What blows about this hobby

[RayB]

... is having people over for some fun, drinks and games and you turn on your MAME cabinet only to find it's dead. 

[DeLuSioNal29]

That happened to me on the DAY of the superbowl...  My hard drive died.

Luckily I had thought ahead and made a clone of my drive.  I swapped it out and Voila, up and running in minutes.  With hard drive prices these days, it pays to clone it and put in on a shelf somewhere.  I'd go NUTS if I had to configure everything again!

On the other hand, if it's another piece of hardware that's the cause, yes...  That blows, since there is no quick solution.

Good luck on getting her back up.

DeLuSioNaL29

[drventure]

Firing up the cabinet only to find that, for whatever reason, all the usb devices got remapped again, so you're sitting there with people wanting to play while your frantically trying to remap enough keycodes to make at least a few things playable.

and you hear whispers of "My xbox is a lot easier than this".... 

[saint]

Firing up the cabinet only to find that, for whatever reason, all the usb devices got remapped again, so you're sitting there with people wanting to play while your frantically trying to remap enough keycodes to make at least a few things playable.

and you hear whispers of "My xbox is a lot easier than this".... 

Gah +1! Something's happened to Project Arcade 1 and it's sitting dead right now. Really annoying.

[BadMouth]

Not having the time or money (or sometimes talent) to do all the awesome projects that fill my head.  

[emphatic]

Protip: Make your cabinet JAMMA compatible and keep a JAMMA PCB close for these situations. Non-consumer tech seems fail less than our home PCs.  Or better yet, have more than one cabinet.

[Bender]

I shouldn't even post this *knocks on wood*
I built and configured everything, so I've been able to fix any problems that have cropped up, and they do once in a while and it usulally only takes a couple of minutes to fix
Mostly it's been controler configs not being set up right but once the trackball connections came loose after a long bumpy car-ride(I put a little hot glue on the the connectors after that)

But a HD fail and your SOL

M$ pisses me off I'm running XP64 and the clone won't run, cause of some BS protection they have in there and I'm running a legit copy

[DarthMarino]

Firing up the cabinet only to find that, for whatever reason, all the usb devices got remapped again, so you're sitting there with people wanting to play while your frantically trying to remap enough keycodes to make at least a few things playable.

This drives me nuts.  I still can't believe that windows doesn't have a way to manually assign the ID's for these things. 

[BadMouth]

M$ pisses me off I'm running XP64 and the clone won't run, cause of some BS protection they have in there and I'm running a legit copy

That will teach you to install those security updates!
I restored a backup of XP64 to my driving cab last week using Acronis and didn't run into any issues.
The backup wasn't even from the same computer   , but it did have the same model mobo.
(set everything up on a test mule computer so I wouldn't have to sit in the driving cab squinting at s-video text)
Pretty sure it was the lack of doing security updates, but I guess Acronis could have helped.

There is a free version of Acronis available for those not already religously backing up,
but there has to be a Western Digital hard drive connected for it to work.  
(I connect a WD external drive via usb and it works fine)
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

There is also a version for Seagate/Maxtor drives called Maxblast.

I use both, depending on what's in the computer I'm working on.
The backups will work with all other versions of Acronis.

[SavannahLion]

Firing up the cabinet only to find that, for whatever reason, all the usb devices got remapped again, so you're sitting there with people wanting to play while your frantically trying to remap enough keycodes to make at least a few things playable.

This drives me nuts.  I still can't believe that windows doesn't have a way to manually assign the ID's for these things. 

Because Windows caters to the lowest common denominator, not the highest. Steve Gibson is a choice example of the moronocity (made that word up) prevalent with Windows users. But enough Windows bashing...

Isn't there an app around here that works around that problem?

[Malenko]

Because OSX caters to the lowest common denominator, not the highest.

fix't


Windows has stupid crazy protection because people steal it. Bender, try windows loader?

[RayB]

I think it's my power supply. Hopefully it didn't take anything else down with it.

[DirtyDachshunds]

Firing up the cabinet only to find that, for whatever reason, all the usb devices got remapped again, so you're sitting there with people wanting to play while your frantically trying to remap enough keycodes to make at least a few things playable.

and you hear whispers of "My xbox is a lot easier than this".... 

Yes! this seems to happen with me all the time.  Especially my aimtraks...dunno why.

[ChadTower]

When guests walk past an entire row of nice working cabs and pins, play one or two games, and then ask where the PS3 is.

[elkameleon]

When guests walk past an entire row of nice working cabs and pins, play one or two games, and then ask where the PS3 is.

That's when you introduce them to what "GTFO" means.

[ChadTower]

That's when you introduce them to what "GTFO" means.

That would be a great way to ensure my wife and kids have friends.   

[elkameleon]

Hey, it'll weed out the bad friends at least.

[Cenobyte]

When you have bought your first pin (sttng) and it fails/crashes exactly on the evening a bunch of friends come over to try it out... 

I now have 6 pins to prevent that situation again... 

[hypernova]

That's why you always fire it up before everyone gets there, preferably in the morning or afternoon.

I'm having trouble with random freezing.  Haven't gotten around to doing anything about it, yet.

