Random photos of stations I have visited

[kuro68000]

  

 

The view from Akigawa station.

 

 

A not very good photo of a shrine in Nishisunacho.

 

  

 

Kodaira. Photos need work. It seems like if you enable RAW 50MP capture, it doesn't do automatic night sight. I'll have to fix it when I get home.

 

 

[kuro68000]

 

 

Hitosubashi Gakuen station.

[kuro68000]

 

Nishi-Funabashi, didn't quite get close enough to put the safety mesh out of shot.

 

       

 

More photos of the same.

[kuro68000]

    

 

Kita-Narashino. The Hard Offer there was quite good, really neat and tidy. I bought an old Wave Ceptor World Time watch from the junk to see if I could repair it, and paid nothing as I used my points. Point collecting is Japan is really worth it, you get some actually decent returns on the effort. Only thing is you normally need an address in Japan to sign up for it, but they don't check so you can just lie like I did.

 

 

Some random model train bits. I know, what am I doing, posting stuff that is on-topic?! They had a maglev pack too. I kinda want one, but it's also kinda not that good really. All you get is an oval, and it seems that it's not really floating but on some plastic guide rails. I think it's just propelled by a linear motor, not levitated.

[kuro68000]

 

They had a lot of other sexy stuff too...

[kuro68000]

 

Yachiyo. Can't completely get away from the xmas stuff...

 

 

I don't know why but I like this shop.

 

 

Yachiyo station.

[kuro68000]

 

Finally, Inakegaigan station in the rain.

[kuro68000]

A little tip for using the bus. At stations there is usually an area with lots of buses. Google Maps rarely knows where you need to go to get the bus it tells you to use, so you have to figure it out yourself. Ignore what it tells you about where the bus stop is.

 

Find the bus stop chart. It will be around the station exit somewhere. Find your bus and it will tell you which stop it uses.

 

Sometimes there is a map of stops, otherwise look for signs by stairs and paths leading to them.

[Gunzel]

Nice Sharp MZ-2200, and a cute price for it. Wish I’d headed out of town a bit instead of visiting Akihabara on my last day. 

[kuro68000]

3 hours ago, Gunzel said:

Nice Sharp MZ-2200, and a cute price for it. Wish I’d headed out of town a bit instead of visiting Akihabara on my last day. 

 

I'm thinking about it... Can I lug it to the post office??

 

 

Ofuma station.

 

 

[kuro68000]

 

Some places have custom manhole covers.

[kuro68000]

 

Some old video magazines on mini Laserdiscs. If I can manage it I want to buy those and do an archival grade copy of them for posterity. I might end up renting a car and going around to get a few heavier items, before taking them to the post office to go on the slow boat. I need a Laserdisc player too, but for once Europe got the best of those as European ones can often play NTSC and PAL discs.

 

[kuro68000]

 

 

Was thinking of getting some speakers like these too. I have some Yamaha ones I had since childhood, but Roland made the reference ones back in the day.

 

 

I have a Super Cassette Vision, but am looking for a good original Cassette Vision. Grabbed this game for it. The "cassette" here is what we would call a game cartridge, not an audio tape. The original Cassette Vision is a rare console and unemulated, because it doesn't have a CPU or ROMs for games. Each game is its own electronics, usually a single chip. Like the old machines that had Pong and half a dozen other sports that were all variations of bat and ball. It sold pretty well.

 

The Super Cassette Vision bombed in the market. It was more like what we think of as games consoles, with a CPU, but very under-powered.

[kuro68000]

 

I don't know why the Atsugi mascot is a pig with a fish on his head.

 

 

660 yen and it was delicious. Food is so good in Japan.

[kuro68000]

 

Hon-Atsugi station. I love the detailed signs on the barriers, showing you what is in each carriage.

 

 

Found some cheap Neo Geos. The labels says that they have a power problem. It's a common fault on early models and not too difficult to fix if you know what you are doing.

 

 

Some high end video gear. I love the "Disc Lord" next to it too.

[kuro68000]

 

Niiza station.

 

I found something else interesting near there, but not sure if I should post a photo or not. There was a patch of land that looked (in the dark) like it was being used to grow crops, but right in the middle was a square section with graves. Very strange, I wonder how it came to be like that.

 

Anyway here's a first attempt a video of me walking around a bit. It needs editing but I thought I'd share an early copy. Apologies for the commentary/complaining. Last year I came to these stairs from the opposite direction and it was all good. I'm actually amazed I didn't die of a heart attack or falling on the way up, so that's good.

 

https://youtu.be/2L__2ml-sPQ

[Tony Galiani]

Glad you made it up those stairs!  It looked like every time you got to the top of a flight - there was another flight to go up.  Good exercise though.

Cheers,

Tony

[Gunzel]

At least there was something worthwhile at the end!

 

I am pretty sure I saw a Cassette Vision in a HARD OFF on my recent trip. I’ll keep an eye out as I edit my photos. 
 

