US vacation....back home....

[Level42]

Well for anyone interested: Was in the US (New England) last two weeks and it was a great vacation.

I had abused my uncle & aunt's mailbox to have sent lots of arcade parts there

Everything was delivered there in time to take it with me home in the plane, so thanks to T-molding.com, Mikedeuce,Ponyboy and Divemaster !!!

I also was lucky at picking up two Jakks games. The very one I was looking for (Ms.Pac Man) was at an EB Games for only $4,95 !! I also picked up the other left-over Jakks game (The Return of Sponge Bob  for the same price. The guy said they were clearing them out, and indeed I didn't find any other Jakks games at the other EB games stores I visited.
Also, at Best Buy and Target, those things were still $19,95. All in all a bargain, since these things cost 29,95 Euro here, which is about $ 38 !!!

The Ms. Pac Man even included the "extra games"  Gamekey with Dig Dug and Rally-x.  I gave it a try te other day, and of course they are not true arcade clones, but they are still a lot of fun. I was amazed that the joystick could be turned to steer the car in Pole Position ! It works very well and shows the guys at Jakks didn't try to go the easiest ans simplest way. The joystick itself is not bad at all by the way !

I went over to Funspot at Weirs Beach and well, it's a dream for us classic arcade game lovers. We were there an entire afternoon and went back for an hour or two the other day. Only then I had spent the 175 (!!!!) tokens I got (and mind you, my 4 year old son and wife helped a great deal to spend them!)
If you ever have the chance of going there, do it, you won't regret. Games are neatly ordered by manufacturer and are in decent state most of the times.
A high point in my holiday

Another one was buying................... a Mac Mini !

Yes, i fell in love with this little fellow some time ago, but when I was at an Apple Store and saw the dollar price I couldn't resist. Got the one with the Superdrive and the 1,86 Ghz CPU.
Gave it a test spin already when on holiday and loved it from the first minute.
Beatiful design, amazing OS (thought I would have to use English for the OS, but I could select Dutch while it booted for the first time, go try that with Win XP !) and most important it is so silent !

Actulay I am writing this on it right now

Buying it in the US saved me 200 Euro's on the Mac mini itself alone. I also bought a keyboard and mouse. Expensive, but you don't want a genereral looking keyboard and mouse with a sexy little computer like that !

Ok, bored you guys enough !

[ChadTower]

Glad to see you had a great time.  Sorry to have missed you up at Funspot.  I bet your son spent a good amount of time on those bumper cars.  My kids always do.

[Level42]

Yeah he did ride them a numbe of times. But it was so quite, he was the only kid riding. He also tends to enjoy all the sit-down cabs the most...Fun Spot is a fantastic place, every arcade fan should go there at least once in their lives

[ChadTower]

Did you happen to see if they've fixed the Red Baron cockpit in the upstairs corner?  One of my favorite cabs of all time, working nicely, not accepting any credits because of bad coin mechs.

[Level42]

Uhmm.......to be honest, I don't recall seeing that one at all. I did play Battlezone (duh !) so it must have been around that area I guess, and I must have noticed it if it were there. Maybe they were working on it ?

I had a problem with the Gravitar. First it wouldnt accept my coin, than I discovered there was a coin stuck. Pressed the reject button, and presto a free credit (a whopping $0.11 ).
However, there was something wrong, the graphics were all mixed up, unplayable that way....

Also Donkey Kong was working fine the first day, out of order the next. Popeye had a very dark screen. The Tapper controls didn't work (I was very surprised by those controllers). The left Ms.Pac Man didn't have the bass sounds, very weird to heat the intermissions that way !

But that was about it, everything else was pretty much in great shape. You don't hear me complaining, must be a lot of work to keep those oldies going in a real arcade situation and I cannot praise the Funspot people enough for keeping this collection alive in such a great new and clean place.

[Lutus]

I love all my Apple computers and I love OSX.

When I am forced to use Windows at work I die a little on the inside every time!

[Level42]

I love all my Apple computers and I love OSX.

When I am forced to use Windows at work I die a little on the inside every time!

Hah, I know what you mean ! Imagin this: I've got the Mac Mini for about a week now. I've turned on my PC only 1 time during that period, because I needed an old e-mail.

Says enough IMHO

Sometimes I do run into some things I wonder about. F.I. I downloaded Firefox and (yeah shame on me)MSN Messenger. After a re-boot, both seemed to be gone ? I think it has something to do with mounting the downloaded files ? Sorry, this is completely of topic...but hey it's "my" thread

Maybe there's a Mac for Windows-dummies book ? 

True story:
......Level 42's wife: "Hey is your Mac on ?" Level 42 responds: "I don't know, I can't hear it over the fridge in the kitchen"   

Working on this baby reminds me of working on my Atari 8-bit machines........perfect silence

[ChadTower]

Working on this baby reminds me of working on my Atari 8-bit machines........perfect silence

I dunno... I used to do a lot of loud swearing because that goddam membrane keyboard was a piece of crap.    

[Level42]

Membrame ? Ahhhhh you had the 400 !!!! Yeah that must have been a pain to use !!
Strangely it's now highly sought after by collectors, even more than the original 800.

I started with a 600XL, later a 130XE. Then I sold the whole lot to be able to buy a 1040STfm. I regretted that very much later, not the ST, but selling the old stuff. But I pretty much got everything back now. I even have a 800 PAL version. Got it way below it's value and it's almost in 100% condition.
The PAL version is pretty rare. I believe they were only officialy imported in the UK back then. I always wanted to have a 800, just because of the way it is built. It's so sturdy. I bet these things will still work in about 50 years. Also the concept of mobo/modular desgin is very interesting when compared to the later PC.

[Lutus]

Ok, not sure if you fixed it but when you download, let's say, msn-messenger...  The file will be mounted on the desktop and the icon is supposed to represent like an external harddrive. 

1.  All you do is double click the "mounted" image
2.  Drag the "executable" to the Applications tab on the left side of the finder window
3.  Click on the Applications tab and confirm your application is in there
4.  Drag the new application anywhere on the dock you want it.  (If you want it on the dock). 

Once installed, I would...

5.  Drag the mounted image on the desktop to the trashcan (which will be the eject icon at this point)

DONE!!!

[ChadTower]

Membrame ? Ahhhhh you had the 400 !!!! Yeah that must have been a pain to use !!
Strangely it's now highly sought after by collectors, even more than the original 800.

I didn't have them back then... picked up a 400 and an 800 free from someone I worked with who was trashing them.  I think that was 1994.  Spent some time playing with them and they're still sitting on a shelf in my basement despite the fact I've moved about 5 times since then.  Funny how crap follows a person around like that.

[Level42]

Haha, gotta admit I haven't actualy used the 800 since I bought it 

It's waiting for my gameroom to be realised.....

Lutus THANKS !!

[NightGod]

Ok, not sure if you fixed it but when you download, let's say, msn-messenger...  The file will be mounted on the desktop and the icon is supposed to represent like an external harddrive. 

1.  All you do is double click the "mounted" image
2.  Drag the "executable" to the Applications tab on the left side of the finder window
3.  Click on the Applications tab and confirm your application is in there
4.  Drag the new application anywhere on the dock you want it.  (If you want it on the dock). 

Once installed, I would...

5.  Drag the mounted image on the desktop to the trashcan (which will be the eject icon at this point)

DONE!!!

Well, that's certainly intuitive.

What?

[Level42]

Blah...It's a lot of text but it's really easy.

Back on topic, found this on retroblast:


Little movie from Funspot, mostly Pins though....

I made some video while I was there, will put it up on Youtube and let you know here.