Serial Display (LCD & BetaBrite) Plug-in for MaLa V1.0 *Finished*

[Circo]

Yeah, will have it soon!

[loadman]

It just occurred to me...

Did anybody realise that to get the LCD to update on 'On the fly' as you scroll through the list, you need to have the following set in MaLa?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59376.msg585671#msg585671

It can possibly slow down scrolling if you have a lot of Plug-ins though

Just try it......

[Circo]

Yes, very cool feature!  I like that it doesn't load the lcd file on the fly but shows:

Emulator
Game List
Game Name

Very nice! 

[loadman]

Yes, very cool feature!  I like that it doesn't load the lcd file on the fly but shows:
Emulator
Game List
Game Name
Very nice! 

.....Yeah  .. It would be 'too Slow' Loading LCD's files 'On the Fly'

FYI Dual Hardware version beta nearly finished  . 

I wish a had a betabrite  ... well not really. It would look silly on my Cocktail cab 

FYI
'mccoy178' Did a great job mounting a BetaBrite. I asked 'mccoy178' to test my Plug-in (Here's hoping )

[loadman]

Update: Today I decided to separate the LCD and Betabrite setup a bit more. 

So now you will have a choice of setting up
1) Serial LCD
2) Betabrite
3) Both

...I was going to make it open-ended but that would cause me some unnecessary work.

Unless some-one can 'quickly' tell me that they have a great need for two LCD's or two Betabrites...  I would not have thought so.

[Susi2005]

Hi loadman,
I tested your Plug In. Good job, but I have no 20x4 or 40x4 display.   
My display was a serial NEC FC20X2JA with 20x2 characters.

Do you support such a display in the next version?

Thanks for your Help.

[loadman]

Hi loadman,
I tested your Plug In. Good job, but I have no 20x4 or 40x4 display.   
My display was a serial NEC FC20X2JA with 20x2 characters.

Do you support such a display in the next version?

Thanks for your Help.

Sure 

Note:

Silvers .LCD files does not support that small display

But I can try and fit some MaLa data on it

FYI this is actually a VFD (not that the comms are much different)

[Circo]

I was so excited today, was going to try your new plug in, but..........

I was restoring my arcade cabs pc today (nasty virus killed it) and I was waiting for my sam's club order for my new beta brite display.  I must have missed the ups guy because I thought it never came.  Then I went outside and as I was coming back in, behind the door, woohoo a big brown box.  Grabbed it up and ran into the house, ripped it open like a kid on christmas morning and there it was a brand new beta brite box.  Opened her up, hmm no seal, ok wait a minute, remote.. check, power supply.. check, hmm there should be a sign in here.... nope.  Damn thing was stolen out of the box.  So in the morning I am going to have a fun conversation with sam's club.

 

btw, it is usb only, will it work?

[headkaze]

I was so excited today, was going to try your new plug in, but..........

I was restoring my arcade cabs pc today (nasty virus killed it) and I was waiting for my sam's club order for my new beta brite display.  I must have missed the ups guy because I thought it never came.  Then I went outside and as I was coming back in, behind the door, woohoo a big brown box.  Grabbed it up and ran into the house, ripped it open like a kid on christmas morning and there it was a brand new beta brite box.  Opened her up, hmm no seal, ok wait a minute, remote.. check, power supply.. check, hmm there should be a sign in here.... nope.  Damn thing was stolen out of the box.  So in the morning I am going to have a fun conversation with sam's club.

 

btw, it is usb only, will it work?

That's bad news. Hope you can sort it out and get it back.

USB should be fine, did you get any software with it?

[Circo]

Yeah but I am leaving it all sealed in case they give me any problems, doubt I will since it is sam's club though.  I will find out in a few hours I guess.

[loadman]

Oh my gosh, Virus?? Ahh Do you surf the net on your cab?

How does a betabrite get stolen ?  Crazy stuff.

Kick some Butt!

btw, it is usb only, will it work?

It will work if it maps as a virtual serial port.

If not I will have to try and find a solution as this is a 'Serial display Plug-in' so it may need a diffrent interface.. Anyway

when you get it loaded I will get you to look in the device manager to see if it looks anything like my com5 (see pic attached)

[Lilwolf]

btw, these are cool!  I like that they are almost the right size to replace a marquee!

the question... for the color one (betabrite) can you display images?  or just text?

I'm wondering if you could convert the original marquee images to something similar?  Or possible make your own with icons + image title or something?

anyway, very very cool!

[loadman]

btw, these are cool!  I like that they are almost the right size to replace a marquee!

the question... for the color one (betabrite) can you display images?  or just text?

