The New ModRetro Chromatic & Accessories

Last year the company known as ModRetro released an FPGA-based Game Boy and Game Boy Color handheld console. Those consoles were advertised as limited editions and sold out on the ModRetro website. I bought and reviewed one and had an overall favorable opinion of the device. Now eight months have passed and ModRetro is releasing not only a new batch of consoles but also accessories for all Chromatic consoles. I ordered a new console and the new accessories to put them to the test. What has changed? Are there improvements?

The New Chromatic

Let me start with what has not changed. When you order a console the items you get in the box will be the same: the console, 3xAA ModRetro-branded batteries and the Tetris cartridge (which I reviewed separately). That is about it in terms of what is unchanged. Even the box for the new units is slightly redesigned. The old box showed off games that were available for sale on the ModRetro site, but the new box shows screens for a game called "Mega - The Viper Wars" that either does not exist or has not been released.

When the console was originally released last year its price was $199.00 regardless of color or markings. Six standard color variations were offered on the site and with either English or Japanese markings. There was a GameStop variant for sale on GameStop's site and a "Logan Paul" edition sold on the ModRetro site. Both variants were priced at $199.00 but only had an English marking option. All these consoles have a "1st EDITION" marking on them.

The new edition of the Chromatic console is offered for a base price of $199.99 and in all the standard colors (Midnight, Wave, Leaf, Inferno, Volt, Bubblegum) plus a new Cloud color (very SNES-like color scheme). Only English console label markings are available for this edition. These are only available from the ModRetro site. These new Chromatics no longer have a "1st EDITION" marking and only have two color stripes on the bottom left-hand corner of the console instead of three. The middle stripe is gone and the end stripes no longer straddle the edge of the console. This should reduce wear as these colors are printed over the magnesium alloy shell.

The new edition of the Chromatic comes with a Gorilla Glass screen in the base model. An upgrade to a Sapphire Glass screen is available for an extra $100.00. All 1st Edition Chromatics, including the GameStop exclusive, came with Sapphire Glass screens. The Sapphire Glass screens have a small "SAPPHIRE" marking below the bottom of the active display. The GameStop variant is still available for purchase at the original $199.00 price, so if you want a Sapphire Glass screen and do not want to pay the premium, you can still buy that variant at the time of writing.

The main advertised difference between the Gorilla Glass and Sapphire Glass screens is the hardness of the screen. Gorilla Glass comes between 6-8 on the Mohs scale, Sapphire Glass between 7-8. The Mohs scale measures scratch resistance but Gorilla Glass is officially rated with a Vickers Pyramid number, which measures the impact on the screen. Most generations of Gorilla Glass measure between 550-650HV. In short, Sapphire Glass is harder and heavier than Gorilla Glass and offers superior scratch resistance but Gorilla Glass is cheaper and is less prone to shattering on impact.

Comparing both displays, both are equal to my eye in terms of clarity. Gorilla offers slightly superior brightness than Sapphire at the same brightness levels but there is more backlight bleed from Gorilla. Gorilla is less reflective, which may be important if you are in a setting with a lot of ambient or bright light. If in sunlight, find some shade and you should have a nearly equivalent experience with either screen.

The internals bear a comment or two, but there are some improvements. There is one less screw needed to unscrew in order to get the mainboard out of the case. The D-pad trace near the pivot has been moved enough that the pivot cannot wear against it and break the trace. My new Chromatic's mainboard has a microSD card slot soldered onto the board whereas the old Chromatic's only had pads.

There are other minor changes from the old consoles to the new ones. The black RF shield in the back is thicker. The gaps between the power switch and IR window and the shell are tighter. You are also less likely to get a scuffed IR window due to a softer liner used in the new Chromatic's box. The battery cover no longer has the rubber pads on the sides to help hold in the batteries. The metal tabs on the battery cover are in different places and thicker. The bottom of the new enclosure has a plastic piece screwed in to help latch the battery cover. There is a slight ridge or lip behind the volume wheel on the new Chromatic's bottom shell. 

The speaker on the new Chromatic can reach a significantly higher volume than the old Chromatic. However, there is still a lot of noise when both the audio jack and the USB port is connected to the same PC. This makes streaming video and audio less than ideal because the console cannot transmit audio over USB. 

