Why People Pirate – Updated

Random

Tagged: , , , , , ,

This is an informative post as to why people pirate, or at least why some pirate. Yes, people pirate stuff, but they also buy stuff that could easily be pirated. Some of my friends ask me “Why would you buy that when you could just pirate it!?” using this face.
Seriously!?

The people who ask this question are people who I consider leechers. These people, for the most part, don’t pirate themselves, but rely on others to pirate for them. They also don’t seed. -.- So, to answer the question as to why people pirate yet still buy things can be answered in several different cases.

Case 1: Testing Out a Product

Some products are expensive and once bought, can’t be returned. This is the case for a lot of software because you are buying a virtual key and not a physical entity. Many programs offer a trial version which is nice and does not require me to pirate anything.

However, there are a lot of products that don’t have a trial or free version. Therefore, people will pirate the software and test it out to see if it does what they need it to do. If they are satisfied with the software, and it is reasonably priced, they will then proceed to purchase said software. Although, if they don’t feel the product is worth the penny, or if they only require the software for a one-time use thing, they will not buy the software because that would be a waste of money. Which transitions into the next case of the availability of money.
Read the other cases as to why people pirate



Not just awesome, it’s awe-quite-a-bit!

Installing AimTrak into a GunCon Case

MAME

Tagged: , , , ,

I wanted light guns for my MAME cabinet, who doesn’t? Am I right!? So, basically the only choice now-a-days is the AimTrak from Ultimarc. This is a nice, semi-cheap option. I say semi-cheap because you can get the module by itself and put it in your own gun casing which can be pretty cheap off eBay if you don’t have anything laying around. I originally thought of using the NES Zapper, however after receiving the module and trying it out it didn’t fit so well. So, I ordered an old GunCon for the original Playstation off of eBay which I heard was a nice casing for the AimTrak. Here is a small tutorial of how I put it all together.
Blue Painted AimTrak GunCon
Read the full guide

Happy Patriot Day!

Random

Tagged: , ,

Not to be confused with Patriots’ Day (or Patriot’s Day if you’re from Maine[that's right, I use Wikipedia]). I also say “happy”, but this is not really a “happy” day. It is a day to remember September 11th…or was it August…no, October. Anywhoseville, we remember the day that 3 million people died from a series of terrorist attacks. Wait, was it 3 million? o.O I don’t know, lets ask some people from New York, surely they will know.

Happy Nine-Eleven

Preparing the Control Panel

MAME

Tagged: , , , ,

Since I am converting an arcade cabinet for MAME use instead of building my own I had the issue of having old button holes. I tried to use the holes for my new buttons, but I only was able to reuse 2 of them. What to do with the other 4 buttons? Fill them with putty of course.

Wood putty is simple enough to work with, just plop some in the hole and smooth out with a putty knife. When working with button holes, a.) it takes a long time to dry, and b.) it’s good to apply putty in 2 rounds. The first round I did not wait long enough for the putty to dry and kinda screwed it up.

Today I decided to get rid of the old Beach Head 2000 graphic and clean up the panel a bit to prepare for my new graphic. It will still be a while before I get the new graphic, but I was tired of the old one. Before I tore the adhesive up, I applied a new layer of putty to clean up the holes a bit.
Cleaned Up Arcade Control Panel
Read more about the clean up process

GZip MySQL Database Backup with PHP and Cron

Code

Tagged: , , , , ,

I know that I need to backup my database every once and a while, but I’m lazy and forgetful. I end up backing up maybe 4 or 5 times a year. Ideally, I want to backup every month at least. The bad news is, my host (1&1) doesn’t have any automatic backup, so I had to make my own. I tried Googling, but didn’t find anything that really fit my need.

I did find a script by David Walsh that almost worked. I used most of the original script, but had to remodel it a bit to fit my needs. View the backup script

Software and Frontend

MAME

Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Basically the most important thing in a MAME cabinet is, well, the MAME software. MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator and can emulate most every arcade game up until about 2005 or so. What is the point in having an arcade cabinet without being able to play any games, MAME solves this problem. MAME is easy enough to download and setup. Just venture over to mamedev.org and download the latest binaries, or source if you want to compile yourself, then extract. The MAME program by itself only runs from the command line, so you need a front-end to manage your games graphically, especially if your using a cabinet (you don’t want to have a keyboard instead of joysticks).

Mamewah Front-End
Read about all the different software I use in my MAME cabinet

Cutting Button Holes

MAME

Tagged: , , ,

Buttons are a very important part of arcade cabinets. Without buttons you can’t do anything except move around. My control panel plan is to have 2 joysticks with 6 buttons each, 2 player start buttons, 3 mouse/trackball buttons, 2 MAME buttons (escape and coin), and of course the existing trackball. Lucky for me I found a local arcade owner, Tornado Terry, that also sold some parts at a good price. He even had a bundle with the exact buttons I needed! Read on to see the planning and cutting

Arcade Cabinet – MAME Build

MAME

Tagged: , , , ,

I have been wanting to build a MAME system for quite some time now. Until recently my father would not let me get a cabinet to start my build. Now, he suddenly changed his mind…only after I had to pass up on several free cabinets. :P

After searching through several Craigslist listings, I found a nice one. Some one was selling a Beach Head 2000 cabinet with a USB interface installed for only $100! First, I googled what the cabinet looked like and it is a pretty nice, and big build. I also discovered that the cabinet is worth about $800 so, it was a great deal! After contacting the guy on a Friday, he tells me he did some googling as well and he decided to raise the price to $250. I talked him down to $200.

Beach Head 2000
Read the rest of the cabinet story

 
Δ
Back to Top