@ifixcoinops@retro.social
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

ifixcoinops

@ifixcoinops@retro.social

Hello! I fix #pinball machines and #arcade games, and tell you all about it! I fix lots of other things too, and occasionally tell you about that. I also run one of the web's longest-surviving #textAdventure games, called Improbable Island, and I often write here on Fedi about decade-scale online community management stuff. Husband, dad, professional Thing Fixer and amateur woodworker in my early 40's, an #immigrant from the UK to the USA. Gun enthusiasts pls do not follow/interact.

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hannah, to random
@hannah@posts.rat.pictures avatar
ifixcoinops,
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@hannah ooh, is this a recent milkshaking or one from the archives?

ifixcoinops,
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@realtegan @hannah bwahahahaha

18+ foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

I finally figured out what's wrong with my dryer!
There's no drum to put the clothes in. This is a rookie mistake, Samsung.

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

@foone damn, what's your secret

ifixcoinops,
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@foone I meant getting a Samsung to last that long ;)

ifixcoinops,
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@Farbs @foone this is the thing about Warrens

ifixcoinops, to random
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Wanna guess what I'm making?

ifixcoinops,
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I've waxed furniture before, but I've never used wax as a finish, as in literally just rub it into freshly sanded wood.

Ain't no finish in the world that's gonna be fine with having a CRT TV rubbed all over it within a couple hours, it's gonna scratch up either way under the telly, so I went with wax because it's quick and not too fumey and I hadn't used it before so I was curious.

You literally just wax-on-wax-off, two coats because the wood just swallowed up the first one. It turned out pretty nice! Look how well it filled in this end grain!

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Put a nice sheen on the top and all

ifixcoinops,
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Folk are liking how good home depot plywood can look after rubbing with this wax, and I agree. That's what my wood normally looks like after three coats of poly, three hours apart. I'm liking this wax.

I bloody well should be, considering it costs FORTY FIVE DOLLARS A CAN

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

(to be fair to it though, I used maybe a twentieth of the can for the whole TV stand, so this'll last me bloody years)

ifixcoinops,
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@R2Ranch

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Here's the wax, for those asking. Made in Kent so imported here, so back home it's probably cheap as chips lol

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

big Dad Wiring sigh

Right, one component input on the telly, 3 HDMI's on the amp, one HDMI to component switcher, wanna split the sound off through the amp of course...

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Upstairs CRT gaming is going on!

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Resi 2 time! But where's the PlayStation? And what's that lurking under there next to the amp?

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

It's the Game Dad!

This whole thing was secretly a project!

Now I got video, I got sound, and if y'all will kindly recommend a decent Linux-compatible Bluetooth controller from your own personal firsthand experience, Project Big Dad will be complete :D

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

@ajroach42 I have no idea! :D I think you def need a USB-C OTG adaptor, but further to that I've no clue, this is my first rodeo :P

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

@simon The whole back's open, the shelf only covers the top 12" of the tube. There's not much heat going on in this one either way tbh

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

oh my god retroarch is just THE WORST

it was easier to set up multiple controllers for an emulator twenty years ago

when you got your ROMs on a CD-R off a tarpaulin on the pavement outside a bowling club in Manchester, because when the internet screamed EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-EEEE-BRLGHBLRRBGHLEGHREE for forty seconds it'd still take half an hour to download Ghouls and Ghosts, when you had to start MAME from DOS, using multiple controllers was easier because at least you didn't have to deal with the emulator trying to help

two decades later these retroarch lads have put Clippy in your controller and I've spent literally five hours trying to figure out what the hell retroarch is trying to do, but I'm no closer to figuring out how to tell it to stop

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Me, playing Raiden 2 quite happily until the MAME devs put more effort into emulating the copy protection, more perfectly emulating its ability to know it's a bootleg and crash, killing the game for years: 🦝 This is a retro-gaming elitism thing isn't it

Me, two decades later, trying to connect a controller: 🦝 This is a retro-gaming elitism thing isn't it

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

I work in coin-ops, I want my controls to break because a rat chewed through a wire or someone puked on it, I don't want it to break because the software got too complicated and tripped over its own arse

Like how is this hard it's 2024 for heck's sake, I thought we had joysticks pretty much sorted out in the 70's

ifixcoinops,
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When I was sixteen years old I took one of these drawer-style cassette racks and drilled holes in the top to accommodate an arcade joystick and ten buttons.

I took apart a PlayStation controller, sanded off the solder mask, and soldered wires directly to the copper traces, running from the PlayStation pad to my arcade stick's microswitches. Then I went to a computer market and bought a PlayStation to parallel adaptor and plugged this abomination into my printer port because I was still waiting for someone to invent USB, then spent a merry afternoon figuring out how to get DOS to see it, then get MAME to see it, then I enjoyed me some Sunset Riders.

THAT

was an EASIER CONTROLLER SETUP

than FUCKING RETROARCH

ifixcoinops,
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@ieure oh my god no I'll solder in a 555 or something before I get into that mess

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Hahaha, the pictures are still online!

ifixcoinops, (edited )
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

Look at this crap, I only had access to the wiring through holes the size of cassette tapes

Still easier than RetroArch

ifixcoinops,
@ifixcoinops@retro.social avatar

You see what I had to squeeze my hands into here, STILL EASIER THAN RETROARCH

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