Fun with MAME

Three or four years ago I was visiting my family in New Orleans. While there, I loaded up MAME on my Mom's PC, and showed it to my stepsister's son. He loved it. His birthday was in a few months, and I told him and his Mom I'd go through the ROMs, weed out those that were age-inappropriate, and send the collection to him for his birthday.

As you've probably guessed, I never got around to this project. Rosh Hashannah inspired me to actually get off my duff and get to work. So yesterday I copied the first batch of ROMs to a hard drive, set up a spreadsheet of the filenames, and began testing each out to see which games included inappropriate sex/violence.

Let me say, this is an extremely tedious task. Just on the first disk (of 5), I think there are about 1500 ROM files. I've only copied the 'A's to the spreadsheet so far, and there are about 130 of those. And, after two days of trying out a ROM, cataloging it, and moving to the next, I've tested out 64 files.

I'm somewhat shocked nobody has yet compiled a list of what games have objectionable content and posted the information. It's rare that I can't find answers to whatever I'm seeking online. So I plan to eventually finish this, and post the spreadsheet online, so other parents may benefit from the information. Certainly there is no way to prevent kids from playing something if they want to play it, but there may be others in my position, that want to provide a MAME collection to a child, but don't know what games to exclude before giving the package. Granted, in my case procrastination is going to cause the 'child' to be well into his teens long before I ever finish this project.

(Note: I believe owning ROM-files of games you don't legitimately own is illegal, as would be selling the files. It's probably unlikely any random person using the files will be prosecuted, and I have a hard time believing anybody or any corporation is actually harmed if somebody happens to have a copy of Space Invaders on his PC, but you should be aware it is illegal. Probably along the lines of taping Monday Night Football, and then giving the tape to your brother-in-law or something...)

While the chore is tedious, there are occasional moments that are truly interesting. In 1986 I attended University of New Orleans. Several of my friends also attended. In the UC there was a small gameroom, and in this gameroom there was a game called 'Super Sprint'. My friends Richard, Eric and I played this game nearly every day. The competition was heated, and I couldn't begin to tally how many quarters we must have pumped into that machine. Tonight I'm going through the various ROMs in MAME, and I land on a game called 'American Speedway'. This game seemed very much like a crude version of Super Sprint, so much so that I had to investigate to see which came out first. I can't see why I'd care, but for whatever irrational reason, I was relieved to learn that Super Sprint came out first, depsite having far better graphics, control, and sound.

Super Sprint (c)1986

American Speedway (c)1987


Compiling this list also provoked a question I haven't satisfactorily resolved yet: Just where should I draw the line when deciding whether or not to say a game is 'violent'? Conflict is pretty much necessary in any medium for there to be interest. So naturally nearly every game has violence to some degree, though it may be more or less abstract. Puzzle games like Tetris have no violence, Breakout is not violent, and most sports games aren't violent. Just about every other type of game DOES have some violent component, though.

Should every 'shooter' - Space Invaders, Asteroids, Xevious, 1942, etc... be termed violent? Should the earlier games not be called violent because the graphics weren't lifelike? What about Elevator Action ? What about Karate Champ or Punch Out! ? Should there be any difference between a game with a sci-fi 'shoot the bad aliens' theme and a game with identical play mechanics, but an earth-based, military-theme? (I.e., you fly a spaceship and shoot other spaceships, or you fly a fighter jet and shoot other military aircraft.)

Is this violent?


What about this?

Judgements like these, I think, cannot accurately be made by 'outsiders'. Only the person(s) that is raising a child, and knows him or her better than anybody else, is really qualified to decide whether or not a game will be appropriate for that child. What may be overly violent to one person may be obviously buffoonish and unreal to another. After all, many of us grew up watching Wile E. Coyote plot to violently ambush the Road Runner, yet most of us didn't turn out to be violent TNT-blasting, anvil-dropping hooligans.

