How do you plan for the long long long term?

[Bill Loguidice]

I can solder well enough (I took a class at a computer show several years back and have practiced several times since then on various kits, which are fun to build) and follow well-written directions, but I have a terrible gap in basic electronics knowledge that I'd need to bridge before I'd feel confident in doing anything more than basic repairs, or anything outside of said well-written directions. It's one of the many things on my to-do list. Unfortunately, soldering is probably the easiest part of the whole process.

 

About the only actual repairs I've performed on my vintage hardware (computer or console) is to replace socketed chips or do other swaps between a working and non-working system. I never actually bothered to desolder any chips, which is obviously a bit more of an involved, messy process, and requires it's own set of skills.

[derFunkenstein]

If my consoles die, I'm out of luck, I guess. I have zero soldering skills and not a big desire to learn. My fine-motor skills are good enough for typing or playing games, but soldering fine points is just a no go. And I get frustrated easily enough that stuff will get tossed around the garage. LOL

 

As long as I can source a working replacement at a price I'm willing to pay, it's no problem. When the day comes that I can no longer do that, I guess it's time for emulation.

[CaptainBreakout]

I assumed that marrying a bisexual woman would get me more than all the pussy I would ever desire. Unfortunately, my assumption was correct. I don't try to talk her into getting rid of them because I'm scared I'll come home to a house full of beavers.

I don't use this acronym very often, but seriously... ROTFL

 

I don't think I have anything to add except thanks for dropping some realizism on that little marriage gambit most of us have pondered.

 

Anyway, back on topic then I suppose. Although it serves as a fable and worth pointing out, for the long long term, keep the wife happy, least everything unravel.

[Keatah]

More and more, recently, the wife and I take our leisure time together. Sometimes our hobbies cross, sometimes they do not. It's not a formal thing or anything. As long as I don't bring shit from craigslist into the house it's a good thing.

[eegad]

By having multiple units. The things I am most nostalgic about and care the most about being able to play for the next 20-30 years (I'm 50 by the way) are the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers. I have 3 Atari 2600's (2 heavy 6ers and 1 light)...as of christmas-time, they all still work just fine. I have 3 Atari 800xl's and 1 800. As of a month or two ago, they all work fine. I also have 4 working 1050 drives, and multiple cables, transformers, and joysticks (and 2 sets of paddles, but both are somewhat jittery). I think I'm pretty well covered on Atari stuff.

 

I also have some nostalgia for my Game Gear and Colecovision. The Colecovision still worked fine as of 2-3 years ago, but if it died I wouldn't be all that heart-broken. My Game Gear was suffering from the bad caps problem when I dug it out recently; thankfully a kind soul here on the forums did a great job of fixing it up for me. If it died outright, I'd probably hit ebay for another refurbished unit.

 

Beyond that, there's always emulation, which is what I use to play old Genesis and Intellivision games on occasion, since I don't have actual consoles of those anymore.

[Jagosaurus]

 

To be fair, a lot of this is self-selecting. I'm sure over the decades tons of the non-working units were either trashed or fixed, leaving us with fewer potential problem units in the wild. As with anything, though, it's still all something of a ticking time bomb, be it something going wonky with a power supply, a capacitor blowing, etc.

 

This is actually a fair point. Much of what is broken does either gets trashed or fixed. Leaving mostly working units for sale. Also, if you're buying off ebay most sellers are testing the units.

 

I did buy an oXbox off ebay with a broken fan so it would only run for about 15 minutes before overheating and shutting off. Luckily I was planning on modding it anyway so I tore out the RF shielding and installed a larger fan for cooling (in addition to softmod & HDD upgrade). I seriously have over 100 hours on the console in about 18 months so it was worth the few hours of effort. I see why folks are into hardware repair of these old units. Felt good to "save it."

 

Proper storage is also key to the longevity of these consoles. My childhood NES is a mess because my dad stored it in a hot Texas attic versus an indoor closet or climate control storage.