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Auto Up (F1), Advance (F2), and Reset (F3) buttons

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clhug:

I'm trying to decide what admin buttons to put on my control panel.  I've already searched the forums and read a lot on that topic in general but there's a few things I can't figure out.

Some people mention an Auto Up (F1) and Advance button (F2) but I can't find any explanation anywhere of what these two buttons actually do.  I also don't find them defined in the MAME global config.  F1 is labeled as Toggle Crosshair and F2 isn't listed at all.  Could someone please explain these two?

I also see some people mention Reset (F3).  I understand what this button does, but don't quite understand why it's really needed for a home play unit.  I understand having it from an emulator standpoint since it was probably part of the original games, but in practical use in a MAME cabinet, why would I need this?  Is this just a shortcut to be able to restart a bad game without having to wait through losing all remaining lives?  Or there some other reason I might want to use F3?

Thanks!!

(Oh, right now I'm pretty much down to just having Pause and Esc on my panel.  Using a real coin door so no need for coin buttons either.)


Tahnok:

I'm not sure about the first two, but I can I can tell you that I love having a reset button for the exact reason you mentioned. If I'm trying for a high score in pacman and mess up shortly after the game starts, it's annoying to either have to run out your lives, or exit out of the game and enter it again (changing monitor resolutions twice).

Personally, my Mame panels have coin, reset, pause, and exit.

Dizzle:

I think there were also a some games that required you to restart the machine when turning it on for the first time.  So for those games, you'll need reset in MAME.

The first time starting up Robotron, I needed to hit f3 to get it to work if remember correctly.

wpcmame:

The "Auto Up" button is a toggle button (i.e. it stays down until pressed again). In many cases it was more of switch than a button. The button's two states are called "Auto-Up" and "Manual-Down" (note the hyphen).

The names come from the button's 2 functions which both work together with the "Advance" button.

1. The button selects if the "Advance" button should move to the next or previous entry (in settings and audits). "Up" means move to next, "Down" means move to previous entry.

2. The button selects if the game is in "Automatic" or "Manual" mode. Don't remember but I think "Automatic" was used to have the game cycle through various tests. When in "Manual" mode the "Advance" button moves to the next test.

In mame the "Auto up" naming is confusing. It would be better if it was called  something like "Auto & Up / Manual & Down".
Don't think the button is marked as a toggle button in mame (you need to hold it down manually to set it in Auto or up position).


MYX:

Couldn't you set up a shifted option so you don't need a physical button on the CP?

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