I think I've found the most recent source code. I need to do some re-assemblies and diffs to make sure I know which is what. Then comes the big challenge, making head & tails out of the code.

A recent ArsTechnica entry about Zeta brought back memories of BeOS, and my mostly failed attempts to get it running on the hardware I had access to. Hey! I've got a "new" PC, might it be compatible? Most assuraddly so. Cool. Of course, it's the one hooked up to my Tempest cabinet, so the monitor is rotated, which makes it a little difficult to use. But it's BeOS!

I'm getting ever closer to completion of my Tempest cabinet. The rear door has been completed (although I might sand down the length, it's a might bit tight). I've been working on getting Atomic FE set up. I think the next step is getting the software on the PC and the game-specific configs done. I've soldered some speaker wire to the on/off button, now I need to find a SPMT switch to put at the other end. I also need to hack up my extension cord and connect the main on/off switch and the door lockout. Umm, and if I get really brave connect the volcano LEDs to the keyboard controller.

Glenn Saunders has decided to offer a cash prize for a SuperCharger 2600 game programming contest. I guess I'll dig up Leprechaun and get working on it again. The good thing is I have a working kernel. The bad thing is that's about all I have.

Yeah! Finally found a cam lock for the coin door at a local hardware store. So now my cabinet has a door (no mechs though). I also bought a sheet of MDF and had it cut (thanks Home Depot) for the back door. So, current to-dos:

Woodworking: Cut the MDF to length (easy work with a circular saw), add the notch & cover for the monitor, add top & bottom "latches", paint.

Software: Play around some more with AtomicFE, try out the patched version, create a layout / background I'm happy with, work out the MAME configs for each game, create a batch file wrapper for MAME.

Hardware: splice the on/off switch into the extension cord (after door!), wire up the recycled door switch into the computer on button, connect the volcano LEDs

A month or so ago I bought KotOR (on sale for C$10). I'd borrowed and finished it over a year ago, but I figured enough time had passed that I would enjoy it again. This time I also decided to try it as a (mostly) solo DS character (female level 5 soldier level 10+ guardian w/ high wisdom).

Unfortunately, I'm now at Manaan (having completed Tatooine and Kashyyyk) and my alignment is swinging dangerously back to neutral. I just can't make the choices (particularly party conversations) required to get those DS points. Wiping out sand people & bounty hunters, no problem. Sure I can tell Carth he's a jerk (especially with those lame pick up lines), but not much more.

Combat is also getting a little dull. Sure I could crank up the difficulty level from normal to freakin' hard, but that will just increase the odds of me dying. About the only character I had a problem with was the Sith Governor on Taris, and that was 'cause I had stopped at level 5 and he kept stunning me. T3-M4's flamethrower put the odds in my favor. (Oh, Twitch beat me too; again my level was too low.) Calo wasn't bad after I picked off his henchmen, and Darth Bandon wasn't any problem at all.

So I'm faced with some choices:
1. Continue on, but be as bad as possible. Use the FAQs and walkthroughs to squeeze every DS point out of the remaining story.
2. Start over and concentrate on the LS story, since that's my personal preference anyway, though still solo.
3. Start over but set up the character to unlock HK-47. Have to go party, no way to solo with a scoundrel. Again try the DS, but this time sass the party at every opportunity.
4. Neutral? Is that even an option?

Of course, KotOR takes up time. And I'm sure my wife would rather I not play at all....

My arm is still tingling. I was connecting up the receiver/amplifier in my Tempest cabinet when my hand brushed the dangling monitor on/off switch. Silly me I had left the monitor plugged in. Well, it turns out that switch is line AC, not a sense DC. Now "120" AC isn't as bad as the 240 they use elsewhere (which can kill), but it'll still make you yell and jump.

Current beauty shot of my Tempest MAME cabinet. Just added the speaker marquee this weekend.

Still to do:
1 - coin door: need a lock, mechs & switches, and connect it to the keyboard encoder.
2 - rear door (espcially since it has live current exposed, lesson learned)
3 - load & configure MAME, ROMS and FE
4 - connect volcano LEDs to keyboard encoder

It will be interesting to see how Video Google plays out. Already it looks like a decent way for video artist and budding filmmakers to distribute demo reals. (Assuming you can load the keywords so someone can find it.) But, already I see some problems:

1. What's the point of capturing TV feeds if they aren't available for viewing? Heck, all they are really doing is capturing & indexing the closed captions. (Which is probably in violation of some copyrights.) Plus, they are making it damn difficult to find stuff which is playable. Maybe a search option for playable and/or free?

2. Although I do appreciate that they are screening uploads for adult content & copyright violations, they aren't paying much attention to background music. (Some annonymous grunge speed-metal, I can understand, but "Paint It Black"?) This might come back to bite them.

3. It would be really nice if the player had a "pause" button and some way to skip ahead.

4. I wonder how Google plans to make the viewer open source and manage to keep any future payment schemes secure?

Although I keep trying to limit the number of projects I'm working on at one time, I keep adding new ones.

My latest is TiVo. I realized that my wife has several shows that she enjoys watching which often get taped & watched later due to RL scheduling conflicts. Hmm... we keep using the same tape over & over for time-shifting. Sounds like TiVo would be a good fit and an excellent birthday present. (October)

Except for one snag. TiVo doesn't offer listings outside of the US & UK. (And they don't even sell players in the UK anymore.) Well, some Canucks have created work-arounds for those of us north of the border. So I spent some time this weekend re-installing Win98 and setting up some of the software on an underpowered machine which would be perfect for the job.

The next challenge is configuring the box so it will accept the PPP connection from the TiVo (shopping on eBay for one) and accept connections for the IP address hardwired into the TiVo.

I also had fun with powertools and cut a old shelf which will be mounted where the marquee would go in my Tempest cabinet. Next I need to make an angled cut for the bottom and cut holes for the speakers which will be mounted in the board.

Next step in 32K SpaceWar! 7800 is to modify the graphics data layout and display list building code for 4K Holey DMA, then the background logic.

I discovered a while back the Expensive Planetarium starfield required too much ROM space for its own good. After some debate, I decided to recode it as 236x80 tiles (versus 216x90), which will nicely map from $9000-DFFF, leaving $8xxx and $Exxx for sprites (w/ 4K:16 line holey DMA) and $Fxxx for the actual code. This does mean the aspect ratio is wrong, but I'm willing to live with that. (Well, it was only "correct" at 0 degrees declination.)

Anyway, Saturday I went back to the source file I got from somewhere and re-did the QBasic program to convert it to an ASM file. It still needs a couple of tweaks. I forgot to handle wrap around and I need to put in a workaround for the lack of a bitwise OR.

Yes, I use QBasic. BASIC (actually AppleSoft BASIC) was my first computer language and I've never stopped using it. It's got some decent string handling commands. And since it's interpretted, it's easy to do itterative development with.

My other language of choice is C, which I use when I need to do heavy CPU stuff.

 paddle2.zip ( 10.79k ) : 6
 tbtest.zip ( 11.3k ) : 10
First, a version of the paddle proof of concept which uses a DLI instead of a pseudo kernal. This increases the amount of CPU time available to the rest of the program at the cost of the number of paddle positions (0-31 for NTSC).

Second, a trackball proof of concept. I don't have one myself so I can't test it out. Again, a DLI is used to sample the trackball multiple times per screen.