SNESNESCUBE64

On 5/15/2024 at 8:45 AM, RH said:

It's a small thing but I love seeing coin mechs getting love.  They are so unnecessary in homes and modern arcades, they are often trashed, replaced or ignored. Still, they are a part of OG hardware, and I think there is a place to take care of them for that reason.

I agree 100%. All my games at home are currently free play with the exception of bubble symphony, but I still want them to work and be nice if the rest of the cabinet is. On top of that, it is really easy to make a coin door nice, so ya might as well.

With Congorilla I am not going to be doing much in terms of cabinet work, but I want to try to make the coin doors and control panel nice. The control panel will be difficult because it was painted instead of using an overlay. So until I can figure out the panel, I am just putting a piece of acrylic over it so it can be playable.

Got the coin door back. It got a nice sandblasting and power coating. I think I am going to rattle can the coin chutes and return though, they don't look the greatest.

3 hours ago, Quaze said:

I honestly can't tell you how awesome it is to see "Yakuza Operations Support His Income" still in your sig after all this time. Honored lol

It's because it's the best thing that could be there. I use it on other forums too. It's been that way forever now, I think you came up with that during NA days...

Disassembled the rusty coin door and am having it sandblasted. It's gonna look pretty good when I get it back in a few weeks.

In terms of wiring, there is only a little bit left to do.

• Wire in the light fixture
• Add a ground wire for the switcher
• Add a power switch (seems like there isn't one on this unit)

I have to start thinking about the control panel now and what I'm gonna do about all the rust. Considering that it's painted, I'm not sure how I am gonna do about this one. I probably will have to just get an overlay made.

I'll post what I sent you for other folk's benefit:

These are a very odd case for sure, the DK3 looks like legit nintendo hardware. The CHR rom for sure is and I have seen nintendo use labeling like that on rom chips, they used labels similar to that on arcade game roms like those on VS Systems. There's a chance that it is a grey market game that kinda just wandered over there. I'd dump the cart and compare it to whats available online.

https://nescartdb.com/profile/image/1668?position=pcb_front

The wrecking crew is weird too, but they look like legit mask roms. Nintendo has used those types on legitimate boards before. That one used an illigitimate board though. Super odd. My guess is that both of these are grey market cartridges or ones that were made using "third shift" chips. Super interesting pickups.

Saw Sabaton and Judas Preist over the weekend. Pretty dang good show. I was particularly hyped for Sabaton.

39 minutes ago, Aguy said:

These are awesome. Do you display them or plan on putting them on a battle vest?

The plan is to do a battle vest/war jacket. I was waiting to have enough to do it right. Probably gonna acquire the vest soon. I'm not gonna use all of these patches on it though, I just try to get one for every band that I've seen. I wouldn't add the Nanowar of Steel one for example, they were probably my least favorite act that I've seen (they were an opener for dragonforce)

I saw Judas Priest and Sabaton last night, but they didn't have any patches suprisingly at their merch tables, so I had to order them.

Finally got around to finishing the patch software. It initially didn't work but I had made a mistake. This implementation actually works pretty well. Now to get back to working on the speech sample stuff.

Since last year I've been collecting patches from concerts I've seen. Only ones I haven't seen yet in there are primal fear and gamma ray, but I am fixing the gamma ray part this year...

Installed the hardware and did some of the wiring yesterday. I decided to go the switcher route for power. I think I'd rather deal with that.

So I did a video of big kong on the Orca hardware yesterday. Reason I did such is because I was deconverting back to the original orca crazy kong set because I am gonna do the multi kit anyway.

So you might be thinking, how do you convert Orca Crazy Kong to Big Kong. You just have to burn a new set of program ROMs. The only pain is that you have to run a wire from the 74ls42 decoder chip at 2E pin 5 to the sixth rom's chip select and then stack the sixth ROM on top.

But anyway, everything is now working as normal crazy kong. So everything is ready for the cabinet. I also took the time to rebuild the power supply even though there is a likely chance I will be using a modern switcher since the original supply isn't the best design.

Got the board working.

30 minutes ago, RH said:

Can you stream those old cartoons anywhere, in full?  I have a Super Mario Bros DVD but it doesn't have the live action bumpers with Lou Albano, nor is it the complete series.

Anyway, it'd be cool to all stream and discuss episodes around the same time.  I couldn't find a... legal site to stream Captain N but The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is available on Tubi for free, and I think if you have Prime, you can possibly get it over there ad free.

 

You can watch the entirety of the super mario bros super show on youtube for free. I don't know which box set I have, but it has the Lou Albano segments, I'll have to see when I get home.

Bad year

Better than a button cell dying on ya I suppose.