Xbox mod saga

This was written Sept 7, 2007. It describes my XBox modification project -

I initially had trouble getting the save-game file on to the memory card. In fact, that was probably the most trouble I had during the entire project. Turns out, the USB memory card reader was not a straight-forward, simple USB memory card reader. Neither Windows XP, nor OpenSUSE 10.2, was able to properly detect and read the card-reader.

I explored a bit online, and determined the reader was a Datel 'Action Replay' device. In order to read from & write to the card, I needed to download and install some piece of software, I think called 'Max XBox'. I could then use that software to interact with the memory card.

After that was figured out, the rest was pretty easy.

My 'Platinum Hits' version of 007: Agent Under Fire worked fine for the mod. Here I ran into some minor roadblocks, though:
* IF the save-game file for the mod is loaded directly from the card, instead of being loaded from the Xbox's hard drive, then as soon as you try to load the file the Xbox crashes, and displays an error, and instructions to call Customer Service. This is avoided by simply copying the file from the card to the Xbox hdd, and then loading it from there.
* OK, having learned that, it took me a while to figure out HOW to copy the file from the memory card to the hard drive. It wasn't intuitive at all.
* From what I've read online, with either Splinter Cell or Mechassault you can boot the game, load the save-file, and proceed with the soft-mod. With 007:AUF, you must first start a game, and then you can quit the game and load the save-file.

OK, so now I've managed to copy the file to the Xbox hdd, and loaded it into the system. At this point things were looking very cool. I backed up the eeprom.bin file, and installed the UnleashX dashboard. I finished up the mod with no more issues, and nothing else that was memorable.

Once everything was working, I started having a lot of fun. I've copied to the hard drive:
* Mrs. DrillerX - homebrew version of Dreamcast's Mr. Driller. It's OK, but not nearly as good as the commercial, DC version.
* Mameox - Haven't got this working yet.
* Descent - looks like a real port of the great old DOS game, but hangs each time I try to load it.
* DVD2XPLAY - DVD player for the Xbox that plays all region DVDs, and doesn't require the DVD Playback Kit/remote.
* Asteroids - a pretty bad homebrew Asteroids for the Xbox.
* JumpNBumpX - No idea what this. I thought it was going to be a clone of the old arcade game Bump 'N Jump. Turns out it was some platformer, I think, but I'm using an old, cheap, low-quality 13" TV and I couldn't really make out squat.

So I left the above alone for a night or two, and then Wednesday night I disassembled the system and swapped out the original 8Gb hard drive for an
80Gb drive I salvaged from a broken Maxtor OneTouch. After swapping the drives, my data was all present on the new, larger drive, but for reasons I don't understand the system now booted to the original MS Dashboard again. I uninstalled the softmod, and reinstalled it, and everything returned to normal.

The last thing I did was rip my GTA:Vice City to the hard drive, to improve loading times, and test out a Wiggles DVD that wouldn't play on the unmodded Xbox. The unmodded system complained that the disc was an incompatible region. In reality, I believe the disc has no region encoding at all on it. The newly modified Xbox plays the Wiggles DVD just fine.

So, I'm having a blast with the system and the mod.

My immediate plans are to try and get MAME working on it and copy a lot of my ROMs over to the drive. I may also investigate why Descent hangs at start, as I always liked Descent. And, I want to install Xbox Media Center to the system, and some DVDs and CDs. Of course, I'll probably need to replace the 80G drive with something closer to 300Gb sooner or later, if I do all that.

I was disappointed that I had to ruin a couple of labels on the bottom of the console to open it up, but other than that things went great.



Enormous Thanks to LucidDefender over at Digital Press for his advice/guidance/help, and the Scenyx website and community for the various information and software that was absolutely necessary for this project.

Follow-up to a previous post.

(Subtitled, grammar?, we don't need no stinkin' grammer...)

Comment seen on another blog:

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More about my geeky interests.

(Currently eating Chicken with Broccoli and listening to Steely Dan - 'My Old School'.)

