PC/Emulator joysticks

I was browsing eBay yesterday morning and came across this interesting USB PC controller. At only £6.99 (+ shipping) i’m not expecting build quality to be very high but I’m curious enough to take a look so I’ve ordered one.

It looks like it would be perfect for desktop MAME and the many other emulator I use especially if i can program the five buttons at the top to work within MAME’s frontend.

I’ve also ordered a USB PC version of  classic Competition Pro 5000 joystick I use with my Commodore Amiga & C64. By far the best joystick around during the late eighties/early nineties (but not until the ropey leaf switches were replaced with micro-switches later on). This reissue has been fitted  with modern USB trickery for connection to PC and should be fun to use with the likes of WinUAE or Vice64.

Original Competition Pro 5000 (clear version)

New USB version (note two extra buttons) c/o Amazon.

Mame cab weekend?

I think I’ve got a fairly free weekend coming up so hopefully I’ll get chance to try again with repairs to my TX1000 laptop. If successful, I’ll post my results.

I’ve also acquired a few more bits for my MAME cab so hopefully I’ll also get chance to begin working on it again. The first job is to raise the whole cab by a good 6″ or so. Being a lot taller now than as a child visiting the amusement arcades my eye line is almost level with the cab marquee and light i.e. not great for gaming with a bulb light shining in my face.

I’m aiming build a new wooden skirt around the bottom for the cab to sit on. Not only will this raise the overall height but I can also fit caster wheels to make it easier to move around. Screw-fix seem to have a fairly good selection so a little shopping trip might be in order.

I’ve also been thinking about the layout of the new Control Panel. Originally I was going for a six button combination but to be honest I think four should be plenty (plus 1up/2up/coin and MAME control/Shift button). Granted, Street Fighter II-est games are better with six, but I’m not really a fan and most of the classic Shmups I play are 1-2 buttons anyway. If I change my mind later, I got about twenty surplus buttons anyway. My next decision, button colour!

Laptop fun

Yes, it’s probably been done a hundred times before but I couldn’t help myself. Here’s my laptop next to our fireplace displaying a digital flame screen saver.

Commodore 1541 Disk Drive Project?

A few months ago, I got chatting with a RCM member and as a result he gave me a non working Commodore 1541 Disk Drive for a little project I’ve been wanting to try out. He was quite happy to let me have it because it was beyond repair and no use to him. Personally I don’t like to modify working equipment anyway, especially as these drives are becoming quite rare. He brought it with him to last weekends  RCM event and I’ve been musing over what to do with it.

I always wanted a 1541 disk drive when I was younger my beloved C64.  Appreciate this one isn’t working but 25  years later, I finally have one..well half of one anyway

Commodore really did have a thing for shades of beige!

My original idea was to simply strip out the innards, pop in my PC external Hard disk unit and simply use it like that as a bit of retro chic for my desk. The thing is, now I have one, I really want to do more than that.

Having researched for similar projects (founds lots of inspiration online) I’ve decided either to install a very small mini-ITX based motherboard, add a 1TB hard disk, install FreeNas (http://www.freenas.org/)and use it as a home NAS server or, again on the same principle, use it as a very small desktop PC….maybe for my emulator collection?

You can see from the chart below, how small these ITX form factor boards really are -

Once stripped, there should be plenty of room for a PC components, although creative placement might be required to ensure sufficient cooling.

Please visit here to see a completed 1541 PC conversion http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/c1541/ – and also, check out their amazing project pages containing weird and wonderful custom PC’s.

I won’t be doing anything just yet, but will add it to my project list for the coming winter nights.

Retro Computer Museum gaming event (no.2)

Yesterday I attended my second retro computer gaming event since becoming a member of the RCM group. It was being held at recording/rehearsal studio in Leicester called the Convolution Rooms, which has been used by many bands including one of my favorites Kasabian.

Unlike May’s big event (and maybe the one to follow in November), the focus this time was a small informal gathering of retro gamers and old computer fans to chat and play games all day….and into the wee hours of the morning.

