Prev: C128 RGBI to S-Video cable problem?
Next: How do I download Contiki?
From: Leif Bloomquist on 3 Oct 2006 12:02
Well, I missed ECCC because I was in Japan. It was a great trip though, and
I did find some Commodore stuff over there, read on... Still no pictures
yet - sorry! But I thought I'd at least share some of the geeky highlights.

My wife, son, and I just got back from a two-week trip to Japan. We were
travelling with some friends who were there for a few months on vacation
themselves, and they speak Japanese very well so they acted as our tour
guides. It was a pretty packed trip - 5 days in Tokyo, a day in Okayama
(sp?), a day somewhere rural whose name I forget, and then 6 days in Kyoto
with day trips to Osaka and Nara. We saw all the usual sights such as
temples, shrines, and gardens, ate amazing food, bathed in hot springs, and
even paid to be dressed up in formal Kimonos for a photo shoot.

But I'm sure you're all wondering - Did I find any Commodore stuff?? The
quick answer is yes! I found a Commodore MAX machine and a couple of
cartridges for it. ;-)

Before I left, Jeff-20 of Denial emailed me a list of his favorite gaming
stores in Akihabara, Tokyo's famous electric city. Akihabara is a very large
area, spanning several city blocks, with nothing but electronics, gaming,
and Anime shops. There's a set of market-stalls selling electronic
components for as far as the eye can see. You can also get appliances like
fridges and washing machines in the area.

One thing I found strange was the computer parts. Parts were easily two or
three times what they cost in Canada, and they seemed to be a year or two
behind what you can get here in terms of capabilities. i.e. I have a 1GB USB
flash drive on my keychain that's the size of my thumbnail. I bought it in
Toronto for $25, but in Akihabara (and elsewhere in Japan) I mostly found
big, clunky 256MB or 512MB USB drives that cost over $100 after conversion.

There are several stores in Akihabara totally devoted to retro-gaming, the
largest and most impressive being Super Potato, www.superpotato.com .

SP and other stores like it (Media Land, Liberty) mostly cater to "Famicom"
cartridges and systems. This is probably because Nintendo recently released
their "Famulator", a modern redesign of the original Famicom Family
Computer. The Famulator accepts the original system's cartridges and
joysticks (putting it one up on the 64DTV), so the cartridges seem to be in
demand. Each store had hundreds or thousands of Famicon carts for sale. You
can also get Famicom keyboards, disk drives, and even a toy robot to control
from the game console. Very cool.

You could also get games for PS2, GameBoy, and a few lesser-known systems
like the MSX and Virtual Boy, or even a Vectrex (for 79,800 yen, or $750 US)

In addition to Akihabara, Osaka has its own version called Den-Den Town with
a similar selection of stores, but less focus on Anime.

Super Potato's Tokyo location, which I visited first, had a shelf of "very"
retro games including Intellivision and several cartridges for the Commodore
MAX. I picked up a boxed Wizard of Wor and a loose Mini BASIC I. They also
had a boxed Kickman and a dozen or so loose C64/MAX cartridges, all pretty
common like Omega Race.

Whereas in Osaka, Super Potato actually had a Commodore MAX for sale! While
I really had my heart set on a VIC-1001 since I'm primarily a VIC-20
collector, this was still a decent prize. The box had an 1/8 inch of dust on
top, it had been sitting there for a while.

My friend and I also did a blitz of every "retro TV-game" store in Akihabara
and asked about the VIC-1001. Not many people had heard about it. One person
did recognize it and actually laughed at us and said we would never find
anything like it in Akihabara (not true, I had already found the MAX games).
(lol)

The other gaming-related thing I saw was a Playstation 3 prototype at the
Sony building, but it wasn't running - could have been an empty case for all
we knew.

Regards,
Leif

--
Leif Bloomquist
leif(at)schemafactor(dot)com
http://home.ica.net/~leifb/

"Once secure, saturate the area with plasma mortars and spicy barbecue
sauce."


From: Cameron Kaiser on 3 Oct 2006 16:08
"Leif Bloomquist" <spam(a)127.0.0.600> writes:

>My friend and I also did a blitz of every "retro TV-game" store in Akihabara
>and asked about the VIC-1001. Not many people had heard about it. One person
>did recognize it and actually laughed at us and said we would never find
>anything like it in Akihabara (not true, I had already found the MAX games).

And my MAX actually *did* come from Akihabara, so that's a lie; they do
show up there from time to time. A VIC-1001 would be a real prize though.

--
Cameron Kaiser * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com * posting with a Commodore 128
personal page: http://www.armory.com/%7Espectre/
** Computer Workshops: games, productivity software and more for C64/128! **
** http://www.armory.com/%7Espectre/cwi/ **
From: Bruce Thomas on 3 Oct 2006 23:33

"Leif Bloomquist" wrote ...

