Next, the amazing steam trains of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway (GWSR) in the Cotswolds, here at Toddington station.

On the friday of the first week of my holiday in the UK I finally got Covid-19, after 4 and half years of avoiding it by being very careful. Apparently not careful enough, as I did forget my mask on a bus trip that I will regret for a long time. 

Anyway, I was very ill for the rest of the two week holiday, confined mostly to a hotel room. Boy did that suck. I heard about how tired people get, and I was surprised how bad that was - could barely stay awake more than a few hours at a time.

I flew back to Australia masked up but still very unwell, but at least well enough to travel. 

When I got home, I was in bed sick for another week, before I was finally able to return to normal life, and back to work as a reward...yay.

I then got very busy with work, preparing IT for the new office in Spain, and a relocation for our office in Germany with new IT infrastructure and phone system. That work for Germany is ongoing as I write this in August.

In September I have to work on IT setup for a new office in Turkey, and another trip to Prague at the end of the month until mid October...when I return I have to setup phone systems for US, LATAM, Czechia and South Africa. 

Whew, 2024 has been so busy!

With all that, I hope you understand that having time free to play with my computers has been extremely limited.

While I was sick in the hotel room in Glasgow, I read about this Analogue Pocket handheld for the first time. 

I read about the ability of this single FPGA based handheld to play physical cartridges for Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and PC Engine/Turbo Grafix-16? And MIDI support through a music application included with it?

Seriously? wow.

I had to buy one, and so I did a few weeks ago. Turns out the Analogue Pocket sold out quickly on its original release, and just recently they did a restock, with a new aluminium version in limited stock now, and the new cartridge system converters now also released! Seems a logical time to get one, even if it does cost USD$499 without the converters and dock!

I got it within a week after ordering from overseas, after paying a ridiculous "import and processing customs fee" to UPS that is pure price gouging. 

To overseas vendors, seriously, don't use UPS for shipping to Australia. They suck, and deliberately overcharge way more than the GST import fee, just because they can. 

I ordered all the converters, the dock, and the cover for the Analogue Pocket, along with the unit itself. It arrived in one big box, with lots of little ones inside.

I am not sure why vendors insist on doing this black on black indented text thing - it is hard to photograph and I am not sure it is that cool. But anyway, they did it:

They put green stickers on the back to identify the box contents - further proof why using black text on black sucks:

It is all very minimalist, and not much is included in the boxes for the considerable money spent. Frustratingly the manuals are MIA - with a QR code to download the electronic versions included in the box.

To be clear, I *HATE* QR CODES. Small rant ahead.

These days Restaurants have QR codes on the tables instead of physical menus and waiters/waitresses to take your order, train operators use QR codes instead of real tickets, concerts use QR codes instead of real tickets, passport control uses NFC and QR codes for immigration (eg. in Japan) to replace forms. 

Of course the excuse is what I knew it would be, being eco and saving the planet. But it isn't really about that is it? It is really about saving them money at the cost of your convenience to have a real ticket or menu to read that used to be supplied for free. 

Show me the discount I get on the restaurant meal for me having to order it myself on my own device online. Is the train or concert ticket any cheaper for not supplying me a physical ticket?

Same applies to things we used to get for free like shopping bags, straws that actually work, decent coffee cups and more, but that is of course a different thing.

Yep, I really do feel like a Grumpy old man from the tv series, which by the way was 20 years ago! Maybe I am indeed just that!

Remember the memories and good feelings you got just looking at an old physical ticket from an event you went to, or a menu from a great meal you had. Now, all you have is a bunch of useless QR codes that have no nostalgia value to retain at all. No one is going to keep those in a photo album or photo book...

The British F1 grand prix had no tickets at all this year, just QR codes that activate in a custom app on your phone the day before they could be used. Melbourne F1 grand prix would have been the same except that I paid extra for an actual ticket...which they screwed up and sent to the wrong place. No doubt that option will disappear soon too.

The same thing applies to computer games in 2024. I have some amazing PC games I enjoy on Steam like Trackmania, Fall Guys, Among Us, F1 2024 and many others. All with no physical box release.

It is a loss for us all.

No wonder people like me (and maybe you too) are buying physical box release of new Amiga, C64 and Gameboy games, and still enjoying the pleasure of a new release boxed game with instructions, posters, and other addons.

That is also where the Analogue Pocket really comes into its own. There are many options to play emulated systems on the go - I have had many of them over the years, but they all lack the tactile option to use real cartridges, and the Pocket also uses FPGA cores, not emulation.

And none of those other handheld solutions allow the use of multiple system real cartridges in the same device. (just waiting for someone to point out some obscure handheld I have never heard of - heh)

I am aware of the Evercade handheld, but it locks you into buying their cartridges only - not the original carts for the systems.

I love having that feeling of using real carts again. And so here we are in 2024 with the Analogue Pocket. And I love it.

The Aluminium Pocket has a beautiful high quality case and screen, and is actually a lot heavier than I expected.

The Pocket is actually closer to the size of the original Gameboy than the gameboy pocket, which is what the looks appear to be based on.

The buttons feel premium too, along with the directional pad.

On the back is a nod to the original Gameboy design with the bottom half resembling the original gameboy design - a nice touch, although the battery itself it not the AA variety, but a USB-C chargeable battery instead.

There are two shoulder buttons at the top of the unit, done in a similar style to the Gameboy Advance SP.

On the side is a volume up/down button and the sleep/wake button. Speakers are on the sides at the top left and right, so they won't be covered while playing.

A Gameboy link port is also included at the bottom, (which can be connected to real gameboy handhelds apparently!) along with the headphone out port that doubles as the midi output jack, along with the USB-c charging port and two leds to show status.

