A little something for DECO fanboys… and girls!

I’ve completed and am about to release JAMMA adapters for the earliest DECO hardware. This includes the following:

With the release of the above, about 95% of the DECO / early Data East pre JAMMA boards can now be converted with my adapters. I will still need to verify compatibility for Space Fighter and Super Break which I believe are compatible with Astro Fighter.

Thanks to Brian (Scuba) and Patrick+Sam for helping make this happen!

Three new JAMMA adapters added

I have been sitting on these for too long. I have had barely any time these days to update this site and support any more new products, but with the quite obvious slowdown in the hobby, this is probably a good time.

The new JAMMA adapters are:

Between the three, there is a total of about a dozen new games that can be converted. Check the updated conversion guide for more info.

JAMMA Adapters – Status Updates

I haven’t posted an update in a while. At this point, with 120 JAMMA adapters, the majority of my time is spent filling orders and less developing new projects. While I had some help a while back, it didn’t work out and I’m now back to doing all of the work myself. This includes assembly, running the store, filling orders, packing and shipping.

Nevertheless, I managed to design a number of new adapters recently. Here’s the list and status:

  • Taito L-Shape Space Invaders – This is for the original Taito, non-North American version of Space Invaders. Prototype stage.
  • Tehkan World Cup – This also covers the other two games in the pinout class, including Tee’d Off, Gridiron Fight, and of course Tehkan World Cup. This is for the non-bootleg boards that use trackballs. Joystick -> trackball conversion is built in.
  • The Pit – The Zilec / Centuri boulder dash like game. Ready for release.
  • Gorf – The Midway cage system. Adapter includes video conversion (YUV -> RGB) and sound amplification. All cage games like Wizard of Wor, Gorf, Robby Roto have unique pinouts. Working prototype stage.
  • Wizard of Wor – Midway cage. See above. Working prototype stage.
  • Jack the Giant Killer – Cinematronics. Should also be compatible with other cinematronics games like Zzyzzyxx, Freeze, and possibly others as many run on this hardware, though that hasn’t been confirmed and verified. Ready for release.
  • Polaris – Taito. May work on other Tatio games. Ready for release.
  • Cook Race – Common bootleg version of Burgertime. Ready for release.
  • Zaccaria. For games like Jackrabbit, Money Money. Zaccaria made many games with unique pinouts and only a handful with this pinout here. Ready for release.
  • Atari Warlords – For the uncommon atari spinner game. Joystick to spinner conversion included for testing. Prototype stage.
  • Atari Pole Position. For the popular driving game licensed from Namco which has a different “Atari” pinout. Analog controls are simulated with a mictrocontroller. Late prototype stage.
  • Bally Sente SAC-1. For the cart system. The adapter requires additional control mappers as controls for each cart are pretty much unique. Beta testing nearly complete.
  • Bally Midway MCR. For the MCR-1, 2, and MCR-3 system boards. This adapter also requires control mapper boards. Working prototype stage.
  • Bally Midway Monoboard. For MCR monoboards. A number of MCR games exist on this system (Two Tigers, Sarge, Demolition Derby), as well as unique games (Rampage, RPM Racing, Xenophobe, Spy Hunter II). Control mappers required. Prototype stage.
  • Bally Midway Super Pacman – the second iteration of this adapter with less confusing front entry female connectors. Beta testing.
  • Astro Invaders – Stern / Konami. Cage system developed for Stern by Konami. Unique pinout. Ready for release.
  • Astro Fighter – DECO / Sega Gremlin. Unique pinout. Prototype stage.
  • Nintendo Donkey Kong TKG3 – For the small 3 stack variant of Donkey Kong and Radar Scope. Beta testing.
  • Sega Gremlin G80 – Cage system. For games like Astro Blaster. Supporting only raster for now. Early prototype.
  • Sega Gremlin VIC / Dual – For games like Invinco, Head On 1/2, Depth Charge and many others. Both Black and White and color games will be supported.
  • DECO Mad Rider / Mad Alien. DECO cage system. Unique pinout. Design complete, starting prototype stage.
  • DECO Cassette. Design complete, starting prototype stage.

Probably one or two more that I’m forgetting about. Keep an eye out for these on my store or this site. Thanks for checking this out and your continued support!

Site Migration

This site is going to be migrated to a new service provider in the next couple of days. The site may go down temporarily as this takes place.

Retropie 4.8 images for PJ Adapter are available now!

There are some issues booting earlier versions of Retropie on new versions of the Raspberry Pi4 manufactured in 2022… not that you would be able to get one anywhere. If you do manage to get a new Pi somehow, Retropie 4.8 will address this issue for you.

Tearing and jitter on a Pi4 is still horrible and I would strongly suggest everyone avoid the Pi4 for emulation for the time being.

That said, the images are now available on the PJ images page right here. Please report any issues.

Website Update Progress

The company that does the hosting for me had a datacenter failure, and many of my virtual servers got corrupted in the process. This has been going on for the last few days.

This is a fresh restore from an earlier backup. Some pages and files, mainly the retropie images for the PJ adapter, are still missing. I’m working on it and most of the stuff should be back online this evening.

