I've Decided on SpyStyle's DOS CD, so What Hardware for Galaga Only Console?

[SECONDandBOWERY]

Hey guys - this is my first post here, so please bare with me:

I'm thinking of starting a dedicated half-scale Galaga project (cosmetically similar to this one).  The main difference will be that instead of having the ability to play multiple games via MAME, I only want to be able to play Galaga.  It is crucial that when turned on, the system loads straight to Galaga's loading screens nearly instantly - no MAME or VAntAGE or any sort of frontends or Windows/Linux/Mac bootup screens!  My question, then, is thus: What is the cheapest way (and also what is the easiest way) to wire up a dedicated Galaga cabinet (2 way joystick, 1 fire button, 2 start buttons, 1 or 2 coin slots) and still have the game boot straight to Galaga upon bootup?

Thanks so much in advance and I look forward to learning as much as I can about this fascinating hobby!

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[MinerAl]

You could run a very small DOS or Linux install that runs the Galaga rom (in Vantage or Mame) right from the startup batch file.  It would still have to boot up, but if you used a sufficiently stripped version it would only be a few seconds.

You could get your hands on an actual Galaga arcade board.  You'd need to use an arcade monitor or an interface of some kind to another kind of monitor.

You could find a good console version of Galaga and leave that cartridge/disk in it all the time.  You'd need to interface arcade controls to the console, and the monitor would likely be horizontal instead of vertical.

[Kaytrim]

It is crucial that when turned on, the system loads straight to Galaga's loading screens nearly instantly - no MAME or VAntAGE or any sort of frontends or Windows/Linux/Mac bootup screens! 

You could get your hands on an actual Galaga arcade board.  You'd need to use an arcade monitor or an interface of some kind to another kind of monitor.

Andy,

The only to show just the Galaga boot screens is to use a Galaga arcade board.  Otherwise you will have the computer BIOS screens even a DOS boot screen for a few seconds.  There is a command line version of MAME that with passed parameters will start directly into a game from a DOS prompt.  Please remember that this is emulation which means that we are using a program on a PC to run another program intended for different hardware and operating system.

I am in the process of researching and possibly building a bartop machine that uses an old PC, DOS, MAME and a Compact Flash card.  Here is a link a few threads talking about it.  The second link takes you through a complete build of a machine from first cuts to setting up the computer to the finishing touches.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=58809;all
http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com/01/index1.htm

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=59941;all

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64846;all

[leapinlew]

Hey guys - this is my first post here, so please bare with me:

I'm thinking of starting a dedicated half-scale Galaga project (cosmetically similar to this one).  The main difference will be that instead of having the ability to play multiple games via MAME, I only want to be able to play Galaga.  It is crucial that when turned on, the system loads straight to Galaga's loading screens nearly instantly - no MAME or VAntAGE or any sort of frontends or Windows/Linux/Mac bootup screens!  My question, then, is thus: What is the cheapest way (and also what is the easiest way) to wire up a dedicated Galaga cabinet (2 way joystick, 1 fire button, 2 start buttons, 1 or 2 coin slots) and still have the game boot straight to Galaga upon bootup?

Thanks so much in advance and I look forward to learning as much as I can about this fascinating hobby!

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

Awesome - I'm building a 50% galaga soon. I am going to use a laptop and have it boot straight into Galaga. While it's booting up you would see normal computer bootup sequence.

You could also use a jakk's plugin to a TV. I prefer the authenticity of using a Galaga rom. I plan on using Mame and allowing the machine to boot to either Galaga, Galaga fast shoot and Galaxian. Good luck with your build.

[MaximRecoil]

If you use DOS MAME and install only something like DOS 6.22 on your PC, and put a line to start Galaga in your autoexec.bat file, then that is probably as close as you are going to get. If you aren't loading much else in your autoexec.bat file, you'll get to Galaga pretty quickly -- possibly even fast enough that by the time your monitor warms up enough for you to see the screen, you'll see Galaga.

[pmc]

What is the cheapest way (and also what is the easiest way) to wire up a dedicated Galaga cabinet (2 way joystick, 1 fire button, 2 start buttons, 1 or 2 coin slots) and still have the game boot straight to Galaga upon bootup?

Cool project.

There used to be a site that hosted PC floppy images that contained boot code and dedicated emulators. The idea is that you boot off the floppy and it immediately loads into a specific emulated game. Nothing is installed on a hard drive. There's a different floppy for each game.

It might get you three of your requirements: 1. fast/clean boot into specific classic game, 2. easy, and 3. cheap. You could use an old P1 or P2 board and you don't even need a hard drive. No need to mess with an operating system or MAME at all. Depending on the BIOS, you might have to do the two video cards trick to get a blank boot screen.

