April 2025 – Page 3

R36S (Clone) Handheld games console

What the listing stated:

Item is for spares repair only. Powers on but appears to be stuck on game.

Please view photos for details of listing

Any questions please message me

EBay

R36S game console. Boxed. Good condition externally

Here’s the info:

Whether you missed out on the gaming golden age of the 2000s or want to introduce your kids to those unforgettable classics, the R36S Retro Handheld Video Game Console supports 15,000 iconic games, making it your gateway to reliving the magic. It’s the perfect way to take a nostalgic trip back and rediscover the joy of childhood favorites.

Revisit your childhood memories with the R36S. Whether you’re rediscovering the excitement of Super Mario, the thrill of Pokémon, or the challenge of Zelda, the R36S brings your favorite games back to life.

Perfect for those who want to experience the magic of the 80s and 90s games all over again.

Equipped with dual joysticks, L/R bumpers, and a vibrant 3.5″ HD IPS display at 640×480 resolution, the R36S Retro Handheld Video Game Console delivers precise control over gameplay mechanics and stunning visual clarity. Enjoy enhanced color accuracy and fine details for a gaming experience that perfectly blends nostalgia with modern innovation.

r36s.co.uk

I’ve managed to secure this item for an all in price of £16:25GBP and thats including the postage. The seller had a number of these selling, I suspect they are customer returns as they still have screen protection, they are in original boxes with stickers on them, and that makes me suspect they are returns.

I think I may have paid over the odds for this unit.

The fact that as soon as this batch were purchased, another set had taken their place on the selling platform confirms this. On the r36s.co.uk site, these consoles retail at around £65:00GBP, you can get similar items from other Chinese outlets that are considerably cheaper. This is an emulator unit that runs via the Linux operating system, and is supplied ready installed with around 15,000 games already on the unit utilising a number of gaming system platforms. As the operating system is open source, you can also add additional games should you wish to do so. The one I have purchased is stuck on just the one particular game i believe. I think I have some work to do.

I very much suspect the issues with this unit lays solely with the software and are not in anyway hardware related. I could however be very wrong. My knowledge on these systems is very limited so I’m going to be very reliant on information and tutorials that i can find on line.

And i may as well download some operating instructions prior to its arrival, just to be a step ahead and furnished with the most basic knowledge of its operation, maybe then i won’t come across as a totally clueless clown.

Assessment:

It’s arrived and cosmetically it’s fine. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t even do what is stated in the listing. More EBay untruths.

Powers on, charges ok and that’s about it. Box looks nice. Finding it hard to talk of anything else positive. Oh, and it’s not an original it’s a clone machine… cheapo copy. Any way, let’s have a look at getting it to work.

Repair:

So first thing was to download a new OS for the unit, unzip it, and download it to the removable sd card, easier said than done. I think I’ve probably lost all the games that were installed, but without a system to run it all, what’s the point. I can always download games later, I have however backed up a number of files as suggested so let’s just wait and see.

Trying to prepare the new volumes on the drive

The first operating system downloaded did not work, because now I’ve been informed that this machine is one of many clones out there, it’s not original. Lovely. Not a problem, we can still get another operating system, it’s just going to take a bit more of my time to do so, and god knows how long it will take to download the games. This is the biggest pain in the ass with these systems, the sourcing of the programs to ensure the system runs smoothly.

But it will be repaired. And I’m in no rush. I’m off out for a while.

I have had to download an alternative operating system ArKos_K36_v2.0 to my computer. It then has to be run through a disc imager programme to prepare the disc and install the correct partitions and system information, onto the micro SD card used by the unit.

That all done, time to plug the card into the unit and see if it turns on.

Hallelujah! It works.

The operating system successfully installed

Having to format the original card obviously erased all the games that were originally on the card. There were around 15000 games on this unit, but let’s be honest most of them would have been games that were either inferior, similar to others, or just used to bloat the card out. I’m now in a position where I can be choosy about the games I load on the system, and this will allow me to not have it so cluttered.

This is where it gets a little more tricky.

There are a number of people and sites I have spoken with or looked to, to find out the information required to carry out these tasks. And for someone who hasn’t messed about with computer and program files and structures for many a year it is quite daunting to say the least.

I have downloaded a file that is recommended and contains many of the 15000 games originally on the card but with a lot of the bloatware removed to make it a more structurally pleasing and easier to handle package. It’s called the Tiny best set go package and is downloaded from GitHub.

These games are broken down into Rom packages and have to be removed from the download and placed into the easyrom folder on your operating system, it’s a little more complex that that but that is the crux of the task. I won’t go into finite detail as it will bore your asses off and there is plenty of information on how to do it already out there.