I'm wondering if you could convert the original marquee images to something similar?  Or possible make your own with icons + image title or something?

anyway, very very cool!

I don't own one... But from what I can tell there are some built in graphics  on some models. Not sure if you can make custom stuff? I vaguely remember someone doing something cool like that on a high end display?  You need to search I guess

Either way my plug 'at the moment' just does text with color and transition options for your basic betabrite.   

[headkaze]

btw, these are cool!  I like that they are almost the right size to replace a marquee!

the question... for the color one (betabrite) can you display images?  or just text?

I'm wondering if you could convert the original marquee images to something similar?  Or possible make your own with icons + image title or something?

anyway, very very cool!

I don't own one... But from what I can tell there are some built in graphics  on some models. Not sure if you can make custom stuff? I vaguely remember someone doing something cool like that on a high end display?  You need to search I guess

Either way my plug 'at the moment' just does text with color and transition options for your basic betabrite.   

I do know someone who has a beta brite which can play gif animations. Looks bloody cool. You can use a program called ImageMagick to convert all the Mame marquee's to graphics for the BetaBrite. Unfortunately they don't look that great, some of them look okay though. I have a post with the command line you need to convert them all to the right format...

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=2295&st=0

[youki]

I think the resolution of the BetaBrite is 80x27 (or 17?)  , it is too poor to have a good result with marquee unfortunnaly.  But for some Icons , i think we could  manage to do something  nice. 

[headkaze]

I think the resolution of the BetaBrite is 80x27 (or 17?)  , it is too poor to have a good result with marquee unfortunnaly.  But for some Icons , i think we could  manage to do something  nice. 

The ones that allow gif animations are 120x16

[Circo]

That is the one that I got the beta brite prism, graphics would be cool.

On another note, I had mentioned a problem in the led-wiz thread that when using .lnk files (Shortcuts for pc games) that Mala wouldn't load up the led wiz lights.  Well it also has the same problems with .lcd files.  It must be something in Mala itself, it works with every other type of extension I can think of.  Any ideas why this would be?  .lnk files work much better than batch files because you dont have to worry about how long directory names or file names are.

[loadman]

btw, these are cool!  I like that they are almost the right size to replace a marquee!
the question... for the color one (betabrite) can you display images?  or just text?

...Ahh this is where I saw it (LED Marquee)

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=41500.msg489829#msg489829

Well it also has the same problems with .lcd files

I understand the .lnk problem to launch PC games
Sorry... I'm a bit slow today.  What exactly are you doing with the .lcd files?

[Circo]

Well it also has the same problems with .lcd files

I understand the .lnk problem to launch PC games
Sorry... I'm a bit slow today.  What exactly are you doing with the .lcd files?
[/quote]

the .lcd files are like an instruction sheet for the game. 



Just like i did with mame, I would like to do with the different pc games.  Mostly I have pinball, casino, and reflexive arcade/popcap games.  They take up a large portion of the play time and it is wierd that they are the only ones that mala seems to have a problem with.  It loads the games just fine but will not call up Led-wiz, or LCD displays.  It's really weird as I havent had that problem with any other kind of file.  If I use a bat file everything works great, but that is a huge pain for 200 games.  I just wonder if there is some setting or workaround for this?

[Circo]

I do know someone who has a beta brite which can play gif animations. Looks bloody cool. You can use a program called ImageMagick to convert all the Mame marquee's to graphics for the BetaBrite. Unfortunately they don't look that great, some of them look okay though. I have a post with the command line you need to convert them all to the right format...

http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?showtopic=2295&st=0

I wonder if you just cropped out the title part of the marquee how it would look, I'll try it when I finally get mine replaced from sam's club, hopefully that's not an if.

[loadman]

Well it also has the same problems with .lcd files

I understand the .lnk problem to launch PC games
Sorry... I'm a bit slow today.  What exactly are you doing with the .lcd files?

the .lcd files are like an instruction sheet for the game. 

Just like i did with mame, I would like to do with the different pc games.  Mostly I have pinball, casino, and reflexive arcade/popcap games.  They take up a large portion of the play time and it is weird that they are the only ones that mala seems to have a problem with.  It loads the games just fine but will not call up Led-wiz, or LCD displays.  It's really weird as I haven't had that problem with any other kind of file.  If I use a bat file everything works great, but that is a huge pain for 200 games.  I just wonder if there is some setting or workaround for this?

Sorry Circo, As soon as I got in the car to go to work I 'clicked' to what you meant....

Yes I will have a look.

