Well after 21 years of ummmming and ahhhhhing, I finally bought my dream console... the Neo Geo AES!
What a beaut eh? I actually bought it locally so the shipping wasn't astronomically high (which has always put me off buying one of these).
It came with AV cable, 220V (non original) PSU, an original joystick, a brand new NGCD stick and 2 games; The Super Spy and Samurai Spirits (Samurai Shodown in US and Europe).
Wanna see inside? HELL YEAH!!!! : -
ITS A REV 1 JAP 60Hz MODEL! the oldest and the best for outputting RGB (newer models are notorious for having total ass RGB and need various bypass mods to make the signal clean again). I was very lucky here as the guy I bought it from had no clue what rev it was, I hoped it would be a Rev 1 or 2. The only gripe of this early board is the sound output is only Mono from the Plug at the back. However, Stereo is present on the board next to the headphone volume slider, one has to just run some cables, drill a few holes and pop a coupla phono sockets on the old girl and BINGO! Of course, I plan to do this
Above you can see the CPU, its got lots in common with our beloved Miggy, its a 68HC000 running at 12 MHz. I plan to switch mod and overclock this beaut to 16MHz, this will help the more taxing games to run with less to no slowdown Some games don't like this so I will have a toggle switch somewhere to pull her back down to 12MHz.
This is the BIOS chip, this will be coming out and i'll place in a 40 pin DIL socket. Then I will put in a Universe BIOS V3.0! this enables many enhancements over the original BIOS such as switching the AES games in to MVS mode and MVS games (through an adapter) to Console mode (basically manipulating the credits). It will also enable lots of other tweaks through a BIOS menu. Take a look-see....
http://unibios.free.fr/
The big ass cart port! what a beaut!
And below, The early model has a Video out enhancement daughter board attached above the Memory card slot. : -
Here's the Samurai Spirits Cart, what a monster! :-
Brand spanking new Neo Geo CD Joystick, it works fine with the AES and I actually like it better than the original stick! :-
The original stick, its seen better days, but proves this unit has had many a happy day of playtime! :-
Typical scene of these old sticks, crack marks on the ball. Its looks worse than it is, its not gonna break
: -
So what do I plan to do with this old girl (apart from play some shiat hot games)?
- Do a true stereo mod and output to phono's
- Tap the RGB points on the board and bang in a V4.1 JROK RGB to component and Svideo encoder - http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGBv4/
- Overclock to 16 MHz.
- Pop in a UNI BIOS V3.0
- Make a Power LED in Reset button Mod. The Neo doesn't have a power light at all, so i'll make a mod that lights up the reset button when power is on (see mods at www.jamma-nation-x.com)
- Buy an MVS to AES converter: - http://www.arcadeshock.com/items/ac...ertor-ii-mvs-aes-blue-led-snmc-acc-detail.htm
- Buy another NGCD stick (or an original one if I find one in good nick)
- Buy a mem card or 2.
- probably only ever be able to buy 1 AES game per year as they are insanely priced. hence the MVS adapter (although that alone is stupid money too). I would like to buy ASO II next, and luckily that goes for £not-too-crazy.... and its one of my all time fave shmups
Overall, as far as 2D consoles go, this ranks as one of the best, if not the best console out there. For me, just because i've lusted after it for so long i'm like a kid all over again. I've been sat writing this up and taking pauses now and then just to gaze at its awesomeness.
Stay tuned for all the hacks and mods i'll be performing on this beast over the coming months!
Thanks for looking!
What a beaut eh? I actually bought it locally so the shipping wasn't astronomically high (which has always put me off buying one of these).
It came with AV cable, 220V (non original) PSU, an original joystick, a brand new NGCD stick and 2 games; The Super Spy and Samurai Spirits (Samurai Shodown in US and Europe).
Wanna see inside? HELL YEAH!!!! : -
ITS A REV 1 JAP 60Hz MODEL! the oldest and the best for outputting RGB (newer models are notorious for having total ass RGB and need various bypass mods to make the signal clean again). I was very lucky here as the guy I bought it from had no clue what rev it was, I hoped it would be a Rev 1 or 2. The only gripe of this early board is the sound output is only Mono from the Plug at the back. However, Stereo is present on the board next to the headphone volume slider, one has to just run some cables, drill a few holes and pop a coupla phono sockets on the old girl and BINGO! Of course, I plan to do this
Above you can see the CPU, its got lots in common with our beloved Miggy, its a 68HC000 running at 12 MHz. I plan to switch mod and overclock this beaut to 16MHz, this will help the more taxing games to run with less to no slowdown
Some games don't like this so I will have a toggle switch somewhere to pull her back down to 12MHz.
This is the BIOS chip, this will be coming out and i'll place in a 40 pin DIL socket. Then I will put in a Universe BIOS V3.0! this enables many enhancements over the original BIOS such as switching the AES games in to MVS mode and MVS games (through an adapter) to Console mode (basically manipulating the credits). It will also enable lots of other tweaks through a BIOS menu. Take a look-see....
http://unibios.free.fr/
The big ass cart port! what a beaut!
And below, The early model has a Video out enhancement daughter board attached above the Memory card slot. : -
Here's the Samurai Spirits Cart, what a monster! :-
Brand spanking new Neo Geo CD Joystick, it works fine with the AES and I actually like it better than the original stick! :-
The original stick, its seen better days, but proves this unit has had many a happy day of playtime! :-
Typical scene of these old sticks, crack marks on the ball. Its looks worse than it is, its not gonna break
: -
So what do I plan to do with this old girl (apart from play some shiat hot games)?
- Do a true stereo mod and output to phono's
- Tap the RGB points on the board and bang in a V4.1 JROK RGB to component and Svideo encoder - http://www.jrok.com/hardware/RGBv4/
- Overclock to 16 MHz.
- Pop in a UNI BIOS V3.0
- Make a Power LED in Reset button Mod. The Neo doesn't have a power light at all, so i'll make a mod that lights up the reset button when power is on (see mods at www.jamma-nation-x.com)
- Buy an MVS to AES converter: - http://www.arcadeshock.com/items/ac...ertor-ii-mvs-aes-blue-led-snmc-acc-detail.htm
- Buy another NGCD stick (or an original one if I find one in good nick)
- Buy a mem card or 2.
- probably only ever be able to buy 1 AES game per year as they are insanely priced. hence the MVS adapter (although that alone is stupid money too). I would like to buy ASO II next, and luckily that goes for £not-too-crazy.... and its one of my all time fave shmups
Overall, as far as 2D consoles go, this ranks as one of the best, if not the best console out there. For me, just because i've lusted after it for so long i'm like a kid all over again. I've been sat writing this up and taking pauses now and then just to gaze at its awesomeness.
Stay tuned for all the hacks and mods i'll be performing on this beast over the coming months!
Thanks for looking!
