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Flack

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Posts posted by Flack

  1. Posted

    Originally posted on robohara.com -- cross posted on Digital Press, Atari Age, and Particles.

     

    June 18th marked the third annual Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition (OVGE), held in the Tulsa Mariott Southern Hills Hotel's ballroom. Dozens of vendors and exhibitors showed off thousands of games and systems to hundreds of gamers both young and old.

     

    [ Pre-Show Excitement ]

     

    Last year I decided I had so much fun exhibiting a table that I would do it again this year. Phosphor Dot Fossils came up with the perfect theme for my table this year -- Star Wars. It was perfect timing, due to the release of the last Star Wars movie (Revenge of the Sith) less than a month ago. PDF and I began planning and working on the theme, but unfortunately my wife threw a wrench into our plans. She's pregnant, and our ultrasound predicted the the due date as (you guessed it) June 18th. I sadly relinquished my tables and any hope of attending OVGE.

     

    On our next trip to the doctor, he changed his mind and moved our "due date" to the 4th of July. That meant I could now attend OVGE, but my tables had already been resold. Instead, this year I would be attend OVGE as just a spectator. I was looking forward to doing that for a change. I got my camcorder and digital camera ready for the show.

     

    As fate would have it, someone ELSE cancelled (the day before the show -- tacky), leaving Jesse "Crossbow" Hardesty (OVGE organizer) with empty tables. Jesse called me at home, asking me if I could still put together a table.I didn't get the message for a couple of hours, and by the time I was able to get back with Jesse, it was 6pm. I decided to take the tables, only 15 hours before the show's doors opened.

     

    I frantically began throwing systems, games, and random Star Wars collectibles into tubs and loading them into my minivan. I finished loading around 3am. That left me two hours to sleep before making the two hour drive to Tulsa, which would give me just under an hour to get everything set up. No problem!

     

    p1010001.jpg

     

    Here's the minivan, circa 3am. Tubs, a dolly, sacks of crap and two lone helmets (Stormtrooper and Boba Fett) filled up the back of of the van.

     

    p1010002.jpg

     

    Yoda, strapped in and ready for the ride.

     

    [ OVGE Review ]

     

    Unfortunately my wife and I didn't arrive at the show until about 8:10am, with doors set to open at 9. I ran into several people who came by and said "Flack! Hi, I'm ..." but I was in such a hurry that I didn't have much of a chance to stop and talk to people at that point. Fortunately for me, Icbrkr had already set his table up the night before so he and his wife Ginger gave me a hand in carrying piles of crap in from the van and getting everything set up.

     

    p1010006.jpg

     

    Here's how my table (with the red table cloth) ended up. I dug some old Star Wars cutouts out of the garage which brought a lot of attention to the table. On the left hand side of my table I had my Atari 2600 (Vader model, of course) with all four official Star Wars carts. I also had Ewok Adventure on a flash cart as well. I had an Atari joystick hooked up, but most people who played the system swapped the joystick out with my Genesis controller. In the middle of my table I had my SNES hooked up with all three Super Star Wars games, and the new Jakks Star Wars joystick. On the right hand of the table I had all three current gen systems (Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox) with a variety of Star Wars games rotating through them. Lego Star Wars got the most game play, followed by Rogue Squadron. The table was covered with almost every Star Wars console game, the Star Wars helmets, and of course Yoda which got a lot of attention.

     

    p1010007.jpg

     

    The far end of my table had kids battling the Empire in Lego Star Wars (Xbox), with Boba Fett overseeing the festivities.

     

    p1010004.jpg

     

    Here is me with my "Yoda balloon hat", courtest of Balloon Boy. Ah, Balloon Boy. I don't know who he really is, but Balloon Boy (a name I gave him) is a guy who comes to OVGE, wanders around and makes balloon animals for people and kids. As strange as the idea sounds, the guy is really talented. For the record, I wore this Yoda hat for exactly ten seconds (long enough to take a picture) and then stuck it on the Stormtrooper hat. Late in the day, I had a five-year-old kid come by and play on the Jakks stick for almost half an hour. I awarded him the "Jedi of the Day" award and gave him the hat, which he proudly wore the rest of the day.

     

    p1010005.jpg

     

    The Mario balloon hat was equally impressive.

     

    p1010008.jpg

     

    Here are Albert and Andrew Davie manning the AtariAge table. I had not met Andrew in person before and was surprised when I first heard his Australian accent! Andrew and I talked a bit about his love of programming Atari 2600 games. Later that day, someone informed me that Andrew worked on several classic console games as well including the Three Stooges game! It's a good thing I didn't know that in advance, as I probably would have spent the rest of the day following him around asking him questions about it. In the foreground of this picture you can see some of the various books AA had for sale.