I will recommend this one guy as having a superb little site regarding hand held consoles such as this and their issues: Handheld database

Anyway the task has been completed. I’m probably not going to get involved with such time consuming repairs as this again. It’s been a learning curve, but just too time consuming for me. I’ll leave these issues for the younger generation.

Result:

It works. It’s been saved from landfill and there is no better outcome than that. To be honest it’s unbelievable that so many games and so much information can be held on such a small memory card.

In general the game quality is really good, only let down sometimes by the way that the emulator software interprets the program in question. There is more than enough on here to keep anyone occupied during some downtime. There are many classic old school games on here that will also keep the old farts like me amused as well.

Overall it’s been a tough repair, I pretty much knew from the start what the issue would be and went into this repair totally blinkered. I have learned a lot from it, but will I be working on these again? I doubt it unless one of the younger members wants one then I might have another go. But until then it’s job done, another bit of throwaway hardware saved from the scrap heap.

Edit: I couldn’t keep away could i? I found a chap local to me who works on these units, and he has kindly offered to assist me if I should ever need anything clearing up. Well I couldn’t resist that offer and in two emails he has shown me just how to get these games downloaded, it’s simple when you know how.

So simple that rather than download a few games I’ve gone a tad over the top and now have 19939 of them. That should see me right beyond my natural existence and into the afterlife. What a lovely fellow. There are still lots of nice and helpful souls around.

Success.

Thanks for passing by, it’s always appreciated.

It’s true…believe me

What is the most unbelievable-yet-true excuse you have ever had for being late?

It’s not an excuse used by me but keep reading as I was party to probably the strangest excuse ever heard.

I used to work at Kodak in Harrow, nth London. It was a massive production site producing photographic film and paper. I was a team leader on a machine called track four, that produced graphics arts film for industry, a sprawling machine that went through three buildings, went underground and then up through seven stories before being collected about 1500 metres away from where the process started. It was a massive piece of equipment.

Part of my responsibilities was looking after a shift team of around eight men, ensuring the swift and efficient running and maintenance of this machine and to achieve excellent up time results.

Occasionally people were late, it just happens. But one shift this guy was about 2 hrs late and he was called into the office to discuss his lateness. He was a great guy but always had some spectacular excuse to offer.

This evening apparently, his daughter’s hamster had escaped its cage and disappeared under a floorboard. Its escape meant some floorboards had to be lifted to recover the escapee, and whilst doing so the rescuer (namely the chap sitting in the office beside me) had to wedge himself between the floorboards and a central heating radiator. He then got stuck. The central heating then turned on and he then apparently burned his arse.

His wife rescued him before he roasted like a piece of prime silverside and then he was able to make his way to work. The hamster had succeeded in its escape bid and is now living in Brazil for all that I know.

So whilst explaining his misdemeanour to me, he seemed determined to show me evidence that I politely declined, however he was determined and in front of me in my office he dropped his trousers exposing his now rosey red cheek. And as if by magic at that moment another member of staff knocked and entered the office to see me gazing at the full moon that had been exposed to me as evidence. He left very quickly.

But I knew that this incident would now be around the team quicker than a greyhound around a race track.

Later that evening the name “Doctor Dave” was being used around the team. And it stuck for the next four years until the company closed.

Just a moment in time that makes me smile.

Have a lovely day.

Woo hoo! They’re back…

I was expecting them to come, April is the month that they normally come out of hibernation and at 01:08 this morning the garden cameras picked up the movement of one looking for some grub.

Yes the hedgehog..

Our first hedgehog of 2025

This one is quite a sizeable one so I suspect it’s one of last years batch. We normally have the youngsters visit so I suspect they are yet to come, and this is one of elder lads and lasses that know where the food normally is, so they are doing their rounds to check what’s about.

We’ve a lot more cats visiting the garden now so I will have to put out a shelter where only the hogs can access, as the bloody cats will eat the lot.

Good to see them back, we are so fortunate to get them year after year and we are lucky as we are on a busy main road not far from the city. The garden has been developed for them with easy access, so I guess they know where a safe haven can be found.

Now time to get the hog cam up to monitor them.

Just don’t get angry…please

I’ve read a lot lately about anger, and anger management and often ask myself, can it really be addressed? I don’t class myself as having anger issues, I’m more of an impatient person. In my teenage years I really did have anger issues and I put that down to my upbringing, especially my father’s influence upon me. He had vile tempers and when he blew the entire town knew about it, he had one hell of a reputation.

I think I’ve stated before that I have always had this fear of being compared to my father, and as I grow older, people see me now and even comment on how much I look like him. I really dislike this as I don’t want to be compared to, or even be reminded of him. I think I’m losing that battle.

