An Honorary Spanish Diva, I am

Howdy!

This is exciting in a way...my last week of work. And I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing in 2007. I'm going to enjoy living in ignorance for a while. I have full checks coming, plus my one week of vacation pay and then eventually my tax refund. And if worse case scenario I'm not able to land a job somewhere, I'll try my best to file for unemployment though I have a feeling I may not be eligible (long story folks). So I should be OK.

Anyway, enough of that. Being that I've been taking it easy, I've finally entered the world of GAME EMULATORS. Ever since I first got a computer, I've known about these programs that can emulate old video games and even arcade games yet I never really fully understood how to use them. They don't require alot of memory but on my PC I tried when I got the internet and it never worked.

But on Macs, everything is incredibly easy and after a while it was a matter of finding the programs for Macs, dragging them on and alas, I was ready to play! Amazing! So for the last 2 months, I downloaded nothing but Nintendo, Sega and my favourites, the Turbo Grafx-16 games! My god, so many games that I used to play as a kid at my fingertips! This provides hours of entertainment for me. I've even stopped downloading other crap and focused all my free and wasteable time to these games! Most recently though, I've been addicted to this one space shooter game for the Turbo Grafx 16 called "Blazing Lasers".


However, it wasn't all entirely easy and I am taking the liberty of writing this all out should there be other Mac-users who had this problem. Now mind you, I'm new to all this yet I was able to patiently figure out all these details. That is a testament to my ability to learn anything at all as I am a patient person and a fast learner. First, when downloading these programs, I was unable to use full screen and to configure my keypad. So I had to do another search and try to get help and I found that to do this I had to find an "Emulator Enhancer". Now what this does is it adds extra features to your emulators. So I did and then I had to go to my system folder and drag the program to the "application support" folder. Now it added all the features to every single emulator, including the ability to plug in a USB controller!

Yep, you guessed it. As soon as I learned this I ran out and bought the cheapest most plain USB controller I could find! I was so excited, I would be able to play my old nintendo games with a controller! So I bought this "Logitech Precision Gamepad" for 9.99 and checked that it was compatible to Macs. I plug it in and..well it does nothing! The system recognizes the controller but nothing was happening. After doing yet more extensive research, I learn that Logitech controllers are NOT compatible with game Emulators for Macs but do work for everything else. I was mad, pissed and dissapointed. I was so excited! So for 2 months I went on.


THEN..I don't know what I did, but I downloaded a Super Nintendo Emulator (Snes9x) and somehow I was able to configure the gamepad for all my emulators!! I don't even know what made me check back after I had given up on it, but I did!

I went in to my emulator options and on the tab for "joysticks" where before I wasn't able to make anything set, I pressed the "set" button for the individual button I wanted and pressed the button I wanted to set on the controller and it recognized it. So I set up all my emulators with this joypad control and was able to play!!

I'm so excited! Now I've moved on to the next level and downloaded an Arcade emulator. This one is a little more complicated than the rest. Its not a matter of finding the program and then the games and that's that. You have to find the program and go through the system folders and install the actual game programs into the folders. Once you're done, you turn on the application (which is like a mini arcade machine on your screen) and if done right, the game appears as an option to the left. I think for the most part, I've had success in installing things right but again I didn't know anything on how to do this yet I was able to figure it out. So now I am enjoying the coin-op versions of "The Simpsons", "X-Men", the Capcom fighting games ("Street Fighter, Marvel-vs-Capcom) and my favourites, Bubble Bobble, Ghosts N Goblins and DonkeyKong!

So yes, I've been quite geeked over this. Hehehe. Thanks for reading!