Main > Main Forum
rotating monitor methods
<< < (10/13) > >>
ahofle:
Ahh, I totally missed that.  Looks good! (I assume you painted the circular wooden piece around the monitor black as well?)
koz319:

--- Quote from: ahofle on February 20, 2007, 06:23:55 pm ---Ahh, I totally missed that.  Looks good! (I assume you painted the circular wooden piece around the monitor black as well?)

--- End quote ---

The wooden circle is completely cover by a standard Happ bezel, which is trimmed to the shape of the circle.  (So the circle is not painted) This bezel rotates with the monitor.

The painted plexi covers everything else. The Happ bezel shows through the 'plus' shaped window in the plexi.

Koz
DaOld Man:
Any progress on making an interface to automatically rotate the monitor?
Im thinking of making a program that is launched by a frontend, such as GLaunch, that could look up a list of games, and turn on an output (printer or serial) to rotate the screen.
For example: run galaga88.
Program looks on a list of games for Galaga88, if found in list, read in desirable screen position, turn on appropriate output to turn screen.
If game is not on list, use a default setting.
My problem right now would be how to intercept the run game command from the front end.
Perhaps there is a frontend already out there that can do this?
This is just an idea in its infancy. Appreciate any input.
telengard:

--- Quote from: koz319 on February 15, 2007, 05:30:40 pm ---

I built a rotating monitor in my cab (21 in. crt) - controlled through the parallel port.   The parallel port controls an h-bridge which controls the direction of motor rotation. (if one pin is high, rotate clockwise - if the other pin is high, rotate counter clockwise.) 
There are two limit switches - each switch is set up to interrupt the signal to the h-bridge to stop rotation, as well as set another pin on the parallel port so the pc can read when the limit is reached.  Another paralled port pin is attached to the monitors degauss circuit. 
I wrote a quick command line prg that you pass a few arguments to - which way to rotate, degauss at end of rotation or not, and a timeout in seconds, so the montitor will stop turning if there is a limit switch malfuntion.   You can use this from you desktop or call it from whatever to change the monitors orientation.

I also re-compiled mame to do this automatically based on the orientation of the game that's launched.

If any of this sounds like it might be helpful, let me know, and I'll pass on any info you may want.

Good luck!- I think the rotating monitor is awesome.

Koz


--- End quote ---

I'd be very interested in your patch to mame etc.  I have a rotating monitor and one of the few things left on my TODO list is to make it automatic.  I'm not sure if my computer has an LPT port though.   PCs don't seem to ship with them anymore which is a shame because they are *perfect* for a lot of stuff like this.  I'm porting and modifying an existing program to act as a 1541 disk drive over the parallel port.  Hopefully parallel port cards will continue to be available.

What method did you use for rotating?

EDIT: Didn't realize this was a grave diggin' thread.     :)

~telengard
telengard:

--- Quote from: koz319 on February 20, 2007, 06:15:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: ahofle on February 20, 2007, 06:12:25 pm ---Not sure if this was mentioned, but how do you handle the bezel for a rotating monitor?  Would it just be a 'plus' shaped hole that partially shows the back of the cabinet?  Tinted plexi?  I also suppose it could also be done with two overlapping bezels.

--- End quote ---

If you look at the pics attached to the previous post, you can sort of see one way of doing this.   Normal Happ bezel attached to monitor and trimmed.   Plexi masked and painted (in the plus shape you mentioned) to mask everyting else.  Looks decent IMHO.

Koz

--- End quote ---

I did the exact same thing pretty much, except I have a PC monitor and a foam-core bezel (soon to be D9500 and Happ bezel).  The glass bezel has the "plus" slightly smaller than the size of the bezel which also is trimmed so when rotating it, it doesn't catch on the cab.

~telengard
Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page

Go to full version