bavatuesdays

Venture is up and running!

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Reverend

This post is a bit of a cheat because I originally posted most of the following text as part of the bavacade repair log from February 9, 2023. That noted, I want to break it out as its own post given getting Venture up and running has been an ordeal, and it deserves its own permalink and tags 🙂

The bavacade Exidy Venture cabinet fully operational

I was beginning to think I would never see this game running. When we bought it for $400 over two years ago, I knew it was going to be a project. It’s a game that doesn’t really come available all too often, and a good condition working cabinet is not only hard to find, but also fairly expensive. The only working example I’ve seen since my childhood was at the Terminal in Nashville, and it was in pretty rough shape and played terribly.

Broken upper-back corner of Exidy Venture cabinet that was fixed by Alberto

The first thing we needed to do was get the cabinet in good condition. The top-back corner of the cabinet was broken, and the back door and lower portion were falling apart—old, deteriorating wood glue was the only material holding this thing together. It was in pretty rough shape; it had been neglected for probably 30+ years, and it showed with dead leaves staining the cabinet floor. Alberto took this one and worked his magic, he sent me a bunch of images of the work as he did it, and I really love to see the process visually….

Once I had it back from Alberto I had to paint the cabinet white. I did the first couple of coats with a matte white, and I still want to do a final coat with glossy, but before I did that I needed to re-assemble the cabinet because the power supply guru Roberto was coming by to bring the re-built (for the second time) original power supply that can’t be easily replaced with a switching power supply given it uses hi and lo +12V and -12V for the sound board, which also helps power the video. This power supply has been a beast, so given Roberto was coming with a fixed unit I was thrilled, but when he arrived he noted that the -5V was not working, so we (royal) added a rectifier bridge for -5V that was pretty cool:

-5V Rectifier for Venture

-5V Rectifier for Venture connected to Ground and -5V from power supply

-5v from rectifier to board

We tried that and the board was now getting -5V, which was a win. But, but, but, for some reason the +5V was not getting to the board cleanly anymore. I was depressed, I really thought we were going to finally cut through this Gordian knot of a game. But despair is not an option, so we re-grouped and re-traced everything again, ensuring the edge connectors were attached correctly (they were), and still no dice for the +5V, although every other voltage was arriving to the boards as expected, so it was at least isolated to +5V.

Venture‘s edge connectors connected correctly

As a last ditch effort we decided to install a switching power supply to get the +5V to the board to see if that will work….and it did, dear reader! It was a moment that had been a long time coming, but bringing a game back from the dead that I’d not seen working since we got it was amazingly rewarding.

Venture Switching Power Supply for +5V

I can now take the -5V rectifier and use the switching power supply for that, but it is pretty cool to see how the rectifier works, that is yet another thing that enthralls me about electricity, all these gadgets to control and temper the flow of energy are truly amazing, and I’m reminded once again it’s always power with these games.

The Venture board I bought worked perfectly and the monitor is gorgeous. I do need to try a cap kit on the K4600 monitor chassis for Venture given it’s not working, so the current chassis is on loan from Galaxian. The other bit is I need to clean-up and possibly re-build the the 8-way joystick. It is a bit of a rat’s nest right now, and it could use some new leafs and general TLC. But, the good news is Venture is on wheels, cleaned-up beautifully, and working a treat!

Posted in bavacade, bavarcade | Tagged bavacade, bavarcade, Venture | 1 Comment

It’s Father’s Day, and I want my cake!

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Reverend

In Italy Father’s Day is recognized on St.Joseph’s saint day, which is today. And I have to say given Joseph’s role in Jesus’s birth, there’s a strange subtext to the day here 🙂 Anyway, I spend much of both the Italian and American Father’s Day quoting from the first episode of the horror omnibus Creepshow (1982), which is appropriately called “Father’s Day.” It’s a story of a wealthy, homicidal patriarch that is murdered by his daughter after having her lover killed in his ongoing campaign to control her love life. It’s an awesome episode, and everything is narrated by the bored, dissolute heirs of this fortune while they’re waiting for their great aunt Bediliah to arrive to celebrate Father’s Day, which happens to be 7 years after she murdered the pater familia.

Creepshow: “I want my Cake, Bediliah”

The line repeated throughout the episode is by the tyrannical patriarch, who belligerently cries, “I want my cake!” while banging the table with his cane. And that’s what I find myself saying again and again on this hallowed day. I often preface this demand with some context, “It’s Father’s Day, and I want my cake!” And once I get it I say, “It’s Father’s day, and I got my cake,” the latter being a reference to the end of that episode, but no spoilers here. Anyway, I’m not sure why Creepshow continues to be a huge touchstone for me on a regular basis 40+ years later, but it is. The other thing I find myself exclaiming histrionically when the occasion calls for it is “I can hold my breath for a long time!” which is a quote from the third episode of Creepshow called “Something to Tide You Over.” You just have to see that one, which is my all-time favorite.

