SNESNESCUBE64

I wonder if they were the same hardware as the other tetris keychains of early/mid 90s. I had one that was shaped kinda like a gameboy.

7 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

 

You guys are really pushing the rules here, but the last Baby Yoshi sprite is technically in the 32x32 pixel limit, and as far as I can tell, Tonma is exactly 32. So you get a begrudging pass haha.

 

I'll take this as an opportunity to do the same PSA I do every year, though:

I honestly appreciate all suggestions, but PLEASE try to keep them in the spirit of what I'm trying to do here: make fun original artwork of sprites that have NEVER been represented as cartoons before.
If you can just look at the box-art or do a Google search to see a drawing of the character you picked (or if the sprite is detailed enough to look like a cartoon already) - that takes a lot of the fun out of it for me.

Again - I'm happy to have the engagement with my annual silly doodle thread, but it can be frustrating when I get several suggestions that feel like "Hey, you draw? You should draw Sonic."

Let's be more creative here - pick stuff that has never ever been seen as anything but a barely-distinguishable sprite. (And a sincere thank-you to everyone who understands the prompt and submits unique stuff - you keep me motivated to keep doing this every year - shoutout to @Link and @AverageOliver98 in particular for really "getting it").

[T-Pac]

 

Apologies, skip mine if you want. I didn't follow the rules, I'll see if I can find something neat.

I couldn't think of anything so I nominate my boy but baby.

Well I am done messing around with the ROMs. I finished making the upright version of the ROMs. On top of that I even made a freeplay mod because most of the rest of my games are freeplay.

What's next:
- Custom artwork
- Update power board to support RQ-125B power supply and switch to that supply
- Update ROM board to have switches to enable/disable freeplay and switch to cocktail table mode.

17 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

I will say that I don't find the song amazing, I do find it to be extremely fun.

I feel that way about most Dragonforce songs. You hit it right on the head with that statement. You really see that with their newer album "extreme power metal" where they kinda lean into that. I will say that there are some songs that they have that I think are genuinely good like "Seasons". They really scratch a certain "itch" and are nice to listen to sometimes.

I wasn't gonna comment on the placement of any these songs on the list because opinions are cool and everyone has slightly different tastes in music, but Dragonforce ahead of Gamma Ray? Come on man...

I have tickets to see Dragonforce in November, I am super excited because it seems like their shows are parties.

Halfway there! Pretty solid list so far.

On 9/23/2023 at 8:23 AM, Kguillemette said:

#53 System of a Down- Toxicity

Toxicity is a song and album that could not be escaped when it first came out. It still can't. This is one of the rare Nu-metal acts out there that found themselves respected and enjoyed almost universally. Even the most sceney of scenester like this song. The most metally of metalheads like this song. The boppiest of teenie bopper like this song. Why? It's just really good.

That whole album is pretty dang good. Toxicity is such a fun song to listen to and just hits hard everytime I hear it on the radio. I think my favorite song on that album is prison song though.

System of a down was my first concert actually and was a former favorite before I started getting into heavy/power metal. I saw em at Pine Knob (called DTE amphitheater or some bullcrap at the time) in 2015. It was a fun show, Le Butcherettes (probably the worst performance I have ever seen out of any show I've been to) and the Melvins were there too. I would have loved to see them back in their prime, I have a hard time listening to Serj's solo stuff. The songs he does are alright but he changed the way he sings or something and I can't say I'm a fan.

I am still working on Head On N, I have most of the modifcations I need to make to the ROMs to make it work properly in an upright cabinet done. Just a couple things left. From there it's just art.

https://youtu.be/3UxzfF92F0I?si=a9lsUj5Z0hCYg6Uy

The only thing those old power supplies are good for is throwing through windows.

A power supply is a power supply. You either have OEM or aftermarket with varying levels of performance. As long as you have power that is relatively clean no harm no foul.

Rigged up a control panel harness and modded the roms to be single player only. Reason I chose single player only is because I am trying to figure out how to make two player mode work without flipping the screen. Head On N is meant to be in a cocktail table, unfortunately there is no dip switch for setting it to upright from what I can figure out.

Coins are dumb, or at least the way they are handled on this board. So the way it has to work, is there are three wires that hook up to a coin switch: Normally Open (N.O.), Normally Closed (N.C.), and Common. Head On N uses all three, where as most other games later on used just N.O. and Common. So I have a coin door harness for a Donkey Kong machine, so ideally I would like to use that, so I have to adapt it.

Well this morning, I had a thought: what if I use a mosfet to drive N.C.? The whole idea is that the coin signals are pulled high via weak pullup resistors. When the switch is flicked N.C. becomes high and N.O. goes low. That said, if I add the mosfet, the weak pullup will be enabling the driving of the mosfet. When the coin switch gets flicked the mosfet is no longer engaged so the signal goes back high.

So to test I just soldered the transistor to the back of the board. It worked as it should so I will make a cleaner implementation as I had to bend the transistor legs as the pinout wasn't ideal. I'll probably make a little board so I can use an SMD component, making the mod better hidden.

11 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

To quote the article:

"...people put snacks of the brand Kuai Kuai (乖乖) next to or on top of machines. People who do this believe that, because the name of the snack—"Kuai Kuai"—stands for "obedient" or "well-behaved," it will make a device function without errors."

This is a common solution. 

 

I just hit the misbehaving device. Why would I reward it for disobedience?

The last picture is a bit fuzzy, you should try a retake.

But seriously, neat post. Light guns are cool and it's fun to see all the designs floating around. It's always cool to see the revolver style ones too. My personal favorite that I have is my VS System gun. It's closer to the famicom one. Some even came in black (they had a weird rubber coating that sucks).