There are slight improvements to the build quality. There is no roughness around the power LED. There were no scuffs on the plastic bits like the IR window or the Tetris cartridge that came with my console. The EverDrive GB X7 worked fine with the new Chromatic.

Accessories

In addition to the new consoles, ModRetro is offering three new accessories, all in their own boxes or packaging with the same colorful, cutesy style as the console's box.

The long-awaited "Rechargeable Power Core" (the battery pack announced alongside the original Chromatic) is finally available for $29.99. The battery pack was mentioned with the initial announcements of the Chromatic but has been MIA until now. This pack fits into the battery compartment of any Chromatic, no tools required, and can be charged by the USB Type-C connector. There are contacts in the battery cavity to make contact with the battery pack and the battery can be easily removed for instances when the console will not see use. This limits unnecessary drain from the battery pack.

The Chromatic can use standard Alkaline, Lithium or rechargeable AA batteries (three required) but cannot charge the latter. ModRetro claims 16 hours of gameplay on a full charge and recharging takes 2-5 hours. These numbers are dependent on the game being played and the power source connected to the Chromatic, respectively. The battery has a 2250mAh capacity and adds about 1.5 oz to the weight (no more than AA batteries) of the Chromatic. It comes with a braided USB Type-C to USB Type-C charging cable, 3.25 feet long.

The second new accessory is a link cable, sold for $14.99. I believe ModRetro made their own so they would not have to listen to customer complaining of flaky vintage cables or poor quality modern cables or have to recommend Analogue's link cable. The Analogue link cable is high quality but it is a competitor's product. Unlike the Analogue link cable the Chromatic link cable does not have a switch for GBA compatibility. GBA link cables are wired differently from GB/GBC cables and require a switch to support GBA and GB/GBC consoles. The Chromatic Link cable is advertised at 6.5 feet, which is slightly longer than Analogue's 4.75 feet. It is also a braided cable as opposed to the plastic sheathed cables from everyone else. Analogue's cable also supports GBA multiplayer and the original Nintendo GBA link cables were shorter than the 8-bit link cables.

The ModRetro site says that its link cable is not compatible with the original Game Boy but that is not the whole story. The Game Boy DMG connector is only physically different from the link cable connector on the later 8-bit Game Boys. The same cables are used for the Game Boy Pocket, Super Game Boy 2 and Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Player and Analogue Pocket are compatible with these cables when playing Game Boy or Game Boy Color games. Nintendo made an adapter, DMG-14, that can convert the smaller GBP/GBC plug into the larger DMG plug. I was able to play a multiplayer game of F-1 Race between the Chromatic, the ModRetro link cable and a DMG-14 in an original Game Boy. I had no trouble using the ModRetro link cable, even with the Game Boy Printer. The link cables are compatible with non-Chromatics.

The final new accessory is the Mod Kit, also $14.99. This includes 9 pairs of A & B buttons, 2 D-Pads, 2 D-Pad Membranes, 4 button membranes, a Start and a Select button, an IR Window, a Power Switch and a Menu button. There is also included some stickers, a double ended bit driver with a 3.8mm security screw bit and a tri-wing bit and an end cap for the bit driver. These parts can be used to customize the look and feel of the cartridge or to fix broken parts. One set of membranes have a softer action press than the other. One of the D-Pads has a short pivot post and the other has a longer pivot post. Once you start breaking open the cardboard covering the back of the blister pack, you will need to find a new way to store these parts.

Button colors are subjective but the big improvement here is the longer D-Pad stem. This eliminated the issue of being able to press opposite directions, which can break some games. The black membranes are supposed to be softer than the gray ones, but I have not noticed much of a difference in the short time I have used them. The included screwdriver is magnetized.

The Koss Porta Pro headphones are still available but only in the standard six color variations. Speaking of Chromatic, there is no red or violet/purple console available or green, blue or yellow buttons in the ModKit. (A red Chromatic was shown during the Classic Tetris World Championship event last year.) I think ModRetro might come up a little short in its spectrum-encompassing branding.

