JPM Quiz Machine - Jukebox Conversion

[jukeboxarcade]

Hi there i've just bought off ebay a JPM quiz machine now i know you can convert them to a jukebox because i've seen one on gumtree for around £600 done so will it be easy to do and would i need to get loads of drivers and install windows ect?? im picking the unit up tomorrow so need loads of help so i dont break the unit

[jukeboxarcade]

ok unit is here now so any ideas were to start

[Kevin Mullins]

Never heard of them.... what's inside ?
Are they PC based?

[jukeboxarcade]

yeah inside is a pc but i just didnt want to wipe all the data and then not be able to restore the system if you get me all the drivers ect suppose i could buy a new hard drive then test it on that

[jukeboxarcade]

want me to take some pics of the unit and insides i have seen one done but real stuck on what to do myself

[Kevin Mullins]

Certainly .... I know I like to see the guts of different machines like that.

And I would definitely start off with a fresh hard-drive as to not mess with the original.
If the motherboard is labeled in any way then it shouldn't be toooo hard to figure out what drivers are needed, if any depending on what OS you put on the new drive.

[Barry Barcrest]

**Sigh**

The PC in the bottom on the slide out tray will be pretty usless for what you want. It will probably be a P400mhz... Also the software running on it is on a linux install, you will be looking for a windows install. You can swap that out for a small form factor PC, you should be able to get a P4 one for £30 and then you will need an IPAC to hook up the coin mech.

You have brought this to make a quick buck selling it on as a jukebox but i doubt you will get £600 for it and you will need to do more than just swap the PC if you want decent money for it in the end. Idealy you'll want to add an amp and some decent speakers (No PC Ones) get some graphics on the cab and probably some lighting.

[Kevin Mullins]

The PC in the bottom on the slide out tray will be pretty usless for what you want. It will probably be a P400mhz... Also the software running on it is on a linux install, you will be looking for a windows install.

So it's pretty much like the Touchmaster Infinity I have then .... a whole 300Mhz.

I will say that I run my DWJukebox on a 500Mhz and it works great.
But then again I'm not running anything graphically challenging with covers or videos and such.

[jukeboxarcade]

yeah kevin i think the model i have is close to a 500mhz so what you reckon worth a shot because if i leave the motherboard in that came with the unit im hoping then the orginial coin mech will work all i then plan to upgrade is the memory hard disk and most likely a new cd drive and of course new sound system or replace the current speakers do you think this will work? also kevin what operating system you running? see i dont really wanna have to replace the motherboard because i plan to insert a hot swap drive caddy so when i want jukebox i insert that drive and when i want quiz machine i just swap the drive if you get me but replacing the motherboard will mean that i will no longer be able to use the jpm games as i believe or have been told that the software and cds only work with the motherboard that was designed for the unit plus all the coin op and door locks are wired direct to a isa card which new motherboards dont have well hope somebody especially you kevin and shed more light on this subject as im hoping to start work in a few days and tomorrow i will post pics of the unit and all the insides to give you all a better idea please help me and to a previous comment this unit i will not be selling this is for my personal use and for my house partys :-) i was just saying seen one sold on gumtree for £600 and had no decals or lights just the standard jpm housing

[jukeboxarcade]

Hi all again i was told by the lad it was as simple as install xp on a new hard disk and all will work well i had to find the drivers for the touch screen so now i got it working with vmj but no coins are registered i just tried my jpm game software hard disk and coins work fine so were am i going wrong?

[Kevin Mullins]

First you need to see if that coinmech is being registered as a keystroke.
(open Notepad and flick the switch)
Then look to see what option VMJ has for assigning keys or "switches".

The original setup probably uses a special I/O board to register the coin inputs and also any switches used to enter any kind of operator menus.

[jukeboxarcade]

Hi kevin thank you for the support but can you explain more im new to this conversion so i open note pad and what switch do i press do you mean open notebad and drop a coin down to see if it does something or do you mean something else have to explain im useless lol im gonna post some pics soon and look forward to your response

[jukeboxarcade]

also kevin yes the jpm i/o card is connected to the coin mech and door switches also to the switch that puts you into the menu for the admin under the door but thats what im using for the jukebox and told it should work fine but doesnt seem to so if you explain more with notepad i guess i just open and press a switch and try coins ect? well let me know and ill get the images of the whole unit posted in the morning

[Kevin Mullins]

Hi kevin thank you for the support but can you explain more im new to this conversion so i open note pad and what switch do i press do you mean open notebad and drop a coin down to see if it does something

Well, I wouldn't call it "support"..... I'm just the curious type myself, so I try to figure it out as I go.
But yes.... you have the right idea on what I was talking about with Notepad.
Just open Notepad and click a switch, push a button and see if anything shows up as a character, letter, number, etc. Just gives you an idea if you could re-map those buttons in the VMJ software.
(not saying anything will show up at all)

I'm not super familiar with the protocol used on those I/O boards and how the motherboard actually "reads" them.

