🌊

perhaps a retrogame hangout can help counteract Sunday's--aka The Worst Day's--unfailingly depressing, anxious vibes. seemed plausible in theory. took the little Ikegami 10" and MiSTer over to a friend's house to putz with while they showed off the wonders of NiGHTs to our mutual.

game on right is Techno Soleil's doujin-ass 1998 PSX action game The Rapid Angel. also played through that dev's 1996 hori shmup Gaia Seed and it's pretty cool. basic and playable. (side note to goblin pal: i tried Tall: Twins Tower--ppl who aren't goblin pal: highly rec you read Lizstar's great write-up--and it broke my brain. i may not be smart enough for this!)

the (real) Saturn was hooked up via composite but looked very clean on whatever that TV my friend has is. fairly sharp and very little dot crawl. near the end we fed it into the Ikegami for SFZ3 and it was even better (it's a higher-end tube, and probably has a better comb filter).

aside from my concern that the tube is a bit tired (picture level is maxed) this cute little thing is fantastic. all CRTs should have carry handles, and no weeks should have Sundays. or if Sunday's going to stick around we need to get rid of this cursed, mandatory five-day-a-week+ work grind. it's getting old, isn't it?

A smol new friend has arrived.

There is something absolutely lovely about an old NES game on a perfectly imperfect 10" CRT.

These have really nice tubes. I'm worried this specimen is a bit dim from its long two decades of use in a TV station (the picture dial is maxed). Should be a great deskside companion though. :)