The JAMMA TestCard Project

I’m currently working on the JAMMA TestCard, which is a small card that is meant to allow you to test and troubleshoot a JAMMA cabinet. Simply plug it into your JAMMA harness and you can start testing immediately.

JAMMA Test Card, current prototype version.

This can come in handy in a number of circumstances, whether you’re building your own cabinet, modifying something or adding additional controls and don’t want to risk testing with and possibly damaging a real game.

The most likely scenario where you’d want to use the TestCard is when testing a cabinet just before a purchase, a cabinet that you’re not familiar with that may or may not be working 100%, to make sure you pay exactly what it’s worth.

The card allows you to perform the following test functions:

  • Power Supply Test

Voltage testing for the +5V, +12V and the -5V JAMMA power rails. The results are displayed on screen and on the LCD display in case the monitor is dead or not working as expected.

Debugging the TestCard on my homegrown Supergun and my Sony RGB modded TV. Power Supply Test shown, values displayed on-screen.
Test results also reported on the LCD display.
  • Test Control Wiring and Switches
Control Test. All input JAMMA switches and buttons are supported.

Check the controls by pushing a button and watching the on-screen display or LCD display for feedback. All input switches are tested including the service, test and tilt switches as well as 6 buttons on the edge connector and Street Fighter 2 kick button harness header.

  • Monitor Test

Test the monitor in various ways to ensure it’s functioning correctly. The tests include:

Color Bars.

Color Bars on screen. The G in RGB died recently in this TV. 95% it’s a dead electrolytic cap as the green color on the TV was acting up in the typical dying cap way (until the TV warmed up) before it died completely.

Make sure all of the RGB lines are connected and display properly. Also check for any color bleeding or balance problems.

Alignment and Convergence Grid

Grid test in action.

Check to see whether the display geometry is correct and whether the color converges in all area of the display. The grid can also be used to see if any color bleeding is occurring, and to help to center the display.

My Sony RGB has a bad convergence problem in the lower corners. This card will help me align the yoke.

Burn-In Check

A white screen is displayed to reveal any burn-in that might have occured from prior games.

  • Sound Test

A simple sound test outputs various frequencies to the cabinet speaker to test the connection to the speaker and to confirm that the speaker is able to generate a distortion free sound.

  • Battery Powered

The JAMMA TestCard can be optionally powered by a 3V button battery and will allow you to check the monitor and control switch functionality even if the power supply inside the cabinet is dead.

Test a cabinet that has a dead power supply.
  • Dual Display

If the monitor is dead or malfunctioning, you’ll still be able to gather some information on the remaining state of the cabinet by checking the build in LCD display. All functions and feedback are displayed on both the monitor and the LCD. Try to do this with a real game, or any other test board for that matter.

So the next time you go out to buy another arcade cabinet, don’t take a real game to test with. Take the TestCard instead and you can be certain that you’ll get the best possible cabinet testing experience in a tiny package

  • Easy to Fix

If anything goes wrong with the card, it can be fixed easily. There are only 6 ICs on board, the main MCU (microcontroller) responsible for most of the magic, 4 ICs that deal with the inputs and protect the MCU from the dangers of a potentially messed up cabinet. There is also a sound amplifier and a voltage regulator. Most active parts, with the exception of the voltage regulator, are socketed and can be replaced easily if needed.

  • Save Money!

Now that you know what the TestCard is capable of, I hope you will find it as useful as I have, testing the various monitors and cabinets while developing this product.

Now you can identify issues with your cabinet yourself without having to call a professional.

You can also use it to find issues (what used arcade cabinet doesn’t have issues?) and use it as leverage to get a deal on your purchase! 🙂 The first time you use it, it will likely pay for itself.

Since this project isn’t 100% completed yet, the price isn’t final, but I’m aiming to initially price these at around $40USD or $50CAD.

Supergun project completed, work on the minigun begins!

A supergun is a device for playing arcade games on your tv or monitor. This is a side project that I just recently completed and made a video about.

This is going to be used to play games and test the various arcade projects that I’m currently working on.

Check out the Supergun and the Minigun project pages for more information.

Rasperry Pi to JAMMA project link is live again

This is long overdue… I know.

I really wanted to get some info out on this project, but just never found the motivation to do it. Recently though, I’ve been getting many questions regarding the progress so I figured it’s probably a good time to post some information now.

While this work is progressing quite well, it is a rather complex project and it’s taking time. There are also options I’m exploring as well, as the design is being tested. There is a chance to simplify the audio section as the cost of control response. I haven’t completed the audio work yet and don’t know if it’s going to be worthwhile. This is probably the last piece in the puzzle before the design is finalized.

As I’m exploring options, I’ve been looking at the possibility of making something like this for the Orange Pi as well. This may or may not be possible. I mean, it is most likely possible as technically most things are, but I don’t know if I can deliver good video quality at a low enough cost and complexity. I may need to experiment a little.

Orange Pi would be ideal for this project, as it’s lower cost, readily available and has significantly better performance than the Raspberry Pi. Unfortunately, unlike the Raspberry Pi, it doesn’t have the capability of outputting video over the gpio headers, not out of the box at least. I think though, that it may be possible to sacrifice the performance of one of the four CPU cores of the Orange Pi, and via some additional circuitry, bit-bang the low res video out. I will experiment with this for a bit and report back on it later.

Anyway, before I digress any further, here’s the link to the project page.

 

More JAMMA adapters? Yes!

As I mentioned in the last post, there are several new adapter boards that I received last week. Here’s a pic of these assembled:

So far, the following of these have been tested:

Orca A adapter has been tested with Crazy Kong and Changes and it seems to work perfectly.

