.. back yet from RetroZone? Just curious..
not yet. i emailed him yesterday, hopefully he gets back to me. i am going on vacation soon and wanted to bring this instead of a ton of games.
He is away on vacation until tomorrow.
Al
An official PowerPak forum for bunnyboy with news/statements would perhaps be a good idea, since he obviously is too busy answering pms/e-mails.
My powerpak arrived last night with the resistor fix applied before it was shipped. Looks like a neat little chip and some of the case was cut away.
So is this resistor a 100% fix or is the gfx bug still visible but less frequent?
Is there any side issues with the resistor fix, i.e. some other issues might appear?
Just want to know if it's worth doing this fix on my cart
I can't say I've been following the bug thread as I hadn't received the cartridge until now. I have a bunch of different NES and clone systems - which should I try it in? What should I be looking for?
Got it, but haven't had a chance to install it yet.
Will post a pic when done.
dXtr wrote:
So is this resistor a 100% fix or is the gfx bug still visible but less frequent?
Is there any side issues with the resistor fix, i.e. some other issues might appear?
Just want to know if it's worth doing this fix on my cart
I installed the resistors myself and haven't had any graphical issues since. Also, I haven't had any other issues arise since the modification.
Just for the heck of it, can someone open up their cart Bunnyboy sent WITH the resistor pack fix and show some pics?
-Rob
I haven't even received my PowerPak for the first time yet... kinda hoping everything is OK. This kind of stuff really does take a long time to arrive here, so I guess I shouldn't worry.
But anyway, since it takes this long for the thing to arrive, I doubt I'll be sending it back for the fix, I'll probably have to do it myself.
I thought mine was taking a long time, too... but then it arrived with the fix already installed. Chances are you won't have to send it back.
Hamburgler wrote:
I thought mine was taking a long time, too... but then it arrived with the fix already installed.
Ah.. then I'm hoping this is my case too! =)
Yeah, now I remember, bunnyboy said some were shipping already with the fix.
Yeah, my PowerPak arrived. Not at my home, but at the post office, where I'll have to pay more than 50% of the price in taxes to pick it up.
Yeah, my PowerPak will cost me US$227, plus the CF card and card reader (spent about US$45). This final price sucks. Like I'm not already spending too much money on other things I needed this month.
Hell, this price is twice the price of the PP alone... But that's life, life sucks, I'll pick it up when I get the money. It better be fixed already...
tokumaru wrote:
Yeah, my PowerPak arrived. Not at my home, but at the post office, where I'll have to pay more than 50% of the price in taxes to pick it up.
I'm really sorry to hear that. I send packages to Brazil all the time, and dealing with customs is such a hassle. Sometimes they check the packages, and sometimes they don't. I usually include a faked eBay printout with prices to try to trick them, and it has worked so far... and it is a shame that I have to lie to try to get a fair price, because the amount they charge is usually based on what they *think* something is worth, not the actual value.
NC
Is Brazil a extremist dictatorial gouvernement or something ? I've heard Chili was (at least until very recent times), but I havent heard anything that bad about Brazil.
No Carrier wrote:
Sometimes they check the packages, and sometimes they don't. I usually include a faked eBay printout with prices to try to trick them, and it has worked so far...
This usually works, but sometimes they just don't believe it and charge based on what they think the goods are worth, like you said. I can usually get away with stuff I buy from Hong Kong, like NES clones, games and DVD's.
Anyway, this part from RetroZone's FAQ makes it all very clear:
RetroZone wrote:
You are responsible for all import taxes and customs fees. Customs forms will not be forged.
This has made things very difficult for me. I may not even be able to get this money in time. I probably will, but this still sucks. I really wonder if it makes any difference for bunnyboy to declare the price as 50 bucks or if it's just funny to see people paying 160% of a price that already wasn't very attractive to begin with. Not complaining about the original price, it's expensive but I was up to it, it's just that in the end I'm paying just too much. I'm sorry if it does make a difference to you man, but this has been a pain for me.
Quote:
the amount they charge is usually based on what they *think* something is worth, not the actual value.
So very true.
Bregalad wrote:
Is Brazil a extremist dictatorial gouvernement or something ?
Not at all, we just have this crazy 60% import tax... It really sucks!
tokumaru wrote:
Bregalad wrote:
Is Brazil a extremist dictatorial gouvernement or something ?
Not at all, we just have this crazy 60% import tax... It really sucks!
