Identify and setup a MiniPac

[Dal1980]

Hi

I bought my first arcade (mame setup) back in 2013. I was very naive (still am really) but realised I've been ripped off. 

Anyway this wasn't a post to ---smurfette--- about that but more of how I've turned my resentment into a machine I'm a little more proud of by making my own

Originally it came with outdated mame "software" , had low res, out of date imagery, a copy of GameEX and was installed on Windows XP. I've since updated all the software, images, videos etc, bought a copy of BigBox (LaunchBox) and bought windows 7 Pro and upgraded it to 10. I've also bought a new higher quality memory and added 4Gb (making it 8Gb). I've installed a bigger HDD and I think the whole thing feels much better.

On to my issues

1. I have a MiniPac (it says so on the board) problem is I don't know if its a 32 input or a 28 input. I can't see any way of seeing the difference as they all look the same. Is there any way of checking?

2. I have two sticks with 8 buttons each (1p start, 1p coin, 2 rows of 3 buttons and the same for p2 side). there's also a button under the CP which I used to use for exiting an arcade game. I've checked that it is wired into the MiniPac (red wire goes to set J1 pins). Windows picks this key press up as 'tab' and the IPac Setup program registers it as a tab press also. The issue is that it isn't recognised as any of the inputs and I've tried both 28 input and 32 input but nothing lights up for the P1 or P2 key buttons for some reason. I don't think its probably that important but thought I'd try and get my head around this whole MiniPac thing.

3. Since windows notepad is picking up most (if not all these buttons as some form of keystroke) then is it just a case of using the emulators to map the keys or is there an easier/better way to manage these things?

Since I always end up with problems uploading images on here I'll try getting a few images using tapatalk app as a reply to this post.

Thanks for reading
Cheers
Dal

[Dal1980]

Here's a couple of images as promised



Actually as I went to take a screen pic of the software it started with options regarding shifted keys. I may have found where tab is registered now so question 2 isn't required any more. Strange that I didn't see this option before :/

Anyway here's a screen grab so at least my layout can be seen



Cheers



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[leapinlew]

I bought my first arcade (mame setup) back in 2013. I was very naive (still am really) but realised I've been ripped off. 

I have to hear that. What makes you feel you were ripped off?

As for #3, you are right and that for other emulators to work with this you will need to remap them to whatever your configuration is using.

[Dal1980]

Thanks leapinlew

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of it all right now but basically I paid 2k (GBP/£) for an xp, single core AMD with no graphics card (on-board) from a company selling Apex Play machines. They sold me it, some of it didn't work then I couldn't get ahold of anyone after the cash had been transferred. It's already been talked about on this forum and they came to the same conclusion. To tell you the truth at the time I bought it I had no idea that the arcade machines were still going so strong and had no clue that people build their own systems. If heard of mame from years before but thought it was too complicated to setup and source legit Roms like my supplier has that I bought the arcade machine through (lol).

I don't claim that this is all there fault but if already mentioned I was naive




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