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Author Topic: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help  (Read 32411 times)

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vivelo

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Hi All,

I have a Golden Tee Cab that has the LED Betabrite top display. I'm in the process of conveting it all MAME (slowly getting there). I want the Betabright to display random names etc.

So far;

I have tried many software's including beta msg, I have the cable and rs connector, but when I try and control the LED display it just resets it and it continues to run in test mode.

It has a control board on it from incredible technologies which you plug into, I've tested the lithium battery and that seems ok, but it won't except new commands. The beta message software connects to it ok? Will this board from incrdible technologies needs something special to control it??

Any help? ideas? I've tried asking incredible technologies for advice, but no reply!

Please!!

MonMotha

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2008, 06:49:32 pm »
My Golden Tee signs appear to be entirely a creation of Incredible Technologies.  The control board in them is remarkably complicated because they handled most the tournament functionality in the older versions.  Now, I'm not sure if the new ones are different, but the versions that the LED signs claims to have last been hooked up to are fairly recent.  I have no clue what the command set for the serial interface is since I have no way to make any of my Golden Tee boards talk to them.

I'm working on a new interface board if you care.  I gave up trying to talk to theirs and decided it would be quicker to just replace it with my own.

vivelo

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2008, 10:50:32 am »
Sounds as you have a lot more experience than me, so its not looking good! You will have to post how it goes with making your own, if it works, maybe you could make another (for me!) and make a little money from your project!

I read somewhere, (but can't remember where) a frontend has the majority of LED ticker displays commands built in and it displays what game is on. If I can remember/find the frontend name; I think its worth downloading and giving it a go?

If no solution is found, I guess I will be chopping the top off the Cab!

Ken Layton

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2008, 11:37:21 am »
If I remember correctly, Incredible Technologies put a custom burned eprom into the LED display unit. This prevents communication with any other devices except certain Incredible Technologies boardsets.

I believe if you contact the display manufacturer and get the stock generic eprom (pre programmed) from them instead of Incredible Technologies, then you can interface anything.

MonMotha

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2008, 06:31:36 pm »
I do not believe these are compatible at all with the signs commonly found commercially.  The pinout for the 6/6 modular jack doesn't line up, and the board bears Incredible Technologies name all over it.  Looks to be custom by them.  The board that has the LED modules on it also bears their logo and name.  There may exist ROMs that can be swapped in to make it behave like the common ones, but that still would require a slightly custom cable since the pinout doesn't match.

Does your board look like mine?

StephenH

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2008, 12:05:09 am »
You might try contacting Beta-Brite and see if the board is the same as one of their electronic display models, or uses compatible ROMs, or can be hooked up to one of their display system keypads somehow.

http://www.betabrite.com/

vivelo

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Hi all,

My board looks the same as the one above. There has to be a way??

If I can't find a solution, maybe I can squeeze in a WXGA LCD in there, and space the sides out with some speakers?? I have a 5.1 system to put in?

Surely there must be some software to program the Incredible technologies Betabrite LCD? They would of had to program the information of the bar owner or kiosk that owned the machine, this was displayed when in attraction mode. So.......there has to be a way.....plus a new LCD is going to break my budget for my Cab.

Come on guys, get the word out, someone worked on these machines and should be able to give us a solution.

vivelo

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I'll check the cable out! I think there is an original cable in the bottom of the Cab, Let you know tomorrow!

Mrjamma

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Surely there must be some software to program the Incredible technologies Betabrite LCD? They would of had to program the information of the bar owner or kiosk that owned the machine, this was displayed when in attraction mode. So.......there has to be a way.....plus a new LCD is going to break my budget for my Cab.

Come on guys, get the word out, someone worked on these machines and should be able to give us a solution.


The information you saw displayed on the tournament sign at a particular location was put up there by the game board itself. The location name was settable in the game diagnostics. Also, anytime you changed game locations, the game made a call into IT. So Im sure that the LED info was a combination of the game boards settings and info from IT, such as advertising and the top player scores from around the nation.

This isnt much help, but it does let you know that the location didnt set their name on the game with a remote like a typical Betabrite sign.

Its all to do with IT...Im sure it is proprietary but someone could hook up an rs232 port to the data from a working Golden Tee Game and see what kind of info is being sent to the sign using Windows Hyperterminal or some such terminal software to try and decode what was being sent. This might  give you a clue as to what the format of data is.

It would be a little easier to decode this info than say trying to crack eproms etc. as you can see what is being displayed on the sign, even though it is probably buffered and might not display the data sent instantly.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2008, 07:47:11 pm by Mrjamma »

Marky_1979

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Im so glad if found this tread I was just about to give up on my golden tee display and throw it away my main aim was to display the game I select from mamewah so do you guys think it can be achieved? Many thanks

Marky_1979

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2008, 10:19:02 pm »
Any update guys??
« Last Edit: April 12, 2008, 04:49:04 pm by Marky_1979 »

Marky_1979

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Is this thread official dead? :( am contemplating throwing the towel in and filling the gap where the led display is with something else. Not sure what yet though any ideas?