I am impressed with it - it looks great.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there is a following today for the most popular handheld gaming system, in the same way as the Amiga and C64 do also. Retro is indeed in.

My first homebrew game for the Gameboy Color arrived while I was unpacking the Analogue Pocket - very good timing - Super JetPak DX.

I understand the Pocket is designed to fit the Gameboy Camera accessory also, but I don't have one and although I am nostalgic for the games, I am not so interested in grainy horrible resolution photos in black and white...YMMV.

This information about the display modes is interesting - you can simulate the gameboy and other supported handheld systems original display modes if you prefer.

And then, the dreaded QR code appeared. Thanks.

I suspected there would be an update to apply, but I wanted to play games on the unit now, so I skipped it and tried out the gameboy color game I just inserted.

It works really well, and looks amazing on the Pocket.

It's like playing a different machine with this beautiful screen. It is easy to forget just how horrible the handheld screens on the original Gameboy systems were, even the Advance.

Screen technology has definitely improved.

This discussion of the screen brings me to another point. 

First off the rank is the PC Engine/TG-16 converter. This is because I already have a NEC PC Engine and a lot of Hu Cards for it, that I picked up in Japan around ten years ago, before the prices of them went crazy. FYI Atlantean is a newer release homebrew game title for the PC Engine I ordered later on.

The converter connects easily to the back of the pocket. It covers the shoulder buttons which the PC Engine controller doesn't have.

I tried the New Zealand Story HuCard first:

It was at this point I hit the first problem - I didn't update the firmware, so it didn't recognise the converter. Turns out the firmware included with the Pocket as delivered was quite old - version 1.0b and the most recent was 2.2 release in 2024!

It then ran through another tutorial once finished, which showed the addition of screenshot functions, save memory states for cartridge games (to allow resuming games which have no save function), and more.

It also opens up the system to accept other OpenFPGA cores, like Amiga, C64, Arcade titles and more! I will definitely have to play around with those later on!

You don't need to select them - I just wanted to show what is there. It will use the FPGA core for the appropriate cartridge when it is inserted automatically.

There is a splash screen that shows the game cartridge you inserted before you hit play.

I soon got down to enjoying Aero Blasters for TG-16 on my Pocket, and it works perfectly.

I also tested New Zealand Story on HuCard, and it worked perfectly too:

I tired a lot of other games too - Final Lap:

Screen looks so good doesn't it?

Analogue Pocket is the ultimate PC Engine/TG-16 handheld if you want to use real HuCards with it.

It is clear that when travelling, using a Everdrive cartridge is a no-brainer. As nice as using physical cartridges is, it is not practical to have a pile of them in your luggage for every system when on the go.

I am pleased to report it does work, although I did notice some graphical glitches in some games I tested using the Everdrive, like New Zealand Story. I have the original HuCard though, so no drama for me. Perhaps I need to update the firmware on the Everdrive - it is quite old.

The flash cart menu is easy to read and navigate using the Pocket, and I was soon running PC Engine Outrun from the Everdrive flash HuCard on the Pocket:

Gameboy Advance used a non 4:3 aspect screen, which means the games display with borders above and below the game screen output on the Pocket.

Gameboy Advance games looks great on the Pocket screen, and I enjoyed reliving a game I haven't played in over 20 years!

At this point I also unwrapped the plastic case cover for the Pocket. It is sturdy and very nice, but I am unsure about the usefulness of it. It looks pretty I guess, and it would protect the Pocket in your backpack while travelling, but annoying to use as the top is loose and needs to be precisely aligned to the bottom to click in place.

Personally I think it should have been hinged to make it easier to lock into place and the correct orientation, since it only connects one way.

The dock on the other hand, is excellent.

A little annoying that the power adapter included with the dock is US plug only with no plug converters in the box. Err, you know there are other countries in the world right? For the high price of the dock, the plug converters should be included in my opinion.

Included with the dock is the USB-C cable for charging the Pocket in the dock, and a HDMI cable to output the Pocket screen to a standard HDMI display (with audio too).

Also included on the dock itself are two USB ports, for connecting USB wired controllers to use instead of the Pocket controls, which are unusable when docked. 

On initial connection, it tells me I have to upgrade the firmware straight away, which it does from the Pocket itself, so no further download is needed.

It prompts to confirm the upgrade version to 2.2, and then select Upgrade Now to proceed.

Sorry for the screen reflection glare, but the dock vertical position of the Pocket makes it hard to photograph.

With the dock firmware upgraded, I can now see the Gameboy Advance game I was playing before on the connected HDMI screen (ignore the Ally, it is what I usually have connected to this screen):

You can of course use a bluetooth controller as mentioned, but I was lazy and didn't want to muck around with pairing one, so I grabbed a logitech usb wired controller I use on my linux pc for gaming, and connected it to the dock. It works perfectly.

Next I tried Zarlor Mercenary, a shoot em up on the Atari Lynx that I have never owned or tried before. It is a good game, and I wish I had it back in the day!

Reminds me a bit of playing Battle Squadron on the Amiga.

I then tried Toki, and came across my first game that didn't work. It was brand new in box, so no idea why it doesn't work. 

I moved on to California Games which was a lot of fun on the Atari Lynx version.

I have ordered a ElCheapo SD Card flash cart for the Atari Lynx, as I intend to use it when travelling with the Pocket. I haven't got it yet so I can't try it in this blog post.

I tried to avoid buying the same game across the different handheld systems, since it doesn't make sense when I can run them all on the same Pocket system. 

I plan to further explore the Pocket's functionality, by trying out the openFPGA cores for Amiga, C64, arcade games, and more later on, and also the MIDI functionality which I don't have time to explore at the moment but I bought the cables to do it.