Tuesday's edition of The Australian newspaper has TOP 10 lists each week, where they ask readers to submit their suggestions. For next Tuesday's Australian, they asked readers to submit suggestions for the "Ways you can tell an IT worker is *NOT* up to the job". So, over a cup of coffee this morning, I started jotting down ideas, and before I knew it, I had 10 suggestions. So, as well as emailing them to The Australian, I thought that I'd share them here.

10 Ways you can tell an IT worker is *NOT* up to the job:

1. You ask them to burn a DVD and they literally set fire to it.

2. You send them to the shop to buy a dozen new mice and they come back with hamsters because they were cuter.

3. You ask them to clean up their cluttered screen and they reach for a can of Spray N Wipe.

4. Looking admiringly at their new computer, you ask them how much memory did they get, and they reply "I can remember back to when I was 3 years old !"

5. You ask them if the database they are meant to be working on is in 3rd Normal Form, and they reply "It should be, it was fine yesterday !"

6. You ask them how many bits in a byte, and they ask "Are we talking dogs or rats ?"

7. You ask them to backup the office computers, and they reverse their car up.

8. You ask them to virus scan the office computers, and next thing you know, they have latex gloves and a microscope.

9. You ask their opinion about which language would be the most suitable for developing the new accounting system, and they reply "English ... probably ... umm ..."

10. You ask them to point at something on screen with the mouse and they physically lift the mouse off the desk and hold it against the part of the screen you indicated.

Yes, I've actually seen someone do number 10. Sorry Mum, I let the cat out of the bag !! ;) Oh the humanity ... ;)

3-December-2007 :: Aussie National Bingo Night - Update

The 6 week National Bingo Night !! season finished on 25-Nov-2007, but my cheques are still slowly rolling in. Thank you Channel 7 !!

My hard work on the software I wrote to check Bingo cards ( see below) has paid off nicely, and it was a great fun little project.

Just hope there's a season 2 ...

3-December-2007 :: How EVIL Are You ??

Ever wonder about how evil or good your are ? Maybe the How evil are you? quiz will provide the answer.

Here's the results for my first try:


How evil are you?

19-November-2007 :: Email Address Issues (still, again, ...)

The redirection service I have used for my email for years (V3) is NOT working yet again and probably hasn't been for many months now, and the V3 admin staff have not repled to any of my emails or messages. Oh well ...

Anyway, until this problem is sorted out, please do NOT use my moose AT move.to email address.

I don't intend to recompile ALL of my software again just to update my email address on the "About ..." screen. (This is about 1-2 days of work to recompile, rebuild the ZIPs, update readme files, upload, release, etc).

However, I have gone through ALL of my web pages and updated my email address - so any Email me links are correct.

Please use this email address: Email me.

14-November-2007 :: Aussie National Bingo Night

A new craze is sweeping Australia - National Bingo Night !! At 6:30 PM every Sunday night on free-to-air TV, numbers are drawn for 3 games of Bingo, and people on the show and in the TV show's audience can win money and prizes.

People can also play along at home, because anyone can download FREE Bingo cards here: http://au.bingo.yahoo.com/national-bingo-night/print/

Even for players at home, the prizes can be generous - if 5 numbers come up in the shaded area of a game, then you win $100 and also go into the draw to win $10,000 !!

You can get the Bingo Numbers that came up (if you missed any, etc): http://nationalbingo.com.au/

Anyway, in Week 1, I downloaded a bunch of bingo cards, and shuffled these on screen and marked off numbers (I didn't print them because I didn't want to waste paper / trees). Shuffling and marking off 10 cards (30 games) on screen was a bit of work, but manageable and fun.

For Week 2 and 3, I wrote a program to help me generate a WORD document with 20 bingo cards (60 games) per side of an A3 page, and I played bingo this way for these weeks. But, marking off 40+ cards is hard work !! (But still fun for a while !)

For Week 4, I vastly extended my program to extract the data from the Bingo game card PDFs and automatically check the numbers against the cards - you simply key in the numbers that have been drawn for each game, select the shaded cells orientation for each game and click the "Check Cards" button and away my program goes.

Since then, I've been downloading heaps ... errr, I mean downloading my limit of 10 ... bingo cards each week, and then running my program against them to see if we have won. No more marking off games by hand, simply kick back, have a few glasses of wine, eat some cheese and biscuits, etc and take it easy.

So far, no luck winning any money .... But, I like a challenge, and once I get my teeth into something ...