Creepshow: Lost Reception

Also, while we’re on the subject of Creepshow, it’s worth noting the “Father’s Day” episode also features a young Ed Harris doing an impressive series of disco dance moves:

A Young Ed Harris doing the sprinkler move

I love Creepshow, and all these GIFs were actually taken from the bava archive during the heady days of the Summer of Oblivion. I went on a little Creepshow tear in June 2011, and the tale of the blog confirms that. Speaking of GIFs, I’ve been watching a bunch of Yasujiro Ozu‘s films recently, and I got an idea for an interesting GIF project for my house. I ordered the Blu-ray and will be trying to make really high quality GIFs from Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon (1962) because I think that film is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and like the first episode of Creepshow, it is all about fatherhood 🙂 I’ll try and write about my Ozu GIF project once a figure a few things out, but until then 2011 is a little something to tide you over 🙂

Posted in digital storytelling, film, films, fun, movies | Tagged Creepshow, Father's Day, film, gif, gifs, movies, ozu | Leave a comment

So Your iPhone was Stolen in Milan

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Reverend

This statue in front of the Milan stock exchange is the last photo taken before my phone was stolen 10 minutes later—foreshadowing?

It all happened pretty fast. Antonella and I were eating ice cream in a gelatteria not far from the Duomo in Milan when a woman came up to our table with an infant on her hip asking for money while laying an 8×11 map on the table. I should’ve known right then and there. My colleague Lauren Hanks related a similar scenario where someone in Madrid tried to take her phone after laying a map on the table, and grabbing the phone while lifting the map. Lauren was quicker and smarter than me, she caught on and saved her phone. I didn’t. I was too transfixed by the infant child and the discomfort of being on the receiving end of the ask. I also had no cash so callously tried to avoid eye contact, and bam, the mother, child, and my iphone were gone in an instant.

It took me about 10 minutes to realize my phone was gone, we had moved along to a nearby bookseller’s stand, and I reached for the phone to take a picture of one of the covers and I knew what had happened almost immediately. The map on the table, my recollection of the phone there as well, my avoidance of the discomfort by turning a blind eye, it all clicked and I knew it was gone. The immediate emptiness of being robbed hit me and I did a pro forma, half-hearted trek back to the gelatteria to confirm what I already knew. How stupid? I replayed the moment of her laying the map on the table and me avoiding her at all costs over and over in my mind. Further confirmation came after recalling the moment she removed the map and the shopkeeper offered her something to eat and drink—in striking contrast to my reluctance to help—which was met with a quick dart out of the store. “I should have know then too,” I lamented, “that was the telltale sign.” But in some ways I’m happy to have been oblivious because realizing at that moment and actually chasing and confronting her would probably have been far worse.

Antonella had her phone, and given we share a family iCloud account with tools to track our devices—surveillance tech #4life—I checked to see if could find it. It was reporting as being located back in Trento, which is about 200 miles away, so that’s not right. I soon after called my tech support, namely Tommaso, who suggested that they may have turned on AirPlay from the home screen as a tactic to report a different location and trick the Find My app. This is still unclear to me, and I need to confirm, but Antonella’s phone was definitely not tracking mine, so any hope of mounting a real-time sting operation was not in the cards—again probably for the best.

So, at this point the phone is long gone and I’m still pretty bummed at my stupidity, but I also saw this as an unfortunate opportunity to give iCloud’s lost phone and backup features a live test. First, remotely lock the phone and provide a number for anyone who “finds” it to call. I did this, but after thinking on it for a bit—like 5 minutes after confirming I had a full backup from the day before in iCloud—I decided to go nuclear and set the phone to delete all data as soon as it came back online given at this point there was no doubt in my mind it was stolen.

The other things pending were calling my cell provider to block the number via the SIM card as well as making a report to the police. I called TIM and blocked the SIM and that was quick and painless. I entertained going to the police station in Milan, but I know that would mean the day was a complete loss, and we had tickets to see the “Bosch and Another Renaissance” exhibit at the Palazzo Reale Milano, so I canned the police visit. The exhibit was underwhelming, and I’m not sure that’s because my phone was stolen, or that Bosch is kind of a mess of an artist. His stuff is weird, granted, but it is also kinda flat and un-compelling once the shock and awe effect wears off, much like a lot of David Lynch’s work. I think if they framed his art as a kind of b-movie, splatter/exploitation take on the Renaissance I would be a lot more interested. But what do I know, I am just a lowly blogger who lost his phone in Milan….those bastards!

After the exhibit we were shot and decided to head back to Trento, although we did catch an amazing show on the Radio Popolare station that turned us onto the Beta Band—I’ve been listening to them pretty regularly since. Anyway, once home I decided to check the Find My app on my computer and to my surprise the phone was located on the outskirts of Milan.

Find My map of Milan with image of my phone

Once I zoomed in I could pinpoint it near near the river Lambrato and one of those navigli (canals) that often make an appearance in the Milan polizieschi films of the 1970s I love so much. The seedy underbelly of the city playing out in the margins then and now.

Zoomed-in to Find My map of Milan with a near exact location of my phone

Then I checked in Google’s Streetview to see what I was looking at on the ground:

Streetview image of where my phone was located after being stolen earlier that day

Crazy, it was located near the canal, or even in the canal, which is what I was thinking. They must have realized I locked the phone and erased the data, so they tossed it in the canal. RIP phone.