-pmc

[NickG]

you can completely hide some mother board boot screens and post screens - those that display a bitmap instead of the boot and post screen.  Some even have a built in bios flash utility for changing the bitmap so you don't have to hack your bios.  One of the first motherboards I owned - FIC AZ11e - came with a boot image changing utility on the driver disk.  Such a board could be had on the cheap these days and would still run Galaga.  You would just change the boot/post bitmap image to black, and cover up your dos startup/batch with another black bitmap.

[NoOne=NBA=]

The simplest solution would be to put two power buttons on the cabinet, and fire up the rest of the cab (monitor, marquee, coin lights, etc...) a few seconds after the computer.

You could build a circuit to do this automatically, but the expense wouldn't be worth it to me.

[SithMaster]

http://retrograde.trustno1.org/index2.htm

but no coin functions.  i too need to figure out how to get a straight boot since im working on a galaxian cab.

[MaximRecoil]

What is the cheapest way (and also what is the easiest way) to wire up a dedicated Galaga cabinet (2 way joystick, 1 fire button, 2 start buttons, 1 or 2 coin slots) and still have the game boot straight to Galaga upon bootup?

Cool project.

There used to be a site that hosted PC floppy images that contained boot code and dedicated emulators. The idea is that you boot off the floppy and it immediately loads into a specific emulated game. Nothing is installed on a hard drive. There's a different floppy for each game.

It might get you three of your requirements: 1. fast/clean boot into specific classic game, 2. easy, and 3. cheap. You could use an old P1 or P2 board and you don't even need a hard drive. No need to mess with an operating system or MAME at all. Depending on the BIOS, you might have to do the two video cards trick to get a blank boot screen.

-pmc

Yeah, that is AMOAD (Arcade Machine On A Disk). Galaga is available as an AMOAD disk image as well. AMOAD is built from MAME source code, so the emulation should be fine. The OP only needs to do a Google search for AMOAD, it should be the first result.

[SithMaster]

so do these files have high score saving?

[MaximRecoil]

so do these files have high score saving?

The AMOAD disk image includes a "hiscore.dat" file so I assume so. You can enable sound too, but like with any DOS program, you are going to need a DOS compatible sound card and DOS drivers before that will work.

The disk boots to an AMOAD spash screen telling you to press any key to continue, but you can delete all of that out of the autoexec.bat file. All you need in that file is the word "Galaga", or "Galaga -snd" to enable sound. It wants to know which sound card you are using if you use the -snd switch. I'm not sure if there is a switch you can add to the "Galaga" line to make it auto-select a specific sound card or not. In regular MAME the switch is (for Sound Blaster) "-soundcard 1".

It got to Galaga very fast when I tested it in Virtual PC, a matter of a few of seconds from when turned on, but that was with a disk image in place of a real floppy, which would be slower. I'm sure you could burn a floppy-emulating CD though, which would speed things up, or maybe even put it on some sort of solid-state storage device.

[SECONDandBOWERY]

Thanks so much for all this! 

I've seen AMOAD before - my only concern is that it'll need to run it vertically (will it support rotating?) and respond to the arcade buttons (will it recognize and IPAC or would I have to hack to a keyboard?).

I think the best way to go might be to write AMOAD Galaga to a floppy disk and then copy the floppy image to a USB Memory Key so it's pretty much silent and I won't have to bother with outdated technology (*sigh* - back in my day, we didn't have that fancy-schmancy USB!  We had to walk uphill, barefoot in the snow to go buy my 1.44 MB floppy disks!).  Then all I'd get is the booting images from the disk, right?

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[SithMaster]

Ive already made my disk and will just need to get my cab setup for it.  well it shoudl support vertical screen since you can add commandlines.

id check the thread on using a usb drive.  im going to use a floppy drive since i have a few and while they do get loud when in use if its hidden inside a cab and the sound is on no one should know its there.

i wouldnt waste an ipac on it.  im going to have to find a gamepad or try a hack since i only need 9 inputs and im cheap.

[pmc]

they do get loud when in use if its hidden inside a cab and the sound is on no one should know its there.

I was thinking about that too. The initial shutter-slide sound and the grunt-grunt-grunt sound the drive makes. You could remove the shutter, and I've always assumed those AMOAD disks pretty load everything into RAM so the drive sound only occurs at boot time. Set BIOS to "boot from floppy" so there's no hunting, and pull the leads off the speaker so there's no PC "beeeeeeeeeeep".

try a hack since i only need 9 inputs and im cheap.

