So for something completely different, let’s stand on top of a mountain take a deep breath and enjoy the view.
After some travelling followed by teaching Civil 3D to a class of eight students, some who are not from the industry and the rest had very limited civil design experience, needless to say, there were virtually no questions. The makings for long day.
Next, after travelling, I had to complete the Autodesk certification exams, which not only test you on your knowledge of all the relevant Autodesk products but it also validates your Autodesk world view, and then finally the infamous expense forms, enough said about that, you all have experienced those. So yes a rough couple of weeks.
Later in the week, killing time at our local wholesale warehouse (sampling the free food) while the rest of the family shops. A spot light shining in all this gloom, was an old time video arcade game, loaded with over a 100 games.
Nothing like playing a few rounds of Defender or Joust to bring order in the world. It is something about shooting down alien abductors that is liberating and best yet you don’t have to read a twenty page manual or require the dexterity of a side show circus contortionist to navigate through the controls.
At $2500, I wondered if I could convince my wife that this was a “worthwhile investment”. Yes I realized after, a wrong choice of words.
Good luck with that, it is ok to buy my son the latest game console every year followed by countless of games over time, but an old game that stands the test of time noooooo.
I like building stuff, so lets see if you can build one of these. The Internet, what a great resource, and lo and behold! You can build a video arcade game.
What you need is a game emulator MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) my understanding is that it is designed to emulate the hardware system in today’s software. The intent is to preserve gaming history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME.
- Once you have downloaded and installed the MAME you need the actual game.
These games are saved in ROM image. A ROM image, or sometimes referred to as a ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the software code from a read-only memory chip, on an arcade game's main board.
- Do a search on the internet for sites where you can download ROM images. There is some grey area in regards to licensee of these old games. You can use them for personal use and chances are, you may not get in trouble, however, if you start charging a quarter to play these games, then expect a knocking on your door from the software police.
- Save the entire zipped ROM file in a folder called MAME\roms. Then, in the file pull down, run the audit all games and the MAME program will load the ROM files. That’s it.
The final stage is building the cabinet. There are plenty of sites on building a Video arcade cabinet, including how to wire the joystick and buttons.
I found it difficult playing a game on a key board. The issue I had playing one of these games on the keyboard was, I accidently hit the <alt><ctrl><up> key or any of the arrow keys, this caused my screen to rotate.
It took me a while to figure out how to fix it back.
A good prank to play on a collogue. Image their confusion when they turn on their monitor and the screen is upside down. You need to ensure that you have enabled screen rotation on their computer before the <alt><ctrl><down> will work.
- Now back to topic at hand. Here is one site on building a Video arcade cabinet, http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BuildingYourOwnArcadeCabinetForGeeksPart1TheCabinet.aspx
Between, sometimes travelling on weekends, teaching during the week and catching up to chores when I am finally home, it will be difficult finding the time to build one of these. But one can dream, one can surely dream. If you build it they will come.
Here’s to dreaming. Catch you on the flip side
Cheers and have a great weekend.
