Blog

I started updating the site again. First I’m going through some of the older pages and doing updated to complete some of the stuff that was left unfinished.

Next, I’m going to add a number of sections for stuff that is going to be released to the public. This includes the new cabinet adapters, video testers, the Rapberry Pi to JAMMA adapter, JAMMA Mate and JAMMA Test Card, and more.

As this is happening, I’ll also start listing my projects on eBay as well. I know a lot of folks have been asking for more info on these projects and where to get this stuff, and as I’m about to do this something always gets in the way.

Please stay tuned, and thank you for your interest my projects.

So it seems like somewhere along the way the hackers managed to modify some files in HTML root once again. This wasn’t just me. A similar hack was used to take over thousands of WordPress sites.

I had to restore from backup again then set up some scripts to watch and report for unexpected changes.

Turns out they had access to the WordPress database as well, and that backdoor was saved in the backup I restored from.

After a simple manual cleanup and some plugin updates and removal, I believe the site is backdoor free and pretty well protected. I’m now looking forward to further hack attempts.

I will probably do a small write up on the methods they used and things that can be done to prevent it. Maybe it ends up helping someone with a similar problem.

First of all, let me thank everyone that took a chance on my new project releases and helped my test them. Special thanks for the people out there (you know who you are) that reported back with feedback and provided suggestions on how to improve things.

The last few months were pretty exciting getting folks out there to put my stuff through the paces. These were some of my most complex projects to date and so the pressure was on.

Now that this is completed, based on the feedback I received, I believe these products are ready for public release:

• PJ – Raspberry Pi to JAMMA Adapter
• JAMMA Mate
• JAMMA Test Card
• Video Testers (4 different designs)
• Cabinet Adapters (11 out of 12 at least)
• New JAMMA Adapters

I will be adding more information on these projects to the site, then listing them on Ebay soon after. Please check these out if you are interested and a big thank you in advance if you chose to support my work.

I sent a number of these out to people that wanted to be the first to test drive these boards. I’ve also compiled some documentation on this project.

The documentation can be found here. It includes the following topics:

• Installing drivers on vanilla distros.
• Configuring controls
• Power management
• Troubleshooting

I’m also creating a default distro based on the latest Retropie release. Most of the work on has already been completed.

This is a big project and getting everything ready is taking a long time. I totally underestimated, once again, how much time is required to get everything ready with an acceptable level of polish.

This came out of nowhere! I enter my url into a browser to find that I’ve won some prizes! Totally unexpected….

Usually, when crap like this happens, it’s Cloud at Cost trashing my VM, but this was different.

Turns out an exploit in WordPress’ Duplicator plugin (which I use for backups) allowed hackers to upload and modify PHP scripts to the HTML root and so they inserted some code to redirect a user to the site of their choice.

All I have to do now is to collect my prize….

Seriously though… the joke’s on them. I usually make a backup after each modification so I just simply restored it, disabled some plugins, and we were back in business. I may have lost some minor updates in the process, but nothing serious.

Based on what I saw though, the hacker also installed a backdoor and made a ton of changes to the WordPress core scripts. It would have been a drag cleaning this up without a full restore.

Wow… 2020 has been an interesting year so far. From the threats of war, to the COVID outbreak, the tension now reaches a boiling point with the riots in the US. Hopefully we will all stay healthy, fix what’s wrong and overcome our differences and resume our normal boring lives… but this isn’t a political blog.

Many of my projects were supposed to be completed now, but with these hiccups resulting in delayed production and shipping, I’m once again behind.

Things are moving forward though. Here’s an update:

Raspberry Pi to JAMMA adapter – Currently in beta testing with a number of people. Still early to call, but I’m waiting of feedback on some functionality issues, and reliability data.

JAMMA Test Card – In beta testing as well. No major issues reported. Will probably be going into production soon.

Arcade Video Tester – In beta testing. Feedback good so far. Soon to be in production.

JAMMA Mate – Issues with the latest hardware design, may need to back to fabrication for another revision. Very close to being completed.

