oh ya... after a zillion errors and a bunch of drivers and a look at the bios... finally located the right software to turn it on.
the altec subwoofer system sounds a bit muddy, but it booms nice... i can tweak the eq a little so it'll be great for the arcade cab, but wouldnt want it as the desktop speakers everyday.
nice booming bass.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
I have
Mame, virtual pinball, a 21" monitor, ... but no sound
winamp sez the system is missing a driver :(
quite possible. I haven't had any speakers plugged in til now, so quite possible it was never making any sound. Not easy to locate .. the system uses integrated Realtek audio on the MB.
I had to mount the extra USB ports into one of the front panel drive covers, but looks like the USB is working ok. It loads/runs a mouse and the external drive ok. It should handle the control panel inputs without any problem.
making progress. I guess I'm at the point of integration testing. Had to update the driver for the sony monitor.. its a little washed out, and tried messing with it, so it looks a little better now, but still kinda funky.
winamp sez the system is missing a driver :(
quite possible. I haven't had any speakers plugged in til now, so quite possible it was never making any sound. Not easy to locate .. the system uses integrated Realtek audio on the MB.
I had to mount the extra USB ports into one of the front panel drive covers, but looks like the USB is working ok. It loads/runs a mouse and the external drive ok. It should handle the control panel inputs without any problem.
making progress. I guess I'm at the point of integration testing. Had to update the driver for the sony monitor.. its a little washed out, and tried messing with it, so it looks a little better now, but still kinda funky.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
forrest gump
just an fyi and ps ... see that link up there at the top ^^ ... the one that sez .. "Next Blog" ...
It's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
It's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
more fe's
Playing with more front ends .. didn't like the MaLa skin that much. DL'd GameEx .. very nice setup. I like this.. but I had to buzz off to MS and pull down a bunch of other stuff to get it up and running: .net, MDAC, DirectX9, ... bunch o crap.
It's very nice though, good detail setup. This is built for Media Center display, but supports the CP views as well as WinUAE and Vice
More futzing about required now. This blog posted whilst GX was updating the rom file.
At least its working, looks nice, and has about a thousand themes available. Need to update the control file so it will work with the CP instead of the keyboard.
I should also consider offering up the shareware donation if I move this into the cab.
It's very nice though, good detail setup. This is built for Media Center display, but supports the CP views as well as WinUAE and Vice
More futzing about required now. This blog posted whilst GX was updating the rom file.
At least its working, looks nice, and has about a thousand themes available. Need to update the control file so it will work with the CP instead of the keyboard.
I should also consider offering up the shareware donation if I move this into the cab.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
MAME installed
Its been a while since I posted any progress here, time for an update.
The old computer is in a new box now and working great. I may not have a USB problem after all.. but still has to be thoroughly investigated.
I spent a lot of time last week just getting WinXP up and running. Windows wouldn't even boot up. After several tries, eventually had to do a reinstall from the old cd.
Main problem is that this drive came out of a laptop, and is now moved into a box, so none of the drivers were relevant to anything, and there was lots of system level stuff that had to get deleted.
I spent a lot of time over the weekend just uninstalling a zillion old programs that don't need to be there. I probably still left too much crap on the drive, but doesn't matter anyway.
Last night I finally got the Mame installed, and tried two different front ends, MaLa and AtomicFE. I could never get Atomic to actually load up a game, so it's out. For the moment I think I'm going to go with MaLa. Can always load up and run another FE down the road, but this had a few features I'd like to set up, including support for the control panel viewer and multiple emulators. (Phase 2)
The old computer is in a new box now and working great. I may not have a USB problem after all.. but still has to be thoroughly investigated.
I spent a lot of time last week just getting WinXP up and running. Windows wouldn't even boot up. After several tries, eventually had to do a reinstall from the old cd.
Main problem is that this drive came out of a laptop, and is now moved into a box, so none of the drivers were relevant to anything, and there was lots of system level stuff that had to get deleted.
I spent a lot of time over the weekend just uninstalling a zillion old programs that don't need to be there. I probably still left too much crap on the drive, but doesn't matter anyway.