Is there also an import tax on the value of licenses to produce products? Could you license PowerPak from bunnyboy, have it "MADE IN BRAZIL", and sell it to other Brazilians? Or would it be too expensive to import the components?
tepples wrote:
Is there also an import tax on the value of licenses to produce products? Could you license PowerPak from bunnyboy, have it "MADE IN BRAZIL", and sell it to other Brazilians? Or would it be too expensive to import the components?
I guess this would be possible, but I don't own a company or anything! =) Even if I were to do it as an individual, I wouldn't know where to begin! =)
I guess this is the reason we had better prices in videogame consoles back in the days of the 16-bit systems and until the Nintendo 64 I think... We had consoles manifactured here, so the prices were much better. Today's consoles and games are all imported, and a game that costs 50$ in the US easily costs about 125$ here. This is why everyone, no exception, has modded consoles and play only pirate games.
Quote:
I really wonder if it makes any difference for bunnyboy to declare the price as 50 bucks
Theres a couple reasons why that is a bad idea:
Its illegal! Forging the value is mail fraud, up to $10K in fines, $5K in civil payments, 5 years in jail, more penalties based on the difference in value. I guess I would put a lower value if you set up an escrow with $500K in case I got caught
Insurance is added for the value of the package. Not possible to get more than the value back, so if something happens the difference is just gone. The USPS should pay, I doubt the customer would agree to pay, so it falls on me.
Some countries require a receipt when picking up the package to show the paid value. If I write $50 and the receipt says $135 then the customer pays fines above the customs tax. Yes this did happen once, I accidently added wrong and had to refund double the difference to cover someones fines. Definitely lost money on that sale...
I sympathize with people who get dinged for outrageous customs and taxes. However we in Canada are routinely charged ridiculously high charges for UPS or Fedex deliveries from the USA.
BunnyBoy has to be honest in this case or he could be in big trouble.
Luckily Bunnyboy sends his products by USPS and mine slipped by without being noticed by Canada Customs.
Random ramblings... Since you set the value of the product, couldn't you just charge a large handling fee like $100? For handling insurance, the item could be claimed one-of-a-kind or something that would be more costly to "replace" than it was to produce the original. Or hell, do the insuring yourself, which would probably be cheaper than the excessive customs fee would otherwise be.
Note that the high customs taxes are basically not so much a bad thing in general : They are here to made product of a country less expensive than import stuff, so to try to not have everyone import everything from other countries just to save $2 and to prevent transporting stuff that could get producted in the country, to prevent pollution.
This is especially a problem for food.
However, when it comes to video games this is of course slightly different...
Hey bunnyboy, nice to see that you're back. How's it going with resistorfixing the Powerpaks you've got in return?
Bregalad wrote:
Note that the high customs taxes are basically not so much a bad thing in general : They are here to made product of a country less expensive than import stuff, so to try to not have everyone import everything from other countries just to save $2 and to prevent transporting stuff that could get producted in the country, to prevent pollution.
This is especially a problem for food.
However, when it comes to video games this is of course slightly different...
True but this is only useful for industries witch exist in these countries, when it come to categories witch can only be imported it just leads to criminal activity by making black markets more popular
As far as I can tell, it's intended to provide an incentive to start some of those industries in Brazil.
tepples wrote:
As far as I can tell, it's intended to provide an incentive to start some of those industries in Brazil.
I guess you are right. But I still feel really bad that we have to pay outrageous prices for things that we just can't find for sale in our own country.
Although I live here in Brazil, most of my interests are things from other countries. I simply hate brazillian television, so everything I watch is either from Japan or the US. Music for me is practically from Japan only. The internet has sure helped me there, but when it comes to actual physical goods I'm still screwed.
I'm not much of a hardware guy, so I definitely can't do it. I'm sure there are a lot of people who can though... the MSX scene around here, for example, is pretty big, and the guys make new, interesting hardware all the time. Maybe the NES is just not as popular here to gather such a following.
Looks like mine has been hung up at BB's post office since 7/2, I didn't think about him being on vacation! Hope he can get it before they ship it back to me, $8 one way was bad enough!
srgilbert wrote:
Looks like mine has been hung up at BB's post office since 7/2, I didn't think about him being on vacation! Hope he can get it before they ship it back to me, $8 one way was bad enough!
Mine is in the same situation, so says USPS.com
NC
Hey, got my PowerPak. Surprisingly enough, no fix. Got to test it with my top-loader so far, where I could see many sprite glitches. I'm sure not sending it back, though.
