Done and dusted. 4-0!

So, it’s another win for Juventus in another cup final. This is the fourth year running that a double has been made. League AND Cup… no easy task.

A stunning 4-0 thrashing of AC Milan in Rome confirmed that really, nobody can touch the ‘Bianconeri’… not only player-wise, but also for the organisation, and of course mentality.

Once you are at Juventus, the main objective, or ‘credo’ if you will, is to win.

Their mottos FINO ALLA FINE (Until the very end), and of course the famous ‘Alla Juve Vincere Non E’ Importante E’ L’Unica Cosa Che Conta.’ (At Juventus, winning is not important, it’s the only thing that counts.) explains everything.

This is stamped on every Juve shirt, on the back of the neck. Victory. At all cost!

So , one might ask… ‘Doesn’t it get boring winning year after year?’.

To which I reply… ‘It isn’t our fault if the other teams have no game plan, no long term ambition. Everybody wants to win now, and do it in style. It simply is not on. Football squads, much like any money making organisation, needs to have long term planning. Buying a cartload of players will not make any difference until these players gel and form a team… which is what it’s all about.’

A few months after a player joins Juventus, he is asked about the difference to other teams. Here are some replies.

Miralem Pjanic : ‘I never knew such a mentality and such an organisation even existed. At Roma this was unheard of.’

Douglas Costa : ‘We had motivation at Bayern Munich, but not even close to this. I feel reborn at this club’

Zinedine Zidane : ‘The training is brutal. An ex-marine leading the physicals? I used to throw up every day, due to exhaustion.’

Motivation. This should be our guideline in life. In our every endeavour. And with that, I will leave to take a couple of aspirin as I am still seriously hung-over from the celebrations. At 53, I shouldn’t go to bed at 2am.

#FINOALLAFINE

Retro Gaming CH1.

Everyone knows of my love for retro gaming.

It’s not only playing games which HAD to be really fine-tuned to atone for blocky graphics and bad (or sometimes no) sound… it’s about that nostalgia of being able to recall your dad coming home with a big box under his arm as you scream your head off..

So, for the past years I have been delving even more into such a revival, even writing software myself. In some competitions I have done well, finishing top ten, while in others, the fighting was perhaps a bit fiercer… Never have I been happier than when I recreated Killer Watt for the C64 on a modern computer with the EXACT levels, enemies, power-ups and movement. This got me into 48th place out of 5000 entries, and an honorable mention.

Lately it has been about re-creating a single machine to be able load the emulators I have gathered from all around. It is a hassle to think WHAT machine is to be used… At first (and even now) I was geared towards using a raspberry pi which is, indeed, such a versatile machine…

It has been also burning in my mind to use a windows motherboard… This MUST fit in a C64, or a TI-99/4a case… The C64 it is. I have been writing the front end for the emulator, which will run under windows, but I MUST find a motherboard which FITS in the 64…

Definitely no easy task.  A netbook and an old touch screen xp system have been tried, but they are both hopelessly underpowered… I HAVE to have access to all the packages outlined in the image. After coming up with the marquee (above), I set out to program the files for the package…not easy… some are closed systems which will make it impossible to hack, while others are totally customisable.

As can be imagined, the room I work in is a mess as I have to create so much electronics to manage a ‘marriage’ of old hardware (namely, keyboard!) to new usb systems…

I’ll have to take out my trusty arduino once again…

Sure, one can simply download a ready image for the PI, and buy ready made hardware… but where’s the fun in that?

But now… I am dead on my feet…

Live long and prosper.