Gurt Bolg

Just more pics to post first…

A stash I found hidden upstairs for once, behind a cupboard.

The above after being repacked. Now I have two large crates of C64 stuff…

…here is the second box.

A nice example of an almost complete collection. Missing is the CPC version. But you can see the slight variation in packaging here…left to right: Aussie C64, UK C64, UK ZX Spectrum, UK Commodore 16.

A bunch of parcels all arrived at once. (I forgot to put them all in the photo, too!) Let’s see what’s in them…

Oh, it looked like a lot more before. (The big package is mostly air, but obviously it contains the Atari 130XE at the back.) It’s hard to tell from this pic because it’s from above, but that modulator on the bottom-left is quite big. Either way, does it work?…

Yes, it bloody well does! We are success!!

——

So, what’s next in the project?

I’m ready for a test run but probably not for launch. I will test run shortly, I think. But why can’t I launch? Well…

If I fix the two above, my range is vastly improved and I can basically do any Mastertronic game (which is going to be an emphasis early on due to the sheer number of inter-machine conversions they did, I think). This means I’m ready for launch, basically. Unfortunately I’ve rather stupidly made both machines part of the program’s backbone without every checking both my machines are working. (I have no reason to doubt the MSX is working beyond the missing cable.) BUT…

The next computer I want to buy that I don’t own in some form already is either the BBC Model B or Atari ST. Atari ST should be easier; they were sold locally. Did quite well, too. The BBC…I don’t know, I found a UK magazine article from the 80s which says they sold very well here, but I think this is BS. Lots of research needed. After that…all I am missing is a Dragon 32. I can live with that. Where’s my Beeb?

Unfortunately I’ve been a bit slack on posting. Work has been tough, y’know. I’m sick at the moment so I’ll keep it brief but to avoid creating a nasty backlog…pics. Here is a rather crap pic…Manic Miner on the C64 and Spectrum at the same time! (I tried it with the CPC version too, but black and white…meh…)

And last, we have the latest arrivals:

The good news: I got another shipment of games in the post today. I’m quite chuffed. I also bought a few SCART adaptors so I could get the CPC working.

The bad news: I realise now the cable is not a converter but just a straight cable. In other words, it’s outputting a monitor signal which the TV can’t understand without SCART input. The image comes up black and white!

The only way around this is to avoid the classic composite cables. Component might work. VGA should work. HDMI most likely would work. Of course the problem here is CRTs generally don’t have VGA or HDMI input…and HDMI, although the most likely to work, is the most expensive.

I made up for this small failure by repairing a VIC-20. I have two; The first one had an almost-dead keyboard (P worked, L worked, not much else worked) and generated a lot of interference, the second made a chipsound gradually increasing in pitch until it peaked (but didn’t explode). So I simply transplanted the keyboard and fiddled with the crap shielding inside, and managed to get one good VIC-20. I’m happy with that!

Some games arrived as expected so here’s the current spoils of war:

I have the Amstrad CPC SCART cable and power pack, but unfortunately it’s close to useless currently as I have no SCART input things. I have an adaptor on the way though so patience will serve me well. I hope! I was unable to repair the monitor - no obvious breaks inside it - but after an hour or two, I repaired the tape deck. Took longer because there was no screen, thus I forgot you need to LOAD something to supply power to the motors! I probably need a CRT TV as well…more money…

Just a quick post - got some games in the post yesterday, I took a photo of the lot but I won’t put it up yet - I’m expecting more games to arrive this week. Other than that, I’ve bought some storage boxes for the collections - hopefully this will streamline things. It was a necessity, my games room was already full to begin with.

I should get paid today, if so I’ll probably try and buy an Atari 8-bit machine. I have to buy a separate cassette deck too for it as it has a proprietary one, dammit. But the way my project is shaping out, I’ll need an Atari. So far I have just one game for it, but looking at my chart, I could need many more. What’s more the one game happens to be one I now own for every system…meaning it’s ready for review. Once I have an Atari, anyway!

The last two days have been hectic.

Saturday, I found my Amstrad CPC monitor was dead. It wasn’t the other day. My CPC may be dead too as the Spectrum power supply didn’t power it. Fortunately I anticipated problems, so I ordered a SCART+power cable thing from the UK. It’s still annoying though…an air of authenticity is gone.

