Benvenuto al mio 3D colosseum (parte 1)

I've been bored recently, and after watching some program about the Roman Empire earlier today on the Discovery channel, I thought I'd attempt to build my very own Colosseum in 3D... so..... here is a quick post to reveal my latest 3D creation (in progress).

Its a Colosseum type building which when finished will be used in a VR tour movie thingy, showing you as the viewer walking into the arena through the entrance, corridors and finally into the grounds...

...hopefully.

I've constructed the main building, and all I need to do now is create the corridors, seating area and the main arena.

Did I say that I'm bored?

Roll on the 5th September... Thats when I go back to work again!

Grand Prix Circuit 2006 Remix

Here is another song which I literally wrote is just over 30 minutes this afternoon. Its another Commodore 64 remix, this time based on the theme tune to Electronic Arts/Accolade's "Grand Prix Circuit". The original version was written by Kris Hatlelid in1988.

The unique thing about this song is that it is the first ever 'chip' song that I have ever written. The original XM file that I was working on while writing this tune (in Skaletracker, before converting it to MP3 for you to listen to here) came in at an amazing 46k which is really small for me - hard to believe that in theory, the song could easily be loaded up into the Commodore 64's ram and still have 8k left over!!!

Anyway, I hope you like it, and please leave comments... good or bad.

Download my "Grand Prix Circuit 06 Remix" MP3 here.

Speaking of which..... is there anybody out there who is actually reading my blog? Please leave a comment as I'd hate to think that I'm doing this for nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See you again soon for my next post!!

It works!!!!! It finally works!!!!!!!

Got my new PSU today. Had to go out and buy 2 Molex splitter cables as the PSU didn't have enough molex connectors for all of my hard-drives, DVD writer, GFX card, fans and snazzy blue lights. Anyway, the computer works fine now!! YIPPEEEEE

Hopefully this will be the last 'techie' post for awhile.

Give me more POWER!!!!!!!!!!!

I nearly gave up trying to figure out what was wrong with my computer. Even Kieran had a go at looking to see what he could find (see picture - YES THE POWER WAS SWITCHED OFF!!)

I got Windows installed earlier, but everytime I started it up, the computer would shut down on me before I could do anything.

It then occured to me - I've just added a new 200Gb drive, and recently I've been getting a message saying that not enough power was getting through to my GeForce 6600GT.

First, I disconnected the DVD drive and started the computer... It worked fine.

I then reconnected the DVD drive and restarted the computer - it crashed on me again.

I disconnected one of my hard-drives and restarted - it worked fine without crashing.

ITS THE BLOODY PSU - Obviously it's not powerful enough. Its only a 350w PSU, so I've opted for a 550W PSU from Novatech. That should arrive Friday hopefully. In the meantime after disconnecting the internal DVD drive, I'm currently using my Laptops DVD drive as a shared network drive which I can access wirelessly from my desktop PC - ingenious!!!

"I canna fix it cap'n... Shes gonna blow"

ARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!

I'm going to throw this bloody computer out of the window soon! For the past few days I've been having to sort out various problems with my desktop PC. I've had a hard-drive pack up on me, a faulty memory module, and now when I try to reinstall Windows XP, I'm getting this BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).

A quick scan on the internet reveals no definitive solution to this. Some people say it may be due to a faulty PSU, the way IDE devices are configured, right down to a mouse driver!! Infact, Microsoft haven't an idea either. I have tried swapping around my hard-drives and DVD-writer. I've now got my booting drive as master and another harddrive as a slave on my Primary IDE channel, and my new harddrive as Master and DVD writer as slave on my secondary IDE channel. So far so good. I am currently in the process of installing Windows XP and it appears to be working, but I'm not holding my breath as I got this far last night and I thought it was all working ok.

In the meantime, I am having to resort to using my laptop. I shall keep you all posted.

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(sigh) I never had this problem with my Commodore Plus 4 and Commodore 64.

We love the Miggy

After my last post, I don't want to make this blog yet another boring IT Technician's blog, but I've just found a wonderful little program on the internet which I must tell you about which I think is extremely useful if like me you like to emulate the Commodore Amiga on your PC.

One of the biggest pains with Amiga emulation is that a standard PC floppy disk-drive wil not read Amiga disks. However, some wonderful chap has created a little program called ADFREAD that allows Amiga disks to be read by a PC disk drive and converted to an ADF image file for use with most Amiga emulators (namely WinUAE). By using a special floppy filter driver which can be downloaded here, "the driver exposes command-level access to the uPD765a floppy disk controller, making it possible to read/write many non-standard and copy-protected disk formats", as mentioned on the website. This means that by using two standard PC floppy disk drives, installed on the same cable, Amiga disks CAN be read without the need for any hardware modifications or attachments.

It has taken me ages to convert only half of my Amiga disks using CrossDos on my Amiga 1200, transfering them from my Amiga to PC - now I can do it all from the comfort of my desktop PC in half the time.

Of course, you can't beat playing on the real thing, but sometimes emulation is just more practical (besides, I don't think Michelle would appreciate another computer setup taking over the house).

All hail the Commodore Amiga 500 - King of the 16-bit era