How to retro: Playing backup CDs on old systems

Next to floppy disks, CDs are the worst medium for storing games when you're a retro gamer. CDs are susceptible to disc rot, they easily become scratched, and are generally a pain in the behind to get to work on older systems after some years. Because of that, it is of paramount importance that you back up your CD and DVD based retro games! I dump all of mine to disc images that I store on my computer (with a remote backup elsewhere, of course. Who's paranoid?). But having a backup is one thing - you need to be able to actually use that backup as well. For some of the older systems, like the ones I normally play around with, this is not a problem because they don't have any copy protection. You simply burn the images back onto a disc, pop it in, and voila you're playing your favourite game in no time.

It doesn't always work though... For example, when burning images for my SegaCD they would only very rarely work at all. The console would try and try to read the discs, but often it would simply give up - sometimes in the beginning while loading the game, and sometimes in the middle of the game whilst trying to load new content. I tried several different types of CDs, but to no avail, so I began thinking that my SegaCD had a broken laser or something. That wasn't the case though, the CDs were simply being written at too high speed in my modern PC. I tried fiddling with settings in a myriad of burning software, but soon found that modern CD/DVD writers are incapable of writing slowly, they often have a minimum speed of 8x or 12x. I therefore went on the hunt for an old CD burner and found an excellent Plextor IDE drive capable of writing in 1x speed! The only problem was that being an old drive it only connected to an IDE bus, which is nowhere to be found on modern PCs... Sigh, nothing seemed to be working out for me. But then I got the fantastic idea (simple yes, but fantastic nonetheless) that I would try to rip the controller out of an old USB drive. Most of us probably have one or two old USB harddrives laying around that we don't use anymore, and within those are an IDE-to-USB controller that fits perfectly on that old CD burner drive. So using a screwdriver and some brute force I disassembled the USB harddrive, pulled out the controller card, and attached it to my Plextor drive. I plugged it in to my Windows 7 PC and it was immediately recognized as a CD burner, and now I can finally burn CDs at 1x speed. AND THEY WORK PERFECTLY ON MY SEGA CD AND AMIGA CD32! Sorry, I just got really excited there.

I hope this little post has inspired some of you guys to try this. Playing backups are becoming more and more important, if we want to be able to enjoy our CD based retro games in the future, so remember this:

1. always have backups of your beloved games, and 
2. a backup is worth nothing if you can't play it ;-)

Until next time, stay retro!

How to retro: Controlling your Amiga CD32

In this new series of posts, we here at the retro gaming club would like to bring your our best practical tips and tricks when it comes to retro gaming. In the very first post I will tell you about how I do my gaming on my Amiga CD32.

The Amiga CD32 is a wonderful little console, but it has one massive flaw: its godawful controller. The CD32 controller is notoriously known for its lousy D-pad. Even a brand new controller is bad to control anything with, but to make matters worse on most older controllers the D-pad is loose in a way so that the disc spins around while you're trying to use it, making it even worse for controlling the games.

Picture by Evan Amos

Some people swear to the Honey Bee Competition Pro control pad for the CD32, but those are hard to find and therefore quite expensive. Before I begain my CD32 review project I therefore had a look around, to see if I could find a reasonably priced controller for my CD32 that I would enjoy using. I've always liked the PlayStation 2 controller, so when I found a guy on Ebay who had created a PS2-to-db9 adapter I was overjoyed. I immediately bought one and I was not disappointed: it works like a charm!

Not only does it support the Amiga CD32, it also has modes for my C64, Amiga (one or two buttons), and it does mouse emulation. When using it for my CD32 I simply use the CD32 mode, but when using it for my C64 and my Amigas I often use some of the more advanced features. The most powerful feature is the key clone feature. Using it you can re-map the buttons on the controller, and I can't even begin to tell you just how much better a lot of the old C64 and Amiga platformers feel when you re-map "up" to another button, so that you can control using the D-pad, jump using one button, and fire using another button - just like God intended it! I love my C64 and my Amigas but why oh why did they not include more than one button on their controllers! Well, that problem has finally been solved through the wonders of modern technology :-)

If you want to take a closer look at what this adapter can do, you can check out the manual here. If you are interested in buying an adapter you can use this listing for the next couple of weeks, but if you are reading this at a later point in time, you can probably find it under the Ebay user who is selling them.

I would recommend that anyone with a C64, an Amiga, or a CD32 go buy this PS2-to-db9 adapter immediately. It comes highly recommended freom me at least ;-)

That's all for now folks. Until next time... stay retro!