June bonus #1: Interlude (Patreon)

Segaiden returns this coming week. In the meantime, here's a little appetizer as I try to get my recording setup up and running for Master System.

Moving to a new place and jumping to 4K capture has required some changes to how things work for me. For one thing, the RetroTink 4K requires a different type of input cable than the Framemeister did, and I don't actually have the right cable... so I'm using an adapter that is causing some faint jailbars to appear in the footage. I am having a custom cable built (because of course the part I need isn't just an off-the-shelf component), but the next couple of episodes might look a little less than perfect.

Also, my Light Phaser was damaged in the move, so I have another one of those on the way... which means Wednesday's episode might arrive a couple of days late, since it involves a light gun game. Typical!

On the plus side, I've upgraded the device I'm capturing from: Instead of using a hacked Mark III, I'm running on a Master System. And by Master System I mean the Japanese model, which is basically the Cadillac of Sega 8-bit consoles. It looks like the American console, but it has the FM synthesis module built right into the hardware, as well as a 3.5mm jack on the front so that you can use 3D Glasses without needing the adapter card. And of course it outputs RGB natively. The only downside is that it drops the hidden Snail Maze game from the BIOS... but that's OK, because when you boot the console without a game inserted, you get this cool demo screen instead. If they had included more than just the Space Harrier theme, I think this would have been the first-ever console-based music visualizer?

Anyway... Sega.