Greetings. Well, since the last update a lot has happened. On my side of the world here, we’ve had hotspots of COVID flare up in various states. Victoria was dumb enough to hoo-hah and party hard during the initial lockdown period and they ended up getting isolated from other states. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes as they say.
Right now, work’s been pretty busy. I took a few weeks of holidays off, but they had a few client callouts in the mix so it was 90% holiday, 10% work. I still have a shit load of stuff to catch up with, including Taxes and whatnot, but I hope to get some good contracts so I can work on keeping the bank account in the black. Main focus is to get the business work done, so I can spend time on other projects including game development. Gotta make money to spend money, no?
I have also been collecting Arcade Machine base units. Right now in my possession I have a Sega Nu 1.1 which has a Crossbeats key chip (the key chip tells the Nu’s system loader software which game to boot, etc).
Other Sega units I have is a ALLS UX, but it unfortunately started boot looping and I’ve traced it to some low-level components on the motherboard. A friend of mine who is fluent in low-level repairs is currently attempting to bring that board back from the dead. Unfortunately I have no ALLS key chips so it throws Error 0001 on boot since it cannot find the key chip, and Nu 1.1 key chips are not compatible with ALLS UX units.
I also have some spare parts from a Taito Type X3 that are working, as well as a fully functional base unit currently in Japan storage which I’ll write about once it arrives at my office. The Type X3 is a funny system… Taito went to the extent to make it secure but also shot themselves in the foot. There’s also a unknown machine that I won in an auction that I need to ship as well, however it looks more like a development station than one you’d plug into a cabinet. We’ll see what that one is when it arrives.
Anyway, just wanted to say I am alive and well. Stay safe and I promise to update again soon.