Bought a few resistors today, so I'll probably attempt to perform the fix later tonight. I do not know much (nothing!) about resistors, but the ones I bought had brown-black-brown stripes, which I verified to mean 100 ohms, but I do not know what the 4th, golden stripe is exactly. Can anyone tell me if those will work fine? Thanks!
got back my fixed power pak today, works great!
tokumaru: think of it this way:
brown=1, black=0, brown=multiple of 10, gold=5% tolerance (meaning it can be a 95 ohm resistor, and they'll sell it as 100 ohm)
you got the right ones! have fun doing the fix
slick0 wrote:
you got the right ones! have fun doing the fix
Thanks a lot! If I'm going to bust my PowerPak open and try my luck, I'd better at least have the right resistors! I've done soldering for devcarts and such before, so I guess I'll be OK. =)
Sorry for getting a bit off-topic here! =)
srgilbert wrote:
Looks like mine has been hung up at BB's post office since 7/2, I didn't think about him being on vacation! Hope he can get it before they ship it back to me, $8 one way was bad enough!
Looks like he recieved mine yesterday, that's a relief!
mine came back in the mail yesterday. the fix worked great and looks nice too.
Still waiting for mine..
Hey bunnyboy! I really love your work, the PowerPak and your other stuff is really cool stuff and is probably better than sex for us NES-nerds(?)
However, I do have a wish!
How about start replying e-mail/pm's? I guess it would be nice for people to know status of their shipments etc. Or even better, send out an e-mail when shipping the PowerPak, or the resistorfixed PowerPak. It won't take more than a few seconds. I don't even know if you have got my PowerPak for fixing (I can't trace packages outside Sweden sadly) as I sent a few weeks back and you don't answer my pm's. Perhaps you've got a good reason but it's kind of frustrating to be a customer when you don't get any feedback for your questions.
Thats the hard question when theres only one person, answering emails means time not building products
I now spend approx 1 hour per day replying and adding status replies would make that around 2 hours a day. Yes I get too many emails, and most of it is already in the FAQ! Need to outsource to India call center....
EVERY package leaving here gets a confirmation number and an email sent to the buyer. The PayPal and USPS emails are sent automatically, and gives all the status (order received, order shipped) without me having to spend time on it. Whether people actually receive those emails is a different question
I don't usually answer PMs just because the website/browser can't seem to keep me logged in. Most likely to get a fast answer is AIM or IRC and I try not to give copy/paste answers there.
bunnyboy wrote:
Thats the hard question when theres only one person, answering emails means time not building products
I now spend approx 1 hour per day replying and adding status replies would make that around 2 hours a day. Yes I get too many emails, and most of it is already in the FAQ! Need to outsource to India call center....
EVERY package leaving here gets a confirmation number and an email sent to the buyer. The PayPal and USPS emails are sent automatically, and gives all the status (order received, order shipped) without me having to spend time on it. Whether people actually receive those emails is a different question
I don't usually answer PMs just because the website/browser can't seem to keep me logged in. Most likely to get a fast answer is AIM or IRC and I try not to give copy/paste answers there.
Wow an answer.
I didn't get an e-mail the first time I got the package. I'm just curious if you've got my PowerPak for resistorfixing or If I should start to worry...? It's really crap since I can't track packages outside Sweden.
bunnyboy wrote:
I don't usually answer PMs just because the website/browser can't seem to keep me logged in.
Odd... I never had that problem, even when writing up a complex reply. Of course, I do have it set up to log me in automatically on this computer - maybe that makes a difference?
Hooray! I got my fixed Powerpak today (Saturday)! Thanks for the quick turn time Bunnyboy, I really appreciate it! He got it in the mail on Monday 7/09, fixed it, and I got it back just five days later from CA to Michigan. And it's working great now as far I've been able to test, thanks again!
(See, we customers aren't all an unruly bunch, we just expect everything to be perfect all the time, every time!)
This is insane! Still haven't got mine!
Yeah I havnt received my resistor set yet either.
Got my resistorfixed PowerPak back today! And now games works alot better but the glitches are still there.
I guess the resistorfix removed like 75% of the glitches but they're still quite visible in games that uses many sprites at once (I think I see this pattern anyway).
Games that still has very visible glitches are SMB2 & 3 for example (PAL-versions).
Has anyone received a resistor fixed powerpak in the last month? I sent my unit to Bunny via USPS on July 2nd, and delivery confirmation says it arrived on July 4th. I haven't heard anything since, coming up on six weeks waiting. I don't mind waiting, just curious if I'm the only one having a slow response or if it's just a normal backup.