MAME 0.79 is out. Notable because of Aaron Giles' complete overhaul of the memory management system. Some bugs should probably come up because of this, but overall it's a significant advancement for MAME. See the What's New text if you want to read more about it. Pretty interesting stuff.

Found a really cool site today, http://www.ticalc.org/. I guess it's been around a while, but this is the first I've heard of it. It's quite in depth with info on Texas Instruments calculators. Since getting my adaptor to hook my TI-85 up to my computer I've been wanting to make programs some more. Seems ticalc.org has a big archive of programs, so I'll probably download a few and upload some of my own (like my Quarterback Rating program ;). Some of the info on here is nuts, like overclocking you calculator. Yes indeed, I can overclock my TI-85 from a measly 6Mhz to a whopping 18!! Now that's power.

I was snooping around Target today and found the re-released Mattel Football 2. I had one when I was a kid, in fact I believe it's still stored away at my parents house somewhere. I picked the new one up anyway.

Great nostalgia in this product but I noticed some changes. First is the addition of a sound on/off toggle. They changed the name to "Classic" Football 2, since well, it's classic. It uses 2 AA batteries now instead of a 9 volt. The face sticker is a bit different, seems a bit glittery. The back sticker is different as well. I also think the sound is different. I remember much better tones coming out of my original one. I'll have to test it sometime. I also think this one is a little harder, though maybe I'm just getting old.

Welcome to the Fantasy Zone, GET READY!

Yeah, I'm back. I figured since a lot of people have been asking me lately about a variety of topics (gaming, JS, etc) I would put up a site to talk about them, keep it a little current, and hopefully get some feeback from people.

There's a lot I'd like to do with this, but for now it's mostly incomplete. So please bare with me as I build out everything. I'd wait until I was done, but there always seems to be something I want to comment on. I'd rather just get the ball rolling and see where it goes.

Enjoy.

Well, I've decided to move this live journal off to a new place, back at vitaflo. I want to share stuff with people in a place that's a little more familiar, thus the new site. I think I'll mostly be dealing with video games, programming and the like, mostly like I did here, minus the more personal stuff. So, everyone will need to update their bookmarks (sorry about that).

I do have commenting enabled on the new site, so feel free to leave a comment if you like on any of the posts. The site isn't finished yet, it's pretty far off, but I just wanted to get something up and running for the time being. I plan on making sections on gaming and code in the future.

This blog will stay here as an archive of what I did, and I may update it from time to time if it's something I want to share on a more personal level (for friends only). But I wouldn't expect a whole lot of that.

Catch ya on the flip side.

Ahh, finally done with work for a week. And now off to Mexico for that week! Let's see, Minneapolis 4 degrees, Puerto Vallarta 78. Ahh yeah, I think we picked a good week to go. :)

Posting as Friends only just so I don't get hosed on bandwidth...

Anyway, I thought Dave might enjoy this, but I just put up my new Assembler stuff, which are my NES ROM hacks:

http://2a03.assembler.org/

I have more than this and was debating on whether to put up more "musical" ones, or ones that were basically not anything like the original, and mostly chaotic. I chose the later. I doubt you'll have a very easy time guessing what game they're hacked from. I also doubt you'll have a very easy time listening to them either, they're quite crazy, but all produced by an NES. ;)

Upcoming Auctions

CONFIRMED
Date: Saturday, February 28, 2004
Location: West Allis (Milwaukee), Wisconsin
Address: Wisconsin State Fair Park, Family Living Hall, 8100 W Greenfield Ave
Preview: 8AM
Auction: 10AM
Terms:

Buyers: 13% premium (only 10% for sellers) + local sales tax.
Sellers: $12 entry, 11.9% commission (7.5% for 25 or more pieces), $12 buy back

Would have made a fun birthday trip, but I think I'll stick with Vegas. ;)

Finally got Reason installed on my Mac. Also downloaded the Comodore 64 samples, and a bunch of Analog Synth samples as well. I'd really like to make a Nintendo 2A03 sample kit if I can figure out how to do it. If it's not too hard I'll make an Atari 2600 sample pack as well. I should be able to have some fun with this thing for quite a while me thinks.

Bunch of stuff going on lately. First I finally got a Gameboy Advance SP (silver). Since I'm going to Mexico in 2 weeks I decided I should spend some of the time playing my GBA, but my first edition one drives me nuts w/ the lack of a light. I got a bunch of gift certificates for Best Buy for xmas, so I used those when I got my SP, so I only had to pay $4.65 for it. Now Annette and I can link up w/ my old one and play games, which is cool.

I also ordered a 256Mb Flash card for it, so I can put...um..."stuff" on it. ;) That should be cool once I get it. I'm really impressed w/ the SP, it's definitely the best hand held game system ever made. Speaking of, I finally got to the end of Fire Emblem. I thought I beat it, but apparently there's a nice big surprise at the end you need to beat and I got trounced. I've replayed the final chapter about 10 times thus far and haven't even gotten close to the end again, so I dunno. This may be the 500th game in a row I don't finish. Once again the game was great up until the final chapter, where it just becomes almost impossible. I don't mind it being hard, but the rest of the chapters weren't even 1/10th this hard so it's sorta lame to just ratchet it up so much at the end. Oh well, maybe I'll beat it while in Puerta Vallarta, although I am saving my Mario & Luigi game for then.

I also rented SSX 3 for my GC for the week. I had a lot of fun playing Rob's while we were home for xmas on PS2 so I had to at leat try the GC version. That game rocks so much. It temps me to buy it, but I have another 6 days with it and I'm pretty far already so I should be able to get my fill. If you haven't played it, please do, it's on all 3 platforms and it's amazing.

Speaking of Rob, I need to email him to see if he's gonna meet Annette and I in Vegas for our B-day's. We actually finalized our travel plans this weekend, and we'll be in Vegas for 3 nights, staying at the Paris. When I was there last time the Paris was by far my favorite place and I never thought I'd acctually stay there (it's pretty $$$), but we found a SUPER awesome deal online for it that we couldn't pass up. It's sort of amazing how much both hotel and airfare fluctuate depending on the day. We started looking over Thanksgiving, and if we would have bought tickets then we would have been paying probably $1700+, but with the deal we just got, we get the exact same thing for $1100. That's pretty sweet. I can't wait.

I am also really looking forward to Mexico. The Packers lost today, which I'm pretty bummed about (they had about 3 chances to win the game and blew them all), but at the same time, if they somehow would have gotten to the Super Bowl, I would have missed it since I'll be flying back from Mexico during it (Go Indy and Carolina!). Still, they have a lot of positives to play off of for next year, so that's good, I'm looking forward to it.

So that's what's new here. Time to go play some more SSX 3. Booya!

Well, we finally got our cat. He's been doing pretty well so far. He seems to either want to play, play, play, or sleep, sleep, sleep. There's really no middle ground at this point.

Xmas was good. Got a wireless router and card which I hooked up to my arcade cab so now I can update it with games (just added another 1000 or so today to it). Works quite well, once I got the bugs worked out. I also got a connector for my calculator so I can program on my computer and upload to the calculator. Now I won't lose my programs. Nice!

The Packer game rocked, probably the best one I've been too. I could tell Tony had a good time, he sorta got spoiled by going to such a great game as his first.

Had a big party here last night, was real fun, lots of arcade action. We went through a ton of booze, it was pretty impressive really. Annette and I are feeling it this morning (her more than I), but we had a good time so that's all that counts.