On August 7th I bought an Xbox. To head off the usual incorrect assumptions, let me clarify: I bought an original Xbox, not an Xbox 360, and I bought it used. (It's true, I do have a mortgage, a car note, and the wisdom to not spend the equivalent of 2 car notes on a videogame console + accessories. And now having read that, my Mom and Dad are proud, even if they still don't understand my hobbies.)

The Xbox is undeniably *NEAT*. While playing around with it shortly after hooking the system up, I inserted my Cowboy Mouth CD, Voodoo Shoppe. I was offered the option to copy the CD to the hard drive, for listening later without the actual disc. I did so, not really expecting to take advantage of the functionality, but hey, it was neat, so why not, right? Fast-forward 3 weeks. At NAVA a couple of weeks ago, I purchased a second-hand copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the Xbox. Now, you've very likely heard about the Grand Theft Auto games, and formed an opinion about them, whether or not you've played them. Everything you've probably read or heard about the game is probably true. The game is obscenely over-the-top in terms of gratuitous violence, sleaze, display of drug and thug culture, etc... It's truly prurient. HOWEVER, it is also an excellent game. I wouldn't ever condone the playing or watching of this game by anyone not already a mature adult, but it is fun, clever, and well-made. If you aren't aware of the game, it's a spoof of Miami Vice, set in the '80s, with an 'M' rating (mature audiences only).

Well, one of the things I like enormously about the game is the in-game music. Throughout the game you frequently get into cars and drive from one location to another. There are maybe 6 or 8 active radio stations broadcasting in Vice City, and as you travel you can select which station you want to hear. A couple of nights ago, while playing, I was cycling through the channels, and as I hit 'next' after the last channel on the dial, I landed on the tape deck, and it was playing the Cowboy Mouth album I'd copied to the Xbox weeks ago! So, if I'd wanted to, I could listen to that album in-car as I tooled around Vice City! It's just a really neat little feature of the system.

Another neat thing is the additional functionality that can be implemented with a little bit of effort and disdain for Microsoft's preferences. I'm talking about 'modding'. The Xbox can do an amazing array of things when configured to. Over the last week I've successfully modified my Xbox, and have had a lot of fun doing so. Years ago, I spent a Saturday building a couple of adapters that allowed me to use Sega Genesis controllers on my Atari 7800. I had more fun, and spent more time, building the adapters than I did actually playing the system with the controllers once the hack was finished.

Similarly, I'm having more fun 'hacking' my Xbox than playing the games, and in fairness, they are good games.

On the modified Xbox, I've copied a half-dozen homebrew games to the system. I've installed MAME, and am working on copying the MAME ROMs to the system as well. The system is now capable of playing DVDs from any region, not just US Region DVDs. And I intend to swap the hard drive for one with greater capacity, and install Xbox Media Center as well, turning the machine into a full-blown media jukebox.

One unrelated tidbit I thought of while thinking about this post. I'm sure everybody has some topic that fascinates them, and isnot thought of as an interesting topic to discuss with others 'around the watercooler'. It might be the new drapes at JC Pennys, or the Treadmill machine at the sports shop, or some new self-help class at a local community college. Maybe 'Geeks', usually interested in traditional 'geeky' things, are simply more likely to discuss their hobbies with people that aren't necessarily interested in said hobbies, as opposed to being geeky simply because they are interested in something considered silly? I'm not sure if I'm explaining what I mean, but hopefully I'm getting the point across.

Back to work now.
(The Chicken & Broccoli is nearly finished now, and Wilco just faded out, into U2 now....)

PS: Yet again, the Blogger text editor is hosed on some of the paragraphs above. If anybody reading this knows how I can fix or workaround that, I'd love to hear from you.

PPS: Re-opened the post for editing, using Firefox, and this appears to have fixed the weird formatting. Aren't computers grand?

Honest-to-God Truth

I'm not lying, nor exaggerating. Word-for-word, I received the following in a fortune cookie:

"It's over your head now. Time to get some professional help."