The Plug-in relies on Mala passing the ROM name over.  Then the Led-wiz Plug-in can load the LEds or Serial display can load the .lcd file

I guess MalA is not passing names of .lnk files as 'pseudo' rom names to the plug-ins... (best guess)

I will check tomorrow

[swindus]

Loadman is right. MaLa extracts the executable and the working dir from the lnk file. So the rom name passed by MaLa is the name of the executable of the lnk file. You can also enable and watch the MaLa log file to get more information about the used rom name when starting a game.

[Circo]

Loadman is right. MaLa extracts the executable and the working dir from the lnk file. So the rom name passed by MaLa is the name of the executable of the lnk file. You can also enable and watch the MaLa log file to get more information about the used rom name when starting a game.

Ok so as long as I name the .lcd file or led-wiz config as the actual executable then all should work, will give it a go and report back.  Thanks guys!

[Circo]

Well the .lnk files that I was testing with have the same exact file name as the .exe files.  Tried turning on the log, but for the life of me can't find the log file. (Stupid me probably just need to do some research)  Anyway I will keep trying to figure this one out and report back.

Secondly, spoke to Sam's Club Corporate today and they are going to overnight me a new beta brite prism.  Since it is coming I cracked open the software and I am not sure if this is accurate but it gave me a message "Sign not connected com 255"  It's usb but does that mean it's going to use com port 255?  Like I said before I will have more info when that sign actually gets here.

[loadman]

Well the .lnk files that I was testing with have the same exact file name as the .exe files.  Tried turning on the log, but for the life of me can't find the log file. (Stupid me probably just need to do some research)  Anyway I will keep trying to figure this one out and report back

Circo:
You can see what LCD file my Plug-in is looking for by enabling 'Enable directory messages' on the set-up prog

Loadman is right. MaLa extracts the executable and the working dir from the lnk file. So the rom name passed by MaLa is the name of the executable of the lnk file. You can also enable and watch the MaLa log file to get more information about the used rom name when starting a game.

Ah Ha..  It is indeed. 
Thanks SWINDUS   
 The other games just pass the name of the rom to the plug-in, but when .lnk are launched MaLa passes a full path as well'
eg:
Rom name: C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Pinball\PINBALL.EXE
which ideally should be
Rom name: PINBALL
.. like the others.

My Plug-in looks for a LCD file in the specified directory or a sub directory (with the same name as the emulator) so I don't really need or want this full path

Swindus, Can this be altered in MaLa or do you know Delphi method to strip the other data from this string? 

I guess as a 'workaround' I could use the 'Game Name' rather than the rom name when .lks extensions are used....  What you think?

[headkaze]

Check out ExtractFileName.

Code: [Select]

OFileName := ExtractFileName(OrigFileName);
OFileName := OFileName.SubString(1, OFileName.Pos(".") - 1);

[loadman]

Check out ExtractFileName.

Code: [Select]

OFileName := ExtractFileName(OrigFileName);
OFileName := OFileName.SubString(1, OFileName.Pos(".") - 1);

Cool if Swindus does not want to change what MaLa spits out when launching .lnk files I will either.
1) Use that method you just gave me a link to, when .lnk files are used
2) Use the game name (not rom name) when .lnk files are used

[swindus]

I put it on my TODO list.

[Circo]

btw, it is usb only, will it work?

It will work if it maps as a virtual serial port.

If not I will have to try and find a solution as this is a 'Serial display Plug-in' so it may need a diffrent interface.. Anyway

when you get it loaded I will get you to look in the device manager to see if it looks anything like my com5 (see pic attached)

Well bad news nothing under com ports it shows up under:

Universal serial Bus Controllers
   |
   ---- USB Bulk Device

Under com ports there is nothing but the com1 that I have active for my LCD display.

Damn!

Good news is at least I finally recieved it.

What other information will you need? 

And BTW have I mentioned how much I appreciate your efforts with all this stuff?   

Thank you so much!

[loadman]

OK?  So what model do you have??? In a earlier post you suggested you had the
http://www.betabrite.com/pdfs/1196650401BBPrism.pdf
which can do both USB and Serial.

Is it possbile that it can handle serial but the cable was not supplied?

Model # please

[Circo]

I have a betabrite prism that I got from sam's club but it must be a newer version because it only has a usb port, and the manual mentions nothing about serial.

here is a quick video of it running.  I need to get one up of the lcd panel too but you couln't see it in this clip so I cut it out.



Betabrite Prism
February 16th, 2006
PN 1196600101

http://www.ams-i.com/Media/1196600101.pdf

I guess it is the newer model, they didn't list the part number on samsclub so I though that it was the same thing.  Did I mention that the thing is friggin bright??? Blinding, way cool!