Not sure how flexible you are with your itinerary but the two best HARD OFFs for old computers I visited were HARD OFF PC Niigata Koshin (the first store of a new computer focussed sub-brand that only opened a couple of months ago) and HARD OFF Nara Kashihara (almost every 電車でGO version I didn’t already have). Those are links to the raw albums on Flickr which need some editing. They are both a bit of a hike from the nearest station. 
 

Be interested to hear how you go at the post office if you ship stuff back. My efforts four or five years ago were a bit frustrating, took like 90 minutes. Would love to find a good easy way to send stuff home. 

[cteno4]

5 hours ago, mojo said:

I found something else interesting near there, but not sure if I should post a photo or not. There was a patch of land that looked (in the dark) like it was being used to grow crops, but right in the middle was a square section with graves. Very strange, I wonder how it came to be like that.

 its fine to post here by our rules. i think if respectfully presented its not a cultural taboo.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

 

8 hours ago, mojo said:

 

I found something else interesting near there, but not sure if I should post a photo or not. There was a patch of land that looked (in the dark) like it was being used to grow crops, but right in the middle was a square section with graves. Very strange, I wonder how it came to be like that.

 

Common enough in flatland rice-growing territory. Random example I happen to pass occasionally: https://maps.app.goo.gl/XuXFG1tapogEVoDm8 . Somewhere around there there's a better example which is actually a square occupying part of a rice paddy, can't locate it though.

 

In mountainous areas, the graves are usually perched on otherwise unproductive land on the hillsides.

 

Anyway, as with graves anywhere, as long as you are respectful and don't treat them like a hip background for an Instagram shoot, no eyelids will be batted.

Edited December 14, 2023 by railsquid

[kuro68000]

16 hours ago, Gunzel said:

At least there was something worthwhile at the end!

 

I am pretty sure I saw a Cassette Vision in a HARD OFF on my recent trip. I’ll keep an eye out as I edit my photos. 
 

Not sure how flexible you are with your itinerary but the two best HARD OFFs for old computers I visited were HARD OFF PC Niigata Koshin (the first store of a new computer focussed sub-brand that only opened a couple of months ago) and HARD OFF Nara Kashihara (almost every 電車でGO version I didn’t already have). Those are links to the raw albums on Flickr which need some editing. They are both a bit of a hike from the nearest station. 
 

Be interested to hear how you go at the post office if you ship stuff back. My efforts four or five years ago were a bit frustrating, took like 90 minutes. Would love to find a good easy way to send stuff home. 

 

Thanks so much for that! I keep an eye on the Hard Off news page, but I didn't see it mentioned and didn't know about that sub-brand! I am planning to visit Niigata, probably next week, and will definitely go to that store!

 

As for the post office, the best thing to do is use the Japan Post My Mail service on their website. You create an account and put your home address in once, and then to post stuff you only have to enter the dimensions of the box and what is in it. When you get to the post office they have a terminal where you can weigh it and pay the shipping. At least in theory, I have not tried it yet but will let you know how it goes. Last time I did it in person, and it it did take a while.

[kuro68000]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

 its fine to post here by our rules. i think if respectfully presented its not a cultural taboo.

 

jeff

 

Thanks, and thank you railsquid for the detailed explanation. I wasn't sure. The only thing I really know, other than that there are family graves, is that if the site is destroyed somehow (e.g. natural disaster or war) then it's gone forever and you can't reclaim it. Or so my Japanese teacher told me many years ago.

 

 

I forgot to turn on the automatic night sight, but you can see it all alone there in the middle.

[kuro68000]

 

Ueno Station. There was a significant delay this morning, not sure what happened.

 

 

After finding the Disc Lord the other day, today I discovered the Mac Lord!

 

 

I'm actually looking for some retro printers, but not this one. It's dot matrix. There were some that were actually plotters, but could understand plain text and write it out like a printer. Almost all these plotters use an Alps mechanism, so the pens are interchangeable.

 

 

Japan really knows how to make sexy computers.

[kuro68000]

 

Japan loves labelling stuff (and so do I), but I've never seen one of these before. Apparently didn't take off, but I'd love to know how it works. I was VERY tempted to get it just to find out, but it was rather heavy.

 

 

Found a couple of games for my Super Cassette Vision. I now have 3. My plan is to make a multi-cart at some point, probably just a simple one with DIP switches rather than a menu. I have a menu based one in the works for the Casio PV-1000, but I need to double check the PCBs and get them made.

 

 

Kamonomiya. It's surprising how much space this saves.

 

 

Omiya station, proving once again that I have no eye for framing or finding interesting subjects. I thought the new 50MP 5x zoom on my phone might be of little practical use, but I've actually found I use it now that the quality is good. My previous phone was I think 12MP for the 5x zoom and looked noticeably worse than the primary camera.

[kuro68000]

 

7 transistors!

 

 

Higashi-Omiya Station. In the last one you can see the antenna pointing down the track. Presumably part of a train communication system, or maybe just so they get TV on the office.