> My wife, son, and I just got back from a two-week trip to Japan. We were

Hi Leif,

It's a great country isn't it? My eldest is over there teaching English for
2 years. The rest of us went for 12 days last Christmas/New Year's time.
Excellent all around. Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and then up north to the
little town my daughter lives/works in. Grea people, all friendly and
helpful. And so many with near perfect english. The desk clerk at the hotel
we stayed at in Tokyo had lived in Calgary (and us from Edmonton) for 15
years!

> stores in Akihabara, Tokyo's famous electric city. Akihabara is a very
large
> area, spanning several city blocks, with nothing but electronics, gaming,

We stayed only a few blocks from Akihabara and spent a fair amount of time
wandering around there as you might imagine a family with 3 kids from 17 -
24 would do (one a computer engineer, one a comp sci student and the third
the biggest video game nut of the bunch - and that is saying something).

>
> One thing I found strange was the computer parts. Parts were easily two or
> three times what they cost in Canada, and they seemed to be a year or two

I noticed the same thing and was quite surprised by it.

>
> There are several stores in Akihabara totally devoted to retro-gaming, the
> largest and most impressive being Super Potato, www.superpotato.com .

Angela just got introduced to Super Potato a couple weeks ago by a friend
who has lived in Japan for 10 years now and showed her palces we had missed
in our wanderings. She was thrilled with the items that were available and
happy to find that some of the stores DIDN'T take credit cards as she would
have spent far too much money!! :)

>
> In addition to Akihabara, Osaka has its own version called Den-Den Town
with
> a similar selection of stores, but less focus on Anime.

Good to know. My wife and I are planning a return trip next April.

Glad to hear your family had a great trip.

Bruce


From: Jukka Aho on 4 Oct 2006 00:47
Leif Bloomquist wrote:

> You could also get games for PS2, GameBoy, and a few lesser-known
> systems like the MSX and Virtual Boy, or even a Vectrex (for 79,800
> yen, or $750 US)

Hmm? This raised an eyebrow for me. MSX might not have done too well
over your side of the pond, but at least here in Finland, the various
MSX machines were all the rage - perhaps the main contenders of the C64
and the C128. Among my friends and acquaintances, there was a 40-60
split between the MSX (in its various forms) and the C64.

--
znark

From: Joseph Fenn on 4 Oct 2006 00:56


On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, Bruce Thomas wrote:

>
> "Leif Bloomquist" wrote ...
>
>> My wife, son, and I just got back from a two-week trip to Japan. We were
>
> Hi Leif,
>
> It's a great country isn't it? My eldest is over there teaching English for
> 2 years. The rest of us went for 12 days last Christmas/New Year's time.
> Excellent all around. Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima and then up north to the
> little town my daughter lives/works in. Grea people, all friendly and
> helpful. And so many with near perfect english. The desk clerk at the hotel
> we stayed at in Tokyo had lived in Calgary (and us from Edmonton) for 15
> years!
>
>> stores in Akihabara, Tokyo's famous electric city. Akihabara is a very
> large
>> area, spanning several city blocks, with nothing but electronics, gaming,
>
> We stayed only a few blocks from Akihabara and spent a fair amount of time
> wandering around there as you might imagine a family with 3 kids from 17 -
> 24 would do (one a computer engineer, one a comp sci student and the third
> the biggest video game nut of the bunch - and that is saying something).
>
>>
>> One thing I found strange was the computer parts. Parts were easily two or
>> three times what they cost in Canada, and they seemed to be a year or two
>
> I noticed the same thing and was quite surprised by it.
>
>>
>> There are several stores in Akihabara totally devoted to retro-gaming, the
>> largest and most impressive being Super Potato, www.superpotato.com .
>
> Angela just got introduced to Super Potato a couple weeks ago by a friend
> who has lived in Japan for 10 years now and showed her palces we had missed
> in our wanderings. She was thrilled with the items that were available and
> happy to find that some of the stores DIDN'T take credit cards as she would
> have spent far too much money!! :)
>
>>
>> In addition to Akihabara, Osaka has its own version called Den-Den Town
> with
>> a similar selection of stores, but less focus on Anime.
>
> Good to know. My wife and I are planning a return trip next April.
>
> Glad to hear your family had a great trip.
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
Last time I saw Akihabara was in 1950, and Den Den (did'nt
carry that moniker at that time) but I was also there about 1952 and found
Den Den to be a much better scene for electronics in general
and it was in hi rise bldgs not like an open market place
at akihabara. It also had more recent electronics available
especially in the solid State stuff. Also its astounding what
they were doing. Buy up old RME's Nationals, Super Pros etc
from our military before they threw them away. The Osaka gang
stripped them down to the raw chassis and rebuilt them and
painted them in their original color. They looked brand spankin
new and worked like new stuff.
Joe/KH6JF

 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Prev: C128 RGBI to S-Video cable problem?
Next: How do I download Contiki?