty quickly.
I bought one of these at Surugaya in Akihabara during my 2019 trip to Tokyo and I adore this thing! It is still in great shape, boxed and it came with a boxed AC Adapter and 3 games and paid about ¥11,000 for it! For as rare as this system is, I love it and looking to get the entire software set which is incredibly difficult to pull off!
James, I have duplicates of those three games for sale if need to open up those cartridges. I have been trying to get more of those titles but they are hellishly tough to find even in Japan.
@SonyPlayStation1SM Here's hoping you can preserve the ROMs and RE the cartridges so reproduction copies can be made. Though my real question is if it can run a PC BIOS.
@@No-mq5lw I think even more than preserving, is finding a way to get replacement newer types of LCD screens, as the prices to replace them are stupidly high and also they are not as reliable. Sadly, my system has started to get this problem but its nowhere near as bad as James' system but no system is safe and I kept mine in very safe conditions for over 5 years.
The fact this thing uses an x86 SoC could've meant an incredible demo scene
It’s not too late!
It's just a matter of time before someone put Bad Apple on it.
X and O were not borrowed from PlayStation. They just both use those shapes because in Japan O means is an affirmative symbol, and X is a negative symbol.
For some reason outside Japan the meanings of those two buttons on the PlayStation ended up becoming reversed. It's strange to me because even as an American I see X as meaning "no/cancel".
The rampant videogame piracy from the mid-90s influenced American culture so much that "X marks the spot" became more predominant.
I love that anytime you make a video i can watch it so many times and right when i get bored you make a new video and the cycle keeps going
I enjoy this longer form video. I love watching your work. In my eyes, you are a genius, James.
Me watching James fix the pasogo: This man is a wizard his brilliance knows no bounds
Me watching James play the pasogo: もっとよく考えて!
This whole screen repair gives me confidence I could one day repair my ds screen (it's purple if you don't apply pressure to it)
So no joke, I was actually looking at portable soldering irons recently and saw the pinecil. I had some other ones in mind but I'll take a ringing James recommendation.
God, I love everything you upload. Your videos are so unhinged, entertaining and educational! You’re the best. Keep it up!
The X and O are not taken from Sony, necessarily. They are quite universal across Japan for まる (affirmative) and ばつ (negative).
Massive respect for being able to properly restore something like this. You're doing the past a favor.
The fix was so impressive! Brilliant work!
Happy New year! Have a great year ahead!
The green-ish polarizer reminds me of my nokia. it looks nicer than the purple in my opinion and purple is my 2nd favorute color! Thanks for the good video!
This video was great as an exhibition, but even better as a demonstration on how to repair LCDs with zero documentation! It might be an idea to highlight things like that in the title or description, as that kind of knowledge could be very valuable to a beginner hobbyist looking to learn. The delivery of it was perfect for a novice to understand, too
I looked into LCD repair a while back, you can get low temperature ACF on just regular tape rolls off aliexpress for super cheap. You might be able to give that a try to re-adhere the ribbon connector if you want a more permanent fix.
Side note, I adore my pinecil. Wonderful iron.
The problem is putting it through a heat cycle with even pressure across the whole ribbon. Sounds like a bad time to me
17:36 race wars
I'm just getting really into game collecting after getting my second console ever, and I love learning about these types of obscure systems. Some kid out there loved their Passago, and grew up to become an adult that occasionally thinks about it. One day, they might stumble upon this video and get a wave of nostalgia. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft rule, but you never forget your Passago, whatever it may have been called.
I rock a pinecil at work and a ts100 at home, run them off power tool batteries or old laptop power adapters. great devices.
+1 for the Pinecil. love that thing for precision soldering. Never even thought to use it for low temperature stuff
"This is going to be a bunch of interesting" is my new favorite phrase along with "hotgluehotgluehotglue"
IIRC the (common simplified explanation for the) way an LCD works is that the LCD allows light through by polarizing it at a diagonal (45 degrees) between the two perpendicular polarizers. This lets almost all the light through, except where the LCD is *not* polarizing the light at that intermediate angle
Yeah I really need to look into it more
From the front of an LCD, the first (1) polarizing layer is vertical, so the only light waves let through are those aligned vertically. (2) Glass with electrodes on it that are the shapes that appear when the LCD is on. (3) A layer of special liquid crystals, which twist light polarization by 90 degrees unless electrically charged. (4) Glass with an electrode film. (5) Horizontally polarizing film. (6) A reflective surface if the LCD is not backlit; if it is, the light source may fully or partially replace it.
When an electrode shape (2) is turned on, its charge passes to the electrode film (4), passing through the liquid crystal (5) on the way. This means that if the shape is on, that part of the crystal does NOT twist light. But since the two polarizers (1, 5) are perpendicular from each other, the only way for light to pass through one and out the other is if that light is twisted on the way. Thus, the charged liquid crystals appear black, because any light that goes through them can't exit the polarizing filter on either end. In the case of a non-backlit screen the light you use to look at the screen is the light source that gets polarized and passed (minus the blacked out parts) through layers (1) to (5) before being reflected by (6), then bounce back through (5) to (1). But, if it's backlit most or all of the light will instead pass from the light source (6) to (1) and then to your eyes.
It's simple from a trigonometric standpoint: the cosine of 90° is 0, so two polarizing films rotated 90° from each other will let cos(90°) = 0 or none of the original light through. An additional layer (the liquid crystals in this case) at 45° means that you get cos(45°)*cos(45°) = ~0.276 or about 28% of the original light through. By flipping the crystals you can selectively add or remove that additional polarized layer from parts of the screen, making it appear dark or clear in those regions.
