saving machine uptime?

[R0UNDEYEZ]

I don't know if anyone has done this yet or not or if its something anyone has ever really cared about,but is there a way to save machine uptime? sort of like saving high score, but instead save how long the machine has been played in minutes and hours? I know its not authentic,but im the kind of person who finds that sort of info interesting...

[arzoo]

If you've got some programming experience, this would not be hard to do using Mame's output messages (game start / game stop).

[R0UNDEYEZ]

well, maybe this would be a good reason to force myself to learn some coding.. haha.  sadly right now my coding ability is a big fat zero though.
thanks for the reply.. I was kinda hoping with some of the fighter games out there that will unlock stuff based off how long the machine had been up ,maybe someone had done something like this..maybe not though.

[Malenko]

write down what time you turned it on and what time you turned it off, then on a chalk board or something, write the total uptime. When that time is broken, erase the old and replace with the new.


you're welcome

[retrometro]

This may not be exactly what you wanted but you can easily measure and log system uptime (not just mame) by running the windows resource kit tool UPTIME.EXE.

[jasonbar]

I bought a surplus aircraft hours logger at C&H Surplus (before they moved & down-sized): http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/infernolab/Arcade%20Game/13hourslog.jpg
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff97/infernolab/Arcade%20Game/01fullcabinet.jpg

It runs off of 120VAC & I plugged it into the power strip that powers on when I turn on my cab.

Unfortunately, it's been busted for a while--need to crack it open & fix it one of these days... :\

-Jason

[R0UNDEYEZ]

jason, that is pretty cool! not at all what i was thinking of,but cool none the less...how much did that set you back if you don't mind me asking?I wouldn't mind adding one to my machine..how does it work exactly? start counting when your powerstrip is on?

I guess I wasn't really clear in what I was wanting to do and I apologize...  like I mentioned in the last post, alot of fighter games will unlock characters based on how long the system has been up and running.When I noticed that MAME shows how long you have been playing a game it started to wonder if there was some way to save this info so when MAME started up a game again it would see that game already had x hrs played on it and keep counting from there. something like a highscore.dat, but just uptimes for the games. would that modification be possible?

[jasonbar]

A friend actually picked up the "odometer" for me, so it was free.  But it was about $3-$4.  Surplus.  You get what you pay for.  I think most of them in the pile ran off of 240VAC or something wacky that's used on airplanes, but this one (supposedly) ran at 120VAC.  Used to work pretty regularly, but not so much anymore...

I simply wired a lamp cord to it & plugged it into my power strip along w/ my marquee light, monitor, etc., so it's supposed to simply log how long my machine's been turned on.

-Jason