What's even more interesting is that Konami used the same exact gun in their cabinets later on, but those came in blue and pink. They also lacked the Nintendo logo.

The answer is simple: you have a ghost problem.

Well I finally had time to assemble my power board and build the power wiring harness. It worked out pretty well, so I finally had this game booting for the first time in the cabinet. The only thing I had to do was add a cord cap for the light fixture because someone cut the end off.

So here's what's left:

• Upright cabinet romset
• Controls wiring harness
• Art package needs to be made
• Finish ground wiring (almost done)
• Monitor adjustments

One thing that I am a bit agitated about with my power setup, was that I decided to use the RT-125B, which was great because it has a 5V, 12V, and -12V. I used the -12V rail to make a -5V rail using a 7905 regulator. However, meanwell makes ANOTHER power supply that also includes the -5V rail built in: RQ-125B. So I might switch to that and make a new power board.

Because it's a meme and nobody wants to sell it for less than what they paid, so it only goes up.

25 minutes ago, The Count said:

We out here faking Maniac Mansion now?

I was wondering that too. Like who wants to fake this crap game?

5 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

#63 Kamelot- March of Mephisto

 

Kamelot is another one of those bands that has grown on me. As much as I love a good power metal concept, most of the time they wind up sounding kinda samey. The Fourth Legacy and Dominion are two albums I've had since they were relatively new. I certainly enjoyed them, but they were quite forgettable. Then pandora a few years back shows me this little collaboration with the great Jens Johannson and Shagrath, and my inner kvultist got giddy. While Kamelot hasn't regarded my attention as a band, this song has stayed high on my repeat list, and for good reason!

Kamelot is cool. "When the lights are down" ane "Accross the highlands" are great songs. They are part of what really got me into power metal. I remember hearing a lot of them when I first got a pandora account in highschool.

You are right, it gets kind of generic sometimes, but if it has a good beat to it no harm no foul. Power metal in itself is like 80% crap, but then you get absolute gems like Gamma Ray, Helloween, Primal Fear, Twighlight Force, Sabaton (I think they are considered power metal), Avantasia, Iron Savior, and Angra (of which I've been enjoying a lot lately). The gems are what makes the genre so worth it. Even some of the lesser bands are a ton of fun. I like Dragonforce for example, a lot of their music is cheesy but it is fun sometimes.

Not fake. That is battery backed (I think) RAM chip, not ROM. The base part number even matches what is on bootgod.

LH5160 is an 8k x 8 SRAM (6264 pinout equivalent) made by Sharp and discontinued many moons ago. Exact markings are gonna vary a little depending on when it was made and which factory made it, but it is definitely not new. Furthermore I see no signs of modification on the board itself.

3 hours ago, Charlie said:

Amazon and walmart do not!

Not much of a fan of shilling for big companies, but walmart charges less for new games than gamestop. If your whole thing is saving money gamestop isn't the place...

The cabinet is now for the most part de-greened. It cleaned up a lot better than I thought it would and the cabinet is really nice.

The parts I need to build the harness are now on order, so I will be able to hopefully build it that this week. I also have a monitor on the bench that needs a lot of work, that will be a separate post. I was able to mount the game board, so that turned out nice. 

I wanted to work on and mount the coin door, but the screws that were mounting it when I got it were not correct (phillips head screws vs metric carriage bolts). The worst part is that I know I have these carriage bolts, but they are in the coin bucket of DK Jr which I took to storage. So I will have to grab them later. I was able, however, to mount new coin mechs since the ones that were on there were just spray painted face plates. These are not Asahi mechs like the original, but they are clones of the old Coin Co Asahi-clone mechs (yes, clone of a clone) that were found on old gremlin cabinets (like head on). I have a goal to have every one of my large Nintendo coin doors to be in a different configuration with the return setup, return catch, and how many mechs per machine; so this helps. 

I brought the cabinet home yesterday. So tonight I started the de-greening process. For this task I am using Citrusstrip, it is harsh enough to the green paint but isn't effecting the really sturdy blue gelcoat that Nintendo used back in the day. After 20-30ish minutes, the green was peeling right off. Residue was coming off easily with simple green cleaner after.

It cleaned up really nicely.

So far, this is just one side. I have a lot to do tomorrow, but I am hoping to be able to strip the other side and the front tomorrow. The front is going to be a bit tricky, but that is tomorrow me's problem.

So I've started taking it a bit more seriously with the actual work. Ovee the weekend I crafted a new base for it as it was missing it's original one.

I think it is a little shorter than the original, but I bought this lumber from the 70% off bin at home depot. It turned out just fine and matches the other nintendo cabinets.

The next step is to start addressing the separation on the back. It is making the cabinet unstable and it needs to be fixed anyway.

Some wood glue and screws should accomplish what I am hoping. Currently waiting for it to dry.

The next step is going to be making the new bottom piece that is missing. I also mounted the coin area shroud.

So a couple months ago I picked up an empty RType cabinet. I got it for free because it was going to be thrown in the dumpster because of how much work it needed. It was as empty as a cabinet could be then some.

It's not in super great shape with chunks missing. But I suppose it's a good opportunity to get it back to it's original condition.

I identified it as an RType cabinet despite it missing the serial plate because the cabinet is an original black Vs system style cabinet (only playchoice singles and RType came in black) and it was lacking the holes required for mounting the timer display in the screen area.

If the Lions can't do anything this year they never will. They have a decent team and I hope the momentum from last year carries.