David Sheeks

While I'm waiting on the final touches of the Mame project, I figured I'd share a little bit older of a project.  A few months back, I increased the productivity and effectiveness of my computer by upgrading to not two, but three monitors. The setup is fairly simple, and many modern motherboards can easily achieve such a setup.  You will need the following: 3 monitors An external PCI Express x16 video card with at least two outputs Cables to hook everything up LOTS of desk space  Setting it all up was pretty simple.  After hooking up the video card (In this case a 9800GT fanless card), I hooked the center monitor up through the HDMI port, the second through the DVI-D port, and the third on the integrated (onboard) DVI-D port.  Your ports may vary (my previous 3-monitor setup used one DVI output and two VGA outputs), but you will need at least three (although for is even better!) Restart your computer, and while it is booting up, hit whatever key allow...

I had some time this weekend to work on the innards of the arcade machine.  Because this machine needs to be "industrial-quality," it needs to be built like a tank.  Were it to be sold to someone, chances are they aren't going to like breaking open the case, soldering iron in hand, to start working away at a fix.  Therefore the machine needs to be built as securely as possible. I've intentionally left the controller board open until the very end.  Because it has the most things that can go wrong, it needs to be kept in perfect condition.  I'll be closing it up shortly as soon as some of my stress tests are complete. The other side of this week's work was software.  I've installed GameEx on the arcade machine to give it a much more arcade-like feel. GameEx is a free program that allows users to launch not only arcade games, but a myriad of other entertainment programs from a single interface.  Similar to the Xbox or Playstation GUI, it allows users ...

The cantenna project is finally completed and had its first test today.  Of all antennas tried in our test, including a commercial dipole antenna, the Cantenna surpassed every other antenna in quality of signal. When pointed directly at its target, the antenna should get between 5 and 10 miles when attached to a high-quality wireless card.  Even with several trees in the way, the antenna was able to find our test router and hold around 4 bars (although the trees made it difficult to get a clear signal and figure out exactly where to point the dish). I'll be adding a few more modifications to the antenna in the future, but the prototype design is below. The completed antenna.  Still a bit shabby with the electrical tape holding it on, but I've recently added an adjustable clamp to it instead to allow for better flexibility. Closeup of the antenna.