Archive for June, 2007
AMP connector arrives from Allied Electronics
Got the AMP connector in the mail today, so tonight, I spent the night checking everything and putting everything together. I probably could have done all of the work I did tonight a while ago, but at least now, as far as I know there is nothing that should be holding me up. I didn’t put on the connector, but I put in the PCB boards, checked all of my connections, but the cpanel back on and the monitor back in. It took a little while going back and forth between the machines, correcting some things, but finally it was time, and I powered it up. I got sound, humming on the monitor, but no picture. There is a led light on the PCB, but that is about it.
So, I don’t know what now. I wasn’t able to find where to plug in the RGB and Ground as well as sync, that is where I will start. There doesn’t seem to be any pins on this monitor, and it has been so long now since I unplugged that I can’t remember. There is a two hole molex connector on the 20 EZ monitor and another molex connector that doesn’t go to anything. Brent in KY has worked with these, so I emailed him, I hope he can help me out.
June 14, 2007
Nokes had calmed down since I wrote about how uncontrollable he has become, but he has also started doing some bad dog stuff, destroying things around the house. We are at the stage where he understands what the trash is, and what it contains. That has just been in the last couple of days, so we have to shut doors, especially to the bathroom. He is funny, I’ll hear dashing footsteps upstairs, and come up to find him taking out the trash to the main areas piece by piece. He isn’t chewing them up as much as just getting them.
Then there was the big one. It was the week we got back from the Memorial Day weekend. He started hanging out in the basement under the bed. Well, we let him be down there one day without supervision for about a half hour. Well, for some reason he felt it important to get under the bed and start destroying the box springs lining. We have to watch him upstairs too. What he’ll do is bite and rip off pieces and either eat them or spit them out outside of the bed. We came down to find a perimeter of black lining around the bed. Cute and funny in away, but it pisses you off too. I know I would have felt different if it had been a couch.
That’s ok, he paid for it. The one morning last week he got sick, and kept throwing up. Well, in the end he pooped a big old black turd with all of the lining contained within. I am sure that felt good going down.
This week he has also started to chew on the couch covers if you aren’t watching him, as well as pants, underwear and other clothing. He has lost his first tooth somewhere, it is in the front of his mouth, so I know I am hoping that is the beginning of the end for the teething. That and we hope obedience class helps with that too.
Image of the Agent X kickplate
It’s been a week, and I don’t have dimensions just yet, so I thought I would post what I have. If I haven’t said this before, I will say it now. JPG quality is for the web, and is not representative of print colors. So keep that in mind when viewing, that and this hasn’t been color matched yet.
Jrok Pengo High Score Save Kit Released!
I was surfing last night and I saw that Jrok finally finished his Pengo High Score Saver kit back in late May. I am pretty excited about this, it has high score saving with extended tables, freeplay, attract mode, it can determine how fast the draw is of the blocks in the beginning, and you can choose which soundtrack you want. The last two options are paramount for me because I hate the soundtrack the game has now, probably a lot because I am used to playing it on Mame. (Say what you will).
The thing is, do I get the pack and have it sit until I get the game working? I think not. I don’t think I should plug it in to see if it fixes something either because what if the short blows this processor? So, it will probably have to wait, but maybe I will have to make this more of a priority fix as well. Hell I could take it out to Wagner Games considering I don’t have any money into the game so far in theory.
Finding electronics stores who carry my AMP connector
I posted in both groups about getting this connector, and no one responded. So, I decided to make an effort to stop at some electronic stores and find out if they had it. Plus, I had to get the diode for the audio board.
Well, I found out the connector is an AMP brand product, and I was able to get a phone number for Tyco Electronics, who apparently own AMP now. The part I needed is the female 9 pin connector, and the part number for this was 1-480707-0, or so I found out when I called their distribution center. Then came the run around. I was supposed to reference their distributors who had it in stock, a list of 40 of them, and then call them all to see which was in Indiana. Their site had no way to narrow it down. Pretty frustrating.
I called two people within the company for help, and they suggested a couple to try, helping me find a couple electronics stores I wasn’t familiar with on the northside of the city. I called Allied electronics, who have an office in Carmel. I wanted to see if they could just mail me a piece for cheap from their location there. Well, I got their home office in Fort Worth, TX, and this great sales rep I spoke with said it qualified as a sample, and that she would mail it to me for free! I was so pleased. They made a new customer! So I should have it in a couple of days.
I soldered on the diode when I got home, making a best guess on the polarity based on the schematic I had. So, once I get the connector I will try plugging everything in and see what I get. I am sure something else will go wrong, but I will know soon enough.
Another rare Mr. Do! Bezel instance found
Found something interesting tonight, found another collector who has this same bezel on some sort of Mr. Do conversion machine (maybe for all I know) from the rare white Mr. Do machine from Gleeb. His name is Daniel Tofalo, and I shot him a personal message through the KLOV group. I hope he has time to get back with me on what he knows about the machine he has and it’s history. It may give me some insight into my next lead.
Where I got the Frenzy
I came across this cabinet for sale at a local auction house here in Indianapolis, much to my surprise. I got to the event late that morning, and it was one of the first things to be auctioned. Being a little flustered, I wasn’t as patient as I should have been, but I still knew my upper price limit. I ended up bidding $20 to buy the machine. I probably could have waited, there might have been one other interested guy, but the crowd was thin and no one was bidding. Oh well. Next time I’ll have some more patience to let it hit the floor in price, but it was still a really great value.
