Hey all,
I felt bad about the delay with PiMAME 0.7.5 so I’m releasing the next version early.
New Features:
If you are running version 0.7 or above, just run the ./update.sh script to get these additions. The new image is being made and uploaded right now.
Hey all,
For the past 2 months I’ve been heading up a small technical conference with my department. We have done small 1 hour sessions before, but this was a lofty experiment. 14 talks, 5 hours, 2 tracks, with no budget.
It was a resounding success! The Techrangers at UCF put on the Extended Tech Time Conference last Monday, July 1st, from 5pm to 10pm, in the Student Union.
We had over 60 attendees watch our talks while students, staff, and local companies talked about a wide variety of subjects.
We also had a Google Glass demo, which was really really cool. Everyone seems to get “glass-face” the second they put it on. It can only be described as getting a dumb grin, looking halfway up, and trying to focus both on whats on the screen and in front of you at the same time. It only lasts a second but it makes for some really funny imagery. It was tough to use it with my prescription glasses on, but this seriously makes me consider getting contacts.
I plan to have the videos up soon, but for now, here’s my talk about Gaming on the Raspberry Pi:
PiMAME
So I’ve been working for a week, trying to get this next release of PiMAME really stable. The problem I keep running into is with DISPMANX and PiSNES/Dgen. With DISPMANX, Dgen works, but PiSNES does not, without DISPMANX, PiSNES works but Dgen crashes. I’m going to hold off on including DISPMANX and Dgen for this release. The new things included in PiMAME 0.7.5 will be STELLA, the Atari 2600 emulator, and CaveStory.
This should be uploaded tonight.
Book
So the first drafts for the book I’ve been writing came back, and they have very / minor revisions. I’m really excited to see this project coming alone, and hopefully published very very soon.
EDIT: Really sorry guys, I found a show stopping bug while uploading. I had to cancel it. I’m really sorry. It’ll be up soon.
Hey everyone,
I’m happy to announce that I’m releasing the new PiMAME image this weekend. I will be uploading it tonight and it should be on sourceforge asap.
The new features include:
On another note, the latest special edition of Linux Pro Magazine is all about the Raspberry Pi. The DVD includes a bunch of different SD Card Images, including PiMAME.
http://shop.linuxnewmedia.com/us/eh32029.html
Have a great weekend!
-Shea
Hey All,
What a hectic week. I’ve been working on the second half of my book, doing a ton of stuff at work, AND working on PiMAME 0.8 🙂
New features to come in PiMAME 0.8:
I’m hoping to get it done this weekend, and I’ll let you all know when its up 🙂
Have a great weekend!
-Shea
Hey all,
Another long week over here. I’m glad we have a 3 day weekend, because I could use it. Going to sleep until Monday I think 🙂 Anyways, onto the fun stuff!
Book
So, I’ve been waiting ages to announce this. I have been tapped by a publishing company to write a book about a computer that means a lot to me (hint hint). That’s really all the details I can announce at this time, but I’m very excited and eager to work on this project.
BarCamp Orlando
Last week I talked about BarCamp Orlando. It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of great talks given by members of the Orlando tech community. I met a lot of cool people, and networked with some fellow educators. It was also nice to see a big turnout of my coworkers and friends from FamiLAB show their support of this conference.
I did a talk about gaming on the Raspberry Pi, and I have to say it went fairly well. I have grown to really like public speaking, and I am very interested in doing more. I did about 15 minutes of explanations and demos of the Raspberry Pi’s capabilities, and another 10 minutes of QA from the audience members.
Thermal Imaged Pi
I received an email from Bux (from the forums) the other day. He acquired a thermal scanner, so he used it to take a picture of the Raspberry Pi.
Weston Accelerated X
A very exciting development in the continuing optimization of the Raspberry Pi has been released. A release of the Weston software that allows accelerated X windows to be displayed on the Raspberry Pi. This should help with the sluggish feeling that is encountered when using the GUI. I will be testing this out over the weekend. The instructions to install it are available here: http://fooishbar.org/tell-me-about/wayland-on-raspberry-pi/ and below:
echo deb http://raspberrypi.collabora.com wheezy rpi >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install weston
Stickers
I think I have sent out all the stickers. If anyone hasn’t received theirs, please contact me again!
Have a great weekend everyone!
-Shea
Hey all,
Sorry for the lateness, I went and saw Iron Man 3 last night and got home late.
Go see Iron Man 3. If you liked the first two movies, you will like the third. I thought it was great.
A fun announcement: The Pi Hut is now selling SD Cards with PiMAME preloaded on it.
If you are using the installer script, make sure you run the update script, as I have pushed a few changes. The PiHut SD card already has the installer script included.
Have a great weekend!
-Shea
Hey everyone!
PiMAME Installer
I have just released the first version of the PiMAME Installer Script. This script will allow you to turn any Raspbian install into a PiMAME installation. It includes the ability to update installations (and to remove PiMAME if you wish 🙁 … )
You can find it on Github at: https://github.com/ssilverm/pimame_installer
I would appreciate testing and feedback. Also please feel free to contribute code and send a pull request.
PiMAME Bug Fix
I figured out the issue about the 8MB file size limit in the PiMAME uploader. If you use the Installer or the Updater you should automatically get the fix. If you wish to fix it manually follow these instructions:
sudo nano +674 /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini
change post_max_size = 8M to post_max_size = 0
exit and save.
reboot.
You will now have larger uploads available.
PiMAME Stickers
The first batch of stickers have gone out. If you haven’t received yours in the next few days, please feel free to email me and I will put one in the mail.
Thanks! Have a great night.
-Shea
Hey All,
First of all I am happy to say that I aced my course this semester. Woo! It’s weird having free time again. Going to be really focusing on PiMAME. Onto the cool stuff…
So, I got my Mausberry Circuits Raspberry Pi Power Switch in the mail this week. I linked to the Kickstarter for this previously and I’m really happy it was funded. The device is tiny, but feels well soldered and sturdy. My only complaint is that the headers cables for the GPIO pins are on the top of the board, as opposed to the bottom, making it harder to put in a project box or in a DeskCade.
The device itself works flawlessly. You install the script, connect the GPIO pins, and then hit the switch. The script tells the Pi to power down, and after it’s completely halted, the power is cut. It also includes a hard reset button in case the Pi is completely frozen / crashed.
It’s $22 with shipping, and you can order one at mausberrycircuits.com
Have an awesome weekend everyone.
-Shea
Hey All,
I’m happy to announce PiMAME 0.6 Beta 4! You will need a 4GB SD Card for this release. The updates and new items required a bump in space.
This release includes:
Known issues:
Hey All,
I’ve been trying to get the Tankstick working with GNGeo recently, and the issue that has been cropping up is that the Tankstick by default uses LeftCtrl, LeftAlt, and Space for the top row of buttons. This would be fine if I could just specify that, but the GNGeo config file (gngeorc) needs the SDL key mapping, which isn’t really documented anywhere.
What I have found is that if I start X Windows, run xev, press the required button, take that output hexadecimal, then convert that to decimal, about 99% of the time it’s the valid SDL key mapping.
Just a heads up to anyone else with that kind of issue.