Archive for March, 2007
Professor Pac-man
I didn’t know too much about the game, other than it was trivia based game with questions and answers. Reading klov, it says that the game had over 500 unique answers, which really isn’t a ton. Midway thought this was going to be the next big type of game, but it flopped immediately, and only 400 were ever made.
Not a type of game that appealed to me, Pac-man based or not, I didn’t figure that I would be doing artwork for this game. But Richard Ford asked me if I could redo the control panel for him, I believe he has two of the few that still remain. The second one needs the parts, and hence the artwork.
Value of a Dig Dug PCB
I was organizing information that I had taken over the past couple of month from ebay on pricing for Dig Dug PCB boards. Obviously, the market will ebb and flow, and it is ebay, so you have to consider that some people may big less because they have to add shipping to the board, but this is what I found for final prices and current market value of Dig Dug PCB boards.
Note: If it says “Not Working” that may mean that the board was sold as is, not specifically that it was pointed out as non working.
Dig Dug PCB eBay Pricing Results
- Nov. 2006 1 – $40.99 (Works)
- Dec. 2006 1 – $51.51 (Works)
- Dec. 2006 2 – $28.05 (Works)
- Dec. 2006 3 – $55.00 (No Bids)
- Jan. 2007 1 – $22.53 (Non Working)
- Jan. 2007 2 – $47.00 (Works)
- Jan. 2007 3 – $43.65 (Works)
- Jan. 2007 4 – $42.99 (Works)
- Jan. 2007 5 – $13.50 (2 boards Non Working)
- Feb. 2007 1 – $44.00 (Works – High Score Kit Also)
- Feb. 2007 2 – $51.00 (Works)
- Feb. 2007 3 – $9.95 (Non Working)
- Feb. 2007 4 – $9.95 (Ended Early)
- Feb. 2007 5 – $41.00 (Works)
- Feb. 2007 6 – $10.49 (Non Working)
- Feb. 2007 7 – $9.99 (Non Working)
- March 2007 1 – $9.00 (Ended Early)
- March 2007 2 – $20.50 (2 boards Non Working)
Ported changes for Day 1
Tonight.
I have installed WP twice now, but tonight was the first time I had troubles. I had not changes the correct values in the config file, I change the value on the left, when it was the right side values I was supposed to change. But hey, it gave me more practice in the backend creating databases and users.
So, tonight I spent about 2 hours on the site. I started on the template, changed the background, inserted the header image, and realized I am probably going to resize everything. I don’t know why I went with a blog width of just over 700 px the first time around, but this time I am using all of the real estate given to me.
I also added in all of my categories and underlying structure. I added in one post under the entertainment section to kick it off, and called it good.
Rotheblog – Version 1.5
This is my first post chronicaling my adventures with WordPress and converting a significantly sizable amount of content from a fairly static existing blog site into the formats and functionality provided by WordPress.
Why call it 1.5? Well, it isn’t really a redesign, but it is adding enough functionality and changing enough to be a major revision. You as a user may notice very little, but from my perspective a lot will change.
And why change it over at all? Man, you are full of why’s.
Well, first and foremost, I find it very important for my soul to have some sort of online journal about my life. It is fairly filtered, and at times more watered down than I want to be, but this is online we are talking about, and anyone can read anything I write.
Now, having said that, I was getting to the point where what I had setup wasn’t working anymore. Not in such a way that I couldn’t write, but there was one feature in particular that I wanted and was having problems figuring out how to work into my current site.
RSS. This is something that I have been curious about as of late. It has been out forever, but not until the last 4-5 months have I personally been searching out feeds and working on having the best, ever changing, portal page in Google. I also wanted to have the option of syndication for potential future business ventures, specifically if I do anything along the path of classic arcade games. I felt like the content I was working on, especially the reproduction of classic artwork was very unique and I should be able to share it with as many as possible.
After learning a litte bit more, and I finally got my head wrapped around what “trackbacks” were, and their purpose, I realize I might have an issue with my site the way it was for RSS. I would use a ton of my time to write them, or I could just take the leap and convert it all, and have them generated automatically for all sections of the site. Plus, I knew there were some other commenting systems I had in place before I transferred hosting on the site that I needed to get back online, why not do that all at once?
I also wasn’t able to find many blogs out there that were nice, and were all about Classic Arcade games. So at the very least, I will be able to just erase everything here and change the blog over to only arcades, or, I can port over that information to another site just for it.
The second reason was the structure. Like most web designers, I am always learning more and wanting to change things. I added fun ajax, dhtml, and javascript types features to my site, added new pages, and rearranged things. It was also the first site I ever did in CSS. But even though I planned it really well, it still got to be a mess. A mess to manage, and in terms of the stylesheet, a mess means way too big of a file that increases loading time.
So, in short, I wanted to convert it over for future flexibility. WordPress is such a cool online application that has a great user base and lots of documentation. The developers have done a great job in everything, and I wanted to play and participate.
I hope to learn alot like I did when I developed the blog first time around, and use this in my technology arsenal for future personal growth.
Long story, but true, and that is why version 1.5 of Rotheblog.
Now….like when I moved personal stuff off of Rothecreations here, I am toying of starting my own site just for my Illustration. It kind of depends on how great WordPress really is.
Double checking Professor Pac-man measurements
Took the Professor Pac control panel artwork tonight and did the measured adjustments on it. Of course I had to do some adjustments, my artwork seemed to be a little more short than the measurements when I scaled it down proportionately. I am guessing that next it should be printed out to scale, and laid over a current machine to make sure that it is pretty close to correct.
Hopefully Richard is able to print that off ok, even with margins, maybe at a local printer or something.
Professor Pac-man Control Panel Dimensions Diagram
Here it is, a simple diagram showing the dimensions of the Professor Pac-man Control Panel Overlay (CPO), the width, height, and other pertinent measurements to help you reproduce it if you need to.
Following up with Walt
I called Walt in MA today to follow up to see if he had time to snap some of those photos of the Mr. Do white sideart. I had emailed him on the 2nd and hadn’t heard anything back, so I hope that I don’t have to start from scratch in finding another source, and that he can pull through for me.