Being a members only event, it was quite nice to finally meet up with the folks I’ve been chatting to for the past few months who also have a thing for beige plastic!

From the inside, the venue’s main room reminded me of a Manhattan loft apartment – open plan, wooden floors, minimalist white washed brickwork and huge arched windows. Being on the top floor (accessible by a very steep wrought iron spiral staircase) the views looking out across Leicesters country side were stunning.

After saying hello to a few familiar faces from May’s event, I had a scout round to see what had been setup. Andy, the curator of the museum had provided most of the kit himself with a few additional  items brought along other members. As well as the usual suspects from Commodore, Amstrad and Sinclair there were a few that caught my eye such as a Vectrex (witht 72-1 Multicart), PC Engine, Atari 800XL, Amiga 1500 & Sega Mega CD.

There were also quite a few upright MAME arcade machines as well as a mini ‘bartop’  conversion each offering plenty of original arcade games. The three pictured below took quite a lot of my time up especially having Final Fight, 1942 and Wonderboy on offer.

A Sega Megadrive sits atop a Mega CD for some not so good FMV action

A few Atari cartridges stacked ready play

Taking a time out to have a look around the equipment in one of the recording booths

Around 8pm, we all went in search of ‘proper’ food and settled on the local Chinese takeaway.  On our return we all sat outside eating, chatting and generally enjoying each other company (hey, they’re geeks, they don’t get out much All this accompanied by an amazing sunset.

More gaming to be done and I sat myself down on a very comfortable sofa next to a TurboGrafx-16/PC engine for few rounds of Space Harrier. Played on a regular TV/Monitor this game looks great but on a 10x10ft wall using a projector make for one dizzy experience

Some of the other interesting pieces of development kit was this SDrive for the Atari 800xl. The unit emulates a floppy disk drive but used regular SD cards for greater storage capacity.  With this, large catalogues of games/demo can be installed on a single SD card and be loaded withing seconds.

This next device blew me away and one I really want to track down to have one myself. Similar to the above device but this time for the Commodore 64 (including c16/+4 & C128).. It allows for Commodore .d64 images to be stored and loaded from a SD card. Depending on the size of SD card you could practically hold the entire C64 back catalogue of games and have a title load within seconds. It supports many feature including cartridge emulation such as the Action Replay cartridges allowing easy peek/poke of game code.

For any C64 owner, this is a must have device and i WANT one!

For further info on this amazing device, please visit http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/

By 11:30, things were winding down and most of us were sat playing Tekken on the PS1, projected onto the wall. I like how the slow shutter speed on my camera has blurred the fast screen action creating weird patterns.

By midnight, it was time to head on home but before doing so I needed to collect a Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive from one of the other chaps. A few months ago, i’d asked if anyone had a non working drive that they didn’t need. I have the idea of turning it in to a ITX based mini PC or NAS hard disk device (will be posting on this in the next few weeks).

I got home about 1am but was still buzzing from the day, I didn’t go to bed until 3am.

I’m looking forward to the next meet in November but also have Retro Reunited coming up in September – http://www.retroreunited.info/

HP Tx1000 repairs, big bang time.

The past few evening have been quite hectic and I haven’t had chance to finish off my laptop repairs. However, this evening I had a little free time to perform the last few jobs and to see if repairs have had any effect.

o.k, after re seating  the GPU back onto the motherboard (see last post), there’s one more mod to perform before putting everything back together. Remember the penny I soaked in Tomato Ketchup? We’ll….this will be sandwiched between the GPU and the heat sink which, apparently is supposed to increase the thermal cooling process.

Using a tube of ‘Arctic Silver 5′ Thermal Compound, I but a fairly big dollop on top of the GPU and another regular sized blob onto the CPU. The coin would sit onto of the GPU hence more compound was used to ensure that the compound filled in all the bumps and ridges of the coin without leaving any gaps.