The really weird part is WHY light gets spatially polarized like that.
@@dado__it seems to make sense until you flip the front polariser along the vertical or horizontal axis and the screen inverts. If the polariser is aligning vertically then flipping it vertically shouldn’t change the function right?
EDIT: ohhh unless the polarisation is actually at 45° to the vertical, then it all falls into place
@@Games_for_James Yeah, I was talking about the more general case of how LCDs work, but liquid crystals have been developed into different versions that can twist at a wide variety of angles. For instance, twisted nematic liquid crystals (like this one, presumably) literally form a helix when off and then align almost perpendicular to the screen when voltage is applied, which makes their viewing angle suck since you have to be looking where they block the light. IPS liquid crystals always lie parallel to the glass layers, and when voltage is applied they rotate around their axes to allow the specified amount of polarized light. Since they're always parallel, they have a nice wide viewing angle correlated with the length of the liquid crystal molecules.
Having changed polarizers on Gameboy Pockets and tried to get rid of lines on DMGs with heat, I can say with certainty that that is not something I am looking forward to ever do again. I really felt this one.
God Koei in the 90s were so weird. I still want their Sega Saturn word processor set (yes really)
As someone decently skilled at Go this hurt to watch but congratulations on the fix and taking some pieces!
I've got one of those soldering irons, very handy to keep in my work bag with a power bank. Also use the low temp for fixing my 3d prints.
Japanese strategy games are in the 5th Dimension of skills. I'm on -1. It's been years since I ever played chess or checkers. My wife likes playing Mahjong, I prefer Dominos.
I honestly love watching you and Wade since I love how you're more of a technical wiz, while Wade's just a headphone and Speaker wiz who drums
"I need a USB c cable for my soldering iron, I definitely don't have any nearby"
*Takes Nintendo switch charger/PSU*
The juxtaposition of videos of James very carefully fixing vintage video game electronics to videos of James building custom consoles with hot glue and duct tape is what keeps me on this channel
that's awesome! I will definitely be picking up one of those pine soldering irons! thanks James!!
the fact that they said “since it’s 6 times as big, it should cost 6 times as much is so funny to me”
The components probably also cost 6 times as much. The GameBoy was a perfect design compromise of cheap but good enough. All of its competitors were more impressive but more expensive and constantly needed new batteries.
Right on you for correcting yourself upon editing saying well instead of good. Bringing light onto the topic of polarizers.
I have my sound off - Mr. Sausage, is that you? I don't think you can make a sausage out of that
"But will it blow?"
@madmanmortonyt4890 I'm sorry but I can only give this comment two and a half Mark Ruffalos!
Oh i love official consoles that come with crisp bogan work straight outta factory
using the switch charger as a choice of power supply for that soldering iron is a pro move
15:26 agreed on the Pinecil!! Absolute brilliant piece of kit.
Much better than the PinePhone
The Pinecil is excellent, I've used it for all my keyboard projects. I believe it's also compatible with TS100 tips! Fantastic value product and even though you need a good block to power it and a silicon cable for extra safety during work, it's the best iron you can buy that's reputable, has proper temp control and can be powered off a USB-C cable, not a whole station like bigger and more expensive irons.
The Pinecil rocks. I haven't had much occasion to use mine, but I really need to pick up a console mod so I have a reason to use it.
Big ups for actually managing to fix the screen in it's entirety. I have three of those TRS-80 Model 100 portables but two of them will forever play blind because of one stupid reason or another with the LCDs lol
seeing production electronics with the ole bodge wires always makes me feel so much better about my designs
As someone who has modded his game boy screens before, I have found that you can use either orientation that you can see with (green or blue). I prefer the blue one when I use new displays since I do backlight stuff and the blue feels nicer.
What a hunk of plastic. Asia’s fascination with Go has always confused me, but then again Go confuses me too. I feel that comparing it to the gameboy is a bit erroneous; the GB is a foundation to build upon; this was made for Go. It’s like comparing a stock car to a tractor; one you build upon, the other hauls haybales.
This is one of the James of all time
I love the Pinecel, one of the most convenient soldering irons I have ever used
Great job! I think that LCD color is absolutely fine. leave it looks great, it's also unique!
The pinecil is great! I've been using mine for months and it beats the pants off of my more expensive Weller bench iron. It even seems to hold a temperature better despite not having a base unit.
Yeah I had a bootleg hakko before this and I much prefer the pinecil for everything
This video reminds me of my attempt to backlight mod a DMG screen. I made lines, and my attempts to fix the lines just ended up introducing more lines. Good job fixing this.
This video was a rollercoaster of emotions. Loved every second!
Kudos on that polarizer removal! I've only removed one from a Game Boy DMG screen and that was challenging. A screen as big as this one is crazy
I can second getting a Pinecil, for temperature sensitive work. I had to solder a clear plastic flex mod into a GBC, and I managed it without melting the flex at 185 degrees.
They're great little soldering irons for modding.
I love my Pinecil! Had the wife get me one for Christmas last year and it’s great!
James is becoming a better and better showman with each video.
The bodge wire immediately brought back some less-than-fun Macintosh memories.
I know you’re just mucking about on personal projects but your channel inspires me to tinker (safely!!) with electronics too. Thanks mate, have a sick juan in 2025
I absolutely love this channel! Top five favorites for sure.