woha.. ticket prices are insane...

 

Hi folks,

at the Beeld en Geluid is another retro gaming event taking place in 2020.
Trailer and Information in Tickets can be found on their website:
https://flashback2020.com/

still searching

Love this game, thanks for sharing.

This story just keep on giving! 

Today, it's the 8th anniversary of this legendary road trip  

To do something special, here's some video clips I found on my HDD...It's raw footage, un-edited, no cut, in french, and not everything is very interesting but I thought it would be fun(ship) to publish them anyway for this occasion. Here we go ->



Great memories!  

Hi, many years ago I posted about my Outrun Machine:
http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=1077.0

The machine still exists but for various reasons it has never been repaired properly.
I now have time to continue this project.
The monitor was in storage and has now been returned to my house.

The monitor is beyond repair, the board at the back was filthy, the front of the screen had bad burn-in. It has gone to the skip.

However I have saved the mounting bracket because it had a Sega serial number on it.
It was held on with 4 10mm bolts, and the chassis was held on with 2 screws at the back.
I thought it best to save the metal mounting bracket because it fits Outrun perfectly.

The mounting bracket is filthy, not only with dust and dirt but it seems to be some kind of grease.
Is it safe to clean the mounting bracket with hot soapy water?
Do I have to treat it with any oil or thermal grease before putting it back in the cabinet?
Sorry if these are dumb questions but I really don't know.

I also need a suitable replacement monitor that would be easy to fit, looks good and safe to use.

I really need to buy a new switching transformer for the game boards, and I think a separate LCD monitor is the safest way to go however that might mean a multiplug inside the cabinet. Hopefully a local electrician can do all the electrics for me as I am not qualified to do this.

The old monitor said 110V. I think it was by Nanao.

I'm still alive  

All cabs sold to Tyrem and Jochen (by the way, you forgot Jochen has the best SW cockpit in Europe   )

Do I miss them ? Sometimes a bit yes.

But it was a necessary thing in several ways.

I finally divorced exactly a year ago and well...the plus-minus 4 years before that were not the best of my life. Let's put it mildly that my ex didn't make it easy on me. I realize that after 27 years of marriage where one wants to quit, it's not easy for the other, but there are some limits to what you can do to another person.....but I won't bore you with this...

At the moment I live still in the same house and I am lucky enough to have found the most amazing woman walking on this planet who now lives with me here (some of you guys have met her   ). I seriously couldn't be happier and fall in love with her again every single day (yes that sounds cheesy, but I can highly recommend it).

As a bonus, I now also have a wonderful extra daughter (18) and son (15) who sometimes sleep over a night here but live mostly with their dad (but this could change slowly). All these changes naturally have some getting used to for the kids, but my son Mark and my girlfriends kids get along just fine.

I am still collecting a bit of Atari, mostly A8 stuff and the occasional oddity (just added a 2600jr. and earlier scored an Atari Touch-Me hand-held) but that's about it. As you can imagine my time was mostly taken by other things the last years.
I also recently picked up a nice 1975 Zanussi Pong console, I may open a thread about it....love it.
I also managed to find some time to create a nice little PCB for the A8 which makes it possible to switch between PAL and NTSC. This has been fully developed now, now I need some time to get the Chinese to produce a good number of them....(I even won a price a the ABBUC hardware contest with it  )

Following those changes in my life I needed to create a bit of "room" in the house. So we cleaned out one room that used to be storage only and is now a nice sleeping room for my bonus-son. Currently I'm making a new room in my attic (placed a dry-wall, it's nice to learn new stuff) where my son will move to (promised this ages ago). Then his old room will be "refurbished" for my bonus-daughter.
It's a good thing I have the extra large shed (former game room) now so I can use it as temporary storage.
After all these changes are done, the plan is to turn the former game room into a "man-cave".....there will be my 2600/A8/ST stuff playable all the time, hopefully something like a little bar, beamer etc.
All of this also depends on financial stuff......divorcing isn't a cheap hobby guys !

Oh forgot to mention that I also changed jobs. I still do the same work but at a competing company now. I already knew I didn't want to stay at the previous employer because the way things worked there but I really had to get the divorce behind me first before I could think about changing jobs. I started this new job last september.

So all is well !!! (well almost all, read on)....

I still love arcade games and was very happy to finally be able to make it to Thorsten & Dirk's this year.....man I loved every second there....so many awesome old-friends....too little time and oh yeah, there were also some amazing games.....

This year I had planned to go there for an extra night to visit the town and the surrounding are for a change, but this didn't happen because shortly before the weekend my dad suffered a stroke. He had surgery on my birthday (nov. 19th) to open one of his vanes in his neck which was successful but he lost almost all speech and his right arm and hand are hard to control. He can still walk though and definitly knows what's going on. At 85, you can't be picky I guess but it's hard to see your dad like that when not a few days earlier he was still playing tennis...
Anyway, we're a few months further now and he's been in a revalidation home ever since and is definitly making progress. Speech is slowly coming back (very slowly) and his arm is still so-so but he will return home February the 14th. With a little help (also from my mum) he can still enjoy life even though not like it used to be.

Sadly, all of the above had some impact in keeping contact with some of my best friends here, they know who they are, but rest assure we will pick it back up once things are a bit more stable again  

Anyway....lots of text as you are used to from me.....

Sorry to see a lot of guys "follow my example".... I can only hope the machines are in good hands now (I know mine are) and they will live "forever". But life is about changing and moving on. And most important in finding what makes you happy. I know I found it.