Message via email the day after the my stolen phone was being deleted

But not so fast, early Monday morning I got the above email informing me the phone was being deleted. So it was not at the bottom of the canal after all. What’s more, according to Find My app the phone had moved to a new, close-by location. In fact, according to the Find My app it is still there as I write this, although at this point erased. A shell of its former self.

Find My app reporting my phone in a new location and deleted

As of Monday I had still not reported the phone lost, and it is recommended you do that within 48 hours. I was wondering if I needed to report it or not, but a few things happened that assured me I did. Antonella started receiving messages on her phone given that was the number I initially gave in the hopeful phase I still imagined it might be found and returned. They must have recorded the number, and started sending phishing messages telling us the phone’s been found. The first was in English from a New Orleans area code and that tricky URL that is begging for a click for more details:

Phishing Message in English trying to get us to click, but that URL is not right—also it is from a New Orleans area code, which is odd.

The next message was in Italian, and basically said the same thing, but with a different link:

Phishing message in Italian

At this point these people were starting to piss me off. So the next morning I went to the police station and filed a formal report, which was pretty easy, and for that I’m kinda glad I waited to do it in Trento. Small can be beautiful, or at least easier. The other reason reporting the phone as lost with the police was important is that’s the only way to keep my old number. I had to take a copy of the police report to the local TIM store in order to re-activate the old number. So, that’s something to keep in mind—you can’t reclaim your number, at least in Italy, without a formal police report.

The next and final step at this point was restoring all my almost 40,000 images and videos and countless apps to a new phone. And, as the big middle finger that started this post suggests, every single file, image, video, app, note, contact, etc. were restored seamlessly to the new phone in minutes. That, my friends, was both awesome and a huge relief. I understand the closed, app-store ecosystem driving Apple has its definite issues, and their hardware is ridiculously expensive, but having everything restored almost immediately to a new phone and picking up where I left off after some deep angst around losing my memories certainly highlights one beautiful element of the Cloud, and while no means unique to Apple, this experience did not suck when it came to being able to pull up the image I took 10 minutes before my phone was stolen.

I was stupid. It was stolen. But all is well that ends well, at least for me, but I am still a bit haunted by the Find My map pointing to my lifeless phone on the outskirts of Milan on the banks of a series of interlocking canals that track another world where all may not always end so well.

Posted in Italy | Tagged #4life, apple, icloud, iphone, Italy, milan, phishing, phone, robbed, stolen | 6 Comments

All Roads Lead Back to the Blog

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Reverend

Well, the only good thing about being away from the bava.blog for more than a month is the tried and true joy of blogging about not blogging. Or blogging about the will to blog. Or blogging about how no one blogs. In the end, any blogging about blogging is good blogging. And so it goes….cue the “I’ve been busy” clip from 48 Hours featuring Luther’s indignation at being questioned while retrieving his car from a parking garage after several years “away”:

Some tropes never get old, just like blogging. And what’s more germane to the form than a list of things to do? There are so many….

The West Coast Walkabout in February is a full blown series I will write about, but in the meantime Brian Lamb has already alluded to how powerful that trip was on some deep levels in his post. And I have so much more to say about everything from the need for human connection, friendship, edtech polyamory, and what’s next for this geezer. “Throw it hard, Fink!”
But before that I need to document the aftermath of getting my phone stolen in Milan on Sunday
Reclaim Hosting, Reclaim Hosting, Reclaim Hosting. My blog delinquency has impacted the chronicle of so much of the magic happening at the best damn edtech hosting company from Timbuktu to Portland Maine, or Portland, Oregon for that matter. So much to say about everything from the team trip in San Diego which kicked off the West Coast Walkabout to work with .edu multi-region hosting to the ongoing workshops and flex courses all leading up to what promises to be an epic Reclaim Open conference in June. So much awesome…
Another neglected part of the bava.blog story has been all the work on the bavacade. Just one game away—which is Cheyenne—from the mythical 100% operational status, but that road is paved with endless labor that has gone undocumented, such as refurbishing Pac-man, Dig Dug, and Venture; installing high-score, multi-game kits for Venture and Pac-man; various monitor chassis repairs; as well as the new PDX sattellite addition of Moon Cresta.

So I guess all of this (and more) is gonna keep the bava busy for the weeks and months to come. That’s the work, and I love it. Long live the blog!

Posted in bavatuesdays, blogging | Tagged bava, bavatuesdays, blogging | Leave a comment

Who am I Here?

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Reverend

It’s been a while since I emerged from the bavacrypt. No work travel for me since May of 2022, and I won’t lie, I was getting into a groove at home with the nest full again and my blood levels finally normalized. Life has been small and good, but there is a world out there, and to finally cross paths in the flesh with folks I work with daily and other friends I have not seen for many years is a special opportunity that I’m ready to partake. I have a crazy Canadian comrade meeting me in Los Angeles tomorrow—which is its own special gift—but there are also commies from grad school, and a dear friend from my days at UCLA that I had not seen for 23 years.