That's the beauty of projects like these. I much prefer re-using junk then plopping down real cash. I've already got 90% of the materials anyway.

I've got a P1 laptop that I always planned on turning into a vertical bartop Galaga, but I need a cheap PCMCIA soundcard first. My test builds were Vantage on DOS 6.22 I think and it ran OK if I recall. I was going to buy a keyboard encoder, but a joypad hack sounds more appropriate if I have the right interfaces on that PC.

-pmc

[Kaytrim]

If you guys are worried about the floppy drive noises look at the third link in my post above.  The project uses a Compact Flash card with an IDE to CF adapter.  You can get both of these items real cheap on eBay.  These are more durable than a USB key.  As soon as I get my adapters I am going to build a few bartop models for friends and family.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[SithMaster]

I was thinking about that too. The initial shutter-slide sound and the grunt-grunt-grunt sound the drive makes. You could remove the shutter, and I've always assumed those AMOAD disks pretty load everything into RAM so the drive sound only occurs at boot time. Set BIOS to "boot from floppy" so there's no hunting, and pull the leads off the speaker so there's no PC "beeeeeeeeeeep".

what do you mean by pull the leads?

[BobA]

I assume he means disconnect the speaker leads on the internal PC speaker by pulling them off their pins on the MB.

[SithMaster]

I figured he meant the internal speaker(s) but dont most users not have internal speakers hooked up?  Unless you plan on running this straight from your everyday pc you wont have to worry about the beeping since all you have are speakers hooked up to a sound card.

i might get around to using the disk i made this week.  thanks to whoever mentioned amoad.

[SirPeale]

I used a Delhi III motherboard (eMachines) running DOS 7.  Boots quickly, frontend is ArcadeOS (though obviously it could boot right to Galaga) running Mame .96 modified to remove the warning about incorrect video in Galaga.

[pmc]

I assume he means disconnect the speaker leads on the internal PC speaker by pulling them off their pins on the MB.

That's what I meant. Many of 'em have an oldy style PC "beep" at boot time and they use the PC speaker for that irritating noise. It's as bad as the "check for a floppy to boot from" grunting noise they used to make.

I think I'm going to play with that CF card bizness. Sounds cheap, fast, and quiet.

-pmc

[SECONDandBOWERY]

AMOAD on a CF card looks like the way to go!  If I do go the AMOAD route, I don't even need a hard drive or any other software or OS, do I?

How hard is it to make sure that the graphics warning gets skipped and the game runs vertically and at the right resolution on the AMOAD.  I assume it's just adding some sort of config file to the disk, right?

Stopping the infernal BEEPing noises would definitely be a good move.

leapinlew: Would you want to discuss your 50% Galaga project with me?  This is going to be my first project so I think discussing it with someone with a similar project could be really helpful.

Thanks so much!

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[Kaytrim]

I just installed Spystyle's CD on a 512MB CF card on a PIII 733Mhz with 512MB ram and it is nice a quick. 

IDE to CF adapter, $2.95 plus shipping on eBay
512MB CF Card, $5.99 plus shipping on eBay
old PIII computer and 17" monitor, FREE
Joystick, buttons and KeyWiz, less than $40.00
Bartop Cab still to build... ~$15 for materials

Quick Arcade machine and present for my Dad, PRICELESS. 

Project build to appear in the project forum later.

[SECONDandBOWERY]

What's Spystyle's CD and where can I find info about it?

Thanks!

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[Kaytrim]

What's Spystyle's CD and where can I find info about it?

Thanks!

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

There is a full build writeup including information on the CD at this link.
http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com/01/index1.htm
Spystyle is a member here on the forums.  He made a CD that will install DOS 7.0 and your choice of 7 versions of MAME on a computer.  The install took me less then 15 min.

[Kaytrim]

There is more information on the CD here...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=58809;all

[SECONDandBOWERY]

Yeah, I've seen that thread but I just didn't make the connection right away.  I'm under the impression that his is more of an installer to put the stuff on a hard drive while the AMOAD is more of a LiveCD (or LiveFloppy or LiveCF, if you will).  Is that about right?

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[ChadTower]

The cheapest way is probably to use a $15 TV joystick game, with a TV, hacked to your real controls.

[Kaytrim]

I don't know anything about AMOAD.   For what you want the hardware setup I mentioned above will be more than adequate.  You could get by with a card as small as 64 or even 32 MB if you can find one that small anymore.  The CF card replaces the hard disk on the computer.  This is a faster device than a floppy and the adapter is for an IDE ribbon cable not a floppy cable.  So to the computer it is a hard drive.

