Well, this is kinda late news, but anyway, the 1980's arcade sensation, Pacman, celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2005.  Wow, has it been that long? It feels like only yesterday I was wasting my quarters in the local dark smokey arcade rooms at the local mall. While Pacman was among one of the machines there, I rarely played it, but still, the image of the Pacman screens still reverberate in the dark smokey arcade recesses of my memories. Notable later variations of Pacman were Ms. Pacman and Pacman 3D. You can play this classic at my Gaming Room. See the Main Menu on the left, click on Gaming, then head to the Classic Arcade section, i.e. MAIN MENU > GAMING > CLASSIC ARCADE.  Classic Arcade is under the separate Games Menu though.  Have fun eating Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde ... again!  For further anniversary news, please check out this article.

Lately, I have been playing around with OrCAD's electronic layout tools a little bit.  Currently  they are at version 10.0.  This is a far cry from version 1.26 that I used in electrical engineering school over a decade ago. The one I used  was strictly in Microsoft DOS.  If you are a professional, amateur, novice or hobbyist in electronic engineering and wish to try some CAE/CAD PCB schematic capture and layout (for personal or company evaluation), please download  the demo version and give it a test drive.   Features include PSpice simulation and Specctra router interfacing.  You will need at least a Pentium II and 64MB of memory addressing.  I believe version 10.0 needs at least Windows 2000 or XP, but I think it works in 98SE. The download for the evaluation version is about 174 MB or you can request a CD in the mail.  The demo is crippled only in size and limitations, but it should be enough to see its potential.  There is also documentation/manual for download. For more information, head to www.orcad.com.  Have fun and happy trace laying!   -Rob

Those who personally know me are aware that I am a Star Wars fanatic from the very beginning. I saw the premiere back in 1977 as a kid and instantly got hooked into this Sci-Fi genre.  I've got some of the action figures and listened to the vinyl LP John Williams soundtracks in the late 1970's, got some of the novels, comics, art books and plastic scale model kits in the 80's and have doodled a lot of Star Wars stuff on paper in junior high school, when I should have been paying attention to the teachers. Well, the Star Wars franchise finally ends, as far as movies are concerned, in May 2005.  Thus, "the circle is complete", to paraphrase Vader as he said to Obi-Wan in Episode IV (1977) before he beheads him, as Episode III binds the entire story together like the final link in a necklace, even though it is actually in the middle of the saga. That's a total of 6 movies spanning almost 30 years! Most people may not know that this is how George Lucas originally wanted it back when he started thinking how many Star Wars movies to make.  As time went by, the number of sequels determined went down to 4, then up to 9 and even up to 12.  The 9 sequels, or "Triple Trilogy" as it was famously known, was something that George actually did think about back when Episode V was released.  Unfortunately (for us fans), this never really did materialize.  So here we are with 6 movies, as was originally meant.  Can we ask for more?  Well, according to George back in 1999, this is most likely it.  He is tired, getting old, Episodes I and II didn't really do that great (only average) and he wants to make other kinds of movies. So, tis much better to round out and complete the circle of the Star Wars story than leave it hanging.  But will Episode III suck?  We will have to find out come May 19, 2005.  I have created an automated countdown to this date on my home page.  I will try to get the Episode III cinematic trailers up as soon as possible.  A small copy of the official theatrical poster for Revenge of the Sith can be found in my Gallery (see Main Menu) in the Drawings section (because it is a painting afterall). Any comments on this subject, please use the "Write Comment" system for this article.  Good luck and may the force be with you!   -- Rob