DHL delivered a Framemeister to my house today from Solaris in Japan; it took 31 days... Now who at my house would have ordered something like that?
Spent an hour soldering/converting its JP-21 connector into a SCART to 8-pin mini din connector and after testing each pin connection thoroughly, plugged it into my work-in-progress A4000 to make sure all is well in the retro world. Trial and error on the Japanese (kanji?) menus got me a sharp picture, although color saturation was a tad off. Next step is to update the 1.08 firmware with 1.11 in English; also bought the 9 buck overlay for the remote off icBay, so that is a great help.
Of note, while there is no English translation of the manual accompanying the device, but all the plastic bags were labeled in English and French as hazards to young children. This begs several questions: do Japanese children not choke or suffocate on plastic bags as do the English and French speaking children? Are the latter more litigious than the Japanese? Do the Japanese learn English or French to protect their children? Since none of the bags are large enough to fit a baseball, does this imply that westerners have microcephally and are at risk, compared to the normocephallic Japanese? I'm sure inquiring mind want to know!
Ha, great review, Dan. Isn't the Framemeister that $300 thing? You'd think for that kind of money they could at least provide English instructions? Or maybe I'm a bit biased since I know the entire world doesn't have English as it's first language.
Either way, so this thing requires soldering to be usuable on an Amiga? I hope everyone on that other 100+ comment long thread knows that! I just hate to see such an expensive solution being recommended to folks, when it's obviously not "plug and play", and maybe not everyone has the skills to solder and tune it like you do.
Oh well, I still say if they don't just get Indivisions, they're asking for trouble.
