so i got paid a bit early may. after putting some of that money into savings i went onto ebay and had a look for ps3 systems as i had been wanting to buy one for months prior. after a while of searching, i started to realise that the exact model of ps3 slim i wanted to buy was kinda hard to find, at least on that day. because of that, i started thinking about other systems i had been wanting to put in my collection. soon after, the gamecube popped up in my mind and off i went looking for a DOL-001. not long after, i found a black one in fairly good condition with all the cables (the AV cable was fake but that wasn’t gonna matter cause GCVideo), one controller, one third-party memory card and a game for ~£60. i started thinking about whether or not i *really* wanted it, as i always do for some reason before buying something, and not long after i had a confirmation email from ebay for the purchase of a gamecube.
a couple days later, i had just finished one of my exams and i get my phone out of my bag and turn it back on. i look at the shipping status and see that it had arrived. the driver attached a proof of delivery image too. it was incredibly low-resolution and it seemed to be a random picture of the ground. thankfully when i got home, the parcel was actually there and when i opened it i did indeed see the gamecube i paid for. i powered it on and made sure that it worked. it worked fine, controller inputs are recognised, the memory card is too and the optical drive seems to be working fine (thank god). the video however, was really really bright. the black background of the gamecube startup screen was light grey haha. i obviously blamed that one on the AV cable they provided, which i ended up being correct about. i am absolutely keeping that cable though because paired with my cheap AV to HDMI adapter, the output i get from it looks like it was recorded in the early 2000s with the cheapest capture card anybody could get at the time. and i like that.
along with the gamecube, i bought an sd2sp2 and a 32GB SD card. upon loading a memory card with a save exploit and a copy of NiHuSu’s dolauncher, i tried using the sd2sp2 to boot Swiss. it failed. i tried everything i could and it still failed to load. so off i went looking for an sdgecko. one amazon search and around a day later, i now had an sdgecko. this time, booting Swiss actually worked and i could get to setting it up. after that, i beat Sonic Adventure 2 for what feels like the 30th time in my life, and completed a couple of the stories in SADX too. safe to say i’m happy with my purchase. soon i’ll probably have to open it up cause i see some rust on the shielding, but that’s no issue really.