Help with Software System on my Ex-Pub console

[pgs49sullit]

Hello to all. I have acquired a coffee-table type gaming machine from a closed-down pub, but it doesn't work. Having inspected the insides it seems to be complete with plenty of dust etc inside, so I doubt its been messed with. It has a GA-6BXC mainboard with a very noisy 6Gig hard disk and a floppy drive and it came with a box of games on floppies with the file RUN.BA# on each one. The CRT is out of tune and could need replacing. It has a JAMMA JPAC thingy as well and this feeds from the MB graphics card and Mouse connector as well as the coin box. There is a SoundBlaster card on the MB which provides the sound - not that i've ever heard anything from it. Machine loads the BIOS, queries the floppy and then stops. The cursor stays flashing very quickly at the top lh corner of the screen. (This I know as I substituted the CRT with a flat panel screen connected to the graphics card).

I don't know where to start. Experience tells me that noisy HDs are usually naff HDs so I'd try that first probably. But, what OS to install would DOS do it do ou think. Is the front loader on the JAMMA card or what? Please help, I know nothing. Thanks a lot.

Ok, replaced the HD and the motherboard is ok - got Win 98 SE running on it ok. PCI cards seem to work ok too. So what next? How do it get this thing to talk to the JAMMA card? Can I adapt the JAMMA card so that I can run a flat screen monitor so I can ditch the CRT? I'm floundering here fellas, can someone please help me?

[PL1]

1. Can you read any files from the old HDD on another system?  If not, getting your cocktail cab running again on the current hardware with an unknown OS and unknown software in an unknown configuration using unknown device drivers is at best highly unlikely.

2. For the floppies, can you copy one the "RUN.BA#" files from floppy to HDD and view/edit the copy?  It is probably either a batch file called from a program on the HDD, a configuration file that you copy to the HDD to select which game the system boots to, or maybe a Basic program file.  Can't tell without seeing what is in the file. 

Pics of the cabinet, interface boards, ID stickers, floppy stickers, etc. might help to identify what you're dealing with.   


Scott

[JDFan]

The games are probably PC booter games -- ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games ) which would be inserted into the system and then when turned on the PC would load the game from the floppy. I've still got several old 5.25" floppies of these old games but have not used them in years so doubt they would still work. For example here's a pic of Dig Dug by Namco from 1980. You would boot the system with the floppy inserted and it would boot directly into the game (as part of the boot process it would poll the floppy drive and launch if the floppy was in the drive before booting to any OS ) and then the only way to exit was to shut down the system. 

[pgs49sullit]

PL 1, thanks for your input, things do look a bit forlorn I'll grant you. There are no stickers anywhere on the table of any description, except on the CRT monitor. I can't get anything at all out of the old HDD - it runs, but it's extremely noisy. What I haven't tried is booting it to Linux, perhaps I'll get something out of it then, I'll let you know but again, thanks.

[pgs49sullit]

JD FAN, thanks for your input too. I think you are right about the floppies. I think the cabinet was opened and one of the game floppies placed in the FDD. The cab was then switched on and the BIOS had the FDD call it's program from the HDD and loaded it for play. So in the pub that night punters might be playing Space Invaders, tomorrow perhaps Frogger, and of course Defender at the weekend. I'm loath to butcher the system up to install MAME but it's looking like I'm not going to have any option.