Operation wolf 3 mame in real cab

[Angus439]

Hi

I've acquired an operation wolf 3 cabinet but the monitor and game board aren't working properly

Is there a way of using mame with the guns rather than sourcing another original game board?

Thanks

[PL1]

Welcome aboard, Angus439.   

I've acquired an operation wolf 3 cabinet but the monitor and game board aren't working properly

Is there a way of using mame with the guns rather than sourcing another original game board?

OW3 is a "positional gun" game.

It uses potentiometers like an analog joystick.

You can wire the pots to an analog encoder and use MAME in place of the original PCB.

Please don't maim for MAME.  Consider taking the extra effort to fabricate a Molex adapter harness for connecting the original harness to the encoder without hacking the original harness. (see step #7 here)  If you, or the next owner of the cab, ever want to convert it back to original, an unhacked original harness will be a great time/effort saver.


Scott

[Howard_Casto]

A word of warning... while operation wolf 1 and 2 are great, 3 is kind of a stinker.  I mean it's really bad.  I had to force myself to play it to get the outputs hooked up in mame and I've (thankfully) never played it since. 

[Titchgamer]

Before you hack it have you looked at getting it repaired?

[Angus439]

thanks all for the replies

im due to pick it up next week so dont actually have it to hand as yet

ive been told the pcb board is shot, it loads up and powers fine but it has what apppear to be jail bars across the screenand the colours are messed up

not sure if this can be repaired or not so was looking at the mame route

[Haze]

thanks all for the replies

im due to pick it up next week so dont actually have it to hand as yet

ive been told the pcb board is shot, it loads up and powers fine but it has what apppear to be jail bars across the screenand the colours are messed up

not sure if this can be repaired or not so was looking at the mame route

Jailbars is usually one of the easier fixes, typically a line that has been cut somewhere on the PCB (usually means 1 bit of data for each tile isn't getting through from the gfx roms to where it needs to be)

but if it powers up it's definitely salvageable.

http://www.jammarcade.net/  is a nice log of repairs of problems like this (and far worse)

[Vigo]

An Operation Wolf Trilogy cabinet would be pretty cool! Someone correct me if I am wrong, but other than the original being only 1p, I think they controlled the same.

[PL1]

There's also a fourth game in the series.

1. Operation Wolf (1987)
2. Operation Thunderbolt (1988)
3. Operation Wolf 3 (1994)
4. Operation Tiger (1998)

An Operation Wolf Trilogy cabinet would be pretty cool! Someone correct me if I am wrong, but other than the original being only 1p, I think they controlled the same.

OW used one gun with an optical sensor (light gun) instead of two positional guns like Operation Thunderbolt, OW3, and Operation Tiger so a cab with all four original PCBs + a switcher won't work.

You could use MAME with positional gun inputs (analog joystick) for all four titles.   


Scott

[Vigo]

Thanks for the lesson, Scott! I knew you would have the details. Never knew Operation Tiger existed!

I would say a multi-Operation Wolf cab would be awesome! 

[Angus439]

so potentially i could, if i went down the mame route, have a selection of op wolf games using the cab

I think though, i would like to get it repaired first off

Then if that doesnt work ill do as advised and get the guns connected properly to a mame system rather than hack it to pieces

[PL1]

so potentially i could, if i went down the mame route, have a selection of op wolf games using the cab

Yes.  MAME also has lots of positional gun and light gun games to choose from that would work well with your system.

Jurassic Park, Rail Chase, Terminator 2, Alien 3 - The Gun, Shooting Gallery, Crossbow, Cheyenne . . .

I think though, i would like to get it repaired first off

Then if that doesnt work ill do as advised and get the guns connected properly to a mame system rather than hack it to pieces

Good idea to repair it first.

Once the cab is working, it should be fairly easy to do a fully-reversable MAME conversion.

Related topics you might want to look into -- J-Pac from Ultimarc and GroovyMAME.   


Scott