Author Topic: Don't Call it a Comeback (Dragon King website is active again) (Read 9021 times)

Howard_Casto · « **on:** February 16, 2010, 03:37:50 pm »

Yup I'm releasing software again. There isn't much to see atm other than an ancient 3d game I made and the new "games" section but many many things will be added over the course of the week and over the next few months. I'll post a news blurb on the main site for the initial re-launch, but check this thread for minor updates. Of course the smart thing to do would be to check the site itself, but it gets about as much traffic as a website dediacted to hairy butts, so I'll post a head's-up here as well.

The link to my site is in my post's footer.

Hoopz · « **Reply #1 on:** February 16, 2010, 03:39:19 pm »

Welcome back Howard. It's good to see you back. What prompted the return and the desire to update that stuff?

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #2 on:** February 16, 2010, 03:48:28 pm »

A new pc which upgrades me to windows 7 and gives my arcade machine a new donor pc and what seems like two months of endless snow storms.

Necro · « **Reply #3 on:** February 16, 2010, 04:24:04 pm »

I guess you're in the north east? (I'm in DC...it's been fun fun fun...

) And oddly I was just looking at your site over the weekend and read your 'I'm leaving' post...and was like "Wait...he's in the forums...".

Also...don't go googling for site's about hairy butts...you might get surprised at how popular they are. uh...or so I hear.

Aceldamor · « **Reply #4 on:** February 16, 2010, 05:09:09 pm »

Your like the Farve of BYOAC....

WB Howard!

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #5 on:** February 16, 2010, 05:32:06 pm »

Thanks guys.... just a quick update, the game career pilot is now online as well. Saint might kill me for that one though as it's 70+ megs

iano · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2010, 05:44:55 pm »

Nice to hear from you (maybe you should make a comeback).

saint · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2010, 06:43:04 pm »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on February 16, 2010, 05:32:06 pm

Thanks guys.... just a quick update, the game career pilot is now online as well. Saint might kill me for that one though as it's 70+ megs

Meh. I gots bandwidth

headkaze · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2010, 06:51:46 pm »

Welcome back Howard

BTW Did you ever get into .NET programming?

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2010, 10:13:58 pm »

Good to know saint, good to know. But be warned, that isn't the worst of it.

Well hk, yes and no. I started but because I stayed with xp for so long there really wasn't any reason to actually make anything with it. Now that I'm on win 7 though, it makes much more sense. One of the main reasons I'm releasing all of this stuff is to clear out the "junk" so I can make things with more modern languages.

Cakemeister · « **Reply #10 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:31:29 am »

Havok · « **Reply #11 on:** February 17, 2010, 10:08:39 am »

Let the Daphne bashing begin!

Huggybaby · « **Reply #12 on:** February 17, 2010, 05:13:05 pm »

Wow, some really cool utilities there, thanks Howard_Casto.

atomikbohm · « **Reply #13 on:** February 18, 2010, 04:10:56 pm »

When I was in junior high my good friend Brian had a serious desire to overplay LLCool J's "Mama said knock you out". The opening lyrics to that song is "don't call it a comback, I've been here for years..."

Seem quite appropriate for Howard_Casto. Welcome back.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #14 on:** February 20, 2010, 12:33:13 am »

Ok guys... first major piece of software has been released. Mamehooker 3.0 is out! Major additions include support for speech synthesis, wiimotes, and xbox 360 controllers. As usual, details are on the site which you can get to via clicking on my footer.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #15 on:** February 21, 2010, 06:11:33 pm »

Added an entry about mamehooker today. Programmers and those with dual displays might find it interesting.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2010, 12:18:00 am »

Small status update about what I was up to last week.

Popcorrin · « **Reply #17 on:** March 03, 2010, 10:07:03 am »

I made a few static and animated display files for mamehooker a couple of years ago. Here is the animated one I made for spy hunter. The control images light up when they are active.

Popcorrin · « **Reply #18 on:** March 03, 2010, 10:10:36 am »

I should clarify, I didn't create the graphics.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #19 on:** March 03, 2010, 06:02:18 pm »

Well that's frightenly similar to what I did..

Check it out:

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #20 on:** March 03, 2010, 06:08:21 pm »

I'm almost done btw... I just have to take care of the painfully tedious turbo, (30 digits a 20 position tach that accecpts 60 values and 10 position speedo.. UGH!) make something that looks nice for afterburner and modify my generic beatmania artwork so that the proper marquee is displayed for each machine.

Of course packaging, uploading and commenting all the stuff will take a while as well, but I don't count that. Looks like I should be done soon.