Old Gold AVS Reunion with Thom Arredondo

That was my first evening in San Diego, catching up with Thom Arredendo who I now know is one of those rare human beings that you can simply walk back into their life after more than two decades and pick up from where you left off. California was my home during the early and mid-1990s, filled with post-punk bands, Long Beach Community College, Parker’s Lighthouse, UCLA, AVS, movies, music, literature and poetry. It was the beginning of my love affair with the world wide web, and the moment I realized gaming—thanks to PCs—was going to be an entirely new phenomena after playing Doom and Duke Nuke’Em, not to mention MAME, Warez sites, and CD-ROM games like The Residents’ Bad Day at the Midway. Thom is a part of me, and seeing him again was a welcome reminder of a time that was special. Hell, a focal point of the next leg of this trip is seeing Unwound live on their reunion tour at the Wiltern Theater—a band that defined my time in LA and underscored a strain of manic, disaffection that framed a sensibility of the time.

Thom is a huge film, music, and literature lover, and stands as an early influence for AV Geekery. He started me off on my love for laserdiscs, turning me on to the above clip of Michael McClure talking about Jack Kerouac describing what the ocean is saying in his novel Big Sur. I believe the clip is from the 1986 documentary What Happened to Kerouac (1986) featuring an inspired clip with a description and reading that borders on the magical. In preparation for this adventure I finished Ham on Rye (1982) on the flight over, and just cracked On the Road for the next piece of my journey. I wanted to be more regularly reminded of a moment when words and ideas created a vital and radical lens on the experience of living. I tend to smooth the poetic edge of things with age, and wonder if that’s what makes me the who I am looking back on the who I was. Who am I here? Ah Jerry, Jerry Blake.

Posted in bavatuesdays, fun, LA: The Potent Years, poetry | Tagged 1990s, Thom Arredendo, UCLA, Unwound | 4 Comments

bavacade work log 2-9-2023

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Reverend

It’s been busy in the bavacade the last several weeks as I prepared for a trip
back to the US of A. I’ve been racing against the clock to figure out what I need to bring back for the various games, which means a lot of testing to try and get things working, or establish they’re beyond my repair capabilities, which means shipping them out.

Troubleshooting Cheyenne Monitor

The process of trying to diagnose has become more and more fun for me as I gain a modicum of insight. I have finally found a hobby I can really sink my teeth into, which is quite rewarding. I’m still in the process of re-organizing the bavacrypt so that my old, open area office space is transformed into a full blown workspace for the games, which also means a lot of storage for parts, chassis, and other sundries. I also got some shelving to start storing my toys, VHS tapes, parts, and much more.

Glimpse of shelving behind Asterock

What’s more, I’ve moved my Reclaim Hosting office into what was the basement guest room, and it’s working much better for calls, video recording, streaming, etc., thanks to better acoustics—not to mention much less doorbell interference. Once I get back from America I should be able to put the final touches on the office transition. I’ll also be sure to document that in more detail, because I really have built a dream space that is an all-in-one office/workshop/80s arcade. Have I mentioned on this blog already that creating spaces might be my other hobby passion these days? — it’s what I might miss most about Reclaim Arcade, imagining that space with Tim was an absolute joy.

Anyway, on to the repair log, and there is a lot to mention here.

Dig Dug on wheels!

Broken corner in Dig Dug cabinet

There was a big gouge in the bottom rear corner of the Dig Dug cabinet that was bothering me to no end. The cabinet was otherwise quite solid, and I have to say the seller ensured everything in it was original, which is always nice. One thing that struck me when taking this apart was how well designed the Atari cabinets are. This was the first one I disassembled, and it was the easiest yet by far. I love the way the light and speaker are combined onto one piece of plywood for easy remove.

Light and speaker mounted unit for Dig Dug cabinet

The coin door setup is also super easy to remove with a genius design that allows you to attach and detach the coin box easily and tighten the door with all bolts seated using attached, movable nuts. When you disassemble enough of these machines you begin to appreciate good design choices.

Bolt system for coin doors of Dig Dug cabinet

The cabinet work was a bit more straightforward. Epoxy for the gouged lower corner and for the various imperfections along the trim. I have new t-molding on order, so this should be golden.

Some taping of Dig Dug for touch-up paint

There were a few places the cracks in the sides meant I needed to do some touch-up paint work, and the base color of his cabinet is closer to off-white than pure white, so I found myself adding yellow to pure white paint to get a closer match, and that was fun. It’s not perfect, but you would need to know what you are looking for in just a few spots to see the difference. It is near perfect, so more than passable. Also, none of the original artwork was touched, so this was already a pretty impressive cabinet, we just made it awesomer!

Dig Dug After touch-up paint and before light sanding

There are a couple of things I still need to attend to, including fixing the marquee light that blows every florescent tube I put in there—I believe it’s the ballast, but need to test this. Also, the power brick is pretty noisy, and I think that might be a big blue cap that needs to be replaced, so ordering that. Finally, the smooth, black t-molding is on order, and should be ready once I get back. But apart from that, this is another mint cabinet that sits alongside Donkey Kong Jr, Galaxian, and Pac-man in the bavamanse foyer!

