Project Ataray - Preserving and renewing

[Malenko]

the gradient looks really good, assuming you'll get a vinyl sticker printer up, or are your paint skills that good?

Not a huge fan of the buttons or layout but , its not my cab

[TGov]

I like the colors and the stripes a lot!

[Hammerfist]

Yeah, I'll be getting a sticker for sure! Would be interesting to learn paint gradients, but not gonna do that with this one . Button layout is basically the original, just added the lower row of buttons, following the curves of the top row. Having tried the feel without actual gameplay, it feels good. The player two buttons are curved a bit more, to leave room for elbow fighting. But yeah, each to their own .

I have this one contact who said he could do the bezel art with a sticker on the graphic side, but I'm also looking in to the prices of screen printing. Anyways the art needs to be on the inside.

[Hammerfist]

Ok, I've sent a request for pricing of the stickers, and made the needed graphics in a print-ready size and form. Also got the PC finally set up and did something I've been waiting for some time..see the picture and you know what I mean . The display seems to work up to 640x288 but I have it set up to 640x240 which looks better. The manual for the display mentions that the resolution for "standard 19" crt" is 400x240 and for "fine pitch 19" crt" 640x240. I haven't had time to try finding out which one mine is, but at least it seems to work with 640x240.

I almost had a stroke when at some point during testing of the resolutions, the picture went black while my lcd still had picture. Tried changing sync and other settings with the potentiometers, but nothing..took me few sweaty seconds to realize, that for some reason, windows decided, that from that particular resolution onward, it would change the display setting from displaying the same picture in both, to showing individual pictures, thus making the CRT show black. Yeah..that was fun.

I also got some car floor mats, to use as dampening material inside the PC. It's not really noisy, but it has room for being less noisy.

So next week I'll start the wiring and after Thursday I'll install the frame and CP. After that, it's more waiting, since the bezel glass takes two more weeks to be ready. Luckily that doesn't stop me from doing other stuff, tidying thing up and so on..and I've probably forgotten something I have yet to do (and Hyperspin still requires quite a lot of work).

But it's all good! Oh yeah. 

[Hammerfist]

Things are progressing at a steady pace. Just got the front frame and CP mounted today. I also got the wiring done for all but buttons 4-6. Also almost by accident, I did something extra, to lighten things up . The cab just looks better and better.

The stickers have now been ordered but the queue is two to three weeks long, so more waiting ahead. Good thing is, that the place makes good quality stuff but for a very good price.

I could start playing games now..but I'll keep my pants on and wait a bit longer..or will I?

[TGov]

What buttons are those?  I like the look of them.  Also, how are you liking the JPac?

[Hammerfist]

What buttons are those?  I like the look of them.  Also, how are you liking the JPac?

They are Seimitsu PS-14-KN. The light comes from a LED-strip I bought few years back. I just gave it a try, installing it inside the CP and it came out really nice! At the moment I don't have any control over it, except that it turns on when the CRT is turned on. I'm going to install a switch to it at some point though.

The JPac has been treating me well. Haven't tried all the connectors yet, but this far everything has gone very smoothly with it. Good stuff.

[Hammerfist]

Just ordered a 10" 25:9 display to put in as a marquee display. Setting up might be a chore, but if all goes well, it'll be awesome.

[Hammerfist]

Ok, this is how we look at the moment and how we might look later on. Now that I got the door in its place, I can see that it requires something. Though the bezel and marquee do a lot, I still think it would be missing, if I didn't do something to the door. I'm still waiting for the stickers and the marquee display to arrive.

Buttons and joysticks are working nicely. I got to say, that now that I've played a bit with the sticks, I feel that something with a little bit more throw might be more suited for me.

I took the win 7 road and it's been giving me some hard time, especially because of the 15 khz monitor, but I'll wait for the marquee display to arrive and see to it then even more deeply.

Transformer started humming today..got to see if there is something I can do about it (I remember someone saying that spraying varnish on top of it helps, but that doesn't sound like something I'll do next ).

[Malenko]

looks great

[Hammerfist]

Thanks Malenko 

[emphatic]

How much did the marquee display cost?

[Hammerfist]

Here is the link for the display: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0037WT752/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M3T1_ST1_dp_1
But I bought it used and that was $44 (though for me, the price goes a bit higher because of the taxes and customs).

[Hammerfist]

Well, while waiting for the final parts, it's been software software. Decided to give XP a go and see if the grass really is greener on that side. Not that 7 didn't work, but since I am in no hurry, it won't hurt to see how XP handles things..

[Hammerfist]

Oh how I've missed the old XP with it's quirks..I'm now installing XP for the third time. First time I installed 32 bit by accident, and went 64 bit..my bad, then for some reason, the 64 bit didn't recognize..well anything. J-pac doesn't work, my other HD (even though it's exactly the same brand/model as the other) doesn't have drivers..ten unknown devices in hardware list etc..well, those first two are enough for nothing to work. Got a blue screen once, Hyperspin didn't run correctly..oh brother. Well, now we'll see if the 32 bit version works better. Could be that I would have been ok with win7, but like I said earlier, I wanted to see how things run with XP . But hey, it's bee a learning experience. (And no, I'm no stranger to computers, so it's not like I didn't troubleshoot that ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- ). It's just that I feel like going back to stone age with 32 bit..