The Chromatic's box states "Designed in California, Assembled in Mexico." The packaging for the Chromatic accessories says "Designed in California, Made in China." It is likely that the "assembly" on the console's box means the assembly line functions of putting the console together (placing the buttons and membranes, screwing in the PCB and shell) and putting it in its box, not soldering electronic components to the PCB. It is more likely that board soldering is done in China but Mexico is not impossible.

Firmware Update v3.2

The new Chromatic and the Battery Pack tell you to update your firmware and give you stickers with QR codes to do this. There last firmware for the Chromatic was released on May 21 (v3.2), so you do not need to rush out to update your old Chromatic if you have updated it since then. My new Chromatic was on the latest firmware out of the box but that may not always be the case going forward. Make sure to update your Tetris cartridge, just in case. ModRetro keeps a changelog documenting updates for any games it sells.

The v3.2 firmware update brought many fixes to the platform but the webcam-identified video based output now no longer uses the RGB color space but the YUV color space with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. This results in blurrier color but makes the "webcam" compatible with macOS and Discord, as a ModRetro representative explained. Black and white and grayscale are unaffected and still perfectly sharp. The captures I made of the system with launch day firmware are as sharp as a tack. ModRetro is looking at workarounds to the problem but the firmware upgrade tool does not allow for downgrading firmware. See the link above for details on how to downgrade the firmware (it is not easy).

There is a change to the Chromatic's custom color palettes for monochrome games. The Right + A + B palette is unchanged from prior firmware but the Left + A + B now evokes a Game Boy Light. Another newer option in the menu allows for smooth transitions. This is useful in a game like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening where there is a lot of flicker when Link goes in and out of houses, caves and labyrinths. 

 Conclusion

The new Chromatic offers some quality of life improvements over the old Chromatic. The screens are not so different that you may feel left with second best if you do not fork over the extra $100 for the Sapphire screen. The accessories improve on the console experience. At this point the console's only major flaw is one of its main advertising points, the USB video capture. At present the capture is fuzzier than it needs to be on the horizontal axis and audio quality is bad if it is connected to a line input to the same PC that is capturing video. Connecting just the line in to the PC without the USB connection allows for high quality audio capture, for what it is worth. This can be fixed in software by permitting USB video and audio capture together as a proper capture device, but this has to be implemented by Gowin, the maker of the FPGA, in its development kit. If this is done the Chromatic would be far better for streaming and capturing GB and GBC gameplay than it currently is.

I bought my new Chromatic and one of each of the accessories on July 10 and received my console on July 31. As a prior Chromatic owner I received a 15% off coupon, before it my order was $259.96, after application it was $230.95 (including $9.99 shipping).

In terms of FPGA handheld placement, the new Chromatic is still well-behind the Analogue Pocket in terms of features and value for money. If I did not have a Pocket I would much rather use the Chromatic over the FunnyPlaying FPGBC. The Chromatic's screen is incredible, bright, sharp, 1:1 pixel resolution (no scaling) and no lag. The simulation quality is excellent and the cartridge slot is deep enough to keep your original cartridges firmly in place. If you want a modern way to play your Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges on the go, the Chromatic is the best option after the Analogue Pocket in my opinion.

The Famicom Top 100 List, Brought to you by Famitsu

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The 1977 Trinity - Which Computer is the Best Buy?

The 1977 Trinity, Courtesy of Wikipedia, Image by Timothy Colegrove

Consider that you have been transported back in time to the heady and hot summer of 1977. You are wanting one of these new "personal computers" that you see advertised in Popular Mechanics and Byte Magazine. Maybe you've seen an ad from Radio Shack. Perhaps you saw a flyer from that pocket calculator company called Commodore. Or you are a hobbyist frustrated with time sharing on the local college's PDP-10 and want a microcomputer of your very own. After you've seen Star Wars for the third time, you want to be part of the computer age. You have three choices, which will you chose? Let's break down the Apple II, Tandy Radio Shack TSR-80 and the Commodore PET 2001 and see how they might factor into a buyer's decision.

Is the Original Tandy Color Computer Worth your Gaming Time?

Courtesy of Wikipedia

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Holmes Dice, courtesy of eBay

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Early TMNT Comic Book Printing and Reprinting Features

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Wireless Controller Duel - 8bitdo N30 2.4g vs. Retro-bit Origin8

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