It's crazy-ass project time once again...

[nodtveidt]

Did some more on this... built a prototype controller. It's ugly but should be functional... built out of a small project box and momentary buttons I picked up at Radio Shack. The box size is 4x2x1.125 inches.



The bottom row of buttons is A thru E. The red button on the face is Credit (insert coin). The left shoulder is Cancel, the right shoulder is Deal. There will also be a headphone jack on the bottom of the controller. The cable will come out of the controller between the shoulder buttons.

The controller won't use any kind of fancy circuitry or anything, so it is completely replaceable. All the buttons except Credit are to be wired all matrix-style.

[kazekirifx]

Now put an ashtray on top of it, and an ice cream vending machine in the room, and you will have your very own Japanese arcade!

[esteban]

Now put an ashtray on top of it, and an ice cream vending machine in the room, and you will have your very own Japanese arcade!

Hahhahahahhahaha.

[nodtveidt]

Yeah... as interesting as a Japanese arcade sounds... no.

Anyway... the controller is mostly wired at this point.



Wasn't too hard... just had to pay attention to TEH MATRIX! Easy stuff.

The PCB itself showed up today.



And got some new supplies as well.



15-pin compact D-subs for the controller plug and "port", power-on LED with resistors (couldn't get them in singles, so bought a set, f*ckit), video conversion board courtesy of BlueBMW, hood for the controller plug, a 12V fan I dug out of my old supplies, a switching 1/8" stereo headphone jack, a 3/4" drill bit for drilling the hole for the power switch, rubber feet for the bottom of the casing, and hinges for the casing as well... since the casing will be made of wood.

I reckon the next step will be to finish the controller... wire up and insert the headphone jack. I have the controller cable en route right now... a 15-conductor black cable. I also ordered a 56 pin card edge connector.

The PCB itself is 11x15 inches... I'll leave an inch of space around each side to accommodate the casing supports, so the casing will be 13x17 inches in size. The casing will have a bottom panel, on which the PCB will be mounted to, and a top "box", to which everything else will be attached to. The bottom panel will have a front panel attached to it on the opposite side of the hinges... the controller port will be installed there. Since the video conversion board uses standard VGA ports, which are female, I will use the male compact d-sub as the controller port to avoid confusion. The video conversion board has an AC adapter port on it which gets in the way, so I will recess the card inside the casing to compensate. I will probably later run a cable out of the 12-pin VGA output header to a VGA-to-NTSC conversion board to allow the machine to be hooked up to other types of TVs.

The unit will have an internal speaker installed, though I'm not sure where I should mount it... was thinking of putting it on the top, but maybe it'd be more comfortable on the side or on the front panel where the controller port will be installed... one of those details that's up in the air right now.

[Drakon]

Most people just buy fingerboards and wire up a jamma adapter for the pcb.  Then they just plug the jamma end into a standard supergun.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Most people just buy fingerboards and wire up a jamma adapter for the pcb.  Then they just plug the jamma end into a standard supergun.

Thats not his goal though, he is wanting to consolize the board specifically in a enclosure, and the game seems to use a certain buttons only scheme anyway, so either way he would be stuck making a new controller, regardless of a supergun being used or not.

[Nando]

MOAR PICS - of sexy pixel ladies...HAHAHAH

[bust3dstr8]

Here are some tame pictures from the attract mode. 

[nodtveidt]

The card edge connector showed up today... got it partially wired. Video lines are in, plus some of the power and ground lines. I've doubled up these lines; for example, 55 and 56 are both GND and are on opposite sides of the connector, so I've wired them together with a medium-gauge lead wire.

The only line I dunno wtf it's for is line 8... the manual says it's "IN COUNTER" but I have no idea wtf that really means. Also line 34 is "COIN IN"... am I right in assuming that in order to trigger this, I temporarily GND it? Also, the controller wiring matrix shows 1P and 2P wired to each other, so it looks like the 1P and 2P lines can be jumped just like I've done with the power lines... and how convenient that they're right across the connector from each other.

[Drakon]

Oh okay I didn't know it uses a custom control layout.  Are you planning to find a connector for the board or just going to hard solder in everything to the connector?

Most people just buy fingerboards and wire up a jamma adapter for the pcb.  Then they just plug the jamma end into a standard supergun.

Thats not his goal though, he is wanting to consolize the board specifically in a enclosure, and the game seems to use a certain buttons only scheme anyway, so either way he would be stuck making a new controller, regardless of a supergun being used or not.

[nodtveidt]

Oh okay I didn't know it uses a custom control layout.  Are you planning to find a connector for the board or just going to hard solder in everything to the connector?

I'm only attaching the wires to the card edge connector that are actually used. There was a pre-wired connector that someone pointed out to me for like $10, but I'd hate to butcher that just for this.

[Drakon]

Guess it depends how rare the pcb is.

Oh okay I didn't know it uses a custom control layout.  Are you planning to find a connector for the board or just going to hard solder in everything to the connector?

I'm only attaching the wires to the card edge connector that are actually used. There was a pre-wired connector that someone pointed out to me for like $10, but I'd hate to butcher that just for this.

[SuperPlay]

I am beginning to like the crazy project :-)  Good luck .....