Dig Dug is re-assembled and looking groovy

Venture is up and running!

I was beginning to think I would never see this game running. When we bought it for $400 over two years ago, I knew it was going to be a project. It’s a game that doesn’t really come available all that often, and a good condition working cabinet is not only hard to find, but also relatively expensive. The only one I ever saw since my childhood was at the Terminal in Nashville, and it was in pretty rough shape and played terribly.

The first thing we needed to do was get the cabinet in good condition. The top-back corner of the cabinet was broken, and the back door and lower portion were falling apart—old, deteriorating wood glue was holding this thing together. It was in pretty rough shape; it had been neglected for probably 30+ years, and it showed. Alberto took this one and worked his magic, he sent me a bunch of images of the work, and I really love to see the process visually….

Once I had it back from Alberto I had to paint the cabinet white. I did the first couple of coats with a matte white, and I still want to do a final coat with glossy, but before I did that I needed to re-assemble the cabinet because the power supply guru Roberto was coming by to bring the re-built (for the second time) original power supply that can’t be simply replaced by a switching power supply given it uses hi and lo +12V and -12V for the sound board, which also helps power the video. This power supply has been a beast, so given Roberto was coming with a fixed unit I was thrilled, but when he arrived he noted that the -5V was not working, so we (royal) added a rectifier bridge for -5V that was pretty cool:

-5V Rectifier for Venture

-5V Rectifier for Venture connected to Ground and -5V from power supply

-5v from rectifier to board

We tried that and the board was now getting -5V, which was a win. But, but, but for some reason the +5V was not getting to the board cleanly. I was depressed, I really thought we were going to finally cut through this Gordian knot of a game. But despair is not an option, so we re-grouped and re-traced everything again, ensuring the edge connectors were attached correctly (they were), and still no dice for the +5V, although every other voltage was arriving to the boards as expected, so it was at least isolated to +5V.

Venture‘s edge connectors connected correctly

Venture Switching Power Supply for +5V

I can now take the -5V rectifier and use the switching power supply for that, but it is pretty cool to see how the rectifier works, that is yet another thing that enthralls me about electricity, all these gadgets to control and temper the flow of energy is truly amazing, and I am reminded once again it is always power with these games.

The Venture board I bought worked perfectly, and the monitor is gorgeous, I do need to try a cap kit on the K4600 monitor chassis for Venture given it’s not working, so the current chassis is on loan from Galaxian. The other bit is I need to clean-up and possibly re-build the the 8-way joystick. It is a bit of a rat’s nest right now, and it could use some new leafs and general TLC. But, the good news is Venture is on wheels, cleaned-up beautifully, and working a treat!

Bello Yellow Pac-man

After fitting Pac-man with the BitKit2, I decided that cabinet needs to be on wheels and the bottom needs to be looked over closely given the floor was feeling tenuous under any kind of pressure. There were early signs of wood rot that may have been a result of water damage, although it was definitely not extensive.

Pac-man without underpants

Pac-man‘s old floor was feeling its age

I stripped it down and sent it out to Alberto and he is a genius. He replaced the floor entirely, while leaving everything else in tact, and added base pedestal to hide the new wheels. Once I got it back I taped around the original artwork and painted the cabinet with the Scramble yellow I had left-over from that project, and did some touch-up on the black paint, but otherwise left the original artwork untouched. The yellow from Scramble is a tad more subdued then the original Pac-man yellow, but you would really need to be in-the-know to realize the subtle difference. That said, I may re-paint it at some point 🙂

This was probably the fastest I ever completed a strip down, re-build, and re-paint. It was all done in less than a week, including Alberto’s work—which was crazy fast. I took a ton of photos, and you can find them in this Flickr album.

It’s looking good! I still need to paint the back of this cabinet, which was also yellow. I’ll take care of that once I return. This dot gobbler is the crown of my collection, so it needs to be beautiful!

YUNOWORKCHEYENNE

Above are the major notes, but there continues to be ongoing weirdness with Williams’ transformers. I got back the “blown” Joust transformer that turns out was not blown after all, the surge of 220V was not detrimental to the actual transformer because the varistor prevented it from doing any harm. Once the blown varistor was removed the transformer started working again, I just need a new varistor now.

Image of a varistor

Anyway, When I put the Joust transformer into Stargate it was having issues with the Williams JROK board, it kept randomly resetting the board whenever I would touch the smart bomb button. After realizing the JROK board worked fine in another cabinet (Defender), I figured it most be a power issue. After seeing the switching power supply values were all reading fine, I decided to put all of transformers back in their original games (I had them labeled).* That seems to have solved the issue, but we will see.

Hanterex Polo 20″ chassis are my bane, and Cheyenne is now the only game not working. I am sending that chassis out for repair given I do not have a capkit, and hopefully that will be up and running soon.

Still To do:

I have the chassis removed and ready, just haven’t had time to try the K4600 CapKit. This chassis was originally in Venture, but if all goes well will be in Galaxian.

Condor G07 Capkit -not sure whenIi will do it, but on the list.

Cable for monitor and coin door light in Asterock acting up, this has been an odd issue, and it just seems like cables in Asterock power supply are lose, and the monitor loses power, but will need to dig deeper.