Here is a screen shot - click on the screen shot for an expanded version. The user interface still needs polishing, but it processes lots of cards *very* quickly.

I've thought about polishing my program and releasing it as shareware, but I've already seen how this story ends ... See below. People will yet again just rip off my work - like they did with all of my shareware. 10,000+ hours of work down the toilet. Thanks bastards !!!

The TV program is due to end in 2 more weeks. If a new Bingo season starts (e.g. next year), then I may think again about trying to do something commercial-ish with my program ...

Definitely no trial versions, shareware versions, or honesty box system this time though - I know all about human nature now !

Keywords: Australia, National Bingo Night, bingo, TV, bingo card checking, bingo card checker, card checking, win, automatic, automated, software, program, windows,

14-November-2007 :: A Place In ... Series Episode Guide - v1.0

I've been thoroughly enjoying the "A Place In ..." series ever since it began on TV a few years ago. New episodes are being shown on ABC now, and old episodes are being repeated - which is great.

Recently, I've been scouring the net to try and put together an episode guide for all of the different parts, and I have succedded for all except "Chaos at the Chateau".

• A Place In Greece – Brian &Andrew, Pete & Lesley (15 episodes)

• A Place In France – Nigel, Nippi, and Reza (23 episodes)

• A Place In Italy - Paul & Rima (10 episodes)

• A Place In Slovakia - David & Ann (15 episodes)

• A Place In Slovakia - Chaos at the Chateau - David & Ann (7 episodes) *** TO BE DONE ***

• A Place In Spain - Dawn & Rocco (14 episodes)

• A Place In Spain - Lee & Cheryl (21 episodes)

You can download version 1.0 of my episode guide here: A_Place_In__Series_Episode_Guide__v1.0.pdf

19-October-2007 :: Student Results Merger v1.08

Upload a new version of Student Results Merger to my FREE Computer Programs (freeware) Page.

Student Results Merger is a program to help you handle / merge / process student and other results that are allocated some sort of unique ID.

This is a BUG FIX release !!! The changes for this release include:

• Warning: Do NOT use v1.07 – please upgrade to this latest version (v1.08).

• Fixed a bug that was inadvertently introduced in the prior version (v1.07) which caused some students to be given the wrong result.

• Anyone who processed any results with the prior version (v1.07, which was released 1 month ago) should reprocess them using this latest version (v1.08).

• I apologise for any inconvenience caused. Just glad I noticed this before the start of end of term results processing …

While the program was developed for the purpose of processing student results, it could also be used to process cycling race, horse race, swimming race, or keeping track of workers or volunteers, and/or various other results / details.

This program comes with full on-line help and a step-by-step user guide with screen shots.

19-October-2007 :: Geek Toys - USB Toy Rocket Launchers

Are the people at work annoying you ? Playing practicle jokes ? Bombarding you with wadded-up pieces of paper or paper aeroplanes ?

If your answer is YES to any of these questions, then maybe you need one of these amazing and very reasonably priced USB Toy Rocket Launchers:

• Finally, WMD (Weapons of Much Distraction) at an affordable price - USD$29.99

• Cubicle warfare just got an upgrade - USD$39.99

Or this fiendish device:

• Annoy-a-Tron - A devious hide and seek game - $9.99

Err, then again, maybe you just need to get a job with people who are responsible and mature ... ;)

18-Sep-2007 :: It's ALL Free Baby !!

ALL of my software (except for Overhead Cable Sag Calculator ) are now FREEWARE, that is, they are free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this software for free. Please download, distribute, and use it freely. No fees or payment is required.

ALL of the following 52 programs were SHAREWARE (which costed $5-$20 AUD - or approximately $2.50-$10 US - to register), and they are now totally free:

