The Summer of Chuff 2015

[Howard_Casto]

Great work man.  I'm tempted to get you to have a go at my Gorf boards, but I wouldn't wish that kind of punishment on anyone.

[yotsuya]

Hella Chuffed!

 

What you working on there, brother?

[yotsuya]

Great work man.  I'm tempted to get you to have a go at my Gorf boards, but I wouldn't wish that kind of punishment on anyone.

What's wrong with it?

[harveybirdman]

Hella Chuffed!

 

What you working on there, brother?

Fixing paint imperfections caused by last coats applied above acceptable humidity levels.

Hopefully close to a thread update after several months

[yotsuya]

One step back, one step forward.

I soldered all the sockets back on the Wolf PCB, loaded the Open Ice ROM, plugged it in...

Nothin'.

It basically acts like it did when I got it. I'll do some cleaning and reseating and see what happens.

Since I was on a roll with my irons and wanted to take a break from the Wolf board , I grabbed a Centipede board that I have that has graphical glitches, & a non working Centipede board I have. I did some research last night and found the location of two chips that might cause some graphic glitches, so I took them off the bad board, and swapped them onto the glitchy board. Booted it up, and the glitchy board works perfectly now. So now I have a back up working Centipede board.

All in all, a good day.

[Howard_Casto]

Great work man.  I'm tempted to get you to have a go at my Gorf boards, but I wouldn't wish that kind of punishment on anyone.

What's wrong with it?

It's gorf, that's what's wrong with it.  Seriously though they are dead as a doornail and probably need a full rebuild. 

[yotsuya]

Great work man.  I'm tempted to get you to have a go at my Gorf boards, but I wouldn't wish that kind of punishment on anyone.

What's wrong with it?

It's gorf, that's what's wrong with it.  Seriously though they are dead as a doornail and probably need a full rebuild.

Hahaha. I'll probably be busy trying to fix the stupid Wolf board.

The Centipede board has me chuffed, though. That's the first time I ever fixed a truly broken board that wasn't replacing a part easily or swapping a socketed chip. I had to  desolder the RAMs off the bad board, then desolder the RAMs off the glitchy board, then swap them and cross my fingers.  I bought that glitchy board as is off eBay for pretty cheap, so I'm happy I finally got it working. Like I stated before, I'm going to burn the $50,000 Atari Championships Centipede timed eproms and install them on the board, and have it there for  competitions.

[pbj]

It was bound to finally happen.  Caught something today, promptly tossed it back in.

[yotsuya]

Great catch there, James!

Okay, I just left my buddy Jawhn's house. Jawhn is the patron saint of arcade gaming here in Phoenix. You need anything Arcade related, you go ask Jawhn. Anyway, he asked me if I would burn him a Galaga rapid fire chip and a pair of chips to do attract mode on freeplay in Pac -Man. I had the spares, so I burned them, and I just went over to his house right now to install them. We loaded them onto the respective boards, fired them up, and both worked exactly as we expected them to. What a great day to be in this hobby.

[BadMouth]

Did the final major sanding to my drywall yesterday and cleaned all the floors in the house.
chuffed, but tired.  very tired.

Gotta wire for a ceiling light and a couple wall sconces before painting.
Been lucky so far about feeding wires without having to cut open any walls.
The sconces are going on an insulated wall, so I may not be as lucky this time around.

[Howard_Casto]

Nice. 

I finally hooked up the indicator light wire to my keyless entry yesterday evening since I had the dash apart anyway.  (It's in a strange spot)  I think I paid 8 dollars for the unit and all the Camaro guys were telling me what a mistake I had made and how I should have spent $250 for a fourth gen gm unit and retro fit it as that hunk of junk would never work.  Well that was in 2012, so I'm quite Chuffed on how wrong they were and how much money I saved. 

One of these days people are going to learn that nearly everything we buy is cheap Chinese junk anyway, so you might as well cut out the middle man and buy the stuff from China. 

[BadMouth]

Nice. 

I finally hooked up the indicator light wire to my keyless entry yesterday evening since I had the dash apart anyway.  (It's in a strange spot)  I think I paid 8 dollars for the unit and all the Camaro guys were telling me what a mistake I had made and how I should have spent $250 for a fourth gen gm unit and retro fit it as that hunk of junk would never work.  Well that was in 2012, so I'm quite Chuffed on how wrong they were and how much money I saved. 

One of these days people are going to learn that nearly everything we buy is cheap Chinese junk anyway, so you might as well cut out the middle man and buy the stuff from China.

This makes me miss my old Trans Shazamm.

[yotsuya]

Nice. 

I finally hooked up the indicator light wire to my keyless entry yesterday evening since I had the dash apart anyway.  (It's in a strange spot)  I think I paid 8 dollars for the unit and all the Camaro guys were telling me what a mistake I had made and how I should have spent $250 for a fourth gen gm unit and retro fit it as that hunk of junk would never work.  Well that was in 2012, so I'm quite Chuffed on how wrong they were and how much money I saved. 

