Thursday, January 28, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Enemy In Range!
After a lengthy repair job, I have fixed Battlezone and put it in the arcade. The game is in excellent original condition and plays great! The game had sat unused in a warehouse for many years and required quite a number of repairs including a complete rebuild of the power brick as well as a total restoration of the vector monitor chassis. Battlezone is the first game to be put in Tranquility Base Arcade in almost fivers years! Fortunately, due to the game being the cabaret version, room was not a problem.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Tough & Competent
As admired as Neil Armstrong became for his initial walk on the moon there are countless less heralded individuals worthy of the same praise. Gene Kranz is certainly one of those individuals. Gene is well known as the NASA Flight Director for the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission and led the team who ultimately saved the crew. A little less well known is that he was also responsible for being the flight director on all of the 'odd numbered' Apollo missions. Gene directed the Apollo 11 moon landing which puts him in a very special place at Tranquility Base Arcade. As a fellow engineer Gene's dictum known as “The Kranz Dictum” rings true with me on a daily basis - 'Tough & Competent'. It is a great honor to have Gene autograph my personal 'Tough & Competent' document, which will be very proudly displayed in the arcade.