     

    p1010009.jpg

     

    Just a collection of some of AA's wares they had available. AA's display looked more professional than some of the actual stores' tables.

     

    p1010010.jpg

     

    Forum member SteveW casts away at Go Fish, one of the games AA had for sale at OVGE. I can't decide which is more wonderful -- a little kid (background) playing Atari, or that many Commodore monitors all together in one place.

     

    p1010011.jpg

     

    The Atari Flashback 2.0 made its debut at OVGE 2005. It's a nice little piece of hardware, although apparently this unit was a beta unit and only contained 10 of the 40 promised games. Unfortunately Curt was not at the show -- I was looking forward to meeting him after seeing him interviewed on the BBS Documentary DVD (bbsdocumentary.com).

     

    (continued)

  2. Posted

    If some diskettes are working and others aren't, it could mean a lot of things. The drive could just be slightly out of alignment, which can cause some disks to work and others not to. Also, if the disks are old original ones chances are they're approaching 20 years old. They'll go bad eventually.

     

    All the other suggestions in this thread were good ones. 1, clean the drive. 2, try and realign it. Then 3, look for another drive. I, like Ze_ro, have over half a dozen of them lying around. I've got one permanently attached to an old 486 for disk transfers, another one hooked up to the 64 on my coffee table, and three or four more out in the garage waiting to get rotated into service. Most of them still have their $1.98 or $2.98 prices written in grease pencil on the top of them.

  3. Posted

    I have my old light sixer from when I was a kid still hooked up and going. I decided ti pick up one of all the variations I could find in the wild. Now I also have:

     

    1 Heavy Sixer

    1 Light Sixer

    1 Woody 4 Switch

    1 Darth Vader 4 Switch

    I Jr. Short Rainbow

    1 Jr. Long Rainbow

     

    All of these were picked up from thrift stores and garage sales for less than $5 each. Most of them were a buck.

  4. Posted

    Well if you quit buying stuff made by Chnese people, you're going to severely limit your game collection!

     

    The Gamepark 32, or GP32, is a cool little device if you're into emulation. There are a lot of cool emulators, like NES, SNES, Genesis, and my favorite, the Commodore 64. There are a couple of Atari 2600 emulators, but if I remember correctly it runs at about 90% speed. There's also a perfect Atari ST emulator, and the new MAME port is really good as well.

     

    It's not as straight forward as a regular console. It will take some tinkering to get things to work, so if you're not that kind of person you probably won't enjoy it.

  5. Posted

    OKC to Tulsa is like 110 miles if you take the turnpike which is the way I go ... lots of wide open road and 10 over is no big deal. Dallas is about 3.5 hours from here, so yeah, I'd say 4.5 to 5 hours is a reasonable estimate.

     

    I can't give a good estimate from here to Austin. The only time I've done that drive (to pick up a Heavy Barrel arcade cabinet) turned out to be on OU/Texas weekend. Any plans I had of making good time were foiled by the 2 hours I spent parked on I-35 somewhere near Dallas.

     

    That was a fun trip, btw. The kid who sold me the cab gave me horrible directions. We had to use my GPS to find the house. It poured down rain the whole time, so we had to stop at a Lowes and get tarps and ropes. Then when we got to the house, the kid turned out to be 17 and his parents had no idea that he was selling (or had already sold!) the cabinet online. They were NOT happy.

     

    Always an adventure ...

  6. Posted

    The problem with a MAME front end is you run out of buttons for features in a hurry. On the one I wrote, up and down on the joystick of course moves you through the list, while left and right jump forward and backward 20 games. Player 1 start works as Enter and Player 2 start works as ESC.

     

    I suppose you could code in something like shift+right = jump to the beginning of the next letter, that wouldn't be that hard to incorporate.

  8. Posted

    Are you asking whether the experience at home is the same, or the actual software is the same?

     

    The home conversions of many home arcade games aren't conversions at all but the actual games themselves. So on those, yeah, they're the same. Of course that hasn't always been the same (see: Atari 2600's Pac-Man).

     

    Each version of gaming (arcades vs home consoles) has their advantages and disadvantages.

  9. Posted

    It's too bad you missed the auction. Dead generic cabinets often sell for $25 or less, depending on how complete they are. For those with the woodworking experience of you or I, they make a nice starting point.

