A weekend of jobs (and arcade table upgrade)

This weekend we 'tried' to have an at home weekend and get a few jobs done around the house. It was mostly successful although I didn't get all the jobs I was allocated done, and I also created a few more for myself.

Things left to do : 

• Rehang the big mirror
  

(Some of the) New things:

• Rehang Zach's pictures
  
• Fit some rubber stoppers to the new chair to give it the same angle as the black one (someone cunningly added two rubber gromets to the back chair's swivel mount to give it a greater reclining angle... much more comfortable as a result)
  
• Ebay Sellathon
  

I did manage to change Zach's cot to the bigger size because he's been hitting his head when he kicks his legs. We also started to seriously dedust after the plastering work and we've decided we've got way too much stuff in the house and have started a massive declutter. The lounge room was the first to get a makeover and now has a lot less stuff in it. I've got to work on the Ebay Sellathon and get some of our unused clutter out.

This morning though Zach woke up early (4:30 early!) and I couldn't get back to sleep afterwards so I started on one of the jobs I'd been meaning to get done; The Arcade table upgrade. Here's the list of upgrades for today: 

• RAM upgrade to 768MB from 256 (was supposed to be 1.2 but one stick was dodgy)
• Upgrade the MAME version to 0.129b
• Update some faulty Roms
• Install external USB access
• Swap out CRT to LCD Monitor

Unfortunately I dropped the last item from the list as the exposed CRT monitor was just a bit risky as it'd been powered on this morning.

The Upgrade was very successful and a whole heap of games that I loved when I was at Uni have now made it to my high rotation list.

• Killer Instinct
• Alien vs Predator
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Street Fighter Zero 2 (my favourite SF of all time)
• Marvel Super Heroes (so much time to be wasted here)
• X-Men vs Street Fighter.

There are quite a few more that have benefited from the upgrade but there is plenty of time to be wasted on that little lot. The best upgrade was actually adding the external USB access which (after I discovered that the iMac USB keyboard gave me bios support, ie F1 Boot keys etc) means I can easily change configs and update software without having to take it to bits

I've got a few more upgrades I'd like to do to the console:

• Monitor swap out (obviously)
• Upgrade to >1Gb RAM
• Add Support for 3D Games (aka Tekken my greatest arcade weakness)
• Add network support (wireless preferably)
• Add Hinged Top (for easy access and some storage)
• Add 2 Player controls to the front panel (for Street fighter et al. battles)

Anyway, enough blogging it's time to go and enjoy the fruits of my labour.