Some Pet Peeves, or, The Curse Of Being Literate

Irritatingly Common Grammar Mistakes:

1) LEARN the difference between less than and fewer. I see and hear this mistake ALL THE TIME. I very frequently hear or read this mistake committed by mainstream, professional publishing organizations that should really know better. Isn't knowledge of proper grammar part of an editor's job?

As written here:

The opinion of a professional translator... Oct 15, 2006 A lot of crap is becoming 'acceptable' in informal/colloquial English. Although I personally would not bother to correct anyone on this point, I personally firmly hold to a very simple rule: if you can count it, it's "fewer," if you can't, it's "less." Period. Anything else is simply poor English, regardless of who says it.

I couldn't have said it any better.

2) As seen in an email sent to me from Sirius Satellite Radio, a very large company, with a LOT of money that could be used to hire a grammarian or two:

Listen Now: Hear Jon Bon Jovi's recent visit, including why they collaborated with Leann Rimes.

Why who collaborated with Leann? Jon Bon Jovi? Then why use the word 'they'? Or maybe the writer meant Jon Bon Jovi's band, in which case that should have been made clear.

I see mistakes like this nearly every day on mainstream websites, in magazines like Newsweek, on local television news programs, etc.... Admittedly I'm probably just a nerdy crank and shouldn't let such trivial things bother me, but if the mainstream press doesn't care to use proper grammar, how can we expect anybody else to even know what's correct and what isn't?

new photos up at jacobshome.org

www.jacobshome.org has a new set of photos up. Nate, Maren and I went to Princeton Saturday afternoon to see Mr. Ray perform at the Princeton Barbecue Festival.

Mr. Suburban-Dad was there to take pictures. Just hit the link above, and click on 'Digikam Pictures'.

SEEMS DNSCentral is down right now. Maybe you can get to the website manually:
http://www.speakeasy.net/~steve_j

Growing more aware as time goes by.

Over the last year or so I've begun to occasionally have what feel like flashes of insight into the human condition. This never happened to me previously, and it suggests to me that for most of my life I was walking around fairly clueless about things. (Sad to say, that isn't at all hard to swallow, or any surprise to me.)

Let me give an example -

Earlier this week Nate told me a kid at camp was teasing him. I agonized for about a day trying to decide how to advise him about this. I was always the kid that was picked on in every class, camp, etc... that I attended when I was a kid, so I knew everything that DOESN'T work to defend against other kids, but I didn't know what DOES work. Well, after sleeping on it, I came up with a potential solution, and talked to Nate about it the next day. Whether or not my solution is effective I don't know yet, but that isn't the point of this post.

Point 1) I might have found a solution for Nate to try, something I never realized before. It's likely this 'solution' is obvious, and something I should have figured out when I was 6 years old.

I was thinking about the above this morning. Now, Nate didn't use the word 'teasing', or the phrase 'picking on me' when telling me about the other camper. Being 6 years old, Nate said the kid was calling him names. I introduced the other phrase and word to the discussion.

Extrapolating from this, I wonder if the words I introduced sounded like 'big words' or 'fancy words' to Nate, and maybe he was thinking that they were unneccessary. Fast-forward a little. As we grow older, our vocabulary expands. At various points in life, we may hear some people using 'big words' when perfectly ordinary words might be adequate.

Point 2) MAYBE these terms we think of as 'big words' are just a case of somebody else, with a more developed vocabulary, using words that aren't affectations by their standards. It might be that those speakers are just accustomed to those words and to them, the words are simply words. To the listener that isn't used to hearing the words, they sound pretentious. MAYBE some or most people, once they reach a certain age or level of intellectual growth, simply plateau. Others might keep growing and expanding their vocabulary, and then sound wordy to the others.

Just an idea.

This, led me to yet another insight.