Need to install high score save kits for Venture and Pac-man.

Whew, that as a lot, but I am happy cause the Reclaim retreat is about to start and now I can start my West Coast tour diary on the venerable bava.blog 🙂

_____________________________________

*I had put the Stargate transformer in Moon Patrol, the Moon Patrol transformer in Joust, and left Stargate empty until the Joust transformer one was fixed.

Posted in bavacade, bavarcade | Tagged bavacade, Dig Dug, Joust, moon patrol, pac-man, PSU, Venture, Williams | 1 Comment

bavacade’s Bitkit2 in Pac-man

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Reverend

Yesterday I started playing around with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) board I bought a couple of months back called BitKit2. What is FPGA? It’s a circuit board technology that has been around since the 80s that is pre-assembled and allows for the programming of the hardware to happen after the fact. This technology is fairly new to me, so follow the Wikipedia link for actual informative details.

BitKit2, the latest version is white versus older red and green models

The BitKit2 is a FPGA board that has been programmed to play 50 classic video games such as Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, Pengo, Scramble, Super Cobra, Dig Dug, Nibbler, Moon Cresta, Galaxian, Galaga, Crazy Kong, and many, many more. The board comes pre-programmed to play these games, but the ROM images (or game files) have to be sourced separately then uploaded to the board. The ROM community has been thriving for decades online thanks to emulator projects like MAME, so finding the ROMs you need to upload will not be hard. Two logical questions at this point might be: 1) why buy a BitKit2 when you already have a cabinet with the original game board?; 2) if you’re just downloading and playing ROMs from the web, isn’t it just emulation?

The answer to the first is a practical one: 40 year-old boards go bad all the time, and can be an expensive and/or time-consuming fix, so having a board that can stand-in for one of several games can be a relatively quick, cheap fix, not to mention the ability to turn any one cabinet into an instant multi-cade.

Original Pac-man game board, it is oh so beautiful

The second question is a bit more complicated. Folks who fix the original game boards also download ROMs from the web and load them on an original board’s ROM chips, so that is not necessarily the emulation piece. The difference between playing those ROMs on your computer versus a FPGA board is the ROMs are not using a dedicated, programmed board on your computer, the game hardware is virtualized. On an FPGA board the ROMs are loaded on a dedicated circuit board that is programmed hardware intended to run them as such. The FPGA boards are comparable in terms of speed and performance to the original boards (which is not the case with MAME emulators on your PC). So the real question becomes is it “as good” which can quickly become both overly technical and subjective all at once. I personally prefer the original board given I’m drawn to the illusion of a vanishing point that ends in an “original,” but I recognize the limits of that logic. When a 40 year old board is not working, I would rather have the game be up and running then refusing to change for fear of a micosecond delay in the FPGA board.*

Ok, enough of that, now let’s get to how to install the BitKit2, as well as look at how it works. The above image shows the BitKit2 (the bottom, white board) plugged into a Pac-man Jamma adapter (the top green board). Jamma adapters are purchased separately, and I picked up the one pictured from the Arcadeshop (there are others sold from Mike’s Arcade and beyond, so be sure to check which one you have). Jamma is a widely used wiring standard for arcade games that allows you to bridge the original game’s wiring with a multi-purpose board like the BitKit. You’ll notice on the Pac-man Jamma board there is an additional connector coming off of it with two +12V orange wires , four +5V red wires, and four ground black wires. This connects the Pac-man Jamma board to a switching power supply,

Why does this particular Jamma adapter need a switching power supply hook-up? This is because the Pac-man board converts the AC power coming in to DC power on the board, which is not common. Most boards do this well before that using a separate transformer and power supply board.

You can see the red connectors going into +5V, orange into +12V, and black to ground on the switching power supply in the image above. I was confused that there was no -5V connectors, but I confirmed that is the case and this setup for the Pac-man Jamma board from the Arcadeshop worked perfectly for me. So, in short:

Plug BitKit2 into Jamma board (in my instance the Jamma adapter is for Pac-man, but keep in mind different Jamma boards may not have the power supply requirement)
Hook up Pac-man‘s power connector to switching power supply
Plugin Jamma board into Pac-man‘s. wiring harness

After that the BitKit2 should power on and you’ll see two green lights, one to signal power is on, and the other to signal Bluetooth is working. At this point you can now interface with that board wirelessly using your computer.† There’s a dropdown to find and connect to your Bluetooth device, it’ll be something like BK-#### (such as BK-1077) and you should be able to connect to it—if not move closer and restart the BitKit board.

You can download and install the software for the BitKit Manager which will allow you to interface with the board to update the firmware, upload and manage game ROMs, and also upload high scores to a leader board.

The Manage Games interface is akin to FTPing files to a different machine, you select the game ROM zip files, click on the arrows sending them to the BitKit, and then below that there is a “Sync Game(s)” button that will then upload them to the board over Bluetooth.