Today, I went under the house into the basement and dug up lost treasures. In a nutshell there was a lot of undiscovered games there (as in, games I didn’t know I had!), I found a VIC-20 and lots of hardware, I found a large amount of Ultimate games, and I filled up two boxes. I also found about for Sega Master Systems in a box.

Here you can see seven datassettes (none of them my originals, I don’t think!), and all the stuff I ended up bringing out of the abyss. That rear bucket is quite big, actually. The VIC-20 can be seen there. The couch behind it has two Spectrums on it.

I don’t know if the VIC-20 works, it seems to power up OK but I don’t have a video cable for it. In fact, I don’t know which port is the video port! But it looks pretty and now I’ve WD-40′d it, it smells pretty, too.

Out of curiosity, I tested my Plus/4. Dead, it seems. But I need a final diagnosis.

Two of them!

No games in the mail today, but I got a ZX Spectrum 48k and a Spectrum+.

The 48k one appears to be shot. It took a while to tune as it comes in on a different channel for no apparent reason, and when I got it up (hurr), the keyboard would not respond.

The Spectrum+, however, works fine. The sound output is wired badly - probably a design fault - as plugging in my speakers produces a hum, although if there is sound it outputs that too. But the internal speaker, in all its tackiness, works beautifully. Plus the keyboard feels nice - not quite real, not quite fake, just like a Speccy+ should. It’s exactly what I wanted…a nice working 48kb Speccy for my videos, so I can run the 128k games on one and the 48k games on the other. Cosmetic, I know, but it’s nice. (I’m not getting a green screen Amstrad CPC monitor based on this logic, I should add.) Plus, I could swear the picture is slightly better on this Spectrum+…no matter how I tune the 128k one, it never improves. It also came with an unbranded joystick interface…here is a pic of the CPC, and four Spectrums:

…the four Spectrums may not speak for themselves. The leftmost one is a 16k one. The identical looking one to that is the 48k one with the bad keyboard. The Spectrum+ is behind it. Far right is 128k. On the far left is the CPC, of course (and the monitor I was looking for, and a reflection of Pacman), and underneath there’s an Amiga and C64.

Sometime this weekend I need to go downstairs with a big bucket and extract some games. Also, when I have the energy, I need to test my C16 and Plus/4. I had a dead C16 somewhere, but I had two C16s…the odds are good that one works. If not, I’ll have to emulate. Boo. It’s still important to own the originals though, just to attempt to give some substance…

I think it’s a good idea to use this existing blog in conjunction with my new site plan. So here we are.

It’s been a busy week so far…

Sunday, I ordered about 20 new old games from the UK. It took me several hours to figure out what to order. Looks like mostly ZX Spectrum and Amstrad stuff, that overlaps my C64 stuff.

Monday, I managed to track down my lost Amstrad CPC in the basement and retrieve it, which took me…I don’t want to say months but it probably was. I went and bought another 15 games for some reason. I almost have several format-complete collections because of this…

Tuesday, I found the CPC monitor where I thought it would be (in the garage…DEEP in the garage, out of sight), but couldn’t retrieve it. I also lost an auction for a copy of Monty on the Run for Amstrad CPC as I fell asleep. Drat! I have a compilation version, but I hoped to have a proper case for it so it looks right for video, and so I load the right tape. At least I have it. At least I bought it, I should say; it hasn’t arrived yet. I got the Amstrad version of Kikstart 2, so now I have it on everything (except wasn’t it on Amiga too? I don’t have that…), so that should make a good cross-format examination.

Today (Wednesday), I retrieved the monitor and it SEEMS to work, although the colours look too dark and the drive belt on the tape deck seems to be broken as I can rewind but not fast forward or play. Useless, really. I don’t know how tape decks work but it seems logically a drive belt problem, and those things perish, especially when left in a dungeon for years. As I don’t trust the monitor I also bought a SCART cable; I have no TVs with SCART connections so hopefully the adaptor I have is the correct one and not the opposite gender. SCART is beyond my comprehension. I also bought a copy of Molecule Man for CPC. This means basically I just need the Atari and the Spectrum versions and I have it on everything, all ready for a review! It’s not a spectacular game, nor one that’s different much from version to version; but it’s there, and easy to acquire on everything. Actually, the Commodore 16 hardware is so lame that it’s amazing such a game was squeezed onto the machine, and I haven’t seen that version, so that is something.