Regardless, variants are always welcomed, so if you wanna send me the ones you did popcorrin, I'll add those to the site as well. Just do me a favor and make a nice preview image for them.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #21 on:** March 05, 2010, 04:55:06 am »

Updated the site again with a blog regarding apparent errors in official mame artwork files.

Huggybaby · « **Reply #22 on:** March 05, 2010, 12:35:49 pm »

Hey Howard_Casto,

I just got EmuSaver set up and am having a small problem. When I do this:
"Test it by opening a command line, navigating to the emulator directory and typing:
cmd-launch#.exe romname"
it works fine.

But when I try the preview from the screensaver settings, mame will launch but the game won't start. (For some reason it's not hitting the Enter key.)

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

headkaze · « **Reply #23 on:** March 05, 2010, 03:17:06 pm »

Quote from: Huggybaby on March 05, 2010, 12:35:49 pm

But when I try the preview from the screensaver settings, mame will launch but the game won't start. (For some reason it's not hitting the Enter key.)

You probably need to do a custom compiled version of Mame to remove the startup info (see hiscore patch pinned topic). Most programs cannot send keys to Mame anymore.

Huggybaby · « **Reply #24 on:** March 05, 2010, 03:30:13 pm »

I'm doing that already (using the wonderful MameCompiler64 of course). My nag screens are gone.

I think many of the options like Skip Disclaimer and Skip Gameinfo are obsolete, and I've turned them on and off.

It may be a mame config issue, I'll keep playing with it.

headkaze · « **Reply #25 on:** March 05, 2010, 03:39:49 pm »

Maybe Howard has to add a SetFocus()/ActiveWindow()/SetWindowForeground() or something.. it doesn't seem right you should have to press Enter if you have the nags removed.

Huggybaby · « **Reply #26 on:** March 05, 2010, 04:01:11 pm »

Yeah, I hope he can fix it; it looks like it was made to work with older mames. To reiterate, it works with the test, just not from the screensaver preview, which is weird.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #27 on:** March 05, 2010, 07:46:20 pm »

Lol emusaver was lasted touched around 2001 I think. That thing is busted old junk, I'd suggest using one of the other mame screensavers out there.

headkaze · « **Reply #28 on:** March 05, 2010, 09:22:01 pm »

Most of them are pretty old but a few are listed here

Huggybaby · « **Reply #29 on:** March 06, 2010, 05:24:48 am »

haha Thanks for your honesty Howard.

Headkaze thanks for the link. The one here is perfect and up to date: http://tomspeirs.com/MAMEScreenSaver/
It's by Tom Speirs the GameEx author, and it even generates a game list that's filterable.

I'm excited about my new screensaver.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #30 on:** March 06, 2010, 07:44:54 pm »

New entry... regarding Mr. Do's response and bugs in the mame source.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #31 on:** March 09, 2010, 01:52:14 am »

New Entry: Of Missile Launchers and HIDs and other things...

I talk about the upcoming generic hid writing, missile launchers and the future of mamehooker.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #32 on:** March 09, 2010, 08:26:51 pm »

Mame Hooker 3.5 is out. It includes all of the features I've been writing about on the site last week.

Of note to people with dual displays are the two layout files I included for automatically displaying artwork (marquee, or marquee flyer, cab combo) on your secondary screen. Because of the new features you can simply change the path inside the display file to point to your artwork folder and it will do the rest!

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #33 on:** March 13, 2010, 11:40:20 pm »

The display files are out, a new page has been added to the site for them in the mame interop section. I think they turned out really nice.

Check it out:

There are 15 of them and it's pretty turn key to get them working, so for those of you with dual displays please enjoy!

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #34 on:** March 15, 2010, 02:28:03 am »

Added a wip table to the new display files section. 15 files is "practically" all of them but not "actually" all of them. I put it there to avoid confusion about the missing ones.

Basically the "missing" ones aren't missing and there are really only three I haven't done that need to be done.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #35 on:** March 15, 2010, 04:05:23 am »

Couldn't sleep so I made another display file. This one is for the missing seawolf2. I think it turned out really nice.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #36 on:** March 17, 2010, 12:04:44 am »

Added a blog entry about all the crazy crap I've been doing the past week or so.

planetjay · « **Reply #37 on:** March 18, 2010, 06:56:13 pm »

I refuse to test it unless you release an OS X version.

BTW I've been DLing MAME ROM for over 24 hours now. I feel a new project in the air! Or maybe it's spring. Does this thing you've made work with touchscreens?