Point 3) As I wrote above, I never really noticed these insights earlier in my life. I wonder if the insights are a consequence of having kids, or having a kid at Nate's level of maturity/education/whatever. Maybe if I'd had my kids in my 20's instead of my 30's, I'd have been less ignorant for the last ten years? If so, that's something nobody ever told me. Might have been nice to know.

And now I've got to get back to work.

Wonderfully put!

Seen this evening over at TPMmuckraker:

Oh, for heaven's sake, just find them all in contempt, arrest all three, and bring this constitutional crisis to a head. I'm really tired of the Democrats' nibbling at the edges of their power while the Republicans laugh at them. We liberals deserve better than this crop of quislings representing us.

Posted by: Michele
Date: July 17, 2007 9:54 PM

This was in reference to Harriet Miers, Josh Bolton, and RNC Chairman Robert Duncan.

Imagine if there were non-evil Federal Government Politicians with a spine... May as well imagine all the people sharing all the world.

Depressed, angry, and bitter.

Lately I've noticed a few things about those people in the United States still clinging to the notion that the current US 'leadership' are good, and that the country is headed in the right direction.

These people will make assertions about Republicans, the right-wing in general, etc..., that have no basis in fact. If challenged, they refuse to answer the challenge or engage in the debate. Rather, they change the subject or simply don't respond at all.

If a charge is levelled against a Republican proponent of our current disastrous policies, whatever the charge may be, the initial defense is almost ALWAYS "Well, Clinton did it (too/first/whatever)". Maybe I should try that - Next time I'm pulled over for speeding I'll simply explain to the officer that it's OK, because Governor Corzine was going 91mph on the Parkway.

The other thing I've noticed is that I think lately these same people are beginning to feel backed in to a corner and desperate. I've been receiving more frequent, and more bitter or angry, emails espousing Republican viewpoints than in the past.

Yesterday, at a July 4th party, I wore a T-Shirt with an image of the United States flag and the phrase "Think - It's Patriotic." The one vocal Republican in the group - a guy who proudly supported Rick Santorum and thinks the man was shafted - said my shirt meant "Think Democratic", and seemed offended by it. He explained to me that we needed Republican leadership now more than ever, because the Democrats have ruined this country. This is coming from a guy, about 30 years old, with a nice house in a nice, upper-class neighborhood, that drives a Range Rover and has no material concerns whatsoever. Spoken after the Republican party has owned the White House for 7.5 years, and controlled Congress from 1994 until last November. And since Novemebr the Democratic majority in Congress has been very slim, and too spineless to exercise any meaningful control anyway. To think the Democrats are the culprits for the destruction of America is delusional.

The 30-percenters have me discouraged and bitter. I felt angry and sad yesterday morning, and didn't really feel celebratory about Independence Day, seeing what has happened to my country. Not knowing what I could do to try and improve things, I decided on the T-shirt I mentioned above. I'd seen the slogan on a bumper sticker and liked it. So I found some Iron-on transfer sheets and a white t-shirt, and designed myself an image.

I found the correct dimensions and proportions of the US Flag online, created the image using MS-Paint, and printed it up. (Note: In the Lexmark printer driver there is a choice to print on an iron-on transfer sheet. This choice will automatically 'flip' the image for you before it prints. Of course, this 'flipped' the image I'd already flipped myself, causing the waste of one iron-on transfer sheet. Don't let this happen to you!)

My shirt looked identical to the one found here:
http://www.northernsun.com/n/s/5156.html.

Wearing the shirt I could demonstrate my beliefs and views (so far, and provided I'm not in view of TV cameras at a Bush Rally), which is what this country is supposed to be all about.

IMPORTANT ARTICLE

The linked-to article is about something that is pretty much AS IMPORTANT AS ANYTHING GETS. Please read it, and act on it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-geiger/twentytwo-democratic-sen_b_53783.html

The hypocrisy is stunning in it's enormity!

"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical -- and it is not the only option before us." - George W. Bush, June 20, 2007  
(Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070620-8.html )

Unbelieveable! This from the bully that sends so many off to be injured or killed, commanding the US Military forces to go kill others, allegedly in order to defend us, and hopefully save our lives.

