Thanks for visiting

 

                First off…thank you for visiting my website.  JINO0372 is one of many that I have created over the years.  They’ve all started with the same passion.  The passion to share my hobbies and interests with others who, like me, have similar hobbies and interest.  I hope you find this site resourceful, entertaining, informative, and worth your visit.

 

About...this site

 

                With that said…I always struggled writing these “about me” pages.  Maybe a good place to start is this website.  What is this website about?  This website is about virtual pinball, model railroading, and retro gaming.  I may ramble on about some other junk but that is the primary focus.  These are three passions of mine and they’ve been three passions since I was a kid.  The website will include videos as well as some blog posts.  I will also be creating a page or two dedicated to some of the resources and supplies I use.  Sometimes finding a good resource is all that you need.  There maybe some download links as well.  I am not 100% sure of all the content that will be available, but I believe in sharing knowledge. 

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Sharing knowledge is not about giving people something or getting something from them. That is only valid for information sharing. Sharing knowledge occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new capacities for action; it is about creating learning processes.

 – Peter Senge

 

About...me and virtual pinball and retro gaming

 

                My first experience with virtual pinball was Microsoft’s Pinball Arcade.  I purchased the game almost 20 years ago and I still have the same CD disc.  I loved this PC game.  It had my favorite table of all time…. Haunted House!  This pinball machine was extremely fun and challenging.  You see…. I grew up as a child of the 80’s.  I still have fond memories of the arcade at the end of my street.  My brother and I practically lived there.  We graciously gave them our allowance and any money earn from mowing lawns or shoveling snow.  One of the saddest days of my childhood was when that arcade caught fire.  The owners decided not to rebuild it and instead replaced our beloved arcade with a bar instead.  What a bunch of jerks!

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                Of course, they probably saw the writing on the wall and knew the end was near.  Around that time a new love was entering our lives.  This was the dawn of the home video game console.  For us, it started on one wonderful Christmas day when we got an Atari 2600.  We must of went through dozens of those Atari joysticks.  The graphics were poor and some of the games were lame, but I still enjoy playing those old Atari games.  We then moved on from Atari and got an NES and then a SNES and then a Genesis and then a PlayStation and then a…. OK…. you get the point.

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                Over the years…the game consoles we had stopped working or were sold.  I loved pinball so much that I tried buying some full-size machines.  I still own some.  They are great but take up a ton of space and now-a-days…to get a popular machine in good condition cost a lot of cash!  If only there was some way to play these old arcade and console games again.  I then remembered that old Pinball Arcade game I had.  The game was so old it wouldn’t install right on my Windows 10 PC, so I spun up a Windows XP virtual machine and soon I was playing Haunted House again.

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                It only took a few Google searches to learn about visual pinball, future pinball, and pinball FX.  I then watch videos of others building cabinets with TV’s in them.  Some were adding light effects and real DMD displays.  I soon set out to build my first virtual pinball machine.  This is the same machine I am using today.  I also play my favorite tables in desktop mode on my PC using LaunchBox. 

As for my console games…well I discovered this cool little single board computer called a Raspberry Pi.  It’s amazing what this cheap little PC can do.  Right now, I do more retro gaming through my PC via LaunchBox then with the Raspberry Pi, but every so often I flash my Pi with a new image from Arcade Punks.

 

About...me and model railroading

 

                When I was a kid and when I wasn’t playing video games, I was playing with my train layout.  The home where I grew up had a local track right behind it.  We often used these tracks as a shortcut to get anywhere we wanted to go to.  The tracks were still, somewhat, in use, serving some of the industries nearby.  Whenever the train would go by, I would wave at the conductor and they would always hammer on the air horns for us kids.

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                One year, for Christmas, my parents gave me a train set.  I was hooked.  The train set was a Bachmann HO scale DC train set.  I remember it had a diesel locomotive and a few cars.  I do not remember what type of diesel it was, but I do remember it was a Santa Fe model.  I, later on, added another train set to the mix and built my first layout.  It was an 4 X 8 layout.  It had a mountain.  A small pond.  A drive-in theater and several houses and buildings.  The track plan was a simple oval with two switches with a center siding.  Very basic but extremely fun.

I, like most teenagers, soon lost interest.  The pieces of that train layout were sold at the “flea market” for pennies on the dollar.  I then moved out and never really had the desire, or space, to create another layout.  That all changed a couple of years ago.  My mother-in-law and father-in-law gave my wife their collection of Department 56 Dickens’ structures.  My wife asked me to put together a simple Christmas display with them.  I suggested we buy an inexpensive train set to include with the display.  Well….this woke the sleeping giant!  What started out as a simple Christmas display grew into an 4 X 8 Christmas layout with snow, cobblestone streets, and a river.  I was once again hooked!