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #38 on:** March 19, 2010, 01:10:12 am »

Hello stranger!

Not sure what you mean pj.... The only thing I'm working on right now is mamehooker. You can show the display files on a touchscreen, but seeing how there's nothing to touch.....

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #39 on:** March 21, 2010, 04:08:08 pm »

Mame Hooker 3.6 is out! Has all the stuff in it we've been discussing in this forum except the digit generator! Details at the site.

headkaze · « **Reply #40 on:** March 22, 2010, 02:32:19 am »

If you add support for the LWAX format I can send you a whole bunch of preset LEDWiz animations I made. They are pretty darn cool. The only problem is they are in xml format so you need to be able to parse the xml.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #41 on:** March 22, 2010, 03:36:23 am »

Probably the simplier solution there is to make a lwax to mhs converter. It's doable, but I don't know the format, so I'd need some info.

headkaze · « **Reply #42 on:** March 22, 2010, 10:32:46 am »

I forgot that I actually had created all of the animations in LWA then converted them to LWAX. LWAX is a better format that me and Arzoo made which works with his LED Animation software.

Anyway I made these animations by "drawing" little black and white images in Photoshop with white being on and black being off. Then converted the pixels to LED patterns. Then finally converted LWA to LWAX. Anyway if you end up using them just put a little credit in there for me.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #43 on:** March 23, 2010, 05:55:22 am »

Works for me.... It'll be a while though, because I haven't set up an examples page yet.

retromax · « **Reply #44 on:** March 30, 2010, 05:15:38 pm »

Glad to see you're back at it Howard, as you know if it wasn't for your talent my emulated Dedicated ChaseHQ cabinet wouldn't be the great little conversion that it is today!

Keep up the good work
You da man!

retromax · « **Reply #45 on:** April 03, 2010, 08:02:01 pm »

Is there anyway to stop the debug window appearing when mamehooker starts, it appears for a second or two and then minimises but is there a way of stopping it showing up on start???

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #46 on:** April 04, 2010, 01:47:58 am »

Not currently. That's something I can add though.

retromax · « **Reply #47 on:** April 04, 2010, 05:31:19 am »

Quote from: Howard_Casto on April 04, 2010, 01:47:58 am

Not currently. That's something I can add though.

Cheers dude, it's just a small thing when booting my cab i've managed to hide windows and the command box that starts mame but not this, but it's not like it's the end of the world or anything:)

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #48 on:** April 08, 2010, 11:09:50 am »

Mamehooker 3.7 is out... this adds the key state detection 1up asked about. That will probably be it for a while... time to work on the actual website.

Cakemeister · « **Reply #49 on:** April 08, 2010, 03:15:13 pm »

Hey, you're a mamedev now! Nice! Maybe you can wean yourself off Visual Basic!

Quote

Gun output cleanups/hookups [Howard Casto]:
* drivers\othunder.c: Changed Operation Thunderbolt output names to
something more appropriate. (They were routed to LEDs.)
* video\rastan.c: Hooked up output for Operation Wolf.
* machine\midwunit.c: Hooked up outputs for Revolution X.
* machine\midyunit.c: Hooked up outputs for Terminator 2.
* drivers\seta.c: Hooked up outputs for Zombie Raid.

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #50 on:** April 08, 2010, 05:26:00 pm »

Quote from: Cakemeister on April 08, 2010, 03:15:13 pm

Hey, you're a mamedev now! Nice! Maybe you can wean yourself off Visual Basic!

Quote
Gun output cleanups/hookups [Howard Casto]:
* drivers\othunder.c: Changed Operation Thunderbolt output names to
something more appropriate. (They were routed to LEDs.)
* video\rastan.c: Hooked up output for Operation Wolf.
* machine\midwunit.c: Hooked up outputs for Revolution X.
* machine\midyunit.c: Hooked up outputs for Terminator 2.
* drivers\seta.c: Hooked up outputs for Zombie Raid.

Technically speaking I've been a mamedev since around 2001.... I just do very minor source changes and very seldomly at that. (I think my last submission was like 5 or 6 years ago!)

Howard_Casto · « **Reply #51 on:** May 10, 2010, 10:19:09 pm »

Ok it's break time. All of my projects, including the mame drivers will be on hold for the rest of the month, maybe a bit more. Full details are on my site.

I'll be scarce for a while, but I'll talk to you all real soon.

Huggybaby · « **Reply #52 on:** May 10, 2010, 11:18:31 pm »

We'll see you after you get rested up Howard!


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