Plug the CF card into the primary IDE connector as the master.  Install DOS, MAME and the ROM(s) on the CF card (C:\ drive) from your CD Drive.  You can then remove any other drives plugged into the motherboard.  Take care of the necessary changes to the BIOS and you are golden.

One other thing is to edit the AUTOEXE.BAT.  The line that starts GameLauncher, the last line needs to be replaced to launch mame with Galaga (mame galag)

[SECONDandBOWERY]

Oh!  That actually sounds much easier than I had anticipated.

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[SirPeale]

I don't think you can get the AMOAD to rotate, but it's been a while since I played with it.

[patrickl]

That half scale Galaga looks pretty uncomfortable to play on though. I'd say even more so than my PocketGalaga.

[RayB]

"Second and Bowery" ... sounds like a bar name. Are you putting this together for commercial use?

Frankly, I'd buy the original board (or bootleg) for ~$150 and be done with it.

[SECONDandBOWERY]

RayB: Actually, there used to be a bar (they got shut down recently) called CBGB's at 2nd Street and the Bowery in New York.  It was the birthplace of American underground music as well as one of the only clubs to put on punk rock shows back when the scene was young (mid-to-late '70s).  Nearly all of my favorite bands played there at some point in time (my all time favorite band, the Ramones, played there often) so it's kind of a tribute to that little hole-in-the wall club.

This is not for commercial use.

Just using the boards would make everything simpler, but I'd be concerned about monitor compatibility and lifespan of the boards and ROM accuracy (if using a bootleg).  Anyone want to weigh in on this?

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[RayB]

yeah, I know CBGB's.

I have a jamma bootleg in my Galaga cab and it's 100% accurate to the Midway version.

[tta583]

Some thoughts.  Yes, I know this is a MAME board so please don't flame me!!  

An original Galaga board has been mentioned a few times.  That is a good option other than they tend to be a little flaky at times.  They are like what, over 20 years old.  From memory I want to say a Galaga has a lot of proprietary IC's and some odd power requirements.  Not odd voltages but more like issues with voltage drops across the board set.  I have never owned one, all this is based on reading about repairs and t-shooting.

Beyond that, how about a multi-JAMMA, like a 39 in 1 board?  They seem to be getting rather inexpensive.  You can turn off all the other games and it will boot directly to Galaga.  With just a single game "on", like Galaga, it will only show that game's demo screen.  When you coin it that single game starts.  No drop back to a menu to make a selection like it would with more than one game on.  JAMMA wiring so that is straight forward, direct compatibility with arcade controls, straight hook up to a 15mhz monitor (not sure what you were looking to use), and all solid state.  No drives to fail, no noise, little to no heat issue.

Just a thought.  Good luck and post pics!!

brent

[RandyT]

Lots of interesting approaches here.  But the problem I see is that none of then, other than an original boardset, will allow a nearly instantaneous execution into the ROM's boot screens.

Anything PC based is going to have those PC startup screens visible.  The "X-in-1's" sound like a menu is mandatory, so that doesn't sound like it will fit the bill either.

The only thing I can think of is an extension of the AMOAD type of arrangement with a custom piece of hardware to keep the screen blank while everything is being loaded. 

RandyT

[BobA]

On the 48 in1 you can disable the games you do not want.   I guess you could disable 47 of 48 so only the one you want shows in the selection menu.   You could select 2 and have a choice of Galaxian and Galaga.  The screen blanks until the menu comes up so you don't have the PC Look. 

I think the 48 in 1 is also basically solid state so there is no disk drive.  You have a choice of CGA or VGA display.   Keep High Score can be enabled and the DIP switches in software that are available in MAME are also available via the test switch.  There was a thread about them and someone on the board has one and apparently likes it.

Just another option I guess

[SECONDandBOWERY]

This JAMMA stuff sounds very interesting, but after researching it a little bit, I think I'm going to stick w/ MAME and a small DOS system.

Thanks so much for all the help - now I just have to find a 9" or 10" monitor to use!

Rock'n'Roll,
--Andy

[The 80s Man]

Don't forget you could always use a Dreamcast instead of using a PC. Used Dreamcast sell for 30.oo and under. MAME on Dreamcast plays Galaga perfectly. I would recommend using a Dreamcast to VGA adaptor so you can use a computer monitor for a super clean image. The controls can be hacked and you could even get the coin slot to work.
As far as getting it to boot straight to Galaga, I don't know.

A Galaga single game Emulator Dreamcast file can be found here.
http://dchelp.net/cgi-bin/sbi/browse/browse.cgi?browse&Emus
 
as for the rom file you probably already have it.