  11. Posted

    Wow okay, so I'm late to the party. As many of you know I had to give up my tables this year as my wife's original due date was the same day as OVGE. The due date has been pushed back to the 4th of July, so it looks like I'll be able to come visit again this year after all -- only this time as a stinkin' paying attendee! :) After skimming this thread, I picked out a couple of things I wanted to comment on.

     

    Does anyone know how the alcohol situation is in Oklahoma?  Like can you get beer and booze in supermarkets and mini-marts?  Or do you have to go through distributers?  Also what's the open container policy in those parts.

     

    Beer here is 3.2. You can get beer some convenient stores, but not liquor. Liquor stores close at 9pm M-Sat and are closed Sundays. Open container in the car means DUI and jail. Don't try it.

     

    We were doing some internet research about the eating (particularly fast food) situation in Tulsa...what's the deal with Whataburger?  We were a little disappointed there was no White Castle because we were looking forward to being rushed to floor by a sixer of chicken rings, two dozen sliders, washed three diet coke's of course at 4:00 am.  :D PS...what's the situation like at the Cherokee Casino?  Is it on the level?  Are there table games?  Does any one know the Texas Hold Em limits?

     

    There are no White Castles in Oklahoma. The closest ones are in Kansas City, MO I believe. I know every time we drive to Chicago we stop in St. Louis and get some sliders.

     

    As far as food is concerned, you are in a populated area and can pretty much find a restaurant in any direction. Vespertillo, Nine Juan Juan and I set out after the show last year and found some random Mexican place that turned out to be pretty good. I'm pretty sure there are McDonalds, Sonics, and all types of fast food joints within a block of the hotel.

     

    As for the casino ... they all have slot machines but they're not real slot machines, they're pull tabs so don't bother. From what I've heard the card games are on the level. Also from what I understand they do not serve alcohol in the casinos here, and from the times my wife's gone she says you're doing good if you can get a Coke.

     

    ... how far of drive is Bentonville AK!

     

    I JUST made that drive last weekend from Oklahoma City, going through Tulsa. From here to Tulsa is about 1:45, and the entire drive was just shy of 4 hours, so I would say basically two hours exactly.

     

    We were also contemplating filming the whole weekend's activity for a documentary that we have been plaining...is this going to be a problem, and would anyone care to be interviewed for this...if so let us know.  We aren't going half-assed on this we are planning on tearing Tulsa up...we are so looking forward to boozin' and blazin' some stogies and just having one hell of a great time...I hope you are all this down!!!  And yes we are 100% serious!!!  Please someone step up and help some brothers out!!!

     

    Let's git 'er done!

     

    we are going shopping for cowboy hats this weekend...

     

    As someone else mentioned, you will stick out as a big sore thumb. :) I don't know anyone who wears a cowboy hat, boots, or even owns a big belt buckle (that's not to say you won't see them adorned by some Tulsa locals).

     

    I'll be the big guy with the shirt that says FLACK on the back. ;)

  13. Posted

    Hey, long time no update! Work's been busy and I lost a chunk of code due to a stupid computer crash, but I am still working on this project.

     

    I recently threw a copy of this program on my MAME cabinet and began discovering all the quirks I didn't like about it. The one thing I liked the least was the fact that the listbox showed the rom names. It's really quick and really easy to set up, but not very user friendly to look at. Also, if you're using it for mame, a lot of the file names are not very easy to decipher. After much struggling, I've ended up adding a feature which now shows the friendly names in the listbox. It wasn't easy! So now if you have pacman.bin as a rom name but in the INI file you have something like "Pac-Man © NAMCO", it will show that instead of simply showing the rom name. Like most other features of FFE, it's completely optional -- if a friendly name doesn't exist in an INI file, it will still show the rom name (now with the extension stripped off, for easier viewing).

     

    I messed around with having FFE play background music but in the end it was just a bit much overkill. Maybe I'll revisit it someday in the future.

     

    I am working on the resizing issue this morning, so we'll see how that goes. My cabinet runs in 800x600 and that's what I've set the background templates up for. Maybe I'll make some more for different resolutions if this works.

  14. Posted

    I used to work at a Pizza Inn here in Oklahoma and I remember we had one right by the front door (Arkanoid, I think). It was popular with the kids because parents would come in and order a pizza to go or something and the kids would play a quick game while the parents were waiting.

     

    I picked up a Nintendo VS. Cocktail a while back (I guess it's considered a cocktail?) with a monitor on each side. I picked it up thinking I was saving room -- ha! You guys are right, it takes up the space of 2 1/2 to 3 games.

  15. Posted

    Dragon's Lair was the first one I ever saw. It was also the first game I ever saw that made you pay to continue even if you didn't die. I remember watching this guy play the game halfway through and then a screen popped up that said something to the effect of, "Great, you're halfway there -- insert another 50 cents to continue!"

