Hello world

[atlantichaddock]

Hi,

Just joined here and only just found out about the place from a guy on Jamma+ so I'm not a returning oldbie.

I've recently started collecting some Jamma boards, shoot-em-ups were always my favourites but honestly I like anything really. Been meaning to get into it for years but never found the time somehow. Just learning as I go. Also been a keen computer/console gamer. I'd hate to see an analysis of how much of my life has been spent in gloomy rooms blasting away.

A bit about me.. meh. I'm a software engineer/analyst and work developing trading applications at JPMorgan, currently lost somewhere in Bournemouth. Originally from Aberdeen! Yay! I play games ;-)

Have a nice day!

Andy

 

[DanP]

Hi Andy and welcome. You played any of the pre Jamma shmups? There are some crackers in there from pre 1985.

DanP

 

[frothmeister]

Hi Andy, very true. Never saw Gyruss or Juno First on your wanted list. Two very under rated classic shooters imo.

 

[Mini]

Juno First is awesome.

 

[atlantichaddock]

Never heard of Juno First but yeah Gyruss was good.. played other non-Jamma games (Konami & Williams stuff), but not sure if they're all pre-Jamma or just not-Jamma

 

[Guests]

welcome Andy, from another Andy

 

[P-Man]

and welcome from me, the most important Andy of all..

 

[trm]

Hehehe. Hi Andy, from somebody who isn't Andy Good to have you onboard and I'm sure you'll get a full education on the pre-JAMMA classic shmups!

Personally my fave shmups are the Raiden Fighters series. I also like EspGaluda which is my first Cave game, but it's on my iPhone as the PCBs go for shocking prices most of the time.

Are you looking to get into the tech side of the hobby or you just into playing the games? I make it my mission to tempt as many people as possible into twiddling with boards Anyway, welcome to ukvac and I hope you enjoy it here.

cheers

tim

 

[smythe]

welcome dude!

 

[atlantichaddock]

<..snip..>

Are you looking to get into the tech side of the hobby or you just into playing the games? I make it my mission to tempt as many people as possible into twiddling with boards Anyway, welcome to ukvac and I hope you enjoy it here.

cheers

tim

Thanks Tim. I have a plan..

1) For now just buying some boards to use on a supergun (which I hope to have soon..). My flat is nice but too small to hold cabinets really, at least that's how I feel. Also the internal doors are too narrow for a lot of cabs I checked, so I just don't want to go there yet.

2) Buy or rent a house. Preferably with garage.. or a big spare room..

3) Then I'll start to go for some cabs, and hopefully delve into the technical side a lot more. I did a digital electronics course in uni (part of comp sci), but it wasn't very deep and mostly involved things like taking a set problem, and using a TI catalogue etc to find the right chips and bits to plug into a pin board and do various noddy things. Nothing like taking a real dusty board full of chips and diagnosing it to identify a break, fixing dry solder joints or replacing the components. Fun though. I expect it'll be a costly and mistake ridden process!

I've been meaning to do all this for years, so not in a major rush!

Andy

 

[trm]

Hi Andy,

Personally I think the range of digital electronics you need to know to enjoy fixing boards is quite easy to pick up, especially if you've had any grounding in it before (excuse the pun . And you'll find a massive amount of collective experience here so you're going to get the best help available anywhere.

One of the plus points is that the gear you need to work on boards doesn't take up much room. Well, until you decide you must have that ancient suitcase sized logic analyser to help with troubleshooting

Your supergun makes a superb test rig (my test rig is basically a home made supergun with a couple of custom tweaks as I come across ideas that turn out really useful - like video inputs so you can make a video probe) and then it's a logic probe and possibly a basic oscilloscope so it's definitely not a case of needing masses of room to get into board fixing.

In fact, my stash of dead/donor boards takes up way more room that all of my test gear put together! But as I said, you're in the perfect place to start learning so hopefully we'll see some threads in Tech

cheers

tim