MonMotha

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It's on my list of things to do.  Unfortunately, my list of things to do is also very, very long and grows faster than it shrinks.

Marky_1979

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Yes I know that feeling buddy iv been working on my cab for many years mainly due to unforseen problems delaying things. I heard that netcat is a bit of a wizz with led dispays.

Netcat

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wow.

very flattered by the comment.

not as much a wiz has hard headed and resourcefull.

I did provide the building blocks for sylverfox to make his lcdgen application compatible with betabritescreens and also with LOTS of help from Carlos Santillon have a custom version of ArcadeOS that displays to both an lED and an LCD screen simultaneously (one of two prototypes in the world to the besy of my knowledge).

also more recently reverse enginered the protocol for some cheap chinesse made LEDS that we are using wit FREEBOX

see demo here:

unfortunatelly my experience is mainly with these two signs and involves no hardware modifications, I would contact the manufactrer of the sign and find out about protocols and possibly a bios replacement chip.

if anyone is interested in "The absolute best" jukebox applicationout ther i'd encourage you to check out Barry's site www.juketastic.com

also feel free to email me at tony@780tech.com

I also have areas designated to my projects on my webpage www.780tech.com

cheers!

TOK

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I'm glad this thread resurfaced. I have a Golden Tee Fore 2005 that has the LED display. I read elsewhere that you couldn't do much with it. It appeared to be a standard sized display. I was just going to gut mine and replace the whole guts with a programmable LED sign. Local warehouse store had them for a bit under 100 bucks.

MonMotha

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Well, my goal is to make a replacement program to run on the LED sign (replacing the two EPROMs).  The sign appears to be designed entirely by IT to do exactly what they need: their logo is all over the place, and the sign appears to handle a good chunk of the tournament functionality.  The main CPU for the sign is actually just as powerful as the CPU used on the older JAMMA boards.  Hence, I'm guessing that unless somebody has already done what I'm planning on doing or it's a clone of somebody else's design with different software and some extra hardware (doesn't appear to be) that no replacement ROMs are available.

Failing all that, I can easily talk to the LEDs themselves using my own control board.  I got all that documented a long time ago (it's very simple).

Marky_1979

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I love the demo thats exactly what I want to do with my mame and emulators when im playing a game i want it displayed above. If the golden tee cant be used i think i might strugle to get a display that fits the exact same space. Any suggestions as to places to get led displays that can fit this space? all the ones on ebay are to long or small :( thats unless this rom replacement becomes a reality and I wont need a replacement.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2008, 08:55:51 pm by Marky_1979 »

Marky_1979

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Will you guys keep me posted if there is any development regarding this cheers :)

MonMotha

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Sure, I'll post when I get it done.  I'm really busy at work right now, though, so it'll be a while.

Is your board identical to the picture I posted?  I can't guarantee that anything I do will work on other boards, a I only have that style.  From what's been posted in this thread, there may be multiple types of displays (somebody mentioned a battery, which mine don't have - mine use flash).

Marky_1979

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Mate i'll take some pics of my board it looks very similar

Marky_1979

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Here it is on the board it says

P/N 2010 REV 7 MADE IN USA

on the 2 EPROMS it says

EPROM1 - SL V1.14
EPROM2 - SL V1.14
« Last Edit: May 18, 2008, 04:39:57 pm by Marky_1979 »

Marky_1979

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Is this the same as your board Mon?

MonMotha

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Yes, it is.  I posted a picture earlier.  I have some TFT LCDs I'm working on now, but I should get to the LED stuff within a few weeks, hopefully.

Marky_1979

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Cool thanks for the update buddy look forward to seeing how you get on :)

Marky_1979

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Any update guys? im seriously thinking of getting one of the led displays used on that juke box any ideas where they are from? plus do they do a size similar to the golden tee one which we have

MonMotha

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I recently moved (to a house with a basement - oh yeah arcade space!), so I haven't had time to really even look at this beyond tracing out some parts of their PCB.  I'm still torn between building my own hardware and just writing software for their board.  Their board has a fair bit of useful hardware on it, but obviously if I cook up my own hardware, I know how to program it better.

Marky_1979

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #27 on: October 01, 2008, 06:37:49 pm »
If you work something out let me know dude as my cab has a wacking big space above the marquee that id love to fill with an led display of some kind.

Numbski

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #28 on: October 01, 2008, 07:01:32 pm »
If I remember correctly, Incredible Technologies put a custom burned eprom into the LED display unit. This prevents communication with any other devices except certain Incredible Technologies boardsets.

I believe if you contact the display manufacturer and get the stock generic eprom (pre programmed) from them instead of Incredible Technologies, then you can interface anything.

