Can MalaOri change my life? (rotating monitor, multiple CPs)

[mmmPeanutButter]

I started this project in 2003. Since then I've bought a house, got married and had three kids. Much like many of my other projects, it got to about 90% and then stalled. I've been at a bit of a stalemate on how to deal with the software and my (manually) rotating monitor. I always wanted to have a simple menu pop up and then based on the configuration of the monitor and what CP I had installed (joysticks or trackball) then the proper instance of MALA would run for the configuration.

Well, for years I have failed with this. I was playing around the other day and came across DaOld Man's MalaOri!! From what I can tell, it used the status of parallel port pins to determine the monitor rotation and launches MALA with a unique ini file... and it has 4 rotations!

I'm thinking that I would use two of them for orientation and two for CP.

1) Horizontal/Joystick
2) Horizontal/Trackball
3) Vertical/Joystick
4) Vertical/Trackball

I figured this is mostly a DaOld Man question but thought I would post it for other's benefit. The File Repository is dead so I don't actually have the file. I checked my motherboard and I have a parallel port header.

Questions:
1) Anybody have the latest version of MalaOri?
2) Any comments on my wiring diagram below? It is an "AND" situation which I believe would trigger the right pin. I'll just wire my cabinet so changing the CP closes a different set of contacts.

[DaOld Man]

I should have a copy of malaori I can post but Im not sure this is what you need.
Malaori was written for people who manually moved the monitor horizontal or vertical, based on the game they want to play. And by manually I mean physically grab and pull or turn a part (usually a disc that monitor is mounted to), or by pressing buttons that turned the monitor to the orientation they want via a motor and simple relay or switch circuit
Anyway, when you want to start mala (bootup or click on something) malaori senses which way the monitor is turned and starts and turns the mala main menu to match the screen. (Hence MalaOri for Mala Orientation)
The sensors are two switches, one is made when monitor is fully horizontal, the other when monitor is fully vertical.
The switches tie back to the printer port (two inputs).
If you still want to play around with malaori I can post it here. You will also need inpout32.dll (a free download) Inpout32.dll is the driver that allows malaori to talk to the printer port.

I guess Im a little fuzzy on what you are wanting to do.

[mmmPeanutButter]

Thanks for the response. If you are able to post it, that would be great.

I guess I misunderstood what the program does. So it seems that it does half of what I wanted to do. I saw that there was a spot for 4 parallel port inputs but all that it does is change the rotation in the ini file. I was kinda hoping I could use the 4 inputs to launch different config files and gamelists.

So provided this program helps solve my orientation issue with my manual monitor, do you have any suggestions on configuring Mala with swappable control panels?

Thanks for your help!

PS: what's the difference between MalaOri and MalaOri3?

[DaOld Man]

It's been 9 years so forgive if Im a little old manish LOL.
Im not sure what the differences are between malaori and malaori3. I looked through my old files and I see a malaori2 also, I will have to dig into the code to see what I decided to add or do different between the versions.
The 4 inputs are for 0 degrees, 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees. Most likely you would only use 2 orientations. (0 and 90 usually). Malaori turns the mala screen to match each one.

I always try to build my programs to accommodate any possible scenario. Sometimes it is wasted time, sometimes it pays off.
Can I ask where you got the info on malaori and malaori3? If you can point me to the thread (Im sure it was on BYOAC), maybe it will help revive my memory.
I will post malaori soon, and if I find why I decided to upgrade it, I will post malaori3.
Malaori didnt seem to hit it very big, I guess there wasnt that many people that used manual screen rotation and mala. (I highly suggest you automate the rotation!).
It did not take any control panel data into account, so this may not be what you need.

Talk to me more about the swapable control panels. What exactly do you want to do? Do you want Mala to display only the games that match your selected control panel, or what?

[DaOld Man]

MalaOri Version 1 (May be buggy, please send me comments)

[mmmPeanutButter]

It's been 9 years so forgive if Im a little old manish LOL.

True. Still not sure where all the time goes.

Im not sure what the differences are between malaori and malaori3. I looked through my old files and I see a malaori2 also, I will have to dig into the code to see what I decided to add or do different between the versions.

Thanks!

Can I ask where you got the info on malaori and malaori3? If you can point me to the thread (Im sure it was on BYOAC), maybe it will help revive my memory.

https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,97107.msg1023559.html#msg1023559
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=128279.0
It looks like MalaOri3 just allowed for it to be run without running Mala (?)

(I highly suggest you automate the rotation!).

Hahaha. It has taken me years to get this far! Mine is a big ol' CRT and isn't the easiest thing to rotate. I think if I ever could find a big enough and nice 4:3 LCD I might consider it.

It did not take any control panel data into account, so this may not be what you need.

Talk to me more about the swapable control panels. What exactly do you want to do? Do you want Mala to display only the games that match your selected control panel, or what?

Ideally, yes. It would be great if Mala knew one of two monitor rotations (which I plan to do with MalaOri) and which of two CPs I had installed (I have a trackball one and a joystick one) and then launched Mala in the correct orientation with a unique gamelist. So essentially 4 game lists.

1) Horizontal/Joystick
2) Horizontal/Trackball
3) Vertical/Joystick
4) Vertical/Trackball


I tried downloading the MalaOri you posted and my computer was quite mad at me. It said: "Trojan:Win32/Sprisky.V!cl" Is that just a nature of the type of program it is or is there something wrong with it. I suspect the former.

[DaOld Man]

I am not seeing that virus warning. Im using Windows defender and F-Prot, also scanned with MBAM, it looks clean on my end. Maybe your defender is throwing up a false flag?

I really dont think malaori will do what you want anyway. It will turn the mala main menu based on the switches on your monitor, however it only does it once before you start mala.
So in other words, each time you turn your monitor yo will have to close mala and run malaori again.
However, you can probably map keystokes in mala to turn the screen. Maybe tie your monitor position switches back to your keyboard encoder?

[mmmPeanutButter]

I would do any monitor rotation and control panel swapping before I turn the arcade on so I should be okay there. I don't plan on hot swapping anything. I was just hoping that there would be a way that, once the swapping happens, I could turn it on and boot right into the proper game list. I'm not so worried about me but I would like it to be more user-friendly for my friends and family.