Nichibutsu adapter has been tested with MagMax, and other than a weird issue where pushing the player 1 button 2 causes the game the speed up, everything seems to fine.

Toaplan was tested with Tiger Heli and no issues found.

Jaleco was tested with Exerion and works great.

I still need to dig out boards the I have to test these more, but I’ll be listing them on Ebay as soon as I feel confident they work as expected.

Raspberry Pi to JAMMA board, more adapters, more new projects.

Not that I’m complaining or anything, but the whole JAMMA adapter thing has got me overwhelmed a bit. I could not imagine it would keep me as busy as it has for the last couple of months. Actually it’s quite motivating because these adapters have been very well received and as a result I’ve been working on a few more to add to the list. As of right now, I’ve made 31 distinct JAMMA adapters, and I’m planning to do at least a few more in the next couple of months.

The last batch of adapter boards pictured above, has arrived about a week ago. This batch consists of the following new adapters:

  • Jaleco (Exerion, City Connection, etc…)
  • Toaplan (Tiger Heli, Guardian, etc…)
  • Nichibutsu (MagMax, Terra Cresta, etc…)
  • SNK / Rockola (Vanguard, Nibbler, etc…)
  • Orca A (Congorilla, Changes, etc…)
  • Orca B (Espial, Vastar, etc…)

I’ve been trying to dig through my collection of boards to find some to test these with, and as that happens I’ll make periodic updates.

I’ve also designed the PCB prototypes for three new projects:

  • Minigun – a mini supergun adapter that allows you to play your JAMMA game on a tv using component (not RGB) video output and 6 button genesis compatible controllers.
  • JAMMA Mate – a helper adapter for button macros, autofire, voltage readings and power monitor, auto coin / freeplay, video sync converter, internal coin counters, etc..
  •  JAMMA Test Board – a battery powered board to allow for testing of monitor sound and power components and controls inside of a JAMMA cabinet.

You can see these are the red pcbs in the picture above. At this point I haven’t been able to do anything with those other than give them a quick inspection to make sure they look alright.

Finally my Rasberry Pi board project is moving along. I’ve got it working and usable to a certain extent but not without issues. The project is proving quite doable and it appears to be moving forward faster than even I imagined. I would say, in a couple of months I may be testing the final prototype and soon after that it will be available for sale.

For now here’s some crappy pics of the board in action in my dark basement, but I’ll post new info on this project, along with proper pics later.

 

Project Updates

I haven’t made any updates here for a while, but I have been working on a number of projects in the mean time.

I created a few additional JAMMA adapters. The total number of adapters is now about 25. Most aren’t listed here due to the fact that I lost the site again and wasn’t in the mood to restore it, but the ones that have been thoroughly tested have already been listed on Ebay.

This project is mostly completed. I’m now mostly creating adapters for games that have a unique pinout, but I’m only doing this for games that are very popular, or games that I really enjoy. I would like to design maybe 5 more and then I’ll only create new ones if necessary, every so often.

I’ve also been working on the logic analyzer adapters. The second set of prototypes is looking good (first wasn’t good due to a pretty serious design flaw). I’ll be posting more info on these as I test them. I got a new Tektronix unit for which I’ll be making these as well, in addition to the Agilents.

Finally, I have been working on a Rasperry PI to JAMMA board. The first prototype board is done, and I’ve done some work on the kernel drivers for he controls and custom sound hardware. This will be my focus going forward.

Screenshot of the prototype Pi to JAMMA board from designspark.

Thanks to all that have purchased my adapters in the last few month or provided feedback or help with testing.

Site lost again!

For the second time in the last 4 months or so, Cloud at Cost has lost my VM and was unable to recover it. It’s starting to get on my nerves.

In a way, not a big loss since I think I had everything backed up this time and I already scripted the recovery process, but it still took a few hours of my time that I could have spent elsewhere.

I have many updates planned, but I will make a separate update about that.

Website Lost Again, Dammit Cloud at Cost!

I lost the site in late July when I was on vacation, and wasn’t quick enough to respond and fix it. When I got back it was too late for the recovery. It was all gone!

The last backup was from early May, so I lost all the content that I added in those three months. I was in the process of adding the lost content to the site slowly… when it happened again!

This time I had a fairly recent backup, and I didn’t wait too long to try to fix it… but unfortunately it didn’t help. Cloud at cost lost my VM and didn’t seem to eager to restore it. This is seriously demotivating…

Sorry once again about all the dead links, I’ll get around to it eventually.

In the mean time I’m creating a backup after every update and have scripted the recovery process so I should be ready for the next time I have to do this, which I feel is going to happen sooner than I would like it.

Falcon adapters… popular but painful

I’m currently working on designing a Falcon class JAMMA adapter. Let’s just say that it isn’t easy with all the variety in the games out there.

I’ve got at least a dozen PCBs that use some variant of this pinout. This includes original Falcon games, bootleg games from Sega, Konami, Irem and Namco. I didn’t expect to see it being that widely used, and only realized this when I started to look into it.

I still haven’t decided on what the final end product will look like, but most likely there will be two main Falcon adapters, plus maybe another one for games that don’t quite fit the class, such as Make Trax and Eyes / Ms. Pacman bootleg that are flipped. I really don’t want people to connect these backwards and fry their games… or my own.

Just a subset of all the falcon type pinouts…

More information will be available when I figure it all out…

Lost the Website!

It’s been a while since the last update.

Unfortunately I’ve been having problems with my web host. For some time now I was having problems with the virtual machine. Initially it had some data corruption, then I lost access to it, and eventually the VM went down completely. I was on vacation at that time so I didn’t pursue it, but when I got back it turned out that the VM was lost and could not recovered. At least the support staff was quick to tell me that.

I’ve been able to recover the site from an old backup, but I’ve lost a bit