Well, last night was just... interesting. I guess this really starts yesterday afternoon at lunch. Since the first of the year, I've been on a diet of sorts, trying to get my body back to something that resembles human form. To that end, I've lost 21lbs. since January 4th. Well, yesterday at lunch, I had a 4" Garlic Roastbeef Melt and a cup of chili at Beef O'Brady's sports pub, say around 12:30ish. I left work around 5:45 to go home. Sometime in the neighborhood of 6:30, I make myself a turkey sandwich, which my youngest daughter promptly charms away from me. Had I know her sisters had not fed her yet, I would have made one for her anyway. At any rate, I fail to make myself anything else and go get changed, getting ready for the inevitable "daddy, can we play ball?" I knew I would get.
Somewhere around 7:00, it happened, and we go outside to pass softball (this is my 7 year olds first year). Then my 16 year old comes out and decides to join the fray. So, we alternate with my 16 y.o. throwing wild pop flies to me running me all over the front yard. This goes on until 8:10ish when it is too dark to see the fluorescent yellow ball. So, I go in and start working on the repack (bet you were wondering what all this had to do with the blog, eh?).
I was feeling tired and drained (figured the blood sugar was a little low), but, decided to mount the LCD to the Model III case. Drilled the holes for the nylon binding posts I'm using, no problem. Hot-glued them in place, no problem. Time to trim them down so the LCD will fit flush to the side if the case. This is where the problem occurs. There are times in life the saying "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" becomes VERY appropriate. This is one of those times.
My oldest daughter had just come into Evil Lab East (Cris has Evil Lab Central, I suppose) to tell me she was back with some lasagna. I was feeling rather funky at this point, not having eaten anything in 8 hours or so and having just ran around our yard for an hour, but, I figured I'd just trim those pesky binding posts, then go eat. Well, the right hand was holding the exacto knife, left hand was holding the case, and my mind was thinking "I'd better signal the left hand to move bef.. #@!$^$#%$ * Yeah... I cut the everliving crap out of my left thumb.
So, in the spirit hygiene, I go to rinse my thumb out, and call my daughter because I feel a lot funkier than I had been. Ears start ringing, taking deep breathes... aaand that wave passes. My oldest is getting the first aid kit, I am trying to tell my middle to get into the Easter candy so I can get some sugar in my system before I pass out... too late... ringing in the ears is back, BP drops, and I become a vacuum cleaner speed bump (alright a BIG speed bump).
A minute or so later (that's how long they tell me I was out), I begin opening my eyes. I am looking at a yellow Reese's peanut butter egg wrapper just under my nose on the floor next to where my carcass had fallen. My oldest is rubbing my head and talking to me and my middle child is messing with my cut thumb. The oldest opens the egg and I slowly begin to chew on it as the middle (who almost became a UFO at this point) was applying ANTISEPTIC GEL directly to the wound, UNDER the cut skin flap. To say this sobered me up quickly would be as big an understatement as saying Hilliary lies occasionally...
The important lesson here is this: before beginning work on you prized repack, EAT SOME DAMN FOOD!!! And to make matters worse, I DO posses a hot knife, which had I used it, none of this would have happened...
Hope to have some better updates later in the week....
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Here's my latest test - FlightsimII running. The Monitor is just sitting on Model III case right now. I intend to use a switch similar to the original Model III and get rid of the toggle that is shown dangling out from under the LCD. I will be soldering a power cable to the AC input of the ATX for the LCD (it's power supply is internal).
I am now using the Model IV keyboard. After many painstaking hours of working out the key matrix difference between the CoCo3 and the Model IV, I started to cut traces, soldered jumper wires, got out the chicken bones and Holy Water and drew a couple pentagrams for good measure, only to find it still didn't work real well. After much looking at traces and jumpers, I began to look at the header for the keyboard cable. It seems that in the real world, the 20 pin connector I used for the keyboard cable has the odd and even rows reversed. After flipping all 10 pairs of ribbon wires, Frankenstein's monster lives (well, at least Brian's does...)
