GP32 Development Page

The GP32 is a great little handheld console, which offered far more interest for me than a Gameboy Advance. Capable of playing MP3s (which as it turned out was rather badly) and running various emulators that simulated machines including the C64, Spectrum, Atari 2600, PCEngine and MSX, it even had a ScummVM port for games such as The Secret of Monkey Island. To top it off, development looked pretty easy due to the lack of custom chips and a freely downloadable SDK.

Of course there is always a snag, and this turned out to be the difficulty debugging on the thing, bugs in the official SDK, poor developers documentation and a relatively small community. However things in the last few months of 2003 began to look up, with new faces on the scene adding to the work of some great coders like Mr Spiv and DarkFader already active.

And my own development, postponed for 6 months after breaking my laptop on which I did my GP32 work, has been kicked back into action thanks to a new lappy, support from a few nice people, and the need to get a decent MP3 player working so I could listen to talking books at night.

MAME Cabinet Project

Born in 1972, I remember Space Invaders when it first came out, although Pong was a vision I only recall from the home TV set versions that we had back then. I must have spent a lot of money playing old classics such as Scramble, Galaxians, Out Run, Space Harrier, Bubble Bobble, and so on.

Computer conversions rarely matched the arcade quality if the originals, and even when they came close they were never quite as good.

Thanks to the power of the modern PC, a lot of very nice enthusiasts who dump the original arcade roms and post them on the net, plus the amazing programmers behind the emulation software MAME (and others), we can now enjoy these classics as they used to be.

Of course the only difference is once again, its just not the same on the keyboard or with a gamepad than using the original arcade joysticks and buttons. So began my MAME cabinet project, which is rather long winded and may prove to be a dull gallery of endless digital photos for many.

You can actually see the finished cabinet to the right, not bad for a first attempt. Eventually I want to build four, so I have two joystick based units with a monitor mounted vertically in one, and horizontally in the other. Plus one with a steering wheel for driving games and another with an analogue joystick. But that lot will be another whole webpage update...

Disney Nasties

A friend of mine called Sarah, who's full name cannot be revealed as a protective measure to hide her from any lawsuits that may ensue from the Disney empire, had some rather disgusting photographs come back from the developers after a holiday with her stuffed toys.

IMPORTANT: These are uncensored pictures and you MUST be over the age of 18 to safely view them without these distorting your fragile little minds.

Minna's World

What can I say about Minna's World? Other than it is the web site dedicated to the cutest, fluffiest dog on the planet. And if you think yours is bouncier, prettier, or more lovely, then you are seriously misguided and should seek help immediately.

If I was in need of more padding because of layout issues, I might go on to say it includes pictures of my dog in various typical poses, who is incidentally a prize winning animal, having taken first place in the "Most Appealing Eyes" category against some tough competition a few years ago.

Since this is essentially a site all of its own, you might want to visit it directly in future if what is on the site you're reading proves uninteresting for you.

The Spice Girls

Back in March 1998 when I started actually doing something with my domain name that I'd bought so much earlier, I did a page on the girl group of the moment, The Spice Girls, who are still with us in various solo forms.

This isn't that funny out of the culture context it was written in, and probably wasn't funny then, but I leave it up here as a memorial to a time gone by.

Diary of a Hamster

I wrote this when I was a teenager, I think it was that long ago anyway, your memory tends to play tricks on you when your approaching 30. Although if your reading this after August 2002 I already have. :o

Still seems funny to me, even after all these years. It sums up what every hamster owner knows best, that these little buggers enjoy one thing above all else, making noise.