I’m going to take the opportunity to make some software updates as well, and may do periodic restarts as this takes place.

Thanks to everyone for their patience.

Cutbot – A New Robot Controller Added

Here’s my newest robot controller. I’ve been working on more of these, in fact I have completed several already, just haven’t had a chance to do a proper write up about them.

These controllers are just some of the projects my son and I did a while back as a learning excercise, with the end goal to automate some wire, shrikwrap cutting and pin bending tasks that we do around here.

Check out the project page here. I’ll be posting some videos of this thing in action when I get around to it. In the mean time you can grab the gerbers and source code and start using these to make your own cutting projects.

This was developed as open source and open hardware project. It was made to be easily understood for a beginner and can be made using inexpensive and readily available parts. You can modify this design for any purpose you feel appropriate. I can only provide minimum support and no warranty of any kind.

Bally/Midway BurgerTime video sync issues.

Short post today….

So it turns out that some of these BurgerTime don’t use composite sync and will have issues connecting to a JAMMA setup.

I’ve been sitting on this information for a few months already, got distracted and forgot to post it. It came back to me when I found this version of the board for sale recently. So… here it is, the information on this specific issue and a mod to address it can be found at the following page:

Data East 20 Pin Video Connector

Hopefully this will be useful to someone out there.

Online stores now… online?

The two new stores are now open for business. There will be some more activity here as we integrate this site with the Shopify store to make the shopping experience even smoother, but that will happen gradually over time. The Etsy store has been created since there is already a fairly active arcade, gaming and electronics community of small creators on there. The main goal of this site will still remain the same, to provide information on my current and future projects.

Alright… so why do this? First of all, not everyone likes to use eBay. While the platform itself is fine for what it does, eBay has developed a reputation for it’s high fees, arrogance from being too big of a company and generally not giving a crap about its customers, especially sellers. Nicknames that include the word “greed” come to mind.

There are some specific issues that I have with eBay. First of all, the calculated shipping method that eBay uses is absolutely messed up. Instead of adding up the weights and volumes and getting a shipping quote on that during the checkout process, it just adds the shipping costs for each individual item. I usually have to fix it during order fulfilment or refund the people afterward. This is very annoying. I don’t know how anyone puts up with that.

Second, the prices on shipping are wrong to begin with. I get a small discount on shipping with my CanadaPost corporate account, but there is no way to utilize that effectively. There is a way to add a percentage discount on calculated shipping quotes, but that applies to all quotes, and the discounts from the shipper don’t work that way, as they are different based on the service and destination chosen.

Then there is the issue of taxes. eBay has to collect taxes on all foreign sales. They do that automatically. We are in Canada, so I only have to collect sales taxes within Canada. Since I have no physical presence elsewhere, my understanding is that (this will likely change in the future anyway but for the time being…) I do not need to collect taxes on foreign sales. I can simply leave it up to the usual customs process and import restrictions of each county. Since more than 90% of my sales go to the US, this is a clear win for US folks, as their import restrictions are nearly non existent for this type of activity.

Then there is the simple matter of customer experience on eBay. That site not only looks dated, it functions like a fossilized dinosaur. They only recently added to ability to accept payment methods other than PayPal, and likely only because other e-commerce site have had this functionality from the get go. I could spend an entire post on just this…

Finally it’s their fees. The fees on eBay will take at least 10% of gross sales which includes shipping. Then they will collect the taxes. Then there are listing fees, most that can be avoided with some strategizing. Then you have to pay a monthly fee on top of that, that’s if you want to have an online store there and basic functionality like the ability to provide announcements and vacation settings.

Now there are positives about selling on eBay too, like the fact that the site just works, has a massive presence and will do some promo type activities, which helps a lot. It’s great for people who just want to dip their toes in without spending additional money, and see if there is a market for their inventions and ideas. That’s probably their biggest selling point. If it wasn’t for eBay, and the people that have supported me here, I don’t think I’d be able to do these projects right now.

But like I said not everyone likes eBay, and sometime it’s good to diversify. My project site is already pretty high in terms of search engine rankings. Most people come here first to look for info on my projects, then they get confused and discouraged when they want to buy the product they like, but can’t purchase it here. That’s why the integration is needed. This is probably the most frequent complaint I’ve been getting recently. Also, while eBay will always be an option, I’m going to have the opportunity to fix some of the problems I’ve had with that site and to pass some of the savings to you guys.

Again, thanks for everyone for supporting me and my work over the last couple of years. I am grateful as it helps me develop more projects and stay more involved in the arcade and gaming hobbies, hopefully helping others out as well. Being my hobby, this work beats anything I’ve done in the corporate environment hands down, in terms of my enthusiasm and motivation to do more, and just the overall fun factor. Hopefully this can continue going forward.

Atari JAMMA Adapters listed.

I’ve been sitting on these for a while, unable to assemble them to keep a steady flow. We’re improving our assemble process slowly, freeing up some time to work on and release some of the outstanding projects.

As a result we have here a new batch of Atari adapters for some of their more popular games:

These will be released on the ebay store, then elsewhere. Here’s the link:

Ebay Store (online)

I plan to work on converting more Atari so this isn’t the end of these.