Nerdbloke

Finally, I have painted the arcade machine (black) and got it back together.

Here are some pics of the first black coat going on.

Here are some pics of the arcade machine after the final topcoat went on. It took exactly 1 litre of black semi-gloss to do the two coats of black. It was really way too hot to have been painting.

And finally, here is a pic of it getting it’s first series of use in the “production” environment:

//TODO: Proper marquee lighbox reverse-printed on perspex

//TODO: Bezel to cover TV

//TODO: T-molding on base

//TODO: Holsters for light-guns

//TODO: Reinstall operating system, emulation software and get drivers for dual lightgun working

The second coat of black paint went on this afternoon. As things were moving along quite nicely I started thinking about the side art I wanted to get printed. I went to localarcade.com only to find they’ve been shutdown due to spam-related activities!

Luckily google came to the rescue and found http://vectorlib.free.fr/ – they had exactly what I was looking for. Adobe Illustrator versions (vector graphics) and all.

I have started painting the arcade machine. I had a first draft attempt at the undercoat this afternoon. I have to flip the top half over tomorrow to finish. It’s quite hot at the moment (low-to-mid 30 degrees Celsius) so I shoud nearly be able to put the first coat of black gloss on tomorrow afternoon…

As much as I loath Paypal it seems they are providing some good service in the small business eCommerce sector.

ArsTechnica has a write up in November ’09 about how to start using Paypal as a free eCommerce vendor.

Every kid loves paper planes right? The other day my little girl was watching the “big kids” at her after school care compete in a paper plane competition.

Today I found the paper plane that absolutely rocks.

Well named – the “Sky King” flies straight and true. I gently tossed it from my desk out my study door and it flew 20 feet and only lost about 1 or 2 feet in height when it slammed into a wall. Sturdy construction, slightly nose heavy and good lift let it repeat the process.

Instructions here: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Fold_Your_Own_Sky_King_Paper_Airplane

Nice story about a guy tracking his stolen iPhone. This line cracked me up: “We laughed triumphantly, adrenaline racing, feeling like the Jack Bauer trio. (Disregard the fact that we’d just left a Lego convention.)”

I have a super cheap laptop that serves the family as DVD player and web browser. The only drama I have is that the standard windows power management has been overrun by Acer’s version – known as ePower Management. Unfortunately, ePower Management does not function properly if you are not logged in as an Administrator. All the accounts on the laptop are standard users for security purposes.

This blogger has some good notes on how to fix this problem here and here – run the Acer power mgmt software as a service

It looks as if it’s possible to have multi-mouse and multi-keyboard support in MAME as of v0.117u1.

This post on the wiki for arcadecontrols.com talks about the best ways to set up multiple light guns.

Can’t wait to implement this as I have two LCD Topguns.

I got some time during the school holidays to get some work done on the MAME cabinet.

I prepped the speaker shelf and got it mounted. I used the speakers that came with the TV. I had to cut the speaker wire and extend it so the speakers could be mounted in the shelf. I made a plug so I could detach the speakers from the TV if I ever needed to pull the TV out (for repairs, replacement etc)

Speaker Shelf:

Speakers:

Plug:

I stumbled across this great quote today. It’s taken from Theodore Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic” speech that was delivered in 1910:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.