1. Backup Again (v1.0f)
2. Big Mouse Pointer (v1.4f)
3. Binary Clock (v1.1f)
4. Birthday and Event Reminder (v1.0f)
5. Check Sum Calculator (v4.2f)
6. Clean-Up Old Files (v2.1f)
7. Clipboard Tools (v1.1f)
8. CPU Monitor (v2.1f)
9. Directory Usage Monitor (v1.2f)
10. Disk Monitor (v3.6f)
11. File Mover / Copier (v1.1f)
12. File Patcher (v4.2f)
13. File Synchronizer (v1.2f)
14. File Tools (v3.1f)
15. File Usage Monitor (v1.5f)
16. Font Reviewer (v1.0f)
17. International Clock (v2.7f)
18. Keyboard and Mouse Button Odometer (v1.1f)
19. Keyboard Mapper (v1.0f)
20. Key Sound Generator (v1.4f)
21. Key Stroke Recorder (v1.01f)
22. Life Clock (v1.7f)
23. Lottery Number $elector (v2.1f)
24. Moose Pong (Game) (v1.4f)
25. Morse Code Explorer (v1.5f)
26. Mosaic Maker Extractor (v1.0f)
27. Mouse Odometer (v1.6f)
28. Nixie Clock (v1.2f)
29. Parrot Trainer (v1.8f)
30. Periodic Table of Elements (v2.2f)
31. Post Code Lookup (v1.1f)
32. Print and PDF Pictures (v1.0f)
33. Program Code Auditor (v2.0f)
34. Quiz Master (v1.2f)
35. RAM / Swap Monitor (v4.8f)
36. Real Estate Calculator (v1.1f)
37. Robot Simulator (v1.0f)
38. Sanitize Disk Space (v2.0f)
39. Screen Machine (v1.0f)
40. Solar System Simulator (v2.2f)
41. Sort It Out (v1.3f)
42. Stay On Top (v1.0f)
43. Stop Watch (v3.3f)
44. Storm Distance Calculator (v1.1f)
45. Talking Clock (v3.4f)
46. Text Buttons (v5.0f)
47. WEB Form Formatter (v2.1f)
48. Windows PC Benchmarker (v1.3f)
49. Windows Wallpaper Changer (v1.2f)
50. Words Worth - Crossword and Scrabble Companion (v1.4f)
51. Yahtzee (Game) (v1.3f)
52. Zip Password Cracker Pro (v1.2f)

HOWEVER: If you would like to support my efforts, and would like to send me a donation, then please feel free to do so by clicking on the "PayPal Donate" icon on the Help ? About screen.

(But I'm not holding my breath .... The reason why all of my hard work is now freeware is that the vast majority of people will not pay even a few lousy dollars for something that they can get for free. It is the crackers' fault, because they provide the tools that enable people to do this. And, it seems that the only way to beat the crackers is to give everything away for free.)

Please Note: Before making the decision to just give everything away for FREE, I had actively explored other options for more than several years. For example:

• Over 3 years ago, I contacted the Australian Red Cross and Green Peace to see if they would like me to change ALL of my software - FOR FREE - to have their logos and links on the About screen (instead of my logo and links), so that when users clicked these logos or links they could be taken to these organisation's WEB pages so they could read about these organisations or make donations to these organisations. So, in effect my software would have become freeware to help advertise the Australian Red Cross and/or Green Peace and they could have distributed it and used it to spread the word about their organisations. Sadly, neither bothered to reply to my emails.

• Over 2 years ago, I also contacted MAME Dev and had some long email discussions. Again, I was offering to recompile all of my software FOR FREE, place MAME's logos and links on the About screen (instead of my logo and links), so that the software would become freeware that could be distributed to spread the word about MAME. And, when users clicked the MAME logos or links on the About screen, then they would be taken to MAME's web page, where they could read about MAME or make donations to support MAME. However, MAME Dev didn't seem to like the idea much at all. I have often wondered about this ....

So, maybe it was a stupid idea ? Maybe I'm just naive ?

Anyway, who cares, it is too late now. My software is now FREE. Enjoy !

18-Sep-2007 :: Student Results Merger v1.07

Upload a new version of Student Results Merger to my FREE Computer Programs (freeware) Page.

Student Results Merger is a program to help you handle / merge / process student and other results that are allocated some sort of unique ID.

The changes for this release include:

• Add in support for processing multiple result lines exist for a particular student. If multiple result lines exist for a particular student, then you can select whether to treat this as an error, or get the program to select the highest result via the "When Multiple Result Lines Exist for a Student" options. This is very useful to, for example, process quiz results where students can have multiple attempts at the quiz and it is their highest score that counts as their final result.

• Add support for handling the results for multiple markers at once. This involved a simple change to the way the program deals with data. The program now removes all lines from the ID+Result list where the result is blank before doing any processing. This means that you can now paste in the results from multiple markers at once and the program will handle them correctly. This should save people a lot of pre-sorting or post-merging (via multiple columns in a spreadsheet) when multiple markers are involved. If multiple markers mark the same assignment, then it will either be flagged as an error, or the highest result will be selected, depending on the settings you have chosen for "When Multiple Result Lines Exist for a Student" options.