There are a few covers that I am quite fond of.

New patch boards are on order. I managed to fit my code into the PLD. So as such I was able to remove the need for an extra patch rom.

Jamma adapter I made for bench testing since I gotta do a PCB order soon.

Also made a crowbar circuit in case I use the original power supply since it is kinda crummy.

The first thing I had to do was address the half-assed monitor mounting. They used a horizontal-frame k4600, but only mounted it on the bottom. So I got brackets and used a k4600 cross bar found commonly in midway cabinets to properly mount the top part so it is safer to transport.

1 hour ago, RH said:

I see now that was the full side art, so that's cool.  So is the overall condition good, then?

The sides are like a vinyl woodgrain. Both sides have intact artwork and are in fairly good shape. Couple dings and bruises, nothing worth redoing the whole thing for. There might be a little water damage on the bottom, but nothing significant.

One thing about the artwork that is interesting is that there is a cutout on the top for an "orca corporation" identification. I've never seen that before, no idea what the deal with that is.

Last week I picked up a Congorilla cabinet. For those who may not know, it is a Donkey Kong bootleg. The in game title is actually Crazy Kong. If you aren't familiar with the story, it is super interesting and is something worth looking into.

The TLDR with Crazy Kong is that Nintendo was struggling to keep up with demand of Donkey Kong machines, so they licensed it out to Falcon for sale in Japan. Falcon broke the license agreement and was selling these now bootlegs internationally in Europe and North America as 'licensed' units. So companies like Orca (the one who made this one) even made their own implementations of the hardware. There was lots of legal fun things and Nintendo even put ads in magazines to try to track down anyone involved in the manufacture, sale, or operation of these cabinets.

Anyway, this one is in suprisingly good shape. I don't know the status of the boardset yet, I was told that it mostly works but haven't built a harness for it.

Right now I am bringing up a K4600 monitor. I also made a jamma adapter so I can test the board on my bench before I address anything else. I also am debating about keeping the switcher power supply setup in it or rebuilding the original supply. The original design is kinda crappy, so I am not sure what I'm gonna do yet.

The hope is to get this thing up and running sometime this summer. The control panel artwork was painted on and is worn away in several spots. It is also a bit rusty so I will have to figure out a new overlay solution. But that might be a down the road project.

Cool project, I like how it sticks out a bit more to grip it a bit easier.

On 3/27/2024 at 3:28 PM, Hammerfestus said:

Drove to Pittsburgh to catch this one.  
 

Elvenking/Alestorm

Forgot to get an Alestorm pic but I really wasn’t there to see shitty Korpiklaani. 
I‘ve been waiting like 25 years to see Elvenking.  It was awesome and they got an hour set.  Also saw some crowdsurfer get dropped on his head.  I thought that dude was dead.  Remember kids, DO NOT crowd surf in an area of the crowd filled with dungeons & dragons guys.

I saw the detroit edition of that show. I was super excited for Elvenking and Alestorm. Hearing the song Pagan Revolution live was an incredible experience. Glyph was a HUGE suprise, I think I liked their music the best. I really liked their music and can't wait for them to do more.

Alestorm was good too, super glad they brought the rubber duck.

Speaking of D&D bands and whatnot, I saw Twilight Force and Gloryhammer at the shelter in detroit. They both put on a super hype show

Twilight force:

Gloryhammer:

I got Sabaton/Judas Priest coming up next, then towards the end of may I'm seeing In Flames, then in august it's Mastodon and Lamb of God.

April has been incredibly chaotic for me, but I think things are calming down just a bit. So I've been reworking a few things:

• Changed up dip switch settings
• Increased speech options from 3 to 7
• Started recording speech set 4. Everything is good minus a little bit of tweaking.
• Prepping for sets 5 and 6, the plan is try and get some samples of a SC-01

I do have to work in an additional bit of hardware. My speech board relies on a slightly modified sound board rom (about 28 bytes out of the 2k), most of which is new code. The only issue is I cannot sell this with the modified rom. So I am working on a hardware-based patch that switches between my code and the original. That way only the supplimental code has to be distributed, not the original. As such, I've been learning how to program for GAL16 and GAL22 PLDs. I also made a proof of concept board.

The only issue is that the board is too tall, so I am working out a solution where I can do two things:

• Eliminate the need for an extra rom with my code (embed it into the PLD)
• Potentially move the patch stuff to the main speech board.

The first topic I did this morning before work. It seems to be working just fine so far, but more testing is needed.

Progress is still being made ultimately. I've also started writing a proper manual for this. Hoping this will be completed within the next couple months.

Just dont to behind people's back and be a genuinely plesant person in whatever community you join.