Tag Archives: pimame

Feb 21

Friday Post: Gear

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Hey all,

Wooo it’s Friday! Next week I’m speaking at UCF’s Information Fluency conference.  I’m very excited.  Presenting an application I wrote that helps with Online Learning.

Time to get to work on PiMAME.  Making great progress.  Can’t wait to release it 😀  One of the issues I ran into was that I didn’t realize git sub-modules don’t update to the latest code, they stay at the commit they were committed in.  Anyone who has been using the installer for 0.8 has been running on older code, which explains why the bug fixes weren’t being seen.  It was a silly mistake on my part and will be fixed soon.

Misumi

Misumi is offering a free $150 credit for new customers placing an order via credit card.  In the reddit thread advertising this promotion, a few people have put together a build list with part numbers for making your own 3D Printer.  This will greatly decrease the price of building your own RepRap.  I’m going to try and build a Smartrap Mini.

UUGear

I got an email today about a new hardware company that’s making items for the Raspberry Pi.  They are called UUGear, and they are making some pretty good looking sensors and add-ons.  I haven’t yet had a chance to test their products, but the online store should be opening soon.

USBHUB_01 USBHUB_02

 Titanfall

I was playing the Titanfall beta over the weekend, and I can’t remember ever being this excited over a game.  Mechs, freerunning, jet packs!  It’s like my inner 12 year old was asked to make a video game and he delivered.  Sorry for the terrible quality video.  Here is a couple minutes of my Titanfall gameplay:

Have a good weekend all!

-Shea

Jan 31

Friday Post: PiMAME 0.8 Preview Release (only for the brave)

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Hey All!

Happy Friday!  It has been a long week.  The weather in Florida right now is crazy.  One day it’s 80 degrees, the next day its 50, then 70, then 40.  I wish it would make up its mind!  The bad part about it is everyone is getting sick.  Anyways…

PiMAME 0.8…
… preview release only for the brave edition

PiMAME 0.8 is almost done.  We have a few more bugs to fix, and some more features to test, but the basics are there.

I have an installer available for the brave to try.  It will make a new pimame folder in your home directory, so I recommend using a fresh install of Raspbian.

From the home directory in your command line, enter in the following command:

wget -O - http://pimame.org/installer.sh | bash

When that has finished running, reboot your Pi.  It should automatically boot up into the new launcher, and a web interface should be available at your Pi’s IP address.

If you decide to test this, please send me any and all feedback!  It is much appreciated!

This has been a huge labor of love, and I couldn’t have done it without some of the contributors to the codebase:

  • Zach – https://github.com/zachberry
  • Connor – https://github.com/Conno123009
  • Scotty – https://github.com/KingScooty

Thanks everyone!  Have a great weekend!

-Shea

Jan 24

Friday Post: PiMAME is coming…

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Hey all,

The new version of PiMAME is sooooo close to being released.  Only a few little kinks to work out.  I’m hoping to put out an alpha this weekend for those who are adventurous to try it out.

All those who requested PiMAME stickers should have received them by now.  If you have not gotten your PiMAME sticker, please let me know!

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

Jan 17

Friday Post: January

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Hey All,

It is the middle of January and it already feels like a year full of events has occurred.  I turned 30.  It’s a weird feeling not being in my twenties anymore.  It will take some getting used too.  I spent my birthday with good friends.

My new computer has been built and is running beautifully.  Had to return the old PSU because one of the fan blades cracked, which was causing it to overheat.  Picked up a Corsair modular PSU and it’s been running 24×7 with no issues.

2014-01-12

PiMAME was featured in the January / February issue of Raspberry Pi Geek.  It was given a 2 page spread, as well as reviews of other gaming environments for the Pi.

RPG_UK_02-2013

 

PyCon 2014

I was notified that I was chosen to give a poster session at this years Python programming conference, PyCon, in Montreal.  I am very excited to be showing off the work I have done with Python and the Raspberry Pi.  It’s going to be April 9th through the 11th.  The past two conferences have been amazing, and I am excited to be able to have more of a role this year. More information is available at us.pycon.org

Adafruit

Back in 2012 I hacked together a crude but effective USB power cord with a switch.  Adafruit is now selling a professionally manufactured cable that does the same thing for only $2.95.

Mine:Photo Jul 22, 4 13 45 PM

Adafruits:1620_MED

 

I’m so glad this cable has finally been made.  It was a pain to hand make them!

Have a great weekend all!  PiMAME news next weekend 😀

 

-Shea

 

Jan 10

Friday Post: Turning 30! Happy Birthday To Me!

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Hey All,

So, I’m turning 30 this weekend.  Crazy.  I’ve decided to treat myself by building an awesome budget gaming PC.  I haven’t built a PC since the P4 days.

