f-log

It is done. I have completed Super Metroid. Finally.

Completion screen reported 91% in 11hrs 49mins, which feels a bit short for the time I put into it and misses out the 4-5hrs I lost by deleting my save.

I did cheat. By Googling hints for certain bits and watching a occasional YouTube video. But the vast majority of items I did find by myself and for at least a few of the bosses, I discovered the weak spots.

There are things in Super Metroid that are not straight forward or intuitive. For instance, after defeating the end game boss there is a timed escape through a completely new and unexplored level. It is literally designed to defeat you.

By the time I got to the end of game I had had enough and was more than happy to take a little advise. Even then, I managed to die in the final fight multiple times and I had all the energy tanks and most of the reserve tanks. Where the YouTube guides had a just 4-5 tanks and not all the items I had.

Talking of cheating, I made heavy use of the RetroPie save state to redo tricky jumps. The evil giant Xbox controller made a lot of the Wall, Space and Spark jumps much harder than they needed to be.

Bottom line, very good game, recommended, but I never want to see it again ;)

TL;DR I am lazy and have a long Xbox cable

I was not going to post this until I had some more to show for the Pi model "conveyor belt" animation, but if I did that we might be here till next year.

Someone (who shall remain spoons) reminded me a while back that I really wanted to get a Raspberry Pi setup with RetroPie to play old games. So I got a new Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (not the old and busted Pi 3 B) and set up RetroPie.

the one thing RetroPie really requires is a compatible controller with at least the number of buttons as the game system that you want to play.

Back in the 2001 (pre flog) I used my redundancy money to buy an Xbox. Then in 2004 I got my hands on Steel Battalion: Line of Contact the successor to Steel Battalion. Which was famous for the HUGE custom controller.

It is difficult to explain just how big this controller is(mine is packed away at the mo). It comes with three main pieces and foot pedals. The supplied desk clamp is required to keep it all in one place. I could go on and on about this game but instead...

A long ... time ago I saw a Xbox->USB adaptor and I thought, if only I could get that massive controller working on my Linux machine ... then forgot about it for even longer.

Someone got the controller working for StarCitizen Steel Battalion Controller Trial 1 and other have it working for other games.

But, somewhere in between 2008-2011 I disassembled my Xbox, not sure why. Then I cleared up and forgot about it. Inserted a game disk and grrr* *CRUNCH*. You see, I had forgot to screw everything back and all the loose components just ate each other up and the Lego Star Wars disk I was trying to load.

the only things to survive was the controllers. Ah, finally getting to the relevant bit.

Used the Xbox->USB adaptor with the original super sized(perfect for my big hands) Xbox controller and RetroPie configured it without issue and works great with all the games I have tried so far.


You see all that cabling? That is 4.2 meters long! The Xbox original cabling was 2.8 and the adaptor(which is just a cable) adds another 1.2m !

I found Super Metroid and have been using every spare minute to complete it. But then I hit the wrong button and overwrote my save, so I have to start all over again! Yes, it really is that good that I am going to play it from scratch all over again.

Some idiot hit my car at speed as I was leaving a round-about and then sped off!



I was pretty lucky. Another inch and they would have shredded the front of my car, another foot and I would have been spun into traffic and the car would be a write-off.

The damage in that photo looks pretty tame, but there are all sorts of minor dents that have caused panels to "pop". Not to mention a large crack in the head light.

As the other car drove off at speed (I reckon they were travelling at 40mph when they collided) I saw nothing except it was a black, old style BMW, no number plate.

Spent even more time cleaning my Pi model. Naming, tweaking and replacing bits the replacing all the lamps with emitters.

Then played with building the Blueprint requirements with Freestyle and compositing in GIMP

While I was waiting for all the bits in my spoof Raspberry Pi video to render, I had a look at another of my Christmas presents, the PiBow Zero case or is it the PiBow Zero W case.

It never occurred to me that the cases might be different for the Pi Zero vs the Pi Zero W. They look and feel identical!

But not quite. Here is the Pibow Zero W case trying to hold a standard v1.3 Pi Zero



It does not fit and that was after Googling the placement of each panel, the shim goes under the Pi.

When you insert a Pi Zero W it fits nicely.


but there is a clear and confusing gap with the non Wifi, Pi Zero v1.3


The issue only becomes clear from the top.

Fitting neatly, Pi Zero W


There is the problem, one component is rotated at 90 degrees, right where the case contour goes, just by the power connector.


Looking at the two Pis it is easy to miss.


But the bottoms are clearly different, though that does not affect case fitting or not.


To be fair, the Pimoroni pages do make it clear which case fits which Pi and they are colour coded.
PiBow Zero
PiBow Zero W

Which would have been fine if I had been the one doing the shopping.