store, preserve, revive our precious collection

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I wonder what are the best practices to store a game to preserve its state or at least prolong aging? What could we do to revive if already aged? Could we create some kind of digital archive to store circuit boards, chipsets, program dumps, scans of playfield background and screen, 3d scan of chasing?

Nowdays, almost all Nintendo G&W games have the reflective screen layer aged. When I started collecting handheld games, I did not see such issue. It is happening just now. Anybody know what cause it? Humidity, drying, heat, light? Is it reversible?
Fortunately, G&W games has separate screen (glass), polariser, background and reflective layers, so it is easy to repair, replacements are available online.
Other games has these layers glued together, so not (easily) replaceable.

To start with a few link:

Restore
- re-create LCD:
-- How to make a custom LCD from scratch
-- PrintDisplay: DIY displays and touchscreens anyone can print

- whitening yellowed cases:
-- retr0bright

Archive
- 3D archive:
-- Nintendo G&W battery cover

- Software archive:
-- MADrigal's simulator
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www.HandheldEmpire.com: open vintage hand-held game database and collectors' site.

blanka · Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 11:26 pm Post subject:

I've a series of 3D files for covers, much more detailed as your G&W link, inclusing the "worm" texture. Also for Epoch, Bandai and Coleco table tops (Tomy is no problem as they are attached).

I store all games in a zip-bag to keep moisture and silverfish (little animals that love modern well insulated houses and cardboard boxes) out.

Regarding retrobright: I find the video's on YT hy 8-bit guy more usefull. Especially the ozone option is interesting as it works without disassembly.
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Making the book on handheld games: www.2kboffun.com

Rik · Posted: Thu May 03, 2018 11:47 pm Post subject:

God, I f*cking hate silverfish... Went back to my parents house a few weeks back, and the house seems infested with them (at least my room, that no one ever goes into). They seem to eat the top _layer_ of paper... I have magazines, computer printouts and boxes that don't have holes in them, but little rough spots were the surface of the paper is missing...

I like the LCD making demo, that might be useful for fixing Microvisions. Probably the simplest LCD ever made (16 lines on the glass, take two of them and rotate one 90 degrees effectively making a 16x16 grid). Gotta be an easy one to remake!

I wouldn't use a simulator for archiving as that is just the programmer guessing how the game plays and trying to replicate it. (Fun for playing though).
MAME is supporting handhelds, including G&W. To do this, they are actually dumping the ROM code from the chips, emulating the CPU, and scanning (and converting to vector graphics) the LCD panel (or high-res photographs for VFDs). They also scan the background image in a high resolution. Some backgrounds are vectored if it can be easily done (like the Mario Bros. G&W).
There's no practical way to 'rebuild' a CPU chip, so you won't be able to fix those if they are damaged, but with emulation of the actual code you can get a near-perfect representation of the handheld on your computer.

With the vectorized LCD graphics you could probably make a new LCD panel, but I think they are only vectorizing the 'active sprites', not the tiny traces that connect the sprites to the edge of the LCD panel... That would be the hardest part of archiving LCD artwork as I don't think there's a way to make those parts turn black for photographing/scanning.

Rik

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