So back to anger management.

I spent 6 hours yesterday working on a single circuit board. It had numerous issues and a raft of problems that needed addressing. 4hrs into it and I was getting a positive signal from it, and things looked promising until, the wiring loom melted. There was an issue that I should have first addressed, a school boy issue, but I jumped ahead of myself and it failed miserably after looking so promising. I’m so annoyed but remained focused.

I had a second spare board. So set to work on this. I’d learnt the issues from the first board so preparation was a lot easier and within an hour I was at the same point as the previous attempt.

And then I tested it. I had a signal, I had an image, I also had movement on the screen but it was very dim. Apparently on this board the backlight circuit decided to fail and that was it for this attempt. Damn it, I was bordering anger at this point and then I took a small break.

I begged myself to not get angry. What would this achieve, think of something good about today, and then it hit me. I’m failing, but I’m learning. Isn’t that a positive?

I have one more board. I’ve prepared it again to the point of failure of both the previous boards and I will get on to this today, this one took me 30 minutes, my speed is up. Then I stopped for the day.

I slept on it last night and have really thought it through, today I am actually quite pleased with myself as I have gone through what I learned yesterday and the knowledge I have gained from this one job is immense. I could still fail on this third attempt but looking on it positively I now have three boards as spares, I have more knowledge than I did yesterday morning and I’m now determined to accomplish what I set out to do in the first place. I’m not a quitter and this challenge remains just that. A challenge.

But the biggest achievement of the day was that I did not get angry. Anger achieves nothing, it alienates you and upsets others who don’t deserve it. Just because you are having difficulties there is no need to let everyone else know “You can’t handle the pressure”.

My first question in this post was, “Can anger be addressed?” Yes it can, but you as an individual have to deal with it, take a step back, and approach a problem from a different perspective.

We have choices, the two things we have total control over are our thoughts and our actions. We just need to be wiser in how we choose to mange these two choices, for your own personal good and for that of others.

I never want to be angry. I don’t want to be like him. Annoyed is acceptable, just don’t let it fester and develop into something a whole lot worse.

Have a peaceful, pleasant day.

Spring is here

Uk. It’s early April and spring is in evidence all around. My favourite time of the year as I have previously discussed. The garden is starting to awaken and is gradually starting to show all its beauty that it has been hiding throughout the winter months.

The birds are vocal and we are very fortunate to have a large community of them around our small garden on the outskirts of the dirty old city. Blackbirds with their beautiful song, the small but lovely sound of the blue tits and robins, and then the raucous 40 cigarette a day sound of the “Chav” of the avian world the Magpie. Not to mention pigeons who’s soul purpose in this world is to sit upon any structure and have a good shit. 💩

It’s nice in a structurally unsound way.

Weather has been behaving itself during the day, it’s been lovely sunshine up to about 16 degrees Celsius only to fall to freezing overnight. The swing in temperatures has been immense for us, as the central heating is not yet dormant.

I’m saying this is spring but as usual it could just as well be summer here in the UK, we could well have had our quota of sun for the year for all I know.

Even the postman is confused. Normally the shorts he wears only come out for summer, and that used to be a good indication of the weather about to turn for us. Now he wears shorts all year round in all weathers so we can no longer use him as an indication of better weather approaching, it’s confused us equally.

It’s that time of year when your brain kicks into “Things you forgot about, but now need to attend to” mode. And for some unknown and unexpected reason I’m now very aware of a maelstrom of things that need my attention. It doesn’t help that the wife’s brain has done the same thing and she has now doubled my workload with the things she now wants me to do.

Did I say this is my favourite time of the year?

Yeah, it is and I love all this activity, it’s as if we humans are doing the same as the humble hedgehog and about to wake up from our hibernation, shake ourselves down and crack on with the summer. (Oh and I am awaiting the arrival of our first hedgehog 🦔 friends, who should be arriving anytime now)

Who wouldn’t love the world awakening.

Have a great day.

Allergies and sacrifice

Allergic reactions have been an affliction that have been part of my entire life, and still are. Fortunately my allergies are not as threatening as many that are present in society, saying that one actually is, but I’ve managed it well so far.

Hay-fever: has been a pain in the ass since childhood, the nice weather comes and my eyes stream and the snot flows (Not a pleasant sight and i apologise for being blunt in my description) I always think i have it under control and then it hits, usually after i have omitted to take the days dosage of medicine, so thats entirely my fault.

Asthma: this is the dangerous one and has to be monitored and treated seriously. Again I’ve had this right from Childhood, fortunately I’ve never had to be hospitalised for it, i have a good regime to treat it and medications are taken without fail and are always on my person should i ever have an emergency.

