First of all, I loved the film. So let me get this out of the way, my brief list of quirks.

1. What was the point of the Uhura-Spock thing? I don’t see how it advanced the plot or even developed the characters. There was no lead-up to the first elevator scene after Spock turns over command to Kirk. It was just out of the blue.

2. I didn’t like the new Enterprise. It looks more advanced than even the Enterprise-E (Picard’s ship).

3. Kirk’s rebelliousness was taken to the point of hyperbole. The whole adolescent car thief sequence was not believable. If it were my son, he would have been grounded for the rest of his life. Ok, the fact that he wrecked a classic Corvette strikes a nerve with me!

4. Where was the scene where his uncle says, “no you can’t go to the academy, we need you for one more season.” And Kirk says, “but all my friends are going now!” And his aunt says, “Let the boy go. He has too much of his father in him.”

5. Why wouldn’t old Spock give young Spock a bunch of winning lotto numbers?

6.. I didn’t feel the need to introduce every Star Trek principle in this film. It felt a bit contrived that they all met on their first mission. Also, they killed Mrs. Spock. Don’t they need her later?

7. I’ll forgo a number of minor annoyances, but here’s just one example. Uhura orders a Cardassian drink. <Exasperated gasp>, contact with the Cardassians wasn’t made until about a century later. Was that reference really necessary? <dozens of other such references omitted here>

8. The core of the plot was your basic good v. evil. I prefer character-driven stories. For example, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (the first film) was built on discovery and the journey of the human spirit.

On the plus side, what I liked was:

1. The action and special effects did not disappoint; never was there a dull moment.

2. The writing, acting and directing were superb.

3. They didn’t do the prequel thing too over the top the way the Enterprise (series) did.

In summary, the film was innovative but had a balanced amount of homage to the Star Trek canon. Roddenberry would have approved. Now I’m eagerly awaiting the next installation of Star Trek films with this crew. It’s a team that works.

So I did a lot of digging on the ‘net and found a guy who got a full-height 2-DIN unit to fit, but had to painstakingly modify the dash bezel. The steps he describes seemed laborious, but I thought I’d take on the project. So I ordered the Kenwood DNX-5120, a 2-DIN model from my favorite place, Crutchfield and got busy.

Well after enough time, it proved more than a challenge than even I had time for. So I decided to just see what the experts would have to say. I dropped in on my local car audio shop and I was happily surprised. They said it’d be no problem. By the end of the day I had a fully installed unit with all the extras like a backup camera, iPod cable and Sirius radio. It just barely fits in the existing opening. The disc slot on top goes right up to the upper edge and the buttons on the bottom go right up to the bottom edge. Also, they had to dremel trim it just a hair.

The results are exactly as I had hoped. It looks like the car was built that way from the factory! Have a look.

If you get to Sonic, ask for Kevin (the mgr.) or Oscar (who did the work).

First Impressions

Right after I got it installed, I took a weekend trip to Harrisburg. I set the nav and a nice female voice guided me the way there. I don’t like how nav units tell you to ‘continue on the current road’ when you’re on a highway but not exiting. I suppose they’re afraid you’ll exit even when you weren’t told to do so. Also, I haven’t figured out how to turn down the volume of the nav voice yet. It’s rather loud.

The backup cam engages automatically when you go into reverse. The unit takes a little longer to boot than I’d like (10 seconds?); it seems like a long time when you’re waiting to begin backing up. Also the image is initially ‘correct’ but what I need is a reverse image as one would get in a rear-view mirror. It took some poking, but I disovered that a tap on the FNC (function) button swaps it.

I haven’t tried the iPod interface yet. Sirius works like a champ. I was a bit disappointed that it didnt’ come with the traffic receiver. That’s an additional option. Maybe it will be a gift from Santa Crutchfield this Xmas.

As another upgrade, I’ll need to install an after-market adapter between the unit and the door sub-woofers. Without it, the sub-woofers don’t woof. I supplied it to the shop, but it somehow didn’t make it in the installation.

Hey ... where's the mouse?

While I’ve been on a retrocomputing kick, I decided to try to see what it takes to emulate an original IBM PC.  I found Pico-XT, which runs on Windows.  (I’d rather have one that runs on Linux.)  Since I’m running Ubuntu, I used Wine and had to chuckle.

Then I needed a floppy disk.  I downloaded a ton from The Boot Disk Project.  I started with MS-DOS 3.30.  It didn’t work the first time and I realized I had to convert it from a 1.44MB floppy to a 360k.  I did that with WinImage.  It requires that you open the original image file and pull down “Image / Change Format”, select 360k, then save.

When Wine opens Pico-XT, you must pull down ‘File / Floppy Drive A: / Insert”, then choose the floppy filename.  Here’s what it looks like.

My next project is to take an image file from my Mom’s old office PC and get it to work in the emulator.  I made it with dd, but it doesn’t seem to be a format recognized by Pico-XT yet nor WinImage.

Update

Special thanks to my neighbor Vince who just gave me a 5150 that he rescued from a dumpster.  I’m going to try to see if it works.

Playing clones or knock-offs don’t always feel as good as the real thing. Thankfully, some very ingenious and resourceful people have preserved the genuine experience with a program called MAME.

MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. (click) It lets you run the REAL original arcade games on your computer.  The catch is that you have to find the actual program that ran on the original arcade console machines.  They’re called ROMs, but who cares what that stands for.  There are plenty of sources on the ‘net.

Here is a small sample of the ones I have loaded:

Here’s a sample:

Asteroids

Omega Race

Joust

Battlezone

Red Baron

Note, first press the play button.  Then press the button (illustrated in red) and it will expand the video to full screen.  When the video is done, hit ESC to return.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbXO7uCNxN0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKkLwQieSnE]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR6RtN-M_yY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfdlfRvMcY4]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2x--9fZM8s]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv_Z1VcaX2w]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlCrF8LzNyg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZMuj8bFKCc]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJPaLnp_Vtk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDwgNAEJ1eM]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2coxJ7gsDRg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSFL7Nub5sw]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE3OeA8FUmg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuw9XGVNtF0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCQGPeYcHz0]

However, I have had time to refine my view.  I have always maintained that the unions have over-leveraged too sweet a deal for themselves.  They have done so to the point of bringing the Big 3 to their knees.  There, I said it.

Today it was announced that the bailout has died in the Senate.  In truth, it was mostly just a sweet and big loan, not a gift like the financial giants got. This could be a good thing (in a relative way).  The only way a domestic auto industry could succeed would be to have pay and benefits commensurate with those of foreign manufacturers who have plants in the US.  That was a central requriement of the proposal and the UAW would not budge (enough).

Clearly, the UAW leadership is only looking out for themselves.  I would think that jobs for the workers that are on par with the Japanese manufacturers would be way better than nothing.  American workers for Japanese and German auto companies seem universally happy and content with their lots.

Q: How would the same be unacceptable for their Big 3 counterparts?  A: far less pay for the UAW honchos.

Maybe it’s time for a new auto industry landscape in this country.  Perhaps the Big 3 will fold and the Japanese and Germans will get assets and workers at a fire sale.  At the very least, the foreign manufacturers will be left with more marketshare.  This will be interesting.