Specs:

All in all I spent about $600 on this machine.  I’m getting 200FPS in Team Fortress 2, and I’m currently waiting for some new games to download.  Happy Birthday to Me!

If anybody is on Steam, I made a PiMAME group.  Let’s get some TF2 games going 🙂

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/pimame

PiMAME

In other news, since the new menu system is taking longer than expected, I’m going to do one more 0.7 PiMAME release.  It’s going to be upgrading to the new Raspbian version, and including some much needed functions to the console menu (joystick support, and favorites).

Look for that update this week!

-Shea

Nov 29

Friday Post: Joystick debugging

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Hey All,

This has been a fun week.  K and I have finished painting the house, we’ve been slowly bringing things in.  All the fun joys of moving to a new place 🙂

This week I’ve been making progress with Joystick support in PiMAME.  I’m hoping for 0.8 to have full joystick support implemented and an easy to use system to configure it.

Remember Cyber Monday deals this coming monday!  SparkFun and Adafruit are having some great sales.

-Shea

Nov 22

Friday Post: IAAPA 2013, Homeownership, and Happenings

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Hey All!

Happy Friday!  K and I are officially homeowners!!!  WOOOO!!!  This long stressful process took way too much time, and too much energy.  I don’t believe how wiped I am just from signing paperwork for a couple hours.  This is a huge weight off my shoulders, and a big time sink now gone.

1458661_10151742643346314_335252549_n

 

IAAPA 2013

For the past few years I have been attending IAAPA, which is the big amusement part and arcade entertainment expo in Orlando.  It’s really a remarkable event, and this years was no different.  Some of the highlights was a Korean pavilion showing off a ton of new Korean companies and the games / motion simulators coming out of there.  Stern Pinball was showing off the new Star Trek pinball game.  It was a lot of fun.  The best part of the day was the Namco Bandai booth.  They had a bunch of new games, but the exciting ones were a new Mario Kart arcade racing game, and MachStorm, an AceCombat / Afterburner inspired game with an immersive cockpit.  I will be posting pictures in another post.  One of the more apparent things this year was much less piracy, stolen cabinet designs, and game clones.  Previous shows there were blatant ripoffs and large displays that almost seemed to encourage it.  This year, not so much.

Holidays

The holidays are approaching, and I hope everyone who reads this has a good one.  I am going to have time off work, which will be spent working on PiMAME.  I’m hoping to have a January release of the new 0.8 version, and I welcome everyone to contribute to the github repos.

Kano.me

Kano computing is raising a kickstarter for a very innovative Raspberry Pi kit, and they have already reached the 500k mark.  These guys are really nice and I have high hopes for them.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexklein/kano-a-computer-anyone-can-make

HWHardSoft Pi Cabinet

HWHardSoft has been working on a cool Pi case, and his preorder is now available.  http://www.hwhardsoft.de/english/projects/raspberry-pi-mini-cab/

Have a great weekend!

-Shea

Nov 15

Friday Post: More PiMAME Menu stuff.

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Hey all,

Happy Friday!

I am beyond stressed.  I think I’m buying a house next friday.  If all goes according to plan.  Knock on wood, everything will go right.

Anyways,  I have put up some new github repos for PiMAME.  It’s regarding PiMAME 0.8, and it’s for the new web frontend and the pimame menu / launcher.  They are no where near ready for use, but if you would like to help with the programming, feel free to fork the repo and send a pull request.

https://github.com/ssilverm/pimame-menu
https://github.com/ssilverm/pimame-web-frontend

Have a good weekend everyone!

-Shea

Nov 08

Friday Post: Things to come!

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Hey All,

Happy Friday!

I just got back from our second tech time conference that I coordinated.  It was awesome.  Exhausting, but so darn worth it.

Anyways,  a coworker and I are working on a new PiMAME menu system, and I thought you all should see a sneak peek of the design work!

Screen Shot 2013-11-06 at 5.25.35 PM

 

I’m really excited!

Stay tuned!

-Shea

Oct 25

Friday Post: Rough week but PiMAME 0.7.10 is coming!

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Hey all,

It’s been a rough week.  K and I have been looking at houses and we’ve had nothing but bad luck.  We just lost the second house we had under contract because of appraisal issues.  Housing is such an industry that could benefit from technology.  I don’t understand how in 2013 I still need to FAX documents, “secure email” is a “works best in IE” website, and personal information is expected to be blurted out anywhere and everywhere.

I work for a university, I’m used to red tape and bureaucracy!  I didn’t think buying a house would rival that!

Anyways!  PiMAME 0.7.10 is being uploaded this weekend.

The updater version will include Alpha N64 emulation.
The SD card image will include that, a boot up screen, and the new kernel for xin-mo joysticks.

I will update the post when it’s finished uploading.

Have a great weekend all!

-Shea