• Remove the "On the Error Report, show either All Information, Warning and Error Messages or Error Messages Only" option – the report shown after processing contains multiple tabs – one for Information Messages / Processing summary, one for Warning messages, and one for Error messages.

While the program was developed for the purpose of processing student results, it could also be used to process cycling race, horse race, swimming race, or keeping track of workers or volunteers, and/or various other results / details.

This program comes with full on-line help and a step-by-step user guide with screen shots.

13-July-2007 :: Global Warming - Update

Please note: Even if it turns out that humans are NOT causing significant global warming, then I believe we must continue to learn to live more efficiently and conserve resources, like water and energy, continue to repair and recycle more, and also prepare for living in times of warmer and colder weather. Our climate is always changing, and something far worse than warming could occur in the future - cooling.

In addition, if it turns out that humans are NOT causing significant global warming, then:

• This does NOT mean that we can go on using energy, using resources, producing pollution, or continuing to increase populations like we currently are.

• Nor does this mean that we should delay the transition to clean, renewable forms of energy, such as geothermal, solar, wind, hydro, and tidal.

• And finally, this does NOT mean that we should accept the continuing or increasing use of energy from dirty or dangerous, non-renewable forms of energy, such as coal, gas, oil, or uranium (nuclear fission).

Just because I believe that the "Anti-Human Caused Climate Change" camp have some very good arguments, it does not mean that I am suddenly a coal burning environmental anarchist in the pay of the oil companies.

Just wanted to make this clear. :)

13-July-2007 :: Global Warming - Update Following Last Night's ABC Program

Last night, The Great Global Warming Swindle was aired for the first time (on free-to-air TV anyway) here in Australia along with an extended panel discussion on ABC's WEB Site.

Tony Jones, the presenter of the ABC program that included this documentary, interviewed Martin Durkin (the writer and director of the The Great Global Warming Swindle). Actually, "interviewed" is probably too nice of a word, Tony Jones actually turned-up the heat on Durkin, so much so that some people might prefer to call it a very well researched attack. The main thrust of Tony Jones' / ABC's attack on the documentary included:

1. At least one of the people interviewed for the documentary were, in the past, also involved in claiming that "smoking is harmless", CFCs do not harm the ozone layer, etc. This was a fair comment and I call such people "scientific whores", because they sell their opinion to whoever will pay them. However, in my opinion, such people aren't that much worse than those who beat their chests and put forward arguments in order to get research funding, or sell their books / DVDs / TV programs.

2. One of the people interviewed for the original documentary, Professor Carl Wunsch, claimed he was misled and mis-quoted, and has since been edited out of the latest versions of the documentary.

3. At least two of the graphs used in the documentary are old versions of graphs from 1990 or thereabouts, so they do not show the latest trends or highlight recent discoveries / issues.

4. One of the graphs had been "doctored" in the first version of the documentary, but was fixed for the version we saw last night.

All of these are very fair comments and criticisms, and I certainly believe that probing questions, like these, should be asked and that people should maintain healthy levels of skepticism. So, I applaud Tony Jones probing interview.

However, it is a shame that Tony Jones and the ABC do not subject other items, such as "Pro-Human Caused Climate Change" documentaries, news items, reports, Al Gore, or the IPCC reports, to the same levels of scruitiny. The scruitiny certainly does appear to be shamefully one-sided at the ABC, at least in this case.

Before, during, and following the program, viewers were invited to post their thoughts on ABC forums. And a lively discussion ensued, which was great to see, as viewers and members of the panel continued the discussions. Unfortunately, ABC's servers (or server admins) weren't up to the job, and everything soon crawled to a halt as it became overloaded, making it nigh on impossible to join in any discussion, especially on dial-up internet. Oh well ... Today, I've been reading some of the ABC forum posts, and, from what I have seen so far, they seem to indicate healthy levels of discussion and debate on both sides.

It is also a shame that other pressing issues, such as Peak Oil and the world's Exponential Population Increase (where the poorest people on the planet are continuing to "breed like flies" without being able to support themselves or their families) are not receiving the same levels of coverage, scruitiny, debate, or action.

12-July-2007 :: Global Warming - Is It REALLY Caused by Human's or Human Activity ???

I have seen many documentaries and TV news reports on Climate Change and Global Warming, and have read many 1,000's of articles, reports, documents, and WEB sites on these topics over the past 17+ years. (Yes, that's correct, my interest and research into these topics began in the late 1980's, and today the "Renewable Energy and Environment" directories on my harddrive currently consist of 4,541 articles and reports requiring 2.05 GB of disk space. Please Note: this does NOT include any videos, such as those listed below).

