Mame Hooker help!... Please:)

[retromax]

Hi, i've just discovered Mame Hooker and built a circuit for my lpt port to control the Patrol Lights in Chase HQ, got everything set up and working but discovered one small problem so I thought i'd google for a bit of help only to then realize that the app is no longer supported . Anyway hopefully someone can help me as it's only a software issue and surely can't be that bad but I just can't figure it out, i've got 2 led's wired up correctley to the lpt port which act as lpt 1 1 and lpt 1 2 everything seems fine though until I run mame and chase hq. When mame starts one of the led's turns on and stays on until the point of the game where both should flash altenatley and then the both flash.... but when they go into the non-flashing mode again..... one switches back on (not flashing.... just on). There is a ChaseHQ.ini file in the ini file folder for mame hooker which is where I set up the lamp outputs for ChaseHQ which are led's 1&2 on the lpt port, i've tried changing the "StateChange" line to the led's being in the off position "0" but then they don't function at all.
Can anyone help
Thanks

[headkaze]

Your best off contacting Howard Casto somehow.

[retromax]

Your best off contacting Howard Casto somehow.

Thanks!... he seems to have dissapeared off the face of the earth
My issue is defanatley software based though as now i've been able to stop the light being always on but ChaseHQ outputs two lamps that alternate and now my problem is they are flashing together not alternating as if it's either just outputting one lamp data to both pins on the lpt port or doing both at once but i'm not sure which it's doing. There is no list of commands for the lpt port in the readme file currently i've got my chaseHQ.ini file looking like this:-

[General]
MameStart=
MameStop=
StateChange=

[Output]



lamp0=lpt 1 107
lamp1=lpt 1 104
It's those commands on the lamps that I don't understand I just need to know how they work, Originally I had lamp0= lpt 1 1 and lamp1= lpt 1 2 as I thought it meant lpt port 1 led 1 and lpt port 1 led 2.... but I doesn't look that simple!
Oh the mind boggles!

[retromax]

mmm... I'm wondering if it's a script that needs to be done to do what I want??.
Does anybody use mamehooker and know how to write a basic script for what i'm doing?, or could even point me in the right direction?.
It seems like such a great thing to use which is so easy to build a little interface, if anyones's don anything similar i'd love to know how you went about it

[retromax]

Eventually I figured out how to use mamehooker properly by piecing together bits of the readme file so I thought i'd better document it here incase anyone uses this simple to make interface in the future.

Basically I needed to write scripts for both states of each lamp (on or off) and then point to the scripts via the ini file for the game.

Here's what the ini file looks like in mamehooker for my Chase HQ



Now what that bit i've nicely drawn around tells mamehooker is:-

For lamp 0 State 0 (off) "Read From Script" 'chasehq'

For lamp 0 State 1 (on) "Read From Script" 'chasehq2'

For lamp 1 State 0 (off) "Read From Script" 'chasehq3'

For lamp 1 State 1 (on) "Read From Script" 'chasehq3'

So basically each script i've written has the command for the led on my lpt port, I have led's wired to pins 2&3 on the port (which are led's 1&2)and grounded to any pins from 18-25 on the port.

So if I wrote lpe 1 1 1 in the script it is giving you the location,led number and state. port 1, led 1, state 1 (on).







Sorted!!!.... Works like a charm!

Wish I could say it's all been fun but it hasn't..... it's been a combination of reading, guessing and just plain luck!!

Obviousley if anyone else decides to build a simple interface for using mamehooker I hope this gives to the general idea of how to get it working!

[retromax]

Ok i've just added this video to the wrong post!, I meant to put it here, it's a short clip of my lights in action now they are working as they should!

[gstav]

hey man!

Tried to use mamehooker as you do. i have 2 LEDWiz boards which i want to trigger the buttons to via
your scripting method but I cant get it to work. The TEST phase via mamehooker works perfect to turn lamps on and of.

this is how my CHASEHQ.ini looks like:

[General]
MameStart=
MameStop=
StateChange=
OnRotate=
OnPause=
[KeyStates]
RefreshTime=
[Output]
lamp0=rfs chasehq 0 %s%|rfs chasehq1 0 %s%
lamp1=rfs chasehq2 0 %s%|rfs chasehq3 0 %s%

and this is how the script look like. (I've saved the as txt's as ini didn't work )

chasehq.txt

lwc 1 01 0 0 0 0

chasehq1.txt (ID1 LED 1 on RED)

lwc 1 01 48 0 0 0

chasehq3.txt

lwc 2 01 0 0 0 0

chasehq4.txt

lwc 2 01 0 0 0 48

What am I doing wrong here as I know the commands works
Any help appreciated!

Cheers!

[Drnick]

hey man!

and this is how the script look like. (I've saved the as txt's as ini didn't work )

What am I doing wrong here as I know the commands works
Any help appreciated!

Cheers!

When you say saved as txt as ini didn't work what do you mean by that?  You couldn't save as ini or that it made no difference if the file was an ini or a txt file?

If you couldnt save as an ini file you need to do the following open chasehq.txt file in notepad, then hit file, save as, change "save as type" to "all files" and then save file name as chasehq.ini

[gstav]

When you say saved as txt as ini didn't work what do you mean by that?  You couldn't save as ini or that it made no difference if the file was an ini or a txt file?

If you couldnt save as an ini file you need to do the following open chasehq.txt file in notepad, then hit file, save as, change "save as type" to "all files" and then save file name as chasehq.ini

hi! Sorry! No I ment that i could not save the script files right, but now I saved them as they should be named:

chasehq.ini

chasehq.msh
chasehq2.msh
chasehq3.msh
chasehq4.msh

Still no action on my ledwiz though! 

[gwood1234]

Digging this up again in the hope I can get mine working! I've got a Pac Drive and trying to use it with MameHooker... not having much joy so far. Can I ask how you're connecting your lamps? You mention making a circuit for the LPT port? Pac Drive should work with this but it's not showing up.