Wednesday 24 July 2013

Project 2 -- Update 1: Arcade Table

Stage 1: Get mame to run on the Pi with Ms. Pacman and accept joystick commands

Status: Completed mostly.  Decided not to worry about joystick commands, since they should be easily changed.

Stage 2: get the Pi to automatically boot into mame with some sort of game selection screen that can use the joystick instead of a keyboard

Stage 3: Get Ms Pacman to flip like a classic arcade cocktail table depending on if player 1 or player 2 is playing

Status: Complete.

Stage 4: Wire a joystick(2 if possible) and buttons to the GPIO pins on the Pi.

Stage 5: Come up with a plan to power everything so that only one cord is required if possible

Stage 6: Design and make the box

I'm likely putting this project on hold until I can purchase joysticks/buttons/ipac2 etc.  I may make a project 2b that involves making a console emulator which will require a lower budget.

Saturday 13 July 2013

Project 2: Arcade Table

I'm currently trying to make a simple mame arcade table to play older games such as Ms. PacMan using a Raspberry Pi.  This project is divided into several stages:

Stage 1: Get mame to run on the Pi with Ms. Pacman and accept joystick commands
Stage 2: get the Pi to automatically boot into mame with some sort of game selection screen that can use the joystick instead of a keyboard
Stage 3: Get Ms Pacman to flip like a classic arcade cocktail table depending on if player 1 or player 2 is playing
Stage 4: Wire a joystick(2 if possible) and buttons to the GPIO pins on the Pi.
Stage 5: Come up with a plan to power everything so that only one cord is required if possible
Stage 6: Design and make the box

I am currently on Stage 1.  I'm planning on trying my PS3 Fightstick on the Pi to see if it works next.  I also need to install MAME on my Raspbian installation, but do have a separate Emulation Station install which will probably be tailored for the end product since it likely will do what I want for a front end once I configure it.

I'm hoping to dedicate 6 hours a week to this project.

Project 1: French

One of my goals this year is to try and learn to speak French.  A major obstacle that I have with this is that, ideally, to learn any language you require a certain amount of immersion if you want to learn.  I'm currently worried only about conversational French, and not the written language.  I'm starting myself out by trying to absorb a vocabulary of about 1000 words.

I'm hoping to dedicate 70 minutes a week to building this vocabulary until the end of August 2013.  After this, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do next--only that I will not be sitting around reading a ton of grammar books.  I'll likely try to make an effort to converse with my French co-workers, and listen to French tv shows and movies.


SuperBetter

There's some interesting science behind this talk.  I'm trying her advice and "superbetter" game to see if it helps me.

Friday 12 July 2013

First post

Hello.  This is a blog covering my many attempts to better myself.  I will talk mostly about stuff I'm doing, and stuff I'm reading.  It's really just meant to be a journal to keep me on track, and isn't likely to interest a wide audience... but what blog does these days?  Cheers.

Likely topics include:

-Learning new skills including: French, Python, Linux, Zen Running, Yoga, Electronics, Game Maker, Pygame, CAD, 3d printing, manufacturing and design.

-Those rare moments that I will post about my interests I'll be talking about: Indie video games, TED Talks, poker, making things, stuff I use/want/buy/like.