  19. Posted

    My apologies good friend, but as I said they'll be gutting the cab before they give it to me.  No boards or parts or anything left inside - just the shell.  That was the deal - we get our cabs for $50 but they keep the viscera.  I will say however your MAME post projects have definitely been an inspiration, and I hope someday I'll be hosting a party at our house where you, the Mrs and a little rugrat to come soon will all be hanging out and playing the machine.  OmaCon or something. :D

    846564[/snapback]

     

    After OVGE this year, it'll be two rugrats -- make sure the cab has Super Mario Bros on it, that's my son's favorite game. :) He's been able to beat 1-1 for the past month or so on one man, last night he beat 1-2 for the first time. I wonder if Twin Galaxies has a record for the youngest player to beat the entire game?

     

    I am going to an arcade auction tomorrow, I will see if they have any cheap coin doors there (sometimes they go for $5-$10, and just need to be sanded/painted to look new again). I'm also going to see if they have any dead cabs cheap (the wheels are churning ...)

  21. Posted

    Here's the way I see it:

     

    1. Size issue. I've only got space in my rec room for one

     

    MAME Cab -- that way you can play lots of games.

     

    2. Cost issue. I'm not looking to spend big money.

     

    MAME Cab -- cheaper to build than buying a classic, especially if you have computer parts lying around.

     

    4. Multi-cab.

     

    MAME Cab.

     

    5. Obscurity.

     

    MAME Cab plays em all.

     

    6. Maintenance.

     

    Definitely MAME Cab.

     

    All kidding aside, I would recommend either building or buying a MAME cab. Building one and staying under your $1,000 should be easy; buying one from an individual wouldn't be out of the question either.

     

    I don't really know anybody who only has ONE cabinet. Even if you managed to buy your favorite game of all time, you will eventually get sick of it. Of course the advantage to having a MAME Cab is that you can play all kinds of games, new and old, popular or obscure, etc.

     

    My MAME cabinet consists of a crappy old Nintendo cabinet with a computer stuffed into it and most of the people who come over still think it's a real arcade game. There's something magical about the shape on an arcade cabinet that lends to the illusion of it being a real arcade game. Half the time I explain to people that it's got "a computer in there" and they still don't get it.

     

    The thing you mentioned about maintenance also raised a flag for me. A MAME cab is essentially a big piece of wood with a computer in it. The worst that can happen is something computer-related can go wrong. If you can fix your PC, you can fix this. If you can't, you can always find someone (usually about half our age, hah) who can figure out the problem. When it comes to fixing arcade machines, it's a big do-it-yourself scene. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of people out there willing to help with advice and information, but at the end of the day if the machine you have needs a cap kit for example, you've either got to disassemble the whole thing and take it in and pay the $100 or learn how to do it yourself. Monitors and asthetics seem to be the two biggest things all of my games need worked on at the moment.

     

    I own a LOT of classic cabinets (Karate Champ, Gauntlet II, Rampart, Q*Bert, Shinobi, etc) but if I could only keep ONE I would keep my MAME Cabinet. I like it's versatility over the authenticity of the others.

     

    Also keep in mind that you can slap emulators on that MAME cabinet as well if you want to have some NES or 2600 games on there. You can also add an MP3 player and/or music video player to it for a little game room entertainment machine. I've got about 15 gig of 80's music videos on mine.

     

    BTW: No offense Keilbaca, but $300 for an empty cabinet is crazy. I own 20 working games and haven't paid $300 for one yet. You can pick up dead cabinets for $5 or so at auctions usually.

  22. Posted

    Looks pretty cool. I have a problem: I couldn't change the drive letter in the inimaker program. Is this on purpose?

    841060[/snapback]

     

    Nope, just an oversight on my side -- I just made a down and dirty app and didn't plan on anything other than C:\ ... I'll have to add that to the next version.

  24. Posted

    One thing I didn't mention is that the 21" monitor we used in my friend's cabinet sticks out the back. You can kind of tell in that second picture. Due to time contraints, budget limitations, and my friend's "don't care" factor, we left it. I didn't run into the same problem on my other MAME Cab because the monitor is mounted "flat". The monitor angle on those Taito cabinets looks pretty sharp, and you might run into the same problem I did.

     

    We probably could have solved our problem by taking off the monitor's case (or at least the back half). Like I said, the cabinet we built was going into a dark corner of my friend's living room and he decided that he didn't care if the cabinet had a back or not on it, so we never had to solve the problem.

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