Fixed a CSS bug - text-decoration does not cascade.

A new visitor of my site emailed me with some comments, which I appreciate.
I always try to improve my site, but it became too large (over 350 pages) to review every page manually.. and sometimes changes on one page have an effect on other pages.

The remark was that links were difficult to see in articles as they looked the same as the regular text.

That wasn't correct - I know that in my CSS I define links to be dark blue and underlined.
Checked it with different browsers, different versions, and yes the remark was correct; It seems there's a bug in Firefox and also in some IE versions, depending on compatibility mode.

For the layout of my website I use CSS (cascading style sheets). This is a file that is referenced from every page on my site, that describes how html elements that make up the website look like.
If I want to change the red, white and yellow/orange background on my site into other colors, this is one change I have to do in this file and it's immediately changed for all pages.
Style sheets are cascading - you can put html elements inside others and they will inherit all settings from their parent element unless it's overruled at a lower level.

Now it seems there's a bug with this inheritance/cascading for the text-decoration property of links.
I set text-decoration:none;  on links at high level in the page layout.
This is to prevent the language links, footer links and others to not show up in blue and underlined, like links look like by default. Also on the homepage all large titles are links, but they don't look that way - as I want them to look like large titles.

On a lower level in the html layout, there's a box that contains the actual text of the article (the yellow looking background, which is inside the large white box). There I overrule with text-decoration:underline on links. And that did not work.
Seems there's a bug and once you set text-decoration on a div, nested divs will keep this layout, even if you overrule it.

I fixed it by not setting the text-decoration:none at the highest level anymore. Luckily when I made the layout for this site I put enough containers around each part (language select, footer, topper, main content, menu linsk, ..) so I can set the properties for each div and span tag individually. With a few changes in the css (and none in the html pages of each article) it should look fine now.
Header/footer and main page do not show links as underlined, but within text of articles they should be dark blue and underlined.
The css file is cached on your browser, so if you have visited my site a few days ago you have to refresh once on a page with Ctrl-F5 to see the change.

Check your batteries !

Not the first time I blog about this, I have a warning on my site also to make sure people check for leaked batteries in their pinball machines and regulary replace them.. but still, even I get affected by them :-(

I know it's my own fault, should have listened to my own warnings; but every time I think I should check the batteries in all my games I just postpone it and then forget about it..

A week ago I switched on my Attack from Mars pinball machine and got the Factory settings restored warning message. Oops ?!

Opened the backbox, checked the remote battery holder, and saw that one of the batteries had leaked.
It had already happened a while ago, I just threw the whole battery holder away. They're cheap and I'm not bothering with cleaning it up and taking a risk the damage is still there.
The batteries were old, probably over 5 year.. same type as those in my CV that leaked last year. Can't remember when I bought and installed them.

Installed new batteries tonight (finally spent some time in the gameroom), made some adjustments (free play, 5 balls, ..)  and started to play. After winter I really have to shop this machine. One rollover switch doesn't work, one popbumper doesn't work, ..  not much fun to play anymore. Still need to install less powerful flippercoils (they're brutal now) and I also have new cabinet decals.
Played a few games, best result was just over 7,5 billion, just enough to put a GC score.

I should not have played but inspected all my machines to check their batteries.. but I didn't. Maybe next time I have some spare time in my gameroom. Or maybe not, they're all in remote battery holders.
Maybe I'll just wait until the next factory settings restored message;.

History of pinball in the USA

Just put a new article online - the history of american pinball manufacturers.
The large, known brands of pinball machines were in control of only a handful of people.
Holding companies or subdivisions went bankrupt, were taken over, ..

Spent two evenings desoldering corroded parts on the Black Hole Sys80 cpu.

Used sandpaper to get rid of the corrosion (forgot to take a before picture).
Finally used vinegar (it's an acid you need to neutralize the base fluid that has leaked out of the battery), scrubbed everything well, rinsed the pcb, ..

Now it's ready to solder in new parts and check all traces. The thick trace at the bottom left corner is broken where it connects to the bottom left pin of the ic above it (of the 2 the most right IC).

Update: soldered all the new parts in place. Found two broken traces, fixed with jumper wires.

Now tested the cpu. It's dead :-( Will have to review all connections and parts to check they're soldered well and there are no shorts anywhere..

Black Hole repair part 4

Found the problem with the locked on popbumpers - like I posted at the end of the previous post, the +5v is indeed missing at the boards.

Traced continuity back to the cpu board (A1J6 iirc) so the wiring or connectors are not the problem.
Investigated the trace on the board and found the problem, battery acid ate a small trace right at the bottom corner of ic Z3 (or Z2, don't remember, the right one of the two).

Soldered a small jumper cable over the trace but only got about 2,5 volts.. so decided not to hack the cpu further but first repair all the damage completely. I still have a battery damage repair kit from GPE that I bought years ago.
Double checked all components are present, marked them on the paper sheet, so I know what parts I have to desolder.
Then I'll clean up and check continuity on all traces.

Also found a new problem - the voltages on the power board are much too high :-(
5v was 8, 64v was almost 100, 40v was 68, 8v was 18, ..
Soldered the input on both transformers from the 220v to 240v tap, but that did not change anything.
So I will also rebuild the powerboard.