Anyway, back in June-2004 I stumbled across a WEB site called Still Waiting for the Greenhouse. At the time, I remember that this web site initially made my blood boil. I could not fathom why someone would try and deny that climate change was happening. Surely, they are either an idiot or they must be being paid-off by some oil or coal company. After all, I had read so much material (literally 1,000's of articles, journal papers, reports, etc) and seen so much news footage, environmental programs, etc that said Humans are causing Global Warming, that I thought that this must be a fact.

However, rather than get angry or upset, I decided to check out the claims being made and determine the truth for myself.

Since then, I have read many 100's more reports and articles from those that claim Global Warming is NOT caused by Human's or Human Activity.

As well as reading these, I have also watched the following videos (all at least 3 times each over the past few months):

1. +2050 Future Storm - Discovery Science
2. +Al Gore - The Climate Crisis - 2006
3. +An Inconvenient Truth - An Update from Al Gore - 2007
4. +An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore - 2006
5. +Can We Save Planet Earth - David Attenborough - BBC - 2006
6. +Climate Change - Bush's Climate of Fear - Panorama, BBC - 2006
7. +Climate of Hope - 2007
8. +Countdown to Armageddon - History Channel - 1998
9. +Environmental Revolution - Our World, CBC News - 2007
10. +Global Dimming - Horizon, BBC - 2005
11. +Global Warming - The Signs and the Science - Alanis Morissette - PBS - 2006
12. +Global Warming - What You Need To Know, with Tom Brokaw - Discovery Channel - 2006
13. +Nature's Nightmares - The Day The Oceans Boiled - National Geographic - 2001
14. +The Denial Machine - The Fifth Estate, CBC News - 2006
15. +The End Of The World As We Know It - Channel 4 (UK) - 2005
16. +The Truth About Global Warming - PassionateEye, CBC - 2006
17. +Too Hot Not To Handle - HBO - 2006
18. -An Inconvenient Truth ... or Convenient Fiction
19. -Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off - CBC - Nov-2005
20. -Global Warming - The Debate Continues - Fox News - 2006
21. -Greenhouse Conspiracy - Channel 4 (UK) - 1990
22. -The Great Global Warming Swindle - Mar-2007

All videos that start with a plus sign "+" above are "Pro-Human Caused Climate Change", and all videos that start with a minus sign "-" are "Anti-Human Caused Climate Change".

One of the program above - The Denial Machine (item 14 in the list) - is particularly interesting because one of the "scientific whores", who claimed that there were no known ill effects from smoking in the 1970's, is being wheeled out again to claim that Climate Change is NOT caused by humans. This severely dents the credibility of at least one person in the Anti-Human Caused Climate Change camp.

As you can see, in spite of extensive searching, the "Pro-Human Caused Climate Change" videos vastly outnumber the "Anti-Human Caused Climate Change" videos (by more than 4:1 in my collection), as the topic does for all types of media whether it be documentaries, TV news reports, written reports, newspaper articles, etc. We are simply flooded with the message that humans are causing global warming and that we may all soon be doomed to live in a world with extreme drought, extreme storms, etc.

After watching all of these videos several times and doing enormous amounts of background reading on these topics, here is the general gist of where things stand:

• Nobody is denying that Climate Change is occurring. Everyone agrees that Climate Change is happening and the climate is currently in a warming phase. However, the climate is always changing and has done ever since Earth developed an atmosphere.

• In addition, some people are saying that the Pro-Human Caused Climate Change camp have made some terrible mistakes in their interpretations of the various data, that current climate trends are nothing unusual, and that humans and human activity probably have negligible effect on our climate.

Furthermore, the "Anti-Human Caused Climate Change" camp do have some extremely strong and rational arguments that the "Pro-Human Caused Climate Change" camp simply have not been able to refute. Indeed, the "Pro-Human Caused Climate Change" camp seem to be more interested in hysterical and irrational arguments than in truly analysing or exploring the science.

As a result of my extensive research, I am now leaning towards the "Anti-Human Caused Climate Change" camp. That is, I am tending towards believing that humans and human activity have negligible impact on the climate. However, I am, as always, keeping a skeptical and open mind.

In addition, I think that before we rush out and spend BILLIONS of dollars of tax payers money on curbing CO2 emissions, we had better make darn sure that the data has been correctly interpreted and that the appropriate course(s) of action are being pursued and for the right reasons !!