Satisfied that everything looked o.k., next in line was the laborious task of putting everything back together. I’m glad i kept the separate sized screws labeled as it would have been quite easy to get them mixed.

With the whole laptop assembled back together (without any spare screws left over I plugged in the mains adaptor, crossed my fingers and waited for the big bang…..nothing, not a lit LED, spin of the fan…nadder

A bit miffed, but still determined I disassembled the laptop again and it’s here when I discovered I’d not plugged in the connection from the power button to the motherboard….doh!

What seems like ages later (I’d dropped a screw and it had  rolled under the fridge) I was ready for take two.

This time the LED’s lit, the fan whirled and I was greeted by the familiar Windows start up screen…yeeeeees!

After a victory lap around the kitchen table I settled down to log on for the first time in months. Unfort after about an hour and a half, the screen went blank and the laptop shut down and wouldn’t restart

Going back to the forum comments, people had commented on a first time fix but others stating that they had to try it two of three times. I think what my problem is that I’ve not heated the chip sufficient enough to seat the GPU correctly…or maybe whilst in use it’s becoming to hot again and popping back out again?

Next time I’ll try either a heat gun rather than lamp or attempt to unsolder the entire GPU and refit with lead free solder. Maybe an extra fan attached to the rear air vents to help extract the hot air might help?

Would be really interested to hear if anyone had had similar luck with this ‘Voodoo’ fix.

We’ll meet again!

HP Tx1000 repairs, part III – BBQ GPU

On removal of the heat sink and fan assembly, the next part of the repairs was a bit of a cleanup. For some bizarre reason, HP had sprayed the heatsink fins with a black gucky paste which has attracted all manner of dust. A bit of compressed air had cleared the dust but I read that it was best to remove the black stuff too.

Sexy black but not sure how this helps to extract heat.

After about half an hour scrubbing away with an old toothbrush and plenty of Acetone/Nail polish remover, the gunk was finally coming off.

Another half hour of scrubbing and all traces of the black stuff was gone. Next up was to clean away traces of the old thermal compound residue from the heatsink and CPU using some Akasa cleaning fluid I’d brought the other day from Maplins. This stuff is fantastic, a few drops and a wipe with a cloth was all that was needed.

Before.

Afterwards

With the cleanup, out of the way it was time to move to create a makeshift heat shield to protect the motherboard while is was cooking:-)

Following the instructions online, I traced the outline of the motherboard on to a piece of cardboard and measured out where the GPU sits in relation to my cardboard template.  I them cut out a square hole in the cardboard so that all of the motherboard was covered by cardboard apart from the GPU sticking through the hole (hope that makes sense!).

Another use for my PDA..a portable instruction manual!

The final part to create the cardboard heat shield was to completely cover it with Tin Foil and create a little whole where the underside of motherboard were the GPU is located is  exposed.

Time to BBQ the GPU using a desk lamp. The idea here is to heat the GPU pins to a temperature that softens the solder allowing the chip so it can be pressed back on to the motherboard. My instructions advised using something like a 100-200w bulb suspended over the GPU for about 1-2 mins but all I had initially was a 60w bulb.

After leaving it for about 5 minutes the motherboard wasn’t even warm so, as an alternative, I used my soldering iron (which was a blow torch feature) to heat things up a little. I didn’t want to cook it so I only applied heat for a few seconds, checking to ensure I wasn’t applying to much. When it was quite warm, I removed the makeshift heat shield and using a paper towel, applied pressure to re-seat the GPU back on to the motherboard. I didn’t hear a click or anything so at this stage I could only guess that things had gone well.

Turning up the heat

Tomorrow, modifying the heatshield and testing.

HP tx1000 repairs – Part II, how many screws?

O.k., armed with my tools, materials, You Tube guide ported to my PDA and a service manual downloaded from HP’s website I set about trying out this voodoo laptop repair.

Firstly, I took a pre 1982 penny coin and immersed it in Tomato Ketchup for about 10 minutes to remove years of mucky deposit. This would help to provide better copper conduct for the Heat-sink.

