new me, new pc

back from vacation now, the new pc was here when i arrived. whoo hoo.
runs great, no problems. one more headache gone.

back to work now. need to get a bunch of files transferred over to thenew system, and then I can start working on cleaning out the old one so it does nothing but run the emulators .. and probably a jukebox or something too.

nice change but my eyeballs are hurting from too much computer yesterday. i guess thats what happens when you don't stare at one for a week.

still testing

I've been busy beta testing various games and settings since Sunday. I can't get the spinner to work with Arkanoid, but other than that it works great.

Somehow I mis-wired the old leaf joystick .. it's 90 degrees off of what it should be so I'll need to fix that at some point. Also trying to figure out how to change the setup so it will only do 4-way output.

When I'm not playing, I'm working on getting a front-end set up that I like and trying to make it work. The coolest front end I have seen is the Flash Mame Front End by Dan Hall. Way cool .. but kind of messy with files everywhere. I'd like to clean it up and tweak it a little, customize it to my CP. It also needs a utility to write the xml and batch scripts.

Dell is sending a new PC .. it should get here after I get back from vacation. whoo hoo. finally.

Now, back to trying to make the spinner work ... this is driving me crazy. Can't figure out which config / setup file that information needs to go in. Nothing has worked so far.

beta

Over the shoulder action shot of CP beta test.

and the winners are ...

R-Type
Galaga
Primal Rage

Those winners being games 1, 2, and 3 for successful cp testing. bwahahahaha!

yea yea .. its running on the new pc, not the old one. ok. I don't have time to see if i have a usb problem on the other computer. I need to get back to testing. ;)

down is up

and right is left ... when you're working with a joystick from the bottom... :(

yup ... i wired carefully .. the joystick down buttons went to the switch on the bottom, and the one on the right went to the right ... except from the bottom of a joystick ... that's all backwards.

Back to the splicing lounge again. Most of these I can just move the wires, but a couple will have to be re-spliced cause they're just not long enough to reach the far side.

I honestly thought about just reprogramming the eeprom, but that would be too easy.

I'm also wondering about the viability of the USB port on the old PC ... I ran into some strange errors that weren't visible when I plugged it into the other computer.

I am aware that one of the ports has been pretty flaky, but didn't know I had any problems with the others. More investigation needed.

testing, 1,2,3

TESTING!!!
As of 3:30 pm Saturday, May 12 ...

one of the problems with having a computer this old is that I seem to have at least 3 different installations of mame and several front ends. This will get cleaned up when the pc is finally "dedicated" to the arcade. In the meantime, I still need a lot of stuff on there, and nothing has been moved to the new pc yet.

Having trouble how to type an "OK" in mame games ... cause the joystick left/right doesn't seem to work. So I've been spending the afternoon trying to figure out the keymappings and ini files and concentrate on just setting up one instance of the mame that will eventually be used.

hard to tell if the buttons are working completely, because a lot of them are things like shift and control, etc. the trackball and mouse buttons are ok at least.
looks like a test system, don't it?

phooey

need more wire.

I need to double up for the 4-way joystick, the far connection for the player one stick won't quite reach, the pinball buttons haven't even been touched yet, and I need a few more feet of ground wire, too.

Off to lowe's again. I hate making connectors. yuck.

Also .. I either need to figure out how to plug the trackball and spinner into the miniPac or I'm going to need a USB hub also. The tball and spinner both came with USB's installed, but I think I can unplug them (carefully ... and with much consideration), and route them through the miniPac.

beauty, eh?

Wow.. that looks like progress!

Only a small headache last night ... I had never put a hinge or velcro in there to keep the top from sliding around.. can't believe that. Went to do that last night and there was no line marked for the inside of the box. I know I had done that at some point, but then I remembered I had also flipped the top over early in the drilling process, and never marked the inside dimensions. So I had to drop it on the box again, stick my arm in there, and this time fight around all the joysticks and buttons and trackball that were hanging down and try to get some edges marked so I could mount a few pieces of velcro.

I really wanted to put a door hinge on it, but to do that I'd have to make/bend a weird hinge edge that would go over the plywood. Hard to explain, so I won't even try. I'll just say that if you're thinking about building one of these for yourself, it's something you'll probably consider when you get to that point.

I also had to mount the spinner. And then for some reason I'd never screwed the back of the panel on, so I did that. Finally got around to start on the wiring.

It may look like a mess to you, but it's beautiful to me...

:(

the minipac wiring diagram. this should keep me busy for a while.

PARTS!!

Parts is parts ... and they have finally arrived safely.

I'm sooo happy.

nothing new

Just wanted to post an update .. nothing has happened here with the arcade for a couple of weeks.

Hopefully I have gotten all of the shipping problems worked out now, but no results yet. The spinner and minipac have been reshipped, but not yet received.
We have a new receptionist on the first floor, so I had a talk with her, as well as give her my business card, so hopefully things won't land in the deadzone of their mailroom down there anymore.

Ditto for the guy on the 2nd floor who took in the first shipment of controls ages ago. He knows how to get hold of me too.

I was hoping that stuff would get here yesterday, but now I'll have to wait til ate least Monday.

That's it for now. Looks like it's a good weekend, and hopefully I'll be off sailing today or tomorrow if I can find a first mate.