Fun & Games

Some of the things I do for fun and recreation:

• Snow Skiing -- Favorite resorts are Alta, Snowbird.
• Water-skiing -- Especially behind a tournament ski boat! (it's like night and day)
• Computer games -- mostly combat flight sims made by Electronic Arts:
  • US Navy Fighters -> Fighters Anthololgy
  • F-15
  • USAF (it has "Hogs" in it!)
  • FA-18
• Classic Arcade Video Games
  • Asteroids
  • Pacman
  • Missile Command
  • Crazy Climber
  • Battle Zone (one of the greatest 1st person arcade games of its day)
• COSMAC CDP1802 microcomputers -- I own/work on the following systems:
  • COSMAC VIP
    • 4K RAM
    • Fully populated with I/O port and expansion  connectors.
    • VIPER magazine -- I have Volume 1 (there were 2 volumes published).
  • Designing my own custom CDP1806 system with a 5.25" floppy disk interface, 1869/70 VIS display, and sundry subsystems. I'll use the COSMAC Microboard passive backplane format in 4.5x6.5" cards of my own design.
  • cosmacelf - COSMAC ELF and 1802 Microcomputing group at Yahoo!. -- A great resource for all things 1802.
  • COSMAC ELF -- Another great 1802 web site by Dave Ruske.
  • RCA CDP1802 Cosmac Computer - MSN group web site by Steve Brune -- It's mildly interesting for some documents not found elsewhere on the web.
• Amateur Radio (HAM) -- Call sign:  KE7BBG
  • Technician license. (Need to work on that code stuff, then it's General and Extra class time.)
  • Radios:
    • Yaesu FT-411 hand-held 2-meter (5W) (limping along, but what do you expect when it's given to you for free.)
  • UARC - Utah Amateur Radio Club -- My local ham radio club in Salt Lake City.
    • Put on a presentation for the club meeting in February, 2005 titled PCB's Like a Pro. Demonstrating the use of TTS paper (see below) to fabricate one side of a VIP interface expansion card from two-sided PCB stock. They loved it! The part where I used Green TRF film and did the direct etch method was especially fascinating to even the veterans of home PCB fabrication.
    • Now "famous" as I've been profiled in the "Member of the Month" feature in the UARC Microvolt.
• Electronics -- Like to make my own circuits/fix my own equipment.
  • Fixed my old JVC RX-315 receiver -- (microcontroller got zapped by a power line surge I think)
    • This was a fun project- I reverse engineered the main control functions and the IR remote to get the main amplifier back into operation. Had to bypass the audio mux, and didn't have the information to load tuner synthesizers, but ON/OFF, volume control, surround, and IR equivalents work. Used an 8051 variant from Philips, 87C751. It is pretty cramped for features, but it gets the task done. There's even a green 7-segment LED display that shows mode/key operations.
  • TTS Paper -- This stuff is great! Finally, I can do those complicated projects that I've been putting off because of the cost of fabricating a two-sided PCB.
• Pinball (it's not luck, all skill!), I wish I could own a few of the classics:
  • Eldorado
  • Paragon
  • Xenon
  • Black Knight
  • Fire Power
  • Xenon -- An easy machine. A friend and I would put in two quarters each, and play for hours. Often with 12-15 credits racked up, we would start playing 2 x 2 games alternating and still be unable to burn credits faster than we used them. On streaks, I could rack up 7-8 credits (possibly more) in a single game! Also, we would often have to resort to walking away from the machine with the credit counter at 25 credits maximum (technician option setting).
  • Space Invaders (the pinball machine) -- Had alienesque H. R. Giger inspired graphics and creature from the classic ALIEN (1979) movie (w/ Sigourney Weaver as the lead character) on the back glass and playfield. Easy to roll over the score counter without even trying.

Back to Home