Inside the PS3 Slim

Well I was at Best Buy today looking for Compact Flash cards to use on the new Atari 800 laptop, and I figured while I was there might as well ask about the new PS3 Slim.

A PS3 Slim, on the rotating work bench disc of death.

Turns out they got 40 in last night so I decided to buy one. “Would you like a warranty?” they asked, unlike Circuit City would of. “No, I’m ripping it apart”. I love saying that – it’s not a lie, and it stops warranty upsells dead in their tracks.

Ran it for a little while – it’s very quiet, in dashboard mode you can hardly hear it running. During a game you can hear the Blu-Ray making random access motions (if you turn off the game sound) but still, a fair degree less noise than the PS3 “fat” and several chainsaws of decibels below the Xbox 360.

Of course the next thing to do was rip it apart. Check out the rest of the article for in-depth analysis.

(Note: I know this info has already been on the web, but I wanted to take one apart, naturally, and I felt I may as well share my opinions on the unit as I do)

Continue reading Inside the PS3 Slim

Washington Post interview RE Bill Paxton Pinball

Did an interview for their celebrity column, you can check it out below:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/celebritology/2009/08/going_full_tilt_for_bill_paxto.html

Definitely a nice change of pace from the usual interviews I do!

Fear not though – I am working on other,  non-Paxton pay projects, including a new Atari 800 laptop that I hope to make look even more retro than the recent C64 project. There’s other stuff too but I can’t talk about it yet.

Remember you can browse my work and that of the Benheck.com forum members by visiting our Showcase.

Hold Flipper for Status Update

A while back I decided to take some time off and now I’ve finally done it! I’ve spent most of the last few weeks working on a long-gestating “dream” project of mine, which is to build my own pinball machine from scratch. Since my time off is coming to a close, I thought I would my show progress from these last few weeks.

Shown above is the main cabinet that I built last week, as well as the illuminated backbox. As many of you know, the theme of the pinball machine is Bill Paxton – a fine American actor who has thrilled audiences with a variety of characters over the years.

Why Bill Paxton? Well it’s as good a theme as any – I guess I could have gone with a more obvious geek choice like Bruce Campbell but to be honest, Paxton’s more interesting and has made movies people have actually seen. In the end what this project is really about is building something very complicated from scratch, so the engineering is the real star.

I should make clear that this is a personal, non-commercial hobby project for myself, since it clearly contains artwork and sound from movies, it could never legally be resold. But considering how few projects I actually build and keep (this would be the 3rd, after the original VCSp and my Neo Geo Arcade) I deserve to make myself something cool every once in a while!

For some more pictures and info, click below. You can also see some making off stuff on my YouTube channel.

My current plan is to have this completed in time for demonstration at the 2010 Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, WI – let’s see how I do!

Continue reading Hold Flipper for Status Update

Taking on new work August 10th

Greeting from Wisconsin! Just letting everone know that my “break period” is almost over and I’ll resume what I normally do (projects by request) on August 10th.

I’ve made a lot of progress during this time on the Bill Paxton Pinball machine, you can follow my progress on that via my YouTube channel. Since I don’t usually show incomplete projects on this site, that’s the best way to keep up with the progress.