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Operation Thunderbolt guns - worth getting?

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KiwiRed:
I visited a local coin-op supplier/repairer, and discovered their 'elephant graveyard' of old cabs.  (Boy, if only i had a place to work on renovating one, and a way to get it there!)

One of the few machines to have anything attached to it still (most were stripped, unsurprisingly) was an Operation Thunderbolt machine with both guns still attached.  I was wondering if it's possible to interface them to a PC, which would make it worth going back with screwdriver and pliers to pick them up (i didn't take any tools with me, unfortunately)

And if they can be hooked up to a PC, are there any sites that give more info on how?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can clue me up on this...  (Well, i have to go back anyway - there was one machine with a twin-stick panel i might be able to salvage something from)

Johnny the MAMEr:
Get 'em. You won't be sorry. 1UP has the most info on these. He figured out how to hook these up. A bit more difficult to get the vibrating force feedback working but it can be done on 1 of the 2 guns. I'm working on interfacing 2 Steel Gunner positional guns now (slowly). Bought the guns on ebay for $30.00.

gnateye:
and where is this arcade graveyard?

ErikRuud:
Based on KiwiRed's member profile, I would guess somewhere in New Zealand.

1UP:
If they're pot-based guns, you can do the same I did with my Terminator 2 guns.  I have a tutorial at http://www.1uparcade.com/project-swyoke.html.  This tells how to connect a Star Wars yoke thru a Dual Strike USB controller, but the procedure is exactly the same for guns.  Alternatively, there are lots of tutorials around for hacking analog controls directly to the gameport, but you'll need some 100k pots, and I prefer the flexibility of the Dual Strike method.  The DS is A) hot swappable, B) 2-player friendly, C) comes with configuration software, D) works as mouse or joystick, and E) is easy to hack.

I'm still working on the recoil feedback.  I've got one gun to recoil in T2 through the keyboard LEDs, using Dave Widel's Mame hack.  Rather than building a controller board myself, I'm going to order a $60 USB relay module (http://www.j-works.com/jsb218.html) with 2 inputs and 2 outputs, controllable thru C++ programming.  Then I'll try to hack the code in myself.  I'll post the results when I get it working!

Good luck.

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