One of these days people are going to learn that nearly everything we buy is cheap Chinese junk anyway, so you might as well cut out the middle man and buy the stuff from China.

[dkersten]

Now that the doc has given me the go ahead to not wear my splint any more and to use my right hand and the injections I got in my back seem to have eliminated 80% of the pain there, I dove into some projects this weekend.  My deck has a tree growing up through the middle, and when I built it 10 years ago I left about 2 inches all the way around the trunk.  Now the tree was touching on two sides and was getting close to the others.  So I pulled up some decking, reframed around it, and cut new pieces to surround the trunk and trim it off.  I didn't take pics, but it was the most manual labor I have done in almost a year, and I did it almost 100% pain free, which was VERY satisfying.

I did some more planning on the sun shade for the deck, and I might work on that this week if I can find the right materials.

I also helped my son get my garage back into working order and cleaned up.  Even went through some of the old scraps of wood and such and did some organization there.  The garage was a disaster since the last 2 vehicles we worked on, and now it is organized enough for a new woodworking project.  Now that I have 60% use of my right hand and my back isn't taking me out after 20 minutes of standing or working, I am considering tackling a new entertainment center for my theater room that I have been considering.  I have some cherry plywood and hardwood I bought about 6 years ago (about $1,000 worth) that I was going to use to build some bookcases, but it would be ideal for building this piece of furniture. 

Finally, I got my sprinkler system fired up and ran the well for a few hours into the storm drain to flush out the rust and sediment from over the winter.  I still have a couple minor repairs, but I ran out of juice after the other projects.

Summer is just beginning for me and after over 6 months of feeling like an invalid, I am finally starting to get some stuff done. 

[Howard_Casto]

Good for you man.  It's the same deal with me... spent a year barely feeling human and now that I'm getting some relief I can't help but tear through projects like a bull in a China shop.  My advice is keep at it.  The more you do the better you'll feel even if it does hurt a little.

I want pics of the entertainment center... going to build something similar soon so maybe I can rip it off... err... I mean you can inspire me. 

[yotsuya]

Now that the doc has given me the go ahead to not wear my splint any more and to use my right hand and the injections I got in my back seem to have eliminated 80% of the pain there, I dove into some projects this weekend.  My deck has a tree growing up through the middle, and when I built it 10 years ago I left about 2 inches all the way around the trunk.  Now the tree was touching on two sides and was getting close to the others.  So I pulled up some decking, reframed around it, and cut new pieces to surround the trunk and trim it off.  I didn't take pics, but it was the most manual labor I have done in almost a year, and I did it almost 100% pain free, which was VERY satisfying.

I did some more planning on the sun shade for the deck, and I might work on that this week if I can find the right materials.

I also helped my son get my garage back into working order and cleaned up.  Even went through some of the old scraps of wood and such and did some organization there.  The garage was a disaster since the last 2 vehicles we worked on, and now it is organized enough for a new woodworking project.  Now that I have 60% use of my right hand and my back isn't taking me out after 20 minutes of standing or working, I am considering tackling a new entertainment center for my theater room that I have been considering.  I have some cherry plywood and hardwood I bought about 6 years ago (about $1,000 worth) that I was going to use to build some bookcases, but it would be ideal for building this piece of furniture. 

Finally, I got my sprinkler system fired up and ran the well for a few hours into the storm drain to flush out the rust and sediment from over the winter.  I still have a couple minor repairs, but I ran out of juice after the other projects.

Summer is just beginning for me and after over 6 months of feeling like an invalid, I am finally starting to get some stuff done.

Good to hear, brother. Finish the pergola and post photos!

[dkersten]

This is what it looked like near the end of last summer.  I got some more trim work done around the corner tables, but I still have a little ways to go there.  Now that the treated wood has had a chance to air out, I will stain it this summer to match the fence (which also needs staining very badly).  I will fill in a few more slats in the pergola.  It is more for looks than for shade as this area isn't really used during the day. 

[Vigo]

Good for you man.  It's the same deal with me... spent a year barely feeling human and now that I'm getting some relief I can't help but tear through projects like a bull in a China shop.  My advice is keep at it.  The more you do the better you'll feel even if it does hurt a little.

I want pics of the entertainment center... going to build something similar soon so maybe I can rip it off... err... I mean you can inspire me. 

I was thinking that you must be feeling a lot better than last year to be tearing through these projects. 

[HaRuMaN]

Chuffed that I got 8 orders out this morning.     Twas a good weekend.  Had to take the carseats out and fold my seats down to get everything to FedEx. 

[lcmgadgets]

I wanna get back onto my Legacy project. I have been working a little with google sketchup, but I really need to go to town on it.

[Slippyblade]

Man, you guys are making me feel like a slug.  All I've done is figure out Attract-Mode and started compiling screenshots for every damn retro game out there. Takes a surprising long time, even WITH the scraper that A-M has.  I've got NES done and about 1/4 of SNES.  Then on to GameBoy!