You can also remove and/or erase all games. The manage Games tabs also provide ROM details for the games you are syncing:

And the Remixes tab provide links to special edition ROMs for Scramble, Ms. Pacman, and Eyes99, which is new to me:

There is also a section to submit high scores to the leader board:

This board contains quite a few features, and begins to marry the physical, offline tech of an arcade cabinet with the web in some fun ways. The idea of accessing the board wirelessly while inside the cabinet at will (no need to move and open the 200 pound machine) is pretty awesome.

With the BitKit2 installed and ROMs uploaded, you’ll need to access the board’s menu from the actual game cabinet. You can do this by depressing the player 1 button while powering on the game.

This main menu allows you to manage the BitKit2 settings, which includes system settings, game settings, video settings, and configuring controls.

System

In System you can enable the game orientation, credit cheat, attract mode, hide options, mode, etc. The credit cheat is pretty cool, with that on whenever you press the player 2 button twice quickly you add a credit. The attract setting initiates a slide show after two minutes of idleness that highlights games available and settings.

When the Hide Options setting is off you can press the player one and two buttons to reset the board, and thereafter quickly depress the player 1 button to enter the game menu to choose a different game.

Games

The games menu gives you access to all games settings for the ROMs you uploaded:

From this menu that lists all the game ROMs uploaded you can select a specific game and change settings like number of lives, bonus lives, turbo (if an option), etc. And these are granular, so they only work on a game-by-game basis, which is a nice feature.

I am using Turbo on Pac-man and made it the game the machine boots up (there can only be one), otherwise the settings are the default. And the 40 games I have loaded all contain their own settings which is pretty impressive.

Controls

The Controls menu allows you to test your buttons to ensure they work as intended. You can also define what your reset combination is, as well as what buttons you would use to pause a game—something I appreciate given I’m often interrupted during one of my epic games that will break all the recordz.

Video

There is also a Video setting that allows you to configure the monitor to test crosshatch patterns, colors, etc. An amazing feature I discovered was the ability adjust the vertical and horizontal positioning of your game so you should not have to touch anything on the actual monitor chassis, which was a huge relief for me.

Overall, it’s a really impressive interface with a ton of options. Also look like there are regular firmware updates—as recent as last month—which gives you bug fixes, new features, etc. I wonder if there is also the capability to program and load new games going forward? Not sure given my limited understanding of the FPGA boards, but that would definitely be a cool feature.

The CraftyMech site has a manual that will take you through all the different settings I not-so-briefly described above in greater detail, so be sure to check that out. I also recorded a 10 minute video wherein I work through how mine works (there are a few corrections that I have rectified in the notes of the video):

________________________________

*That said, some games are probably harder to port to an FPGA board than others, and then there are other physical limitations like vector versus raster graphics. So not all ports are equal, but it’s possible there will be no perceivable difference between Pac-man gameplay on the original board and that on a FPGA board.

†I personally would prefer if they had a non-wireless option way as well given the Bluetooth was finicky on my newer Macbook Pro running Monterey. I did get it working with a backup Macbook Pro running Catalina.

Posted in bavacade, bavarcade | Tagged bavacade, bavarcade, bitkit2, fpga, pac-man, pacman | 1 Comment

This Mastodon Will Explode, Session 1

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Reverend

Yesterday Maren Deepwell, Kerry Pinny, Taylor Jadin and I ran the first of three sessions introducing Mission Mastodon. “What is that?” you wisely ask. Well, it’s a collaboration between ALT and Reclaim Edtech to provide a temporary server for folks interested in exploring the federated social networking platform Mastodon. It’s a sandbox space to experiment with signing-up, finding people you follow elsewhere, wrapping your head around content search, as well as re-programming ourselves to think beyond the large, monolithic sites that have come to dominate online social spaces.

Of course the attention economy is threatened by the Fediverse

Jon Udell’s recent post “Of course the attention economy is threatened by the Fediverse” discusses how a federated tool like Mastodon subverts the underlying attention economy driving the influencer culture most of the corporate social media giants have embraced. What if some of us aspire to something other than broadcast celebrity, what if we actually want to be social in the most generative sense of that word. To quote Udell:

I just want to hang out online with people whose words and pictures and ideas intrigue and inspire and delight me, and who might feel similarly about my words and pictures and ideas.

Hope springs eternal in this digital optimist, and those netizens like Udell who have worked hard for several decades to underline the myriad issues with networked culture while remaining focused on trying to build and promote a better, healthier web are my heroes. And I can even follow and talk to them on these miraculous networks. To misquote the Bard: “Sign me up for this brave new web, that has such people in it!”

But I digress, I just wanted to link to our first session, and thanks those who showed up in the chat and made it that much better. It was a lot of fun to talk about how Mastodon feels different (in many of the ways quoted above), but also to chat and share useful tips and tricks that might come in useful as you’re getting started.

You can watch the video here, as well as the future episodes in February and March. Also, be sure to check out the chat happening on Reclaim’s Discord, which you can access from the linked watch. I highly recommend the conversation given there some great resources shared by folks, including this list of annotated Mastodon resources Chris Aldrich has been collecting. Finally, if nothing else, watch the video above for Kerry Pinny’s 55 second intro that is absolutely brilliant! I love that my nickname is now “the Joker!”

