Saturday again...

Man what a week, seemed to take for ever...
Got 11 now in the gameroom. Here is the lineup: Robotron, Asteroids, Tempest, High Impact, Centipede, Asteroids Deluxe, Tron, Phoenix, Journey, Sinistar, and Crystal Castles!!!

Got to make a video soon with that Balas song.

Going to Rosewell Street to fix a joystick...may to to the campus see if they still have that South Park.

Got thru work OK.. Ordered glass for Scott's MAME and the Joust Multi... Listening to Enigma now while loading uip some roms on Scott's PC.

Saw American Virgin last night. Good plot but very poorly executed... shame, could have been a cult classic...

Just organizing some more, gonna try to do some cabinet work today.

Good Ol' Saturday...

Man how do those weeks just zoom by... I turned my gameroom upside down to rearrange stuff and try to get a Pinball in there, but that plan was abborted... Will do it in the next house because we will make sure to get lots of space for my activities... I did manage to purge some stuff, sell on Ebay, store at work, and declutter in general... it is much nicer now, got rid of about 16 sq ft of desk space in favor of more machines. I can bring 2 back in with the current setup. I can even bring back the 27" CRT computer monitor instead of this dinky little 17" CRT.

That was a tough week at work with the Nevergo battery charger... it nevergo away the way it is performing...

Glad to be back doing MAME related activities... gonna try to get these OPPs out of here that I have been putting off, that will give me some room in the shop so I can work more efficiently in there.

Rediscovered Toddicus's blog again and my wife thinks he is absolutely charming. Elmo has a bunch more new stories to tell at bedtime by recounting Tito's blog.

Well gotta go out to the salad place, and shop for some electronics... see ya next time.

Arturos Arcade Lab History

I am a Mad Scientists of sorts when it comes to video gaming. Ever since I was young, I have been looking for ways to enhance the gaming experience at home. I started with an Atari 2600 (actually a Sears Telegames) back in “the day”. Then I got an Atari 800 home computer system, which was the closest you could get to original arcade games without actually having an arcade machine. But something was still missing…

…what was missing was… The cabinet!!! the video game ports for the Atari home computer systems were the most accurate ports for the original classic video games… Pacman, Donkey Kong, Frogger, etc… The list goes on…

Since we lived in Panama, there were very few arcades that I could visit. But we did go to the US for summer and Christmas vacation so I got to visit some nice arcades on these occasions. So I wanted to figure out how to enjoy the arcade experience more often.

Starting with simple ball-top attachments for the original Atari joysticks… you all remember those? Blister City… but we still wore those things out…

And eventually ending up with a full-size scratch-built arcade cabinet with a TV stuffed in there connected to my Atari 800XL, holding the joystick down onto the control panel with one hand, and playing it with the other… remember, this was back in 1985!!! Way before the MAME craze started…

Well now, decades later, I have been able to recreate the arcade experience at home… way beyond my wildest dreams… enter Arturo’s Arcade Lab!!!

http://home.earthlink.net/~asumner/artsarcadelab/

I currently have about a dozen “keeper” games in my collection… most of which I have done some kind of work on to make them functional and presentable. From full cosmetic restoration to complete internal overhaul, I keep experimenting and finding ways to get the most out of these machines.

Where did the weekend go???

Can't remember Thursday too much, probably got a 19" from the Goodwill on the way home...

Friday... used the new loop antenna at work... Erin, Than, and Dmesh let go... can't remember what I did after work... probably went on VSB.TV and watched the Colombian Sewer and drug documentaries...

Saturday... just watched Youtube videos all day... most watched Youtube video of all time is "The Evolution of Dance"... found out there is another live Konono album...Lubuaku... got to get it and the Coleuer Cafe as well...

Sunday went to the Sweet Tomatoes... finally got enough motivation to do some MAMEing, but it was cold out... Got the monitors in the Roby Roto and the Joust cabinets... now got to find some inside stuff to do...

Working at ACS this morning, business as usual...

Got home, bean soup and kinda sluggish, just doing PC stuff and some Asteroids... will see how productive the rest of the night is...

First

Testing...1...2...3...

Goodwill after work, got a 19" KDS, saw a big TV with component RGB but already sold, Dell monitor was dark so I passed. Back to house, no Hulk, but did see A-Team at 8pm, and a Magnum PI with different theme music...
Last night I started capping an Electrohome GO7 out of the Pac Cocktail I got from Bill. Had to discharge several times. Saw Allstars of dancing, and the inner beauty reality show... somewhat interesting.

Finished recapping and tested it, still rolling vertically... can't get it to stop, gonna try to replace the Vlin and Vhold pots. Did an automatic recovery from the partition on an HP.