[Howard_Casto]

Man, you guys are making me feel like a slug.  All I've done is figure out Attract-Mode and started compiling screenshots for every damn retro game out there. Takes a surprising long time, even WITH the scraper that A-M has.  I've got NES done and about 1/4 of SNES.  Then on to GameBoy!

That's some mind-numbing, tedious work right there.  If you are getting proper shots of all the games, that's something to chuff about. 

[Slippyblade]

That's some mind-numbing, tedious work right there.  If you are getting proper shots of all the games, that's something to chuff about. 

Yeah, tell me about it.  TheGamesDB.net has a lot of good stuff, but many of them are literally, "Load the game, play for a minute or two, screencap, exit, rename, move, repeat for next game".  When there are hundreds to go through...  yeah.  Eyes bleed.  And since I am doing it for almost the entire library - I'm having to play titles like "Barbie: Fashion Model" and "Elmo's Fun With Numbers", at least long enough to grab a screenie.

[pbj]

Now that the doc has given me the go ahead to not wear my splint any more and to use my right hand

What was the first thing you fapped to with your new lease on life?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm hoping it was a two handed fap.... those are a bit overkill, but every once in a while... cause... 'MERICA!

[Howard_Casto]

That's some mind-numbing, tedious work right there.  If you are getting proper shots of all the games, that's something to chuff about. 

Yeah, tell me about it.  TheGamesDB.net has a lot of goo stuff, but many of them are literally, "Load the game, play for a minute or two, screencap, exit, rename, move, repeat for next game".  When there are hundreds to go through...  yeah.  Eyes bleed.  And since I am doing it for almost the entire library - I'm having to play titles like "Barbie: Fashion Model" and "Elmo's Fun With Numbers", at least long enough to grab a screenie.

Maybe when you are done we can compare notes.  I want to do some "one shot" front-ends for the consoles.  I figure unlike mame and what have you, most of your emulators don't require an update every two months to run all the games, so make a front-end specifically for a console, stick it on a thumb drive with a pre-configured emulator and some artwork and you are good to go. 

[Slippyblade]

What was the first thing you fapped to with your new lease on life?

Barbie: Fashion Model...  I thought we already covered this!

[Howard_Casto]

Let's see, you guys asked for pics ages ago:

Shed addition complete with white trash door (I still have to paint it Technicolor dreamcoat style)

[Howard_Casto]

And my brake.  If you are wondering where the handle is, note the wrench in the second pic.... if the metal is thicker, I get out a bigger wrench.

[Howard_Casto]

Somewhere under all that wood is my new (and yet unfinished) wood cart... I think you can barely see the front wheels peaking out.  Ahem, yeah, I'm re-organizing atm.

[Slippyblade]

 

Love the door "locks" up top!

[yotsuya]

Love all the construction pix, especially the pergola, Dave. 

So guess what mofo now has a Centipede board running the $50,000 Atari Championships ROMS? This mofo!



Instead of a P2 score, there is a timer up in the corner (time is set with the DIP switches). You have X amount of time to score as many points as you can. Once time runs out, the game is over. I have a lot of friends and family that like to play Centipede, and this will definitely be a hoot.

[yotsuya]

Man, you guys are making me feel like a slug.  All I've done is figure out Attract-Mode and started compiling screenshots for every damn retro game out there. Takes a surprising long time, even WITH the scraper that A-M has.  I've got NES done and about 1/4 of SNES.  Then on to GameBoy!

Dude, if those screenshots aren't at least 7400x2324 1080p, you're wasting all our time. /me cracks open a Pabst Blue Ribbon

[harveybirdman]

Man, you guys are making me feel like a slug.  All I've done is figure out Attract-Mode and started compiling screenshots for every damn retro game out there. Takes a surprising long time, even WITH the scraper that A-M has.  I've got NES done and about 1/4 of SNES.  Then on to GameBoy!

Dude, if those screenshots aren't at least 7400x2324 1080p, you're wasting all our time. /me cracks open a Pabst Blue Ribbon

 

[Malenko]

slippy, I look forward to you sharing your hard work

[Howard_Casto]

Love the door "locks" up top!

Note that I've got a actual lock on the thing even though it's 90% tarp and anyone could break in with a sharp knife. 

Country Roads.........

[Le Chuck]

Madilyn Harper Le Chuck entered the game yesterday and we are as CHUFFED as can be. This makes three so I finally get to finish the four player cab Blake has been asking for lol.

[Vigo]

  Congrats!!!! 

My third is on the way in November, and I just got back from the ultrasound appointment today to find out the gender. It looks it will be a third boy in the Vigo household.

[jdbailey1206]

Madilyn Harper Le Chuck entered the game yesterday and we are as CHUFFED as can be. This makes three so I finally get to finish the four player cab Blake has been asking for lol.

Heluva Fathers Day Gift!   

[Slippyblade]

Congrats to the both of ya!  I love being a dad.  I've got two which is plenty, I'm done!