Anyway, if you are at all intrigued by any of this, join us in this expendable Mastodon server that will explode in 90 89 days….

https://thismastodonwillexplo.de

Posted in Reclaim Edtech | Tagged ALT, edtech, mastodon, reclaim, reclaimedtech | Leave a comment

Hacking the Pioneer DVL-909 for Multi-Region

Posted on January 17, 2023 by Reverend

This is one of those posts that documents something I’ll forget as soon as it’s done. I’ve already written about fixing the power supply and skipping discs on my Pioneer DVL-909 combination Laserdisc/DVD player, both fixes allow me to enjoy this player’s super power: playing DVDs from multiple regions. I have a decent collection of US (region 1) and European (region 2) DVDs at this point, and these instructions I found for hacking the DVL-909 for multiregion works a treat.* Here they are…

Take the player apart.

Find the solder pads on the board next to IC602 (taking the player apart is a bit time-consuming, but keep careful track of how you did it…).

Solder a wire between the two connections shown in the picture. Easy, huh?

Put the player back together.

Next, pick a disc that’s of a different region than your player. Open the tray, but don’t close it yet.

Bring up the DVD Menu with the remote.

Select ‘Initial’.

Press the ‘Display’ button on the remote. The OSD should show what region the player is currently set to.

Press the ‘Condition’ button on the remote, and then the number of the desired region (1-6). The OSD display should change.

Press the ‘Menu’ button and you’re golden. Pop in the disc and enjoy.

I didn’t need to take the player apart or solder any pads on the integrated chip IC602, which hopefully is the case for anyone reading this. All I needed to do was use the remote control to select Menu–>Initial–>Display–>Condition–>[enter region # from number pad]–>Menu again.

Doing those selections on the remote while the DVD disc tray remains ajar opened up the world of DVD-media multiregion to me. You can see a quick video walk-through of this process above, and I recommend testing this before opening the unit and soldering anything 🙂

Also, it’s worth noting the laserdisc player needs no special hack to play either region in my experience. I may need to test this more with different discs, but region 1 and 2 discs play regardless of what the player region is set to.

____________________________________

*This is an HTML page created back in 2001, which is not that long after the player came out—pretty cool the resource is still online!

Posted in bava.tv, TV, video | Tagged bava.tv, dvl-909, Hack, howto, laserdisc, Laserdiscs, pioneer | Leave a comment

Mission Mastodon: This Server Will Explode in 90 Days

Posted on January 12, 2023 by Reverend

Reclaim Hosting is thrilled to partner with ALT over the next several months—starting next week!—to offer 3 fun, informative sessions over as many months focused on Mastodon. Hope to see you in the self-destructing Mastodon server soon!

It might be best to read this post with the following theme music playing….

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join our Mastodon server and have some fun! As always, should you or any member misbehave, the Server will disavow any knowledge of your actions (and ban you). Good luck!

GIF of cartoon character Inspector Gadget reading a message

ALT and Reclaim EdTech are a group of rogue nerds who have hi-jacked a Mastodon server and are opening it up to other interested folks. They will be running live online sessions which you are tasked to intersect. The sessions are open to all and free to attend so you should have no issues accessing them here. The sessions will offer interested parties valuable intelligence around how the federated social media software Mastodon works, with everything from joining a server, to helping them find their way around, as well as providing a peek behind the scenes of the moderating and hosting process. We need you to join the sessions, participate and report back.

Session 1: Mission briefing: 19 January 2023 at 16:00 GMT (Watch Live)
Session 2: Verifying your progress: 23 February 2023 at 16:00 GMT (Watch Live)
Session 3: 30 days until self-destruct: 23 March 2023 at 16:00 GMT (Watch Live)

For any of the above sessions you can join the Reclaim Discord server to intercept any messages during the live broadcasts: https://reclaimed.tech/discord

The server will self-destruct 90 days from the first session, so you have a limited time to gather as much information as possible. The successful outcome of the mission—and the potential salvation of the social web—is in your hands. Don’t mess it up like some others who will remain nameless for reasons of international security.

GIF of a tape recorder bruning with the words "This conversation will self-destruct"

As always, if you are discovered we will deny any knowledge of this mission. This message will self-destruct in….

Posted in Mastodon, reclaim, Reclaim Edtech | Tagged ALT, mastodon, reclaim | 1 Comment

Venture is up and running!

This post is a bit of a cheat because I originally posted most of the following text as part of the bavacade repair log from February 9, 2023. That noted, I want to break it out as its own post given getting Venture up and running has been an ordeal, and it deserves its own permalink and tags 🙂

It’s Father’s Day, and I want my cake!

So Your iPhone was Stolen in Milan

All Roads Lead Back to the Blog

Who am I Here?

bavacade work log 2-9-2023

Dig Dug on wheels!

Venture is up and running!

Bello Yellow Pac-man

YUNOWORKCHEYENNE

Still To do:

bavacade’s Bitkit2 in Pac-man

This Mastodon Will Explode, Session 1

Hacking the Pioneer DVL-909 for Multi-Region

Mission Mastodon: This Server Will Explode in 90 Days

Watch the bava blog trailer!

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