That’s my allergies and now i will get onto the reason i titled this post so. If someone told you to sacrifice something most dear to you to relieve or eliminate an allergy completely, would you?

Well it appears that after my most recent Asthma review i do have an allergy to pet fur. This both surprises me, and in hind sight, doesn’t really surprise me if you get my drift. We’ve had pet dogs for the last 35 years and only last year our last dog Alfie passed away. We have been pet free apart from the feral feline that resides in our garden now for about 8 months. My review shows that my breathing and management of the condition has improved immensely in this short period and compared to previous reviews this is the best i have been for almost 15 years.

Our dogs were the Bichon frise breed. Anyone who knows the breed will know that they are about as hypo allergenic as you can get in a dog as they just don’t moult. There are never any issues when they jump on the furniture as they don’t leave a trail of dog hair as many other breeds do, its one of the reasons we obtained this breed all those years ago when we did our research on them.

But the latest results from my doctor do make some sense. Alf suffered from a nasty condition called Sebacious Adenitis, basically an immune condition where his own body was trying to kill his skin. He was on drugs that are given to humans to prevent organ rejection and he had to be bathed regularly every two days, and i did this without question or complaint for the last 2 years of his life. I did notice that when i dried and brushed him, for a few hours after i would become very itchy on my hands and very reliant on my Asthma inhalers. The signs were there but I didn’t really make the connection.

My question is then, would you sacrifice something that you love so much and that gives you so much pleasure to relieve the discomfort of an allergy?

There are probably two answers here, and i fully understand both. If the allergy is life threatening then its a no brainer, the animals would have to go, it’s a sad choice but you have to preserve your quality of life.

For the person like me where it’s more of an inconvenience rather than a life threatening situation, i’d happily relive that time all over again.

We’ve decided that we will be having no more pets. This decision was already made by us simply because we believe the three beautiful dogs that have accompanied us through our lives, were in our eyes the best three dogs ever. They cannot be replaced and i would never want to get a pet to attempt to fill that role. However now, even meeting other dogs in our family circle my eyes swell and i get all stuffy, so the issue was always there, but it has taken the passing of a much loved pet to realise the scale of the problem in the first place.

No more pets for us then. It’s hard to say my life has improved since his passing, it seems such a wrong thing to say. But i must admit health wise i have improved greatly.

But I would sacrifice this well being at the drop of a hat for a little discomfort and more time in their presence.

Stay safe.

Nintendo Gameboy Printer

What the listing stated:

Listing for a FAULTY Nintendo Gameboy printer unit.

The printer is FAULTY, it has a lot of battery leakage in the battery compartment, so doesn’t currently power up. Some of the terminals look like they should clean up pretty well, but i cannot guarantee.

As it doesn’t power up, i haven’t been able to test it. So can’t guarantee thats the only issue.

The casing has some discolouration, marks and other imperfections here and there.

I haven’t attempted any repairs and cannot guarantee it is fixable.

SOLD AS FAULTY/spares/repairs.

EBay

Here are the supplied pictures:

Serious yellowing, good candidate for Retrobrighting

Some serious battery leakage contamination

I think I’ve got my work cut out with this one. It’s another piece of unloved technology from 1998 looking for a new life. I’ve paid a total of £19:89GBP including postage for this item, probably at the higher end of what I’m comfortable with for an item in this condition. It has some serious corrosion issues that could go a lot deeper than just the battery contacts. There is a definite issue with discolouration, however I’m happy with that as it will be my guinea pig for my first attempt at retrobrighting, this process i discussed in this post a few days back: Retr0bright – What’s that then?

My plan of attack for this unit is to completely dismantle it, give it a thorough clean, retrobright the casing and then attend to the electrical / component issues.

Here’s some history about the printer unit:

The Game Boy Printer, known as the Pocket Printer in Japan, is a thermal printer accessory released by Nintendo in 1998 which ceased production in early 2003. The Game Boy Printer is compatible with all the Game Boy systems except the Game Boy Micro and is designed to be used in conjunction with the Game Boy Camera. It also prints images from compatible late-generation Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. It runs on six AA batteries and uses a proprietary 38mm wide thermal paper with adhesive backing, originally sold in white, red, yellow and blue colors. In Japan, a bright yellow Pokémon version of the Game Boy Printer was released, featuring a feed button in the style of a Poké Ball.

Wikipedia

If I manage to get this into a working state it will be added to my GameBoy collection.

I just need a suitable lead to connect between the console and the printer, and a small roll of 38mm wide thermal paper. I’m currently sourcing these.