After all, there is NO POINT AT ALL in spending money on a perceived solution that has nothing to do with a perceived problem.

Anyway, the reason why I mention all of this now is that one of the documentaries above, The Great Global Warming Swindle (item 22 on the list), is going to be aired for the first time here in Australia tonight (at 8:00 PM on ABC TV - in just 3 hours time), and it is bound to stir up a hornest nest. I wonder how many people will do anything like the volume of research I have done before they jump to any conclusions ? I wonder how many people will do anything like the volume of research I have done before they attack someone for their beliefs or put forward hysterical and irrational or unfounded arguments ?

Anyway, I'll probably hop on ABC's forums after the show tonight and see how people have reacted ... and maybe I'll stir things up a bit there as well ... ;)

12-July-2007 :: The Simpson's - Create Your Own Avitar

Here's a cute little WEB site to enable you to create your own Simpson's avitar.

And, err, yep, that's me on the left, complete with a T-Shirt that has a picture of Santa's Little Helper with antlers - which is about as close as you can get to a Moose in the Simpson's universe. :)

Build your own Simpson's avitar here:

• http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/main.html

3-Apr-2007 :: Renewable Energy Page - Back On-Line

I don't know how it happened, but somehow my Renewable Energy page went missing. Never mind, it is back on-line now. :) Special thanks to Kalmar on the Yak Yak forums for letting me know !! :)

On a related "maintenance" note, I notice that my web page counters (at the bottom) are no longer working (again). Seems the web site I was linking to for free counter services is gone. I'll fix this in the near future as well.

2-Apr-2007 :: Greetings to the Guys at Yak Yak

There have been a real lack of updates in Moose's Valley recently - sorry, I've been exceedingly busy lately ...

However, for a change, I was bored at work on Friday and scratching around for distractions (as you do ;), so I was hunting around on my hard-drive trying to see where all my space had gone (as you do ;), and pretty soon I found and started watching some old videos of the scoring bugs in Computer Space (as you do - NOT ;), and then decided "What the hell, I'll do a quick search on "Computer Space Simulator" in Google and see what pops-up".

Anyway, there weren't many hits !! ;) and pretty soon I found this thread on the Yak Yak forums

• http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?t=52577

where people have said some kind things about my Computer Space Simulator software, and some old timers even remember visiting my humble web site way back when Emulation News sites weren't "dime a dozen" - which was very nice to hear !! Thanks guys - you really made my day !! :)

2-Apr-2007 :: UFO Master Blaster Simulator

Seeing that I mentioned this on the Yak Yak forums earlier today, I thought that I should probably mention it here as well ... ;)

I've got lots of projects "on the go" at the moment (err, hang on, some things never change ... ;), but one that has been on the backburner for ages (i.e. decades), and now getting more of my attention is a "UFO Master Blaster" simulator.

I purchased one of these great little hand held games out of my hard earned pocket money way back in the late 1970's (in my early teens), and still have it, and it still works !! (That's actually a scan of my game's box that you see here).

Since the the early 1980's, I have often thought of developing a simulator for this game. However, it is only after the late 1980's that the average home computer was powerful enough and had nice enough graphics and sound that they could do the game justice.

So, decades later, the time is definitely well over due for me to do a simulator of this game.

There are still lots of issues to iron out before I can make much progress, such as fixing my game's fire button (I can't solder to save myself), finding the best way to record decent quality sound samples, scanning and reproducing the graphics (there is no pause button - need to use the flat battery trick that I still remember from 25+ years ago), etc. And, then I have weeks of analysis, programming, etc work to do - to make my simulator as close as possible to the real game. There are mountains of work in this - just look at the development log at the end of the manual for my Computer Space Simulator to see for yourself, and I wont have Kevin's help this time. Gaaawwwddd !! ;)

So, if anyone knows of any other project to emulate or simulate "UFO Master Blaster", then please Email me and let me know asap, because this information could save me weeks of wasted work, and I might instead be able to concentrate on helping someone else's project along.

You can read more about "UFO Master Blaster" here:

• Handheld Museum - "UFO Master Blaster"
• Handheld Museum - Game Manuals
• Google search on "UFO Master Blaster"

And, on related news, if all goes well, I'll also be releasing an update to my Computer Space Simulator within a few months or so which supports the scoring bugs, etc. You read it here second - that's right, Yak Yak found out first !! ;)