I'll do you one better.  Motorola makes some pretty nice LED interface chips. Nab one of those and an arduino board and I'll bet you're golden.  One such chip I'm aware of, because I'm currently reverse-engineering a board that uses it is the Motorola MC14489BDWE.  Data Sheet:  http://www.freescale.com/files/timing_interconnect_access/doc/inactive/MC14489B.pdf

Of course, if there's an EPROM floating around out there that already handles the interface and just lets you send serial commands, go for it.  This isn't a terrible fallback though. :)
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MonMotha

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #29 on: October 01, 2008, 08:02:31 pm »
That's what I'm likely to do at this point, though it's not quite that simple.  There are two boards in that box: one is the control board which I'm likely to not use; the other is the board with all the LED matrices on it.  This already has most of what you need to drive the LEDs set up as a couple of big shift registers.  This would be perfect for using the SPI controller on, but it's two chains sharing the same clock.  I can rig up a nifty little thing on a 9572 or similar to make it work pretty easily.  Then you just need something to switch the high side (either a PNP or P-channel FET) and scan away.

I'll get around to it one of these days.  I've actually been attempting to PLAY some of the several games in my basement, rather than hack on them, for a change.

Numbski

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #30 on: October 01, 2008, 09:03:25 pm »
What, you can *play* these things???

 :laugh2:
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bulge2

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #31 on: February 03, 2009, 04:49:56 pm »
any further look into this - i have 5 of these boards lying around doing nothing

MonMotha

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #32 on: February 03, 2009, 05:17:56 pm »
I was actually just looking at this stuff last night.  Looks like it shouldn't be too hard to create a new program for the IT control board.  I'd attempt to reverse engineer their software, but that's not something I'm overly good at, and I suspect it can't do everything I want (like graphics) anyway.

I'm a bit busy this week/weekend since I'm having a party, but I may get to look at it next week.  I'm presently spending much of my time attempting to find a new job, so time for things like this doesn't always show up.

galaga.nz

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #33 on: December 08, 2011, 08:32:48 pm »
any up date i was at an arcade dump and nabbed 2  :)
but stall no software??

PowerKC

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I must have 50 of those Dot Matrix marquees that I have taken off Golden Tee cabinets over the recent years. Now I am wanting to use them to display my own text as well.  I took a look at the code on the 2 EPROMS on the control board didn't notice any of the programmed text stored. So it must be kept in some buffer and not on the EPROMS  :P(of course since they aren't EEPROMS).  I've been successful in changing the text of Dot Matrix displays in Skee-Ball games but this Incredible Technology board is a bit more difficult.
It'll take a total code programmer nerd to figure it out :banghead:

MonMotha

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The text was dynamically updated by Incredible Technologies as part of their network for the games.  The display board apparently also served as a sort of "port multiplexer" - the modem was connected directly to it (heck, there were even provisions for the modem to be built into the board, but those spots were always depopped).  There's a flash chip on the board (Intel, IIRC) that probably stores all the current data for the device to display.

There's a way to move a set of resistors around and make it boot off that flash chip, but then you'd need a way to program it.  There's no JTAG interface or anything to bit bang the address/data bus, IIRC, so that may not be an easy task aside from a bootloader.

That and figuring out how to actually work the front panel part is about as far as I got reverse engineering those things before I got totally busy.  I've had other things way higher up the priority list ever since.  Heck, I've been working 45+ hour (billable, let alone the administrative time) weeks for the past month or so.

lilshawn

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actually I think it does have a JTAG. I have a dozen or so boards at work of varying revisions. i believe some have a JTAG.

galaga.nz

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #37 on: December 17, 2012, 04:05:22 am »
just found this
http://sourceforge.net/projects/betasigncontrol
dont know if it will help?

lilshawn

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #38 on: December 17, 2012, 10:16:41 am »
unfortunately the golden tee signs don't use the same protocol as the betabrite signs. it's something custom by IT.

last i heard someone was attempting to build a controller to drive the display. that was a few years ago now.

ed12

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Re: Golden Tee Betabrite LED Ticker display. PC Connect Software......Help
« Reply #39 on: December 17, 2012, 10:54:51 am »
hi

it is totaly coustom s/w
it is driven by 1 of the on-main-board xilinx
which is a programble gate
then it is tied to a rj45 jack through a lt1134acsw
all is controlled via u22
the s/w was/is controlled by its-gaming
same pga golf
now up here in the great white north
the last location the unit was in berfore they pulled there server will still be displayed
with that all said
u can get a fresh eprom from the mfg..$25.00
the protcol is reversed serial
u can chat the sign >done it did it<
as they are coustom eprom's >27c512<,u can buy 1 and play away
what u get for $25.00 is the led lay out :matrix: and routing
for it's-gaming it is rj45 to rj45
for pga it is db9 to rj45

ed
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