Edit: Things are starting to looking up. No weird glitches so far..haven't plugged J-pac in yet, but Calamity drivers are working (even though I had to install them twice for some reason) . Everything mandatory works now. Haven't received he marquee display yet, but that's for later.

[Hammerfist]

Bought the needed items to make my coin reject button work as the power button for the computer. Now I don't need to open the door to turn things on . Putting the old micro switches to good use .

(can't wait to get this "finished" and start my next project  )

[Hammerfist]

To get this thread up to date, here are some things I've done:

- Installed the 10" display to the marquee opening
- Installed PC-to-VGA adapter so that the monitor gets 5 volts instead of 1 volt. This way the brightness doesn't need to be turned so high (this part was a by-product of me trying to use the PC2VGA adapter for the second display, that didn't work out regrettably)
- Fixed a corrupted NTFS.SYS -file...oh how I've missed you, Windows XP
- Compiled MAME to have no nag screens and to record High Scores (AWESOME!!!)
- decided to leave the front door black, maybe add some sticker/paint later, if it feels empty. This was to keep it a bit less busy-looking.
- I have a Raspberry PI running Screenly to drive the marquee. This works perfectly, but since I need a wlan module to keep the PI wireless, I still need to get the module working (which of yet hasn't worked out). The software is also capable to run videos. I might ditch this idea, if I find some other software solution instead of Screenly.

Still waiting for the side and bezel stickers..been now four weeks, but I called the shop today and they should be done this or next week. The delay was caused by this exhibition that was held just two weeks ago, which generated a lot of orders.

Had our first beta test of the cab and found some "bugs" when playing two player games. This was really productive, so that these problems won't bother players in the future. It does present it's own challenge, when there are multiple emulators..

[Malenko]

I like the stripes on the monitor but think the front door looks best black. You say you "beta tested" what games did you try out? I started working on my racing cab again, ended up playing cruisn usa for like 2 hours :/

[Hammerfist]

I like the stripes on the monitor but think the front door looks best black. You say you "beta tested" what games did you try out? I started working on my racing cab again, ended up playing cruisn usa for like 2 hours :/

That sounds like some serious beta testing . Yeah, well, I think we played various games for about 10 hours. Mostly with MAME, where there were basically no problems, but then with NES emulator we encountered some problems, which led me to changing the emulator. Basically just something related to the buttons, while two players are playing. I did have problems with the Enter button in Hyperspin. Using J-Pac it just loses the enter-button functionality, no matter which key it's mapped to. It just sometimes stops working, even though keyboard enter works ok. All other shift-buttons work ok..weird. But I'll have to see how it behaves from now on, and continue from there.

[Hammerfist]

Did some XP configuring today, but when I first turned my cab on, the screen did some weird flicker, accompanied by a buzzing sound from speakers. I removed the PC-to-VGA adapter from between the PC and J-Pac and at least for now, no extra flicker or buzzing. Well, this is by no means a comprehensive test, since the flickering could have had nothing to do with the adapter, but I'm going to keep it like this for now, see if it happens again. I guess it's time to show a cap kit to that monitor soon. No bulged capacitors though, but I guess 20 years is enough for one set of caps

Now playing: Magic Sword

[Hammerfist]

Well, it's been a while without any updates. This is mainly due to the fact, that I haven't received the stickers yet..First time it took four weeks and when I went to get them, they were made all wrong. So the stickers should arrive next week, fingers crossed.

I ordered an USB->DVI graphics adapter to hook up my marquee display. With this solution I should be able to finally get the game marquees running.

I also ordered a full repair kit for the display (from Bob Roberts) to give the old parts their earned retirement. Ok, the display has been working flawlessly for the past two weeks, but still, why not.

After the stickers are on, the marquee working and the new parts running the monitor, the cab should be ready. Ok, I will arrange the wires in the "engine room", but that's it then.

The problems I had with the J-Pac enter and esc not working from time to time, seem to have disappeared after I attached the J-Pac using a PS/2 cable. I'll report back if I find the problems to keep appearing after this. Much better and maybe I'm imagining, but the whole thing seems more responsive now

[Hammerfist]

Well hello. I still don't have the stickers..true story, but I decided to put the glass on anyways, and it looks awesome even without the stickers. Then I realized that there is a bright side to the fact, that I don't have the stickers yet: The bottom of the glass sticker needs Hyperspin instructions! So yeah, I'll be redesigning the bottom of the sticker.

I changed the computer inside the cab to an oldish Dell, that I got from work. Funny thing is, that it's actually working better than the first one. Ok, the cpu is a bit more sluggish, but the only game I have found this to be a (very small) bit of a prob, was Metal Slug and it's still very playable. So it's all good.

I tried the marquee display and it looks awesome. It just needs a lot of configuring, so it's still taking some time to get it working.

Next update will be with stickers (and most likely the marquee display).

[Malenko]

looks really good!

The slowdown in Metal Slug.....that happens on the actual arcade hardware too, so dont think its the PC