[loadman]

Model # please?

I need that detail so I can do some homework to see if any other coder has tacked writing a custom app for this if not you might consider swapping for a serial one. 

[Circo]

I believe that the PN is the model number.

[loadman]

I believe that the PN is the model number.

A ha..  You did a post edit on me to include it 

http://www.ams-i.com/Media/1196600101.pdf

Yep sure looks like USB only 

I had a quick 'google' and could not find a way of communication with this model other than the supplied software or remote control   

[headkaze]

I've done a bit of investigation into using a Prism to display MAME marquee's converted to gif format which the sign can read. It's quite confusing on a number of levels, but here are my conclusions.

The Prism is only a 80x7 LED display with 64 colours (although I can only count 26 in the software that comes with it). Converting marquees dosn't work on this size display, well it works they just look terrible.

I do believe you can get a BetaBrite classic with a 120x16 LED display with 4 colours (a user has created some animated marquee's by hand you can view here). Unfortunately only 4 colours means there are not enough colours to represent a marquee clearly (using batch conversion anyway).

If there was a 120x16 Prism with 64 colours then the marquee's would probably look okay. I have used ImageMagick to bulk convert the marquees to this size and colour palette but I don't think you can get Prism's in that size. Also the 120x16 BetaBrite seems to be a rare item, the standard sizes for BetaBrite Alpha seems to be 64x16x4, 64x24x4 and 64x32x4 (width x height x colours), and there are probably the same for a 120 width display, although I can find no info on the 120x16 display.

Conclusion: BetaBrites are not suited for Mame marquee's unless you hand make them using 4 colours with the hard to find 120x16 display.

Yep sure looks like USB only

So no virtual COM port software? That would suck. Running the Prism software I get an error message "Display not connected. COM 255", which seems to indicate that they run on virtual COM port 255 (you can have up to 256 virtual COM ports that act like standard serial COM ports). So I still think there must be a virtual COM driver that comes with these signs. I also found a hidden download area on the BetaBrite site that has an ActiveX control for Alpha signs here. Not sure if the USB communication is delt with by this control.

[Circo]

Yeah marquees would be a no go with this sign.  Nice thing is that it is the exact width of my cab.  I think the 120 would probably be a little to big for me. 
It would be just fine to display the game title or something on the display.  I made an attract mode as you can see part in the above video and the reults were pretty impressive.  I just have to be careful as the damn thing is blinding bright.

Loadman is there a way to add com port 255 to the plug-in to test?  I noticed that too when I had the software and no sign.  It's worth a try.

[headkaze]

Loadman is there a way to add com port 255 to the plug-in to test?  I noticed that too when I had the software and no sign.  It's worth a try.

That's an interesting point, the thing is, we are using standard serial communications which means we are using COM port 1-8 I think it is. You normall map a virtual port to a standard port using a driver.

Have you got your BetaBrite installed etc? Try going into Device Manager and look under ports. Quite often you can map any "standard port" to the virtual port.

[Circo]

There is no driver for it under ports the only thing that I see there is com1 which I use for my lcd display.  I have com2 and parallel turned off in the bios because I am not using them.  The only thing that was added to the device manager when I installed the betabrite was the bulk usb driver.  I was prowsing through the proerties of the device and couldn't find anything at first glance that referred to a communications port.

[loadman]

The current serial driver can only handle Com 1-9 and I don't want to change that as it took weeks to find a decent free serial driver for Delphi.

I was prowsing through the proerties of the device and couldn't find anything at first glance that referred to a communications port

Did you try hitting buttons like 'advanced' and having a look in there?

So if you can re-map the betabrite to one of those(1-9) 'we are in business 'otherwise it won't be included in this plug-in at this stage.

I'm not ruling out support for USB only Betatbrite's somewhere in the future as a separate Plug-in.  
[EDIT] I just sent a mail to the manufacture of this display asking for help 

Of course someone else who has the time and knowledge may of course like to take this on themselves? (you can make plug-in's using C++ too)  

 I mean MaLa Hardware is USB only as are the LedWiz,  and I can control them fine  . But the difference is I had demo software and documentation on how to control it from the manufacturers.

I really want to concentrate on releasing this Serial Display Plug-in as it is dragging on a bit long here  :-(

[Circo]

Not a biggie, I have some emails in to some 3rd party betabrite software company to see if it can send commands via command line or an external program, once I get the info I will post an update as well.  Or worse case scenario, I can get the right one and re sell this or something.