TEAM HILLBILLY ROLLERS
PART 0.3 - PROLOGUE
Earlier parts
20th of March 2023
The Sanju had been undergoing some rather interesting modifications the last days. Mostly, related to the camper interior Janne was fabricating for it.
“Isn’t that only random junk you threw in from the dump?”, Andreas asked.
“Yes”, Janne said.
“Is it even secured properly?”, he continued.
“Barely. With careful driving it should hold up…I guess.”
“And the ceiling fan? WHY?”, Andreas said with a sigh.
“What if it gets hot?”, Janne said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Great. We’re all going to be decapitated.”, Andreas said. “Not that it would matter with Marie anyway, at least not regarding IQ.”
“True.”
“And…oh no…The fucking CRT TV. WHY? Don’t you remember last year? There wasn’t even any radio broadcasting. Do you really think they have TV broadcasting then?”
“Do you remember this one?”, Janne asked Andreas, pointing at a videogame console under the TV set.
“Yeah…You and my brother always used to play that in the 90s. I remember thinking it was ancient already by then. That you should have gotten a Super NES like everyone else.”
“We didn’t have this cartridge”, Janne said, and held up a cartridge marked with “PROTOTYPE CART TOP SECRET” written on a piece of masking tape.
“What the….where did you get that?”
“Oh…in a box full of electrical junk I once bought”, Janne said. “The Salem 3700 was nothing but an Atari 2600 clone, made by Sanju’s consumer electronics division. At least they said so. I could not keep myself from doing a ROM dump here, and disassembling the source code, there is no way this cartridge would have worked on a 2600.”
“Like I understand anything of that? Why wouldn’t it work?”, Andreas asked.
“Simple. The 3700 has a hidden expansion port. It was never used for anything, at least that’s common knowledge. However, this cartridge is made for a system expansion, that ALSO happened to be in that box. But it will start without one. As long as you connect this cable, also in the box…”
In one of the joystick ports, he connected the cable. Then he popped up the hood of the rugger, and connected the other end to a connector at the ECU for the electronic ignition.
“Start up the TV now, and then the console”, he told Andreas.
The TV screen flashed red three times, then this text passed by
“IP DIAGNOSIS….VERSION 0.8 BETA….NOT INTENDED FOR SELLING….COPYRIGHT 1988 SALEM….MADE IN ARIYA”
“So, they had an idea to use the console for a diagnosis program?”, Andreas asked a bit confused.
“One can think so. Press the joystick button.”
When Andreas pressed the button, the screen flashed green, infinitely.
“That means OK, now watch me to disconnect this temp sensor from the electronic carb, and press the joystick button…”
The screen flashed red five times. “Yup, this means “temp sensor, circuit broken”, Janne said.
“This is actually pretty cool. Are we going to use it for troubleshooting on the Rugger?”, Andreas asked.
“Maybe. But before leaving, I will briefly connect the expansion module, and that…will turn the console into something else.”