[HanoiBoi]

So I'm not the only one?  My cab won't fully boot.  Not in LKG and not in Safe mode.  First noticed on Mothers Day...not even sure where to start....

[SavannahLion]

Because OSX caters to the lowest common denominator, not the highest.

fix't


Windows has stupid crazy protection because people steal it. Bender, try windows loader?

I'm not referring to the protection. And stealing? Here? Are you kidding?!? That's like bringing up AA at a German beer fest.

[DaOld Man]

I thought I had missed a very enticing feature of this hobby when I read the title of this thread.
 

[Paul Olson]

Sometimes I miss the days when only my MAME cab broke down. Now I also have a garage full of dedicated games that break down all of the time.

I always have at least a few working!

[BurgerKingDiamond]

having to build/solder stuff in my house because I don't have a garage.

[brad808]

having to build/solder stuff in my house because I don't have a garage.

.... Having to build/ solder in my house because my garage is full of s#!t.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

How about never being satisfied with how it's set up?

[shrunkenmaster]

...is buying records older than myself;
having nowhere to make a mess indoors;
having bad weather most of the year - preventing working outdoors;
only being paid 12 times a year...

Saying that, I have a roof over my head, a fantastic wife, plus I can play all these old classic games thanks to the MAME dev team and a bunch of other clever peeps.

We should be for what we've got, not about what we haven't!

[RayB]

We should be for what we've got, not about what we haven't!

Well what I've got is a dead MAME cab. 

[HanoiBoi]

Leave it to 'shrunkenmaster' to be happy with what he's got.
 

[Woodshop Flunky]

...I have a roof over my head, a fantastic wife, plus I can play all these old classic games thanks to the MAME dev team and a bunch of other clever peeps.

I'm sure that Tron Mini goes a long way toward your happiness! 

[Gray_Area]

Firing up the cabinet only to find that, for whatever reason, all the usb devices got remapped again, so you're sitting there with people wanting to play while your frantically trying to remap enough keycodes to make at least a few things playable.

and you hear whispers of "My xbox is a lot easier than this"....  

This would get a very dim look from me.

M$ pisses me off I'm running XP64 and the clone won't run, cause of some BS protection they have in there and I'm running a legit copy

That's probably *why* it's being difficult....

 I still can't believe that windows doesn't have a way to manually assign the ID's for these things.  

I think the software/games being used handle this end of things, especially as lots of people/kids are constantly pulling and plugging.

Windows has stupid crazy protection because people steal it. Bender, try windows loader?

Which doesn't seem to work. I think of Reznor's words on DMA....

That would be a great way to ensure my wife and kids have friends.  

You mean, you don't have any.

[tommyinajar]

Finding the "Ultimate Cab" to restore or Mame at an unbelievable price, and then realizing you have no where to put it-
Unless you get rid of one of your six other ultimate project cabs...

[scofthe7seas]

Anybody having trouble with MS and windows keys transferring to new PCs or new setup/hard drive; All you have to do is call MS. You will be automated to enter a long code that you get when failing to active. Then you will get a polite Indian person (not being racist, seriously, every time.) that will ask if you've installed it on others computers. You tell them your situation (reinstall, hard drive crash, new motherboard) and they will give you another long code. You put it in, voila.

[Corbo]

Anybody having trouble with MS and windows keys transferring to new PCs or new setup/hard drive; All you have to do is call MS. You will be automated to enter a long code that you get when failing to active. Then you will get a polite Indian person (not being racist, seriously, every time.) that will ask if you've installed it on others computers. You tell them your situation (reinstall, hard drive crash, new motherboard) and they will give you another long code. You put it in, voila.

Good advice.  Sometimes you don't even get through to a person as they now automate this part as well.  "Please key in how many PC's you have installed this copy of Windows on".  If you key in anything other than "1", then you should probably pop your PC back in the box and find a new hobby.   

[Veeb0rg]

How about when you are in the middle of upgrading your mame pc, and the psu explodes. *fire, smoke, bits of pcb everywhere*

That gets your attention. Thankfully it didn't roast any of the new hardware.

[ChadTower]

You mean, you don't have any.

Nah.  My friends are the type that would play a few games and then wander over to the project games and start working on them.  In my circle I'm the one with the little collection.

[Gray_Area]

Nah.  My friends are the type that would play a few games and then wander over to the project games and start working on them.  In my circle I'm the one with the little collection.

They are the ones who'd be playing my games. Aside from the genuninely interested, I would keep the rest in the tea room.

[severdhed]

what i hate is how i can fire up my mame cabinets and play them for hours without any problems, but let my kids play for 5 minutes and suddenly nothing works at all. 

or when a stick of ram goes bad suddenly after working perfectly for years

[telengard]

... is having people over for some fun, drinks and games and you turn on your MAME cabinet only to find it's dead. 

Same thing happened to me not too long ago.  On board battery died in the computer and it wouldn't boot without pressing a key on the keyboard.  Nothing ruins the atomosphere like opening up the insides and futzing.

~telengard

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

what i hate is how i can fire up my mame cabinets and play them for hours without any problems, but let my kids play for 5 minutes and suddenly nothing works at all. 

my one yearold locksup hyperspin all the time. I have no clue how she does it.