Some people focus their enthusiasm on one thing. Some folks are sort of into boats, but nothing else. Some folks like planes, but can’t be bothered to get into cars. It’s always fun when people are into different stuff, like when our readers love cars, computers, RC cars, and other gadgets.
First, I want to nominate a comment from a few days ago as a heartwarming comment of the day. I’m thinning my fleet and it feels so great. I have to thank Stephen Walter Gossin for enlightening me on the fact that life is too short to burden yourself with broken cars you don’t actually have any heart for. Geoff Buchholz has a great idea:
I would watch the hell out of “Gossin Motors Backyard Automotive Rescue And Shade Tree Counseling, SON!” (working title), in which Stevie G visits Autopians with entirely too many cars, helps them part with the excess, and rides off into the sunset in the $200 Stratus.
In fact, I’ll produce it. Hardigree, @ me!
I’m so in! I’d watch every episode the second it drops.
Let’s get to the geekery! This morning, Jason wrote about how he created an epic flight simulator setup for the classic game Skyfox. I loved reading your replies. Matt Sexton:
Reminds me – I went off on a tangent in a comment thread a few days ago about B17 Bomber on Intellivision. It was a great game that gave you control of four different gun turrets, pilot, bomber and navigation. Not quite the same as what you guys did, but my friend and I discovered both controllers were active with the game so one of us got assigned guns and the other flew and bombed. We would toggle between screens depending on where the game told us the threats were and then the designated player would take over.
Man I really wish we could have had a dual TV setup for that!
It’s also wild that while these sims didn’t have the graphical performance of anything today, the developers still baked in realism, from Fuzzyweis:
Awesome, that setup would’ve been great for something like Super Huey on the Commodore 64 as well, I’m remembering it as just trying to get the frickin helicopter to take off seemed tedious. 80s flight sims were no joke, they made up for lack of graphics with realism of flight controls and crashing.
This nerdy stuff has me all excited because I’m embarking on some silly projects this year. One is to turn my modified PlayStation Portable into the world’s worst GPS unit:
Cooler Master has also announced a PC air cooler that looks like an engine and has RGBs on the “intake manifolds.” I’m definitely installing one because I’m a child.
I also have a 1/6 Scale Chrysler PT Cruiser in my closet that I want to turn into a computer. Maybe I’ll finally get around to that one this year! Finally, while not a computer project, I’m turning a Hot Wheels car into an RC car. Here’s stellar advice from Harrison_crabfeathers:
Skip the jungle site for most ‘hobbyist electronics’ stuff- it’s regularly overpriced vs. getting it from a better supplier, and to boot it’s usually sub-standard quality and frequently knock-off stuff that’s just plain unsafe.
Luckily, there are great smaller businesses selling exactly the kind of stuff like that battery and battery charger – Adafruit is fantastic about this kind of stuff, and they also do an incredible amount of work that supports the maker/modder/tinkerer community.
This isn’t an exact fit, but I’m pretty sure there’s one to be had if you spend a few minutes browsing, and the pricing is good: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1317
And the charger, for only $6: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4410
Added bonus – small, domestic business with fantastic customer service that sells quality stuff that they’ll stand behind. (I have no affiliation with Adafruit, I just love what they do) Sparkfun, Seeed, and a bunch of other similar vendors are also worth a look for this stuff.
Thanks for the great week everyone. Have a great weekend!
I would also emphatically agree that Adafruit is a great vendor for many hobby electronics needs and they also do so much to educate people and set beginners up for success.
There are a lot of things you can get cheaper from other reputable vendors (Digikey, Mouser, Sparkfun, Seeed, etc) and I often do that too, but I always feel good supporting Adafruit because of all the good things they do to promote, educate, and improve the community. I learned a LOT from Adafruit in my first few years of electronics tinkering, and I know I’m not the only one!
I would never buy electronics like resistors, caps, through-hole ICs, breakout boards, Arduino/clones, etc. from Amazon when there are so many alternatives that are so much better in every possible way. I’ll begrudgingly admit that Amazon does some things well, but hobby electronics is not one of them!
I had a Space Shuttle flight sim on an ancient 486 dx33 which absolutely adhered to that concept. So many controls! Almost no documentation! I crashed. A lot.
CoolerMaster has been doing engine-themed coolers since, I wanna say, 2008 or so, maybe even longer? The modern versions do appear a good bit more engine-like, to be fair, though I think I prefer the glorious insanity of the original V10.
Having seen the glorious $200 Stratus function as an impromptu pizza buffet—and met the man himself—I would watch the hell outa an SWG rescue show.
-twice on Sundays if his mom did cameos on it it as I enjoyed her tone here. 😉
I remember playing Super Huey, I recognized the image right away. It’s true, it took *forever* to take off.
I played Super Huey and pretended it was Airwolf.
Thank you Don P. Bellisario for the television shows of my youth; even Tales of the Gold Monkey.
I do understand the concept of cars can be a burden, getting rid of ones you don’t have the heart for, and it’s great for anyone in that situation that they are able to do that! (and be able to stop paying storage costs as shown)
What’s funny is I’m just jealous…I wish I had a ton of cars and my dream is to get a property with a whole field/junkyard full of junky broken down “rusty gold” classics!
Well, the better way obviously is in a warehouse in case of rural zoning, etc and not rusty (DT’s middle name? NHRN) for ease of working but you get the idea
I just want to learn more about working on them, eventually start accruing dream cars and get the thrill of the hunt too like as shown w/ Mercedes/SWG getting the Plymouth/2CV
You sound like me a few years ago. At some point that itch was so bad that I rented a small garage with an electric outlet while still living in a city appartment and bought a project car.
You just need one car to wrench on to learn. No need for a fleet or a big property. Go for it friend!
I made the board! And giving me ideas on a car PC build, that’s dangerous! And now I’m lost in a google search of model car pc cases…
Dope PSP!. The only time i ever went to Sony for gaming hardware was the Portable, and i don’t regret it. The joysticks were kinda crap, but they are on any given system
With the right motherboard an RC car case mod is easy. About 15 years ago a friend had his LAN party rig built into a drivable RC car.
If you can figure out how to get that V10 cooler under the hood of the PT Cruiser I will award you one million internets.
One trillion internets if the PC Cruiser can drive from one monitor to the next.
And I will wager 50 guineas that she can Drivew the PC Cruiser around the worl in less than 80 days!
Another problem with the jungle site for hobbyist electronic stuff is that you may not want to buy a dozen of whatever but that’s the quantum they offer, not one or two.
The struggle is real.
“CR 2032 batteries”
-2 Energizers for $16
or
-32 Off Brand for $14
Dammit.
I just bought oil there and it was unnecessarily difficult to find “one 5qt jug” of a standard weight. But I was just trying to avoid a trip to Walmart, which gets expensive…
Just for god’s sake don’t buy Duracell. Not even at Costco. They leak in about 3 months.
I have so many 608 bearings and buck converters sitting around because of that.
WOW that is awesome