Last night I finally got the Mame installed, and tried two different front ends, MaLa and AtomicFE. I could never get Atomic to actually load up a game, so it's out. For the moment I think I'm going to go with MaLa. Can always load up and run another FE down the road, but this had a few features I'd like to set up, including support for the control panel viewer and multiple emulators. (Phase 2)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
good news
a new case. third time is the charm... yup ... the one from a friend didnt work, too old, the first one i bought from goodwill ($10) .. it looked new .. but it wasn't ... and finally picked one up today at the bins ($5) and IT WORKS! .. cool
I also picked up a sound system for the arcade while i was there... an altec subwoofer and speaker system, cause those games have to rock! but i don't know yet whether they work or not either.
back on track.. have to install the drives and whatnot, but its bedtime now and thats a project for another night.
My favorite part about the internet ... you can go online at 11 pm and download the manual for your old motherboard so you know where the plugs go. love it, love it.
I also picked up a sound system for the arcade while i was there... an altec subwoofer and speaker system, cause those games have to rock! but i don't know yet whether they work or not either.
back on track.. have to install the drives and whatnot, but its bedtime now and thats a project for another night.
My favorite part about the internet ... you can go online at 11 pm and download the manual for your old motherboard so you know where the plugs go. love it, love it.
Friday, June 15, 2007
crash n burn
or rather, burn-out ... something happened to the old PC ... it just quit/died/whatever. :((
So i asked around ... and found a new case and power supply. Picking that up tonite and hope thats the problem.
It just quit. turned off and wouldnt turn back on. I suppose i should be thankful that it didnt throw sparks adn smoke.
In any case .. its on hold again til i get it up and running on the old laptop drive.
So i asked around ... and found a new case and power supply. Picking that up tonite and hope thats the problem.
It just quit. turned off and wouldnt turn back on. I suppose i should be thankful that it didnt throw sparks adn smoke.
In any case .. its on hold again til i get it up and running on the old laptop drive.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
success
Yay! Finally got stuff transferred from the old PC to the new one. After lots of frustration with the the Windows Easy Transfer .. it would just quit somewhere in the middle of the transfer for no reason. I gave it about three tries, with specific directories and it just wouldn't do it.
Then I tried to go the Map Network Drive route ... wasted all day Saturday on that one. Screw it.
This morning i just gave up. I wasn't going to keep the main drive in there anyway, just needed to get a bunch of important files over to the new PC. And i didn't need a zillion crap files spread all over the place.
This time, i'm going to keep things organized. Really. I promise :(
After wasting all the time yesterday. Started looking around for an IDE to USB cable. I found this pretty little thing at Radio Shack up the street for half price ($20). Sweet. Just yank out the drive and stick it in the box. Now I've got 120 gig portable external.
Oh boy .. just plug it in, move what i want, and i'll get around to cleaning it up at some point (yea, yea, probably not).
Now, I can boot up off the ancient laptop drive in the old pc, clean it off and get to work on turning it into an arcade machine.
progress. slowly.
Then I tried to go the Map Network Drive route ... wasted all day Saturday on that one. Screw it.
This morning i just gave up. I wasn't going to keep the main drive in there anyway, just needed to get a bunch of important files over to the new PC. And i didn't need a zillion crap files spread all over the place.
This time, i'm going to keep things organized. Really. I promise :(
After wasting all the time yesterday. Started looking around for an IDE to USB cable. I found this pretty little thing at Radio Shack up the street for half price ($20). Sweet. Just yank out the drive and stick it in the box. Now I've got 120 gig portable external.
Oh boy .. just plug it in, move what i want, and i'll get around to cleaning it up at some point (yea, yea, probably not).
Now, I can boot up off the ancient laptop drive in the old pc, clean it off and get to work on turning it into an arcade machine.
progress. slowly.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Soviet Games
Nothing new here. Still playing with the new PC .. and the new games that came on it. Hopefully this weekend I will make some serious progress on the data transfer to the new pc.
This has never been a problem before, because I would always just install the old hard drive in the new pc. The new dell doesn't have any way to do that though, there's no IDE interface. Everything is USB or SATA.
Cool link popped up on wired today, retro soviet computer games under restoration.
This has never been a problem before, because I would always just install the old hard drive in the new pc. The new dell doesn't have any way to do that though, there's no IDE interface. Everything is USB or SATA.
Cool link popped up on wired today, retro soviet computer games under restoration.
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