TL;DR: Enjoyed a 4-day weekend and completely forgot about weeknotes, spent way too much time troubleshooting a Tempest arcade machine that's been broken for 6 years (might actually be making progress?), dealt with the sad news that our favorite Portland bar closed, got Cosmo back from the vet looking very spaced out, started planning a Catsby tattoo, and collected yet another pile of bookmarks about AI coding agents while the cats increasingly tolerate each other.

Meta

Had a nice 4-day weekend, last week. So, I totally forgot about weeknotes. That's fine, I can double up this week. Still trying to keep these semi-regular posts going while I eventually hope to write some more interesting standalone posts. Until then...

Tempest Repairs

Ope, so I realized it's been 6 years since I last tried troubleshooting this Tempest machine. Six years. That's... honestly embarrassing?

The thing is, I thought I'd have to go bit by bit through the PCB and schematic to diagnose it. And I only sorta know what I'm doing. But this time something weird happened: I took the PCB out, jiggled things around, hooked up the oscilloscope, and suddenly something works?

It definitely wasn't doing this before, according to my notes from my last go round with this thing. I suspect there's a bad PCB trace or IC socket somewhere - which will be a pain to track down, but seems less dire than I'd previously expected.

Next challenge will be the monitor. Through testing via instructions in the WG6100 FAQ, I figured out one of the big frame transistors is bad. Good news is: I know how to replace that part. Hopefully that fixes the monitor, though I'm going to poke at some other components to see if there's not a further underlying cause. Nice thing is that I've fixed this monitor before by replacing half the parts, so I'm mildly optimistic I can do that again worst case.

Then of course I found another problem: one of the potentiometers broke right off the PCB. Which, you know, they do that sometimes if you're not very careful. I thought I had a spare, but I do not.

Rather than just fix this one pot, I think I'll order a whole new set of sealed flat pots and install them with these 3d-printed adapter plates I just saw on the KLOV forums.

Meanwhile, this is me waiting for my Digikey order for those parts:

Cat Update

Cosmo went to the vets today for a checkup and some chest xrays to see if he has asthma. He got some sedation and just stared into space for 20 minutes. Later that evening, he had a nice time hanging out with Miss Biscuits:

I also got a response from my wife's tattoo artist from a few years ago. Looks like I might find a spot on her books in the next few months. Time to start digging through Catsby photos, which is happy / sad.

This is the kind of vibe I'll be aiming for - Catsby was a big fan of hanging out in that window with the plants. Also bonus photo from about 7 years ago when Cosmo was little:

Closing Time

Damn it: I think Expatriate, our most favorite bar in Portland, has closed.

Actually really sad about this, since it was one of the few places we'd found in good walking distance with a vibe that managed to get us out of the house on a regular basis. There are probably other places, but expeditions are hard.

We weren't on first-name basis with all the folks who worked there, but I wish I could like follow wherever they all go next like members of a band after it breaks up. And I do really hope they all end up somewhere good. Never had a bad experience there, just all lovely folks.

Miscellanea