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TEXATRON INITIATIVE: PHASE TWO

8.18.2011

Adam Saltsman

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TEXATRON Initiative: Phase One Mission Log

On Tuesday, Juegos attendees Paul Harrison and Will Marsden picked me up in a decadent white minivan, whereupon we drove up to north Austin to the secret headquarters of Nintendo satellite developer Retro Studios (Metroid Prime, Donkey Kong Country Returns).  Retro employee Matt Manchester met us out back by the loading dock, where we surreptitiously loaded a very-good-condition Pac Man refurb cabinet into the aforementioned van and hauled it back to my garage in south Austin.  The cabinet was tagged with a piece of printer paper, stating “out of order – research repair cost.”

My firm belief is that after researching said repair cost, it was deemed thoroughly not worth it.  And thus, like dumpster diving nerds, Juegos Rancheros collected the first artifact (of many) required to assemble the legendary TEXATRON.

TEXATRON

Check out that phosphor burn-in! Don't worry, refurb Pac Man cabinet. We will restore you to a former glory never imagined!

Now, it is my profound pleasure to announce that the TEXATRON Initiative: Phase Two is officially underway!

Phase two consists of gathering two additional artifacts that are crucial to continued development.  We are looking for some brave individuals who have access to and are willing to donate the following items:

  1. A reliable Windows-based desktop PC manufactured within the last 2 or 3 years.  We don’t need a hardcore gaming rig, but it should be able to handle at least rudimentary 3D without overheating.  Since it will be in an enclosed cupboard most of the time, we don’t want to tax it too much!
  2. A big, bright monitor display.  A 21″ 1600×1200 4:3 LCD would probably work pretty well, but the cabinet should accomodate up to a 27″ widescreen LCD which we could probably run letterboxed?  The monitor area in the cabinet is at least 26″ wide…
Currently the cabinet resides in my (Adam Atomic’s!) garage in south Austin, which is NOT air-conditioned.  Once we have acquired the PC and monitor and have the Winnitron software running on it, we should be out of the heat wave (or most of it), and able to work very comfortably out there, especially in the morning.  I am thinking about doing Sunday morning work sessions?  I have some basic woodworking tools here, and Home Depot and Lowe’s are just around the corner, so I think this might be a good base of operations.  However, if you have access to a large, air-conditioned space that is even better, appointed, then by all means let us know!
How?  Like usual, you can email us directly at texatron@gmail.com, and once we have enough info and parts to move on to the fun parts (gutting the cabinet, mounting the new hardware, hooking up controls, dressing up the outside with marquees and cow horns) we will post more info here.