Yo, Lunchbox.

This is an interim post responding to my reader, severely bifurcated fanboy LunchboxFett. Of course, the real question that's on everyones mind is: Is he happier that SModcast is back, or about the new Star Wars TV series? We'll have to deal with that in a later blog entry.

Lunchbox writes:

Could you take pictures of the driver board and the connections you have to it? I have a manual for the game but not sure if I am missing a cable or the wiring diagram is incorrect.
When I first powered up my machine, it would reset during the test menu. I looked at the Marvin repair guides and it mentioned checking and replacing a couple of things on the driver board.

Yes I am a fanboy.

Well, at least he's boy enough to admit it.

So here goes. Here we have the entire backbox. Mine is a little messier than most, because I haven't attached the Dalex board to anything... I think the wires don't actually reach high enough for me to mount it in the proper place. Then of course there are all the goofy wiring changes caused the fact that my Dalek plugs are all wrong. I've considered the fact that I may just have incorrect plugs instead of a prototype cabinet, but then I think of the fact that the holes in the top of the cabinet are different from the other one. Anyway, here's the big picture (click on the pic for full resolution):


OK, so here's the upper left hand corner. My wife's camera, which sometimes requires half a dozen shots from different angles to get a decent shot, came through for Lunchbox with some really nice pictures.
Here's the upper right hand corner.

Now we're getting to the meat and potatoes. This is the lower left hand corner, where the serious power get doled out, yo. I don't think I detailed it in the blog, but I spent a couple hours with the manual matching wire colors to plugs... it was tedious, yet highly gratifying work. To answer your question, Lunchbox, I have found errors in the manual, but the plug documentation seemed to be pretty accurate.
And finally, the lower right hand corner. Very colorful plugs, I should point out.
Now, of course, anyone who reads this blog will know that I'm clearly no expert, but it doesn't sound like your problem is plug related. I've seen crazy stuff happen when the easily misplugged ribbon cables are askew... and I hope it's as easy as that. Keep us informed, either way.

Okay Lunchbox, let's try this again. You check your plugs and make sure everything's as it should be. You then boot up your game and it gets through the test menu. And when that's done the game works perfectly and we go smoke a bowl. You got it? Now get your fat ass up there. And dude, don't forget your helmet. Snoogens.

Beagles: Spawn of the Devil?

Yeah, so, it turns out I have a readership of one... or should I say, at least one! The last post yielded my first comment to the blog. I even waited a few days to answer it so I wouldn't appear desperate.

I was going to blow off writing, but it turns out that as time passes I just have more to write about. This entry will probably be in two parts because I am exhausted... my wife left a door open on Wednesday night, and Darwin took advantage of her generous open door policy and ran out into the forest behind our house. I chased after him on and off for about three hours and the closest I got to him was I touched him once. Then the deer he was nosing around after spooked and he took off after them. My wife and I drove around for another hour or two, and we could occasionally hear him baying in the distance. We finally gave up and spent a couple of sleepless hours wondering how we were going to get him back. Then at 2:30 in the morning he started howling outside our window. He was cold, wet, and tired out... I mean, he'd just spent the last 6 hours chasing deer, foxes, and whatever else he could find. He spent the next day pretty much sacked out, though today with the help of a muscle relaxant he's not walking like Old Man Beaglestein. I still haven't caught up on my sleep, though, and hence the foreshortened entry.

OK, so the Pinball World Tour in February of last year was awesome -- no one is disputing that. But Pinball World Tour 08, if it goes off as planned, will dwarf its predecessor in scope and magnitude. At least five venues! The distinct possibility of states! Several hundred pinball machines! The mind boggles. Oh yes, updates will be forthcoming.

Several hundred pinball machines means I need to get back some lower arm strength, so I bought a squeeze ball for the car. How difficile is it to find an adequate squeeze ball? Very. I had one that was great, but I think it expired. Then I tried a Linux penguin that I got at JavaOne a few years ago, but it was too big. I had a balloon with sand in it, which was great until it sprang a leak. So I replaced it with an excellent knobbly green thing, which I discovered was filled with little green pellets when they started coming out through a hole. A foam world tchotchke from a trade show lasted about two days... it probably would have been adequate, but the dog had chewed on it so it pretty much started disintegrating from day one. Finally this week I looked in grocery stores, 7-11s, and even frickin' Toys 'r' Us (which is too busy trying to pick up Imaginarium's failed high-end toy store business model to stock $1 squeeze toys). Finally I found some rubber balls in CVS... they're a little harder than I would like, but with less than two weeks before zero hour, the begging disallowed the choosing. I'm starting with 10 minutes on each hand per commuting direction, and I'll move up to 15 next week.

After several months of inactivity, I finally fired up Eight Ball Deluxe the other day only to find that in addition to the credit button not working, now the sound cuts in and out too. Not surprisingly the culprit appears to be that daggone J2 connector, which is just getting worse. I think I'm going to have to mount a repair effort.

I have something in my notes that says "elusive DW fix". I can't for the life of me figure out what that is. It sounds really interesting, though, so if I remember I'll certainly write a more memorable description.

I had a really good week on eBay, followed by kind of a crappy week. I'll write about that when I've recovered from chasing the dog. But I will say that I picked up another hopeless cause, a largely unpopulated Pin-bot playfield. We'll go into excruciating detail on that at a later date.