All grubby

Much nicer now…and smells of Tomato:-)

Setting the penny aside, I started disassembling the laptop. The battery, dvd drive, memory and hard disk simply popped out with minimal fuss.

Next, I removed all of the fixing screws from the bottom of the laptop, placing them into piles so I wouldn’t forget where the different sized screws came from. Just when I thought I’d got them all, I found another. The screw pile was getting very large!

With the case now screwless, I lifted the keyboard out and disconnected it’s ribbon cable from the motherboard.

The case top is made of two parts, the first lower half containing the thumb pad/buttons simply lifted away but the top part was a little trickier. According to the service manual, I had to twist the display 45 degrees and twist the case counter clock wise. It took a few attempts but I got there in the end. With the case removed, I could now disconnect the display unit and all other motherboard connections.

The display mount was a simple two screw affair and much simpler to remove than any other laptop I’ve worked on although one of the three connection plugs (to the motherboard) was a bit fiddly.

With the bulk of the display removed, it was less awkward to work on removing the remaining motherboard connection plugs like the power, LED light and wireless card socket.

After hour an hour and an even bigger pile of screws everything had been removed and ready for the next part.

Right, time to remove the heat-sink and begin the repair job. I’m going to stop here for a bit as it’s such a nice day outside – first in a what seems a month of continual rain! I’ll continue/post part III later on.

HP TX1000 Repairs – part 1, the problem.

About a year ago I inherited a HP Pavilion TX1000 laptop to use at work. Not only was it very light,  small and feature rich it also had touch screen which could be rotated 180 degrees and used as a tablet PC. Great for reading PDF document in portrait mode and use the stylus to scroll down the pages.

I’d only had it for a few weeks until one day it stopped working altogether – typically about a month after the warranty ran out. When switched on, the fan would spin for about 5 secs, all power lights would light but that’s about it, just a blank screen.

Pretty lights but that’s about it!

Originally thinking the monitor was at fault, I tried with an external monitor connected but still no picture so I took it apart and checked all connecting wires & internal components. I tried everything but still wasn’t having any luck. My work place wasn’t interested in paying to have it repaired so I asked if i could have it rather than it going in the scrap pile. They agreed and I took it home for continue investigating the problem.

After researching the symptoms, it turns out that this is a VERY common problem with this model and the Internet is awash with complaints to HP. Apparently the cooling system fitted is woefully inadequate to stop the vNidia GPU chip from over heating, failing and basically killing the thing. The symptoms published were exactly the same as what I was experiencing so mystery solved.

I called a few local repair shops to see how much a new motherboard would cost or to see what repairs could be made. They ranged from £120 – £250 and due to the nature of the fault with this model, any repairs would only carry a three month warranty. At the time, I was looking to buy a small Netbook and thought, was it worth paying £250 for repairs on something that could fail again after only three months or would it be better to add another £100 and buy a brand new laptop.

My only other option was to see if i could buy a motherboard on eBay and fit it myself to save £££ but after 2 months of looking I gave up and the laptop has sat in my work drawer for the past year.

Damn shame, but time to call it a day:-(

…..that it until a few days ago when one link led to another and I found a rather neat little trick that might get it working again. A little research later and I found dozens of people who’d tried it on this particular model with great success. Well, I’ve got nothing to loose so I went about making a shopping list.

I would need -

• Tin Foil

• A penny (pre 1982 due to the copper content)

• Acetone (or Cursties nail polish remover!)

• Cardboard

• Toothbrush

• Silver Thermal Compound

• Compound cleaner

• A desk lamp

• and…..Tomato sauce (I kid you not!).

Most of these, I already had so it was off to Maplins to pick up some Thermal compound.

Part two to follow tomorrow….How many screws

PDA fun.

