"Future Proofing" Retro Consoles

Hello all, long time lurker first time poster.

I was wondering what people's opinions are on future proofing older consoles to remove potential problems? Ie, replacing electrolytic capacitors with polymer caps, changing over the 7805 to a modern switching replacement etc.

My thought process is if you change everything over, particularly the caps to solid replacements it will be a one time thing and the system will never need to be touched again.

Any thoughts?

 

this sounds like a perfect idea, as much as i want to remark "if it isn't broken, don't fix it", some components as they become old and or older, the material stability of components equipped on a PCB becomes a game of Russian roulette especially if the likelihood of spares is limited to begin with.

i would lean toward the concept of preservation through modernization rather than gamble with potentially causing irreversible damage to critical parts and components of vintage/obsolete hardware.

 

My opinion is if the parts broken, it should find the identical one (model, parameter, etc.). Unless that parts is rare and very difficult to find one, that time I might consider to replace with a modern parts.

 

Preemptively changing out caps isn't a bad idea.

I'd be cautious of trading out the 7805's for their drop in switching counterparts, you might end up adding noise to the system that could cause some undesirable effects. Probably better off checking if they're still in spec and making sure they have adequate cooling and heatsinking.

Replacing any kind of battery backup with an easily replaceable solution is always a good idea.

I suppose if you wanted to go all out you could use a thermal imaging camera to find any hot spots and see if there are modern replacements for those parts that produce less heat but have the same characteristics.

 

Consoles are rather simple and straightforward compared to other would-be electronics projects out there. There are a few that would be best opened and addressed immediately - an example would be a Sega Game Gear. Some devices like older computers should have their batteries removed before leakage occurs. Some computers - Commodore 64 - have power supplies that can fry some chips as the PSU components go bad and output voltage goes too high.

So there are documented "watch it" items out there to investigate should you acquire some new retro hardware. Generally, however, I would recommend people leave stuff alone unless it exhibits symptoms.

 

On the topic of Commodore computers especially, the Amiga 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 all use those horrendous barrel batteries that explode and leak all over the board. If you ever get one of those Amigas, you must open it immediately and remove the battery. Same goes for many PC motherboards from 1983 - 2000-ish.

 

As you're finding with the comments above, there really isn't one unified attack plan for ensuring any console will survive the test of time. Each particular piece of hardware has it's weak spots and these are the issues that are probably worth preemptively addressing.

Another commonly referenced "time bomb" (hehe) is the clock capacitor on the OG Xbox.

In addition to the things you can practically take proactive measures to prevent, there are other situations that are less preventable. I've personally started to see a rash of dying SNES PPU chips...something you can't really do much about except stash a bunch of working consoles in hopes that some of the chips live as long as you do. This is why the FPGA recreations are really the best hope of preserving the behavior and experience of real hardware for the long term.

 

+1 to the Xbox clock cap. Seen a few of those leak some nasty stuff onto the board.

 

The gear in pc engine and tg16 cd units and 3do fz1s

 

Personal opinions here, but I think you want to do basic maintenance to most consoles. Things like careful cleaning and replacing capacitors falls under those guidelines, assuming you want to be able to play. Anything you do, you should try to have reversible or as non-invasive as possible (not necessarily to put the original caps back on or anything crazy like that, but if you can avoid cutting traces, etc, for your fixes, you should).

The idea being if you're taking proper care, you'll get as much life out of the components that aren't going to be replaceable. Everything has a shelf life though, so it really is a battle to just keep things going for as long as possible.

 

Most consoles are abundant and will remain so. I'd agree just fix it if (hopefully not when) it breaks. Some exceptions like the Xbox leaky clock cap, or the Colecovision's troublesome power switch.

 

I've been thinking alot about this, and another thing that's a weak link in consoles are the optical disc-readers. At some point we'll have to come to terms with the fact that to be able to play Dreamcast, Saturn etc you have to install an SD mod. The next question is, is that emulation?

 

Optical drives are a very weak link, sadly. It's definitely optical drive emulation, but from there most console hardware would be used as intended.

 

I wonder if that might be something of a cottage industry in the distant future for absolute "purists". Pressing reproductions of disc based games and complete or retrofitted drive assemblies using modern commercially available components. Or hell custom components. Yes that would be a **** ton of work but if you look at audiophiles who will pay $500 for a single brand new high quality album on reel to reel to have the authentic experience and "best quality audio" and $10,000 for the machine to play it on, it seems like something that could happen.

Or even a step further for something like the SNES PPU that TriState294 mentioned, people making replacement silicon as a direct replacement. I've seen people make circuits on wafers in their homes before, it's just getting to the point where you can get your hands on the technology for a "reasonable" price. Well before that would come FPGAs and CPLDs to replace individual ICs though. That way you can maintain as much of the original hardware as possible instead of going for a 100% emulated system. Cyborg consoles? Console hybrids?

 

I don't think it's emulation because the games are still running on original hardware, just through a different delivery mechanism of the data to the console.

The real question we should be asking is: is an FPGA running original media considered emulation? Things like the Retro AVS, Analogue and Super Analogue NT. Because technically, an FPGA should be 1:1 with original hardware, right?

 

This kind of thinking really obscures the definition of "purist hardware", as both correctly remanufactured silicon and correctly programed FPGAs could sub in for a dead chip in a console. I instinctively want a drop in replacement of some sort, but do I really care what the mechanics of the chip itself is? Maybe...maybe not. I don't think the SwinSID is an accurate enough reproduction of a real SID chip, but do I care if a Z80 core is direct silicon or one of Kevtris's FPGA based cores? I dunno...my gut says that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

I suppose you could break it down into four categories: Original hardware, restored hardware, modified hardware and fully emulated hardware.

Original is of course everything stock from the factory, zero repairs. Restored would include repairs, up to 50% of the console being original as long as it maintained it's original functionality. Modified hardware would be anything where over 50% of the original hardware is no longer there. Fully emulated would mean there is zero original hardware.

It would be up to the individual to decide what their acceptable "purity" level is. Is this Nazi Germany?

Posed as a more philosophical question, if you plopped a wooden box in front of me that played SNES games off the cartridge and with SNES controllers is it an SNES? If you played an SNES (in it's original shell) and then opened it only to find that it was filled with a sentient ball of yarn, is it still an SNES? Where is the line? Does it matter? Who am I?

 

But what constitues 50%? How would a percentage like that be calculated? What percentage of the console's originality does 1 capacitor take up? What if it's using a brand new board, but all original components on it?

For now, these things are fairly arbitrary and pointless, but I fear that soon collecting will be split into two categories: die-hard "every must be original" collectors, and "originality is overrated" collectors. It's already that way a little bit with reproductions. Some people are really against them, others don't really mind them, and others love reproductions for giving them the ability to own expensive games that are playable on real hardware without having to shell out thousands of dollars for them.

 

Must admit that this is something that had crossed my mind since I posted this. The concept of recreating the PCB, implementing any solutions that the community has created over the last few decades (RGB bypass, audio mods for the Genesis) and modern capacitors (ceramic or polymer) while reusing legacy ICs to create a system that has full compatibility and will last essentially forever.

Of course the argument could be made that if going to that extreme may as well go full FPGA...

 

That's essentially what the original Analog NT NES was. They salvaged the CPU and PPU from a real NES, and built a new board (with mods) and case around it. This was enough of a "NES" to many "real hardware" people, including myself. I love this idea, and would love to have a Genesis with the same approach.