I don’t actually have an Atari 8-bit machine so I guess very soon, I will need one.

Overall though I’m well on the way to launch…

…a photo of where I’m at so far. Those double-ups are actually the same game on different machines. Obviously, I couldn’t fit everything here (Robocop is in a big box, for example. He’s a big robot.), plenty is in storage and plenty is in transit. But this is a fair representation.

Today I am feeling somewhat useless, so there is naught to do but to make myself useful. The sands of time do not relent, only we do…but enough of this philisophical bullshit. Today I am musing over what is called Project Justice.

Project Justice is a dream. One you yourself have probably had too. In short, it’s about building my own arcade. It has been an idea for about nine years, and five years ago I sat down and began writing down a bigger plan…it changed from a childish dream into a plan that could work.

Of course, it didn’t. It involved building a shed, probably around the side of the house (my parent’s house). It didn’t work for a number of reasons…retrospectively it’s no surprise, it wasn’t well planned, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. The internet wasn’t as extensive back then and crucial information wasn’t online. Wikipedia and Youtube are recent innovations, for exanple, which possess a wealth of info we use every day. Back then, I had the online Yellow Pages, and one or two companies with websites. Basically the area I wanted to build had an existing concrete base - still does - and the framework, the fabrication, whatever it is called, apparently consisted of random chunks of metal rather than a traditional frame. It was homemade, and as best I could tell, indestructable. Plans B to Z all were stupid.

Time marches on, it does not wait. In five years much has changed, the world is unrecognisable in a way, but the dream is still current. It won’t go away. Over this time the space I had planned on using is occupied by a junked car. Mum has died, dad has not - meaning I will inherit the property at some point. I moved out for a while then moved back.

Basically as macabre as the topic is, I guess I am planning what I will do when I inherit the whole thing. It’s an inevitability, and when it happens I am stuck with the property - I can’t sell it due to tax (ie I’d lose lots of money) and I probably couldn’t do it anyway.

The current plan roughly consists as follows:
- Demolish the back garden. I hate getting my hands dirty. This could be quite complex due to the amount of crap in the backyard, including a shed full of probably highly toxic substances, and probably spiders. And a mango tree.
- Relocate the topsoil to the fencelines if I can. The garden is elevated, so the soil musn’t be the normal stuff.
- Essentially, build a large building at the back.

At this point I should point out I am slightly confused over this. Is it a shed, a garage, a barn, a granny flat? Steel, wood, plastic? Height? Basement, multi-storey? All I know is it needs storage, electricity, no damp, wide door/s and content…

- Needs arcade cabinets.
- Needs decor.
- Needs furniture.
- Needs security.

At this point I am trying to narrow down these points. Things like decor and even the cabinets can be done now. This means the biggest remaining hurdles are how to clear the space and building it. Probably the biggest hurdles I admit, but the cabinets themselves are just as big an issue and they are being managed. All three can be managed to smaller levels.

Then there’s the details…shed(?) size, layout, decor, furnishings. It all sounds boring and/or like my standards could change.

I’ll leave the details until next time.

Sorry for not updating lately - I’m not sure why I haven’t, it’s not laziness. Anyway, meh. We are here.

Not much to add though…maybe that is why I have not updated. I have only played Bemani games lately, and I thought rather than bore you to tears with stories about those if you’re not interested I would start a separate blog, which is available down the right hand side there under “BeBolg”.

The only thing worth mentioning I guess is I’m investing in another cabinet, and this time I *will* put up pictures…I mean, I could put up pictures now of just the one, but that is like saying “I could put up pictures of my old car now, or my new cart in a few weeks.”

Actually I lie; I have played other games - as a part of my enforced savings ritual I decided to start playing Ultima Online again. I’m just playing on a small server with not many people so it’s quite relaxing and it has had the desired effect; I haven’t felt the need to buy other games in the meantime. It’s a classic trick, really. Classic MMOs are always appreciated…one day I’ll have to get back into PSO…