hiidenkonttibeta

Lately I’ve been increasingly playing with MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). Probably the first thing anyone trying out MAME finds out is that using a keyboard as a controller isn’t too comfortable or efficient. This discovery either turns one away from MAME or deeper into it’s world…

One solution to this problem is buying a gamepad or an arcade-like controller especially built for use with MAME. Another solution is to build your own controller – which is, of course, much more fun. I’m in the progress of doing just that, currently in experimental phase.

The most common way of attaching your own controller to a computer is to build one which mimics a (PS/2) keyboard. So, when you want to get rid of the keyboard you actually build a custom keyboard :-) Keyboard interface is good because 1) practically every PC has a keyboard port 2) there’s a lot of keys to assign to players (arcade games may have 4 simultaneous players) and 3) keyboard configuration in MAME is easy.

For keyboard port connection there’s two alternative approaches. There are dedicated keyboard encoders (like I-PAC) which connect to the keyboard port and provide a set of input lines (30 or so). Another option is to use the keyboard encoder from a common keyboard – in MAME world this is known as keyboard hacking, and that’s what I’ve been doing.

My dear Keytronic keyboard died last July in a coffee-related accident, so I had a keyboard to sacrifice. I gutted it, mapped the encoder matrix with a piece of wire and a small app which displayed the key scan codes and values, soldered a D25 connector to the keyboard electronics, and created this wire mess with some more connectors and soldering:

It’s messy because it’s the development version. But it works – I can plug a Atari 2600 style joystick (the one that is used in e.g. Commodore 64 or Amiga) or Sega Master System control pad into the PS/2 port via this thing, and get key presses out of them (‘W’, ‘D’, ‘G’, ‘J’ for directions and ‘A’ or ” for buttons). I could add another joystick, too. A pretty custom keyboard, right?

There are some drawbacks using them as controllers for arcade games. Atari 2600 joysticks have only one fire button (there are often more than one physical buttons like in the Suzo Prof Competition in the photo, but they are all wired to same input), SMS pads have two. Many games can be played with one button, more with two, but some (most fighting games, for example) require three or more buttons, up to six. And there’s no arcade feel in playing with the tiny SMS pad… So, the next step is to acquire real arcade game controller parts and hook them up.

… but only small ones.

Yesterday was windy and snowy, very unpleasant weather to walk outside. The wind built dunes of snow even on Rotuaari:

There still isn’t a lot of snow in Oulu. The snow depth map on Finnish Meteorological Institute page says there’s 25-50cm, and we certainly don’t have half a meter in here.

The forest was very snowy around joulu in Tervola. As I told earlier, I shot quite a lot of stereo photo pairs in the forest. I finally managed to edit all of the usable ones and got about 30 stereo photos. Most of them are hyperstereo to exaggerate the 3D effect – and because shooting 3D photos using camera phone knee-deep in snow in dim forest isn’t exact science. Here’s a set of 10 photos which are my personal favourites.
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Acquired an Amiga 500, one of the legendary home computers from mid-80′s recently:

Actually I got two of them, with a collection of joysticks in various conditions (most of them seemed to work quite well), but not much else. I already had Frontier Elite II game, but it requires 1MB of memory, so I’ve got to get memory expansion first. I also need to build a cable for TV connection – A500′s can output RGB video, but the A/V connector is somewhat exotic D23. Local electronics shop was out of stock (but they actually would have had them otherwise!), so I’m investigating the possibility of replacing the D23 with a SCART connector..

I visited Anttila’s entertainment department again today (they still have their “end of year sale” or something going on), and noticed that they have a whole shelf for anime DVD’s!

In addition to Henkien kätkemä (千と千尋の神隠し) they had at least Ghost in the Shell (one of the best movies in existence), Neon Genesis Evangelion (a great series), Akira, Tokyo Godfathers, Jin Roh, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Full Metal Panic and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. I might as well go and get the Vampire Hunter D movie.

Finnish television channel Subtv has broadcasted more and more anime recently – not only Sailor Moon subbed in Swedish or Dragonball Z anymore, but they’re showing NGE now, and at proper time of 23:00. Does that mean that anime is slowly going mainstream in Finland? Well, maybe there’s still a few scandals to go before it’s accepted widely..

A while back my lovely girlfriend suggested that I should have “food” (and drink) category in まんぴつ. Here’s another posting for that still non-existing category.

The nearby Sodexho lunch canteen (don’t like to call the place “restaurant”) is able to make pretty much every possible food badly. Usually it’s the lack of any kind of taste – you know you’re eating something because you feel it in your mouth, but telling what it is by taste is impossible. Sometimes even visual observation must be done with tools – at least once I’ve had some unknown flour-covered lump on my plate, not knowing whether it is derived from animal, fish, vegetables material or chemical factory. Careful visual analysis of the structure of the stuff (poking and slicing with knife and fork) accompanied with senses of smell and taste stretched to their limits pointed at fish-based origins with 90% certainity.

Their version of liver casserole had a taste, unfortunately. I tried to cover it with lingonberries, but they weren’t enough. That was the only time I’ve eaten only half of my food, usually I finish it even if I don’t like it very much. This is what it looked like:

The visual appearance of the portion was such that when I brought it on the table the co-worker I was having lunch with immediately took his camera phone and snapped a photo. Later he described it to another co-worker: “Ne ei nuo Lapin miehet vähästä hätkähdä. Se oli aivan hirvittävän näköistä.”

They also seem to make some experiments. How does salmon & asparagus pizza sound like? Their pizzas are usually pretty bad (some co-worker had to add salt on his pizza – not a common problem, that), but I don’t think many people even tried their chances with this thing:

In the other end of the spectrum, there’s a cake shop in the city center. They had some gingerbread art in their window:

And lastly, here’s a paper mache cow which stands in Oulun Taidekoulu’s hall:

It’s not food, but I bet it wouldn’t taste much worse than the liver casserole did.