As this was going on, I decided to make arcade cabinet adapters. A lot of people have asked me for these, and here we are. These are basically the opposite of a JAMMA adapter. Instead of converting non JAMMA games to be playable on a JAMMA setup, these will allow you to play your JAMMA boards in one the non JAMMA cabinets listed below.

Many have already been completed and some have been properly tested are ready to be sold. Here’s a list of what’s here and the status:

I decided to spend the last couple of days working on completing the IC Pin Label / Sticker project and it is now online.

The tool will allow you to create an IC or a connector pinout label, on your label printer or a regular household printer, that will actually fit! The tool needs your printer’s DPI, pin list and pin spacing and it will generate any arbitrary pinout label. When printing you will need to disable scaling and print actual size for the label to fit.

Two sets of images can be created. A single image for small label makers, or tiled version for larger label maker (4×6″ or larger) so that labels can be fully utilized.

Once you create a label you can bookmark the URL and reprint it when needed without having to recreate it each time.

There is also a pretty comprehensive list of already predefined devices for you to use here. These can be edited before the labels are created.

There is a couple of bugs and missing functionality that still needs to be dealt with but 95%+ of the work has been done. Not bad for a couple of day’s effort.

Made a small program to generate IC pinouts that can be stuck on a chip for easy pin identification. The difficult part here is to get the image to come out the correct size.

Information on this can be found here.

I may end up putting together a online tool to make these and to generate these for the common chips on arcade PCBs.

People have been asking me about the current projects that I’ve posted about here. Here’s a more detailed look at where things are with the projects that are work in progress or not currently available:

Major Arcade Projects:

• PJ – Pi to Jamma – mostly tested working, last revision in fabrication
• JammaTest – mostly tested working, last revision in fabrication
• JammaMate – mostly tested working, last revision in fabrication
• JammaMinigun – working on video conversion issues, release unknown at this point.

JAMMA Adapters – Here’s a list of the adapters that are work in progress and status:

• Midway Space Invaders – avaliable at limited quantities
• Alpha Denshi – available but unlisted
• Gottlieb – testing (need Qbert sound and Krull / Mad Planets pcb)
• Rally-X – available but unlisted
• Taito – available but unlisted
• Tecfri – available but unlisted
• Atari DigDug – testing (my Digdug board is busted)
• Nintendo Playchoice 10 Single – tested working
• Nichibutsu A (Frisky Tom, Seicross, Radical Radial) – tested working
• Taiyo – available but unlisted
• Bagman – in fabrication
• Taito Space Invaders – in fabrication

Miscellaneous Arcade – Projects for the modular supergun or misc arcade boards.

• JAMMA Generic Adapter PCB – available but unlisted
• Fingerboard – available but unlisted
• JAMMA to Headers – available but unlisted
• Genesis Controller Module – available but unlisted

Video Testers:

• Arcade Monitor Tester – last revision in fabrication
• VGA Monitor Dongle – last revision in fabrication
• TV Tester – last revision in fabrication

Logic Analyzer Probes – I have had difficulty manufacturing these while making them reasonable priced. As a result I am not selling these at the moment until I come up with a good strategy on how to do this. May involve gettin a pick and place machine and making them myself.

Other Electronics:

• Reflow Oven Controller – available, contact me for details

As you can see I piled a bunch of outstanding stuff with the goal of wrapping up most of these at the end of the year. While most of these are completed and ready to be released it will take the next few weeks (January and February) to document everything and get it out there. Stay tuned for more info.

I ended up buying a few arcade cabinets recently. These were a bulk purchase that were sitting in a barn for too long. I’ll spare you the details.

This was in preparation for setting up my gameroom in the new place, and to give me something to do over the winter and spring. In the end, I ended up trading some of these cabinets and plan to restore the rest. In the process I made a video on a Wei Ya Chinese monitor chassis that decided to put into one on these cabs.

I also pretty much perfected my monitor testers (featured in the video) that I’ve been working on for the last few months, and I think these are ready to go. The last hardware updates have been sent to the PCB fabrication place and I’m just waiting for the boards to come back to start putting the final product together.

I’ll update this page with more information soon. There has been a number of new developments on various projects that I haven’t had a chance to document yet.