Pong

  • November 27, 2015

For my next electronics kit challenge, I made this:

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Yes, a TV Pong kit, in component form. It was cheap (about ~$10) and looked easy to assemble. Could it be any good?

Here it is ready to be put together:

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Not a bad amount of pieces. The PCB is very clean and easy to solder onto, and compared to some other kits I have made this one was extremely easy to assemble. All told, it only took about an hour. Here’s the finished product:

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What you can’t see: my impressive soldering 🙂

But the true test was to come. Skeptically, I connected it to my ‘TV that exists just for old game consoles” and turned it on…

The ball moves so quickly it’s almost impossible to hit it, even in the 1P mode. But whether it is playable is immaterial: it worked first go!

Even if you’re not impressed by that, I was 🙂

Dune Cards

  • November 19, 2015

  
You may recall I purchased the above last month at comic con. A full box of 36 unopened Dune cards from 1984. I never even knew the set existed, and the guy who sold it to me said he had a case of it! 

 
I managed to complete the 132 card set in 25 packs, although with a bit of luck it could have happened in about 18. That’s very good collation, and there may even be two sets in the box.

The cards themselves are no nonsense, with a good quality picture on the front and lots of words – like the film itself – on the back. I reckon I wouldn’t have loved them as a kid though: not enough hardware or monsters. 

 
The stickers though are amazing, and there is an incredible 44 of them! You won’t be completing this set in one box. However the passage of 31 years has had a distressing effect on the stick of gum, bonding it to the sticker on a molecular level. It’s essentially impossible to remove without damaging the sticker 🙁 

 
Look at the lovely backs of the stickers, like tokens from some tabletop Dune RPG: 

 
Lovely stuff.

Some of you will no doubt be mystified by my love of opening trading cards like these, but this Dune set checked all the boxes. I don’t even remember what I paid for it, but I’m glad I did 🙂

  • Posted in Movies
  • Robert