[jukeboxarcade]

Hi kevin tried what you said with notepad pressing switched and inserting coins with notepad nothing shows up also if u press all the switches in on when running the gamebox jpm software the cash meter lights go out and the meter resets but when im running the disk with xp and jukebox software no response so you think its a driver issue?

[Barry Barcrest]

That credit controller is an 8 BIT ISA card with multiple inputs. The original game software runs on a modified linux distro, i doubt there are any windows drivers for that card which is why i said you should build a new faster PC and interface the coin mech with that.

[jukeboxarcade]

Just to give you an idea what im working with maybe you can offer more help?

[jukeboxarcade]

Hi barry thanks for that info the reason i kept the mainboard is so i can still use the jpm gamebox software because i plan to install a hard drive disk caddy so i can swap when i want the games or jukebox also i heard of somebody coverting this using the orginal mainboard and he said all he did was install xp and vmj and it worked maybe he used the orginal hard disk because that would of contained the modified linux

[Barry Barcrest]

You would be better off showing some images of the coin mech so people can help you interface that via a keyboard hack or IPAC.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Did you get anywhere with this?

I have the version with the JPM motherboard which has the IO built-in (that drives the bulbs, buttons and coin mech/hopper) but I suspect for you, with the Gigabyte board (which has the IO on an ISA card), it would be possible to upgrade.  You would just have to find the fastest board that still has an ISA slot and also find a way to get the motherboard drivers installed on the custom Win95 the JPM Proteus runs on (yes its Win95 not Linux, sadly), which is tricky as it does not let you execute .exe installers, it will only install via the hardware wizard (drivers with .inf files). 

I did manage to get a SB Live working on mine though as the onboard sound chip had broken, which is why I think it might be doable.

Also, the problem with hacking the mech is it would not longer be easy to boot the original software.  Ideally we need to figure out how the IO card works.

[Barry Barcrest]

The conversions i have done i didn't bother with the mech. The ones i have done using a mech i have just used an ipac and a C120 or C122 coin controls mech and it has worked perfectly every time. The mech in the proteus is designed to divert coins to the hopper and it all just seemed like too much work to bother with it. As for hacking the software just hook the drive up as a slave on another PC and play with the files. You can add things to the startup to get them to run like exe installers. I use the silent flag when i did it... Ok for drivers but it will not like you modding the games it will fail the verification.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Right, its easy enough to see from the partitions that all the game files have CRC checks (I already made an image of the HDD and am currently running on a cloned drive) so like you said, hacking them is a no-go which is a shame as adding your own questions would have been really cool.  Also, I found something as silly as turning off the floppy drive in the BIOS (which is not even used) causes the game to throw a config error.  So exactly how much different a motherboard you can use I am yet to determine, but I still want to try.  Hopefully it doesn't look too hard at what chipset is present, but it may be I need the Gigabyte board installer CD if I switch boards - who knows if the JPM onboard IO uses the same drivers, it certainly looks a slightly different circuit as it has more ports (unused for the Proteus but maybe the software will look for them anyway).

The thing is, I was thinking of trying to control the coin mech and hopper rather than just a jukebox mod.  For example if you could somehow interface it with the fruit machine emulators, it could at least pay out any bank that is in pounds.  Complex and perhaps overambitious (as the best I can do is a little C#) but it would require the original mech.

Obviously I need to find someone more technically inclined to figure out how the IO card works.  I was kinda surprised nobody had already done so as it sounds like the kind of thing a software/hardware hacker would enjoy.  I guess there simply are not enough people with JPM Proteus hardware.

[Barry Barcrest]

I have done a fair bit of work on theses since my initial posting back in jan, you can mess with the CRC of the files however there is no gain in messing with the files. What you would really want to do would be getting them to work with a different dongle. The reason i say this isn't for hacking purposes but to do with the fact that the games on the earlier gamebox compendium are not the same as the ones on the later gamebox 4 or gamebox 6 and it would be nice to have all games availble. Problem is then the menu system would need to be replaced to offer the extra games. I have also looked at the now defunct 4LEAF software that used this hardware and a timed dongle. All the dongles you will find will be long since timed out and will only run weakest link now. Likewise with the GAMEPACK drives, however these menu systems supported far more games.

Actually if you want to carry on this disscussion you might be better off contacting me privatley as i think this might not be frowned upon here. Even though all these products are long since end of life and some of them are almost 10 years old i know some of this stuff is still sited.