My PDA is old, battered and dropping to bits but I love it. Compared to today’s ultra sleek mobile and handheld devices it’s a compete brick. However, with a wide variety of software applications, it can really be a handy little device and certainly worth a second looks especially as PDA’s can now been found on eBay for next to nothing. Even as a mobile PC and phone, it’s actually not that bad.

Here’s mine – An 02 XDA II

Due to it’s large-ish 3.5″ touch screen, my PDA doubles as an excellent GPS system for my car. Coupled with a cheap car cradle and GPS dongle is works perfectly with Tom Tom Navigator 7. Connected to my PC I can easily transfer map updates, voice packs and camera updates. I have a standalone Tom Tom device but I find the larger PDA screen an advantage (especially in landscape mode)  as well as being a multifunctional device rather than stand alone product.

Downloading my routes to Google Earth via Tyre

I often listen to a lot of Podcast in the car. Previously I used iPod shuffle connected to my car stereo but absolutely hated the iTunes experience on a Windows platform. Plugins for Winamp was a little better but I just wasn’t happy with this setup so I brought a new stereo with a USB/SD card inputs. Great I thought, play Podcast from a USB pen stick but most of these podcasts 1-2 hours longs and the head unit didn’t support bookmarking. In other words, when I switched car engine off I would loose wereabouts I was in the podcast and I’d have to play it again from the start. The fast forward button on the stereo doubled as the track forward button so trying to keep a finger steady on the button whilst driving was near impossible. A work around was to use an mp3 splitter program to split each podcast into, say 10 minutes tracks. It was ok but it soon became a bit of a pain. Now, I connect my PDA headphone out to my stereo  and by useing pocket Windows Media player I can stop/start tracks at leisure..as well as auto downloads/sync podcasts with Juice http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/ and MS Active Sync.

The TWiT network on the go.

Having a pocket media player is also useful to have during lunch breaks to catch up on TV shows/Movies/Books etc

As a retro gamer, I run a pocket varieties of my favorite emulators such as MAME for arcade classics, Pocket C64 for the odd round of Leaderboard, ScummVM for my ever favorite Secret of Monkey Island as well as Nintendo Gameboy and NES games.

Originally my PDA didn’t support WiFi ‘out of the box’ so the only way I can browse the Internet was by using the desktop cradle and active sync to create a simple connection. Pretty useless really because I’d be tethered to a PC. I now have a Wireless SDIO card therefore can quite happily surf around the house/garden/work or wireless hotspot – It came in handy the other day to have a hand held video guide whilst working on my car.

Editing my blog post.

A few other things I find useful.

VNC for remote access to PC’s at work.

Pocket Telnet, again for accessing a range of IT kit.

Desktop extension to display a whole range of useful (and useless) widgets.

Desktop extension for MS Flight Sim (see my previous post http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/dual-screens-and-software-solutions/ )

The list could go on.

Modern mobile devices are fantastic, but for less that £30 I think my ‘brick’ is perfect for my needs.

Windows 7 family pack licencing deal.

Just read this on various sites regarding the proposed three license ‘family pack’ of Windows 7.

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‘Regarding the Windows 7 Family Pack, Microsoft has now confirmed a number of details about this packaging. The Windows 7 Family Pack provides a Setup disc and three product keys for Windows 7 Home Premium, providing you with the ability to legally install the product on three PCs. It will cost just $149.99 in the US (C$199.99 in Canada), a significant savings over three Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade boxes. But here’s where the catch comes: Microsoft says it is only offering the Family Pack “until supplies last.” That’s right, it’s a temporary offer.

It gets worse. The Windows 7 Family Pack won’t be offered at all in many markets, and in some others–like Europe–there apparently won’t be a Family Pack offer until 2010. I haven’t been able to confirm the full country listing for Family Pack as of this writing’

Source = http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/rtm_availability.asp

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Damn shame it’s looking like the deal might now be available over here in the UK

Twitter widget

Just added a Twitter widget to my page (bottom right). Forgot I had an account until attempting to sign up..again.

Forgot how much fun Twitter is…especially on a rainy day.