What a jerk.

Another FALSE chain email that frequently goes around.

Yesterday afternoon I received the bogus email about Ollie North & Al Gore. Furious, I researched the email, found the truth about it, and posted the absolute falseness of it.

At the bottom of that email, was another little morsel I've received several times before. This story describes some Palestinian terrorist that was captured by the Israelis for blowing up a bus. The story explains that Clinton and his administration pressured Israel into releasing this prisoner, over Israel's objections. Later, the same terrorist was one of the 9/11 hijackers.

This is yet another email story that seems to suggest that people opposing the current occupants of the White House and their policies are foolish and blind to reality.

Unfortunately for the people trying to pass this story off, IT IS ALSO FALSE.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/atta.asp

The two terrorists were two different people. The bus bomber Atta was a different person than the hijacker Atta. 
The bus bomber was not captured by the Israelis. Rather, he was captured 
by the FBI, and extradited to Israel for prosecution of the bus bombing he 
was involved in. And later, according to the Jerusalem Post, he was 
released due to "faults in the extradition process".

This misinformation is harmful. Fact-checking this stuff, in the age of the internet, Google, and Snopes.com, is embarassingly easy.

Before anybody forwards any emails of this nature to others, we should all at least make a little effort to confirm the truth of the message.

Heard the one about Ollie North and Al Gore?

There's an email making the rounds on the Internet. I think I receive this particular email about once every 2-3 months.

The story told by this email is that, back during the Iran-Contra days, Ollie North testified that yes, he did use government money to install a security system in his house, and he felt justified in doing so, becuase he's been threatened by "the most evil person alive". (No, he wasn't talking about Cheney.) The email goes on to say Oliver North was referring to Osama Bin Laden.

The story in this email suggests the Senator that's questioning Good Ol' Ollie is disrespectful of North, mocking him.

The final hook of the email is that the Senator was Al Gore.

Gives you something to think about, huh? Looks like North was a prescient, bright guy, and Gore is a fool.

Problem is, the story is FALSE. BALONEY. A CROCK OF MALARKEY.

READ THIS: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

READ THIS: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

READ THIS: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

READ THIS: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

I am so damn tired of the arrogant, knowitall, smug, and ironically ignorant, selfish, and foolish right-wing whackjobs pushing this sort of trash in my face.

Goddamn bullies. They successfully stole the 2000 Presidency. They successfully stole the 2004 Presidency. They own and control pretty much every influencing tool. They've gotten away with trashing the Constitution. They've gotten away with trashing what used to be a middle class in this country, so that the Yacht and Learjet crowd can have even MORE STUFF, but it isn't enough. These paragons of maturity feel a need to continuously lord it all over the peons and 'lessers', rubbing it in like the insecure bullies they usually are.

READ THE GODDAMN LINK:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

COMPREHEND IT:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

If you don't believe it's veracity, follow the embedded links within the article. They lead to the supporting documents, straight from the US Senate. If you still don't believe, there's nothing to be done for you; please refrain from ever voting again.

Possible small problem for Dems in '08?

Like seemingly many liberal (i.e., brain-using-homosapiens) U.S. citizens, I've been watching the Democratic Presidential campaigns, and holding out hope that Al Gore will step in and announce his candidacy, win the nomination, and once again win the Presidential election next year. This, despite all of his protests that he isn't planning to run. Despite the many reports from close friends and associates of Al Gore claiming they don't believe he will return to politics.

Now, suppose that Gore really doesn't ever step in to the campaign, as seems likely when I shut off the emotions and look at things coldly and rationally. Personally, I'll be very disappointed. And only then will I consider donating cash to any of the contenders. I'll undoubtedly feel that the actual running candidates are second-tier, regardless of their qualities or qualifications, and I won't have nearly the same passion for them as I'd have had otherwise.

