Noob question .. making PC 'always on' when power applied, for PC->JAMMA cab

[skeezix]

hey guys,

I'm a loooooong time hacker (wrote one of the first arcade emus and been doing emu/interpreter dev and porting and console hacking for .. well since about 1990 or so. Sick, but i've done more than my share of driving around recovering cabs from dusty rainfilled basements Anyway I've always used the real cabs, or emus of various machines, but avoided mixing the two streams. Still, I've rather chopped up some of my crazy cabinets with steering wheels (had to move , so its a perfect time to start building an emu oriented cab for hosting those sort of games, or other games. Its just so convenient, especially when you've had to downsize.

This particular machine is my favourite little beast, modded all to heck.. nice little cocktail that I've put joysticks on all 4 sides and so on (my 'tardis' . Its got Clay Cowgill's multijamma in it sometimes as well, to switch between games etc. Gets toasty hot in there.

My current project is to set up ArcadeVGA/J-PAC based PC in there. just got it going last night in fact, though still launching emus via keyboard as I've not figured out MAMEWAH yet. As you can tell, I'm itching to set up mulijamma with PC on one side, and a real game on the other.. _oh yeah!_ ArcadeVGA does look gorgeous on this old electrohome CRT

Anyway, sorry for the long winded intro.

QUESTION: Currently its 2 wall plugs -- one for arcade machine, one for the headless PC motherboard; the PC needs the jumpers cross briefly to turn on (to simulate the case on button being pressed.) The BIOS doesn't seem to have a 'stay damned well on, always' option, though it has 'what to do when I lose power' option, but that doesnm't seem to keep it on when I unplug it and plug it back on. (I would have thought that'd work.. but tell it to 'power on' on power restore and unmplug and replug it and nothing) Can't leave the jumper on the PC mobo, since that just forces a reboot every 5 seconds or so like a watchdog.

Any obvious way I'm missing so that when I plug in the PC power supply the mobo will just boot up?

Since the windows desktop flickers like heck, I imagine dropping MAMEWAH (or whatever) in Startup will take care of that.

My only other issue is audio .. without an amp hady, I might just drop in some loud PC speakers for now, and see how it sounds, as a tmp fix

Any suggestions?

Thanks guys!

jeff

[Ginsu Victim]

Smart Strip

[skeezix]

A 'smart strip' is just a power bar that knows about clever ways to turn off slave-plugs no? It doesn't help with turning power back _on_ on the PC though, right? OR is there a specific 'smart strip' I need to look for?

ie: A PC motherboard has a bunch of jumpers .. some are LED indicators, some do RTC reset, etc. One pair of jumpers (ground and +) is what gets tapped when the PC case 'on/off' switch is hit, or you touch it with a jumper; that turns the motherboard on. I need to simulate that, orotherwise tell the motherboard to just 'always be on when you have power.'

I don't think I can rely on 'wake via usb' since that depends on suspand-to-ram (needing power to unit), and doesn't work with hibernate or power-off states.

I'll have to fiddle with the BIOS options some more.. hoping to avoid adding a power on/off button to the cab

jeff

[Ginsu Victim]

Sorry, my first reply should've been this:

WELCOME TO BYOAC!

You're correct. Smart Strip lets you turn on the PC and everything else comes on.

So you run a pushbutton to the motherboard where the "power on/off" pins are found, place the button wherever you'd like on the cabinet, and now you can turn it all off and on with one switch.

(Edit: Obviously I've only been glancing at what you've said. Maybe I should read it all...) 

(Edit 2: Okay.....so what's the problem with having a button on the cab to power it on?)

[skeezix]

A buddy of mine just suggested putting a capacitor across the two pins; I'm not that much into electronics (just enough to use my logic probe and unscrew up some PCBs , but hes suggesting that the cap will let the charge through while it charges, and then it will disconnect when its charged.. ie: power comes on and the mobo would get a quick jolt on the pins and then stop, which might just do it.

Any idea? That'd be an easy hack

I did add a 'coin up' button on the cab a couple years ago, so I could re-use that for 'power on' perhaps.

jeff

Oh, hmm, maybe you need a power button to turn the system gracewfully off.. ie: hit the button, the mobo then shuts things down gracefgully, then you cut the power on the smart strip. Hmm.

[Ginsu Victim]

I did add a 'coin up' button on the cab a couple years ago, so I could re-use that for 'power on' perhaps.

Just drill a 1 1/8" hole somewhere on top or on the back of the cabinet and pop in a pushbutton. Too easy.