I'm no expert on politics or the political 'business'. However, *assuming* the various pundits and consultants are right, it's important that voters feel passionate about a candidate if he/she is to be successful.

Could it be problematic for whatever Democrat wins the nomination, if all of the folks who wanted Gore end up feeling a little lukewarm about anybody else?

Memo Pad for Windows Mobile?

Quick, serious question for any Windows Mobile using readers of mine -->

On Palm devices, there is an application called Memo pad. I can very quickly and easily just jot down a note to the Palm, and move on with my life. Later, I can pull the note up and review it. (Example - jot down measurements before visiting Home Depot)

Yesterday I tried to do the same thing on my Windows Mobile 5 device, and found nothing similar. I ended up recording a voice memo to myself on the device, and feeling like a real dork.

Surely there's some simple app like what I'm describing, right?
-----------
EDIT - July 11, 10:18PM --> This afternoon, at work, I found and installed 'Millonotes' to the Dash. Later this afternoon I discovered there is no calculator on the Dash either. Sheesh! I wonder if these glaring omissions were rectified in Windows Mobile 6. I've been on the fence about upgrading, but if I keep seeing things like this I may just go ahead and do it.

A shock, and then motivation.

Several years ago my wife gave me a Handspring Visor. I loved this gadget, but it quickly grew outdated.

A couple of decades ago there was a computer game called Zork. Zork spawned a genre of game known as the 'text adventure', or, as they are now known, Interactive Fiction games. In Interactive Fiction (IF) games, there are no graphics, no sound, and no hand-eye coordination requirements. The game will describe a situation, and the player responds by typing in his commands.

Example:

Nearly all IF games may be played through what's called a 'Z-Machine' interpreter. There are freely downloadable Z-Machine interpreters for just about every computer device imaginable - old computers, new computers, the Dreamcast videogame system, most mobile devices, I think even the iPod has one!

Well, I installed a couple of interpreters on my trusty Visor, and while they worked OK, the Visor was pretty slow for these programs. Some of the newer IF games were too taxing for the Visor, and each input would take about 2-3 minutes to process. This rendered the game unplayable. So for a long time I wanted a new, more powerful PDA that I could use to play these games at an acceptable speed.

This past week, as mentioned below, I got myself a brand-new T-Mobile Dash. The Dash is a really neat, Windows Mobile PDA/smartphone. The phone was supposed to have Windows Mobile 6.0, but 6.0 only came out this past week, and my unit happened to still have Windows Mobile 5.0. 6.0 is a free download and upgrade, if I decide to do it.

Windows Mobile 5.0 is on millions of smartphones and PocketPCs worldwide. It's a very mainstream, very popular system, and has been out for at least a couple of years. Surely there is a Z-Machine interpreter available for WM5.

Well, it turns out, there *IS* a Z-Machine application for Windows Mobile 5. It simply is incompatible with my T-Mobile Dash! Argghh! I was so incredulous that there is no Z-machine for my very popular and common PDA/phone, that I searched the 'net for hours thinking I'd find something. Nope. Nothing's out there.

Well, many years ago, before giving up my thoughts of becoming a programmer, I decided I wanted to learn C++. I never got a round tuit, though.

There are several open-source Z-machine interpreters. Open source means I can look at the source code and see how the program is written.

I don't know that I'll ever finish the job, but I'm going to try and write a Z-Machine interpreter for my Dash. Microsoft has some tutorials for developing Windows Mobile software, and they suggest using C++.

So maybe I'll teach myself C++ after all.

My Fun New Toy.

A few years ago (3, maybe?) I was given a cellphone by my company. The company offered to put $100 toward any phone I chose. Being frugal (some call it cheap), and liking to think of myself as sensible, I chose a few-frills, pretty much bottom-of-the-line phone. I got the Nokia 6200. It was sufficient, but not very fancy, and I was envious of other folks with their Treos.

For the last couple of years people at my office have occasionally asked me to get their various smartphones/PocketPCs/etc... working properly with our Exchange server. Properly in this case means that the phones should be able to sync the phone's Outlook with the Exchange server, wirelessly. Any new incoming mail messages should arrive at the phone, and of course the user should be able to send outgoing messages from the phone. When the phone syncs with the server, any contacts, tasks, calendar items, or messages should all synchronize between the phone and the server.

According to Microsoft, this is such a simple operation that it will 'just work', and there's nothing to really do configuration-wise, so there isn't a whole lot of documentation as to making it work.

According to ME, this is a really tough thing to get working.

So, for at least a couple of years people at my office wanted this functionality, and although I tried to get this working a few different times, I never managed to succeed.

Over the last few weeks a client of mine has needed this to work, and asked me to make it happen. This client had purchased several Treos for their staff, and wanted the Treos to do email wirelessly.

After a handful of visits to the client's office to try and get their phones and server communicating, I was hitting nothing but brick walls.

So on Tuesday, June 5, I spent some quality time with Lentworth, over at one of the multiple T-Mobile kiosks in the Rockaway Townsquare Mall, and went home with a brand-new T-Mobile Dash. For any readers outside of the US, the Dash is the HTC S620.

I think this phone is amazing - I love it. The reception/coverage has been nearly perfect everywhere I've used the phone since buying it. The only problem spot is in an area that has no coverage of any cellphone, from any provider.

Vindicating the purchase, at about 3AM Wednesday morning, I managed to get the phone synchronizing perfectly with the client's Exchange server!

Interesting tidbit from my morning commute.

Every weekday morning at 9:00am, Classic Vinyl, on Sirius, plays the Beatles Fab Four - four songs in a row by the Beatles or any of their solo libraries, usually tied together by some sort of theme.

This morning, following the Beatles Fab Four, the DJ played the old Mott The Hoople song 'All The Young Dudes'. The song that played after Mott The Hoople was the Rolling Stones - 'Ruby Tuesday'.

So, we have: Beatles, then 'All The Young Dudes', then Rolling Stones.

The interesting bit? Here's a snippet of lyrics from 'All The Young Dudes':


And my brothers back at home
with his Beatles and his Stones.
We never got it off on that revolution stuff.
What a drag, too many snags.


Myself, I like the Beatles, Stones, and All The Young Dudes (only Mott song I know).

Little Bit of Cowboy Mouth...little bit of crawfish poboy.....

Back in '98 or '99 I was a new transplant to NJ, and learned of Michael Arnone's Crawfish Festival. This sounded like it may be fun, so Jessica and I went to the Fest on one of it's 2 days, and had a good time. The fest seemed to me to be an exact replica of an early, not-too-crowded New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Since then, the Crawfish Fest has grown larger, more crowded, and more expensive, just like the N.O. Jazz Fest. I've been reluctant to go back for those reasons.

But this year we're returning. Cowboy Mouth will be performing Sunday afternoon, and we haven't seen them for a few years. If you aren't familiar with Cowboy Mouth, you're missing one of the finest rock'n'roll bands to ever grace a stage. When CM plays, it's always a good time. When CM puts on one of their better performances, you leave feeling exhilirated. I imagine it's a feeling similar to the feelings evoked by an Old-Tyme Religious Revival, but never having been to one of those I couldn't say for sure. Suffice it to say the emotions are nearly spiritual, very positive, and happy with a capital HAPPY.

But Cowboy Mouth won't be the only attraction. In addition to the various crafts for sale, and the other musicians that will be performing, there is FOOD. Crawfish. Po-Boys. Crawfish Po-Boys. Jambalaya. Etouffee. Red beans and Rice. Beignets. Sno-Balls.

On Monday, I'll be heavier in the stomach, and lighter in the wallet. Life is for LIVING, and I'll be living high Sunday afternoon.

Have a good weekend. If you're in the Northeast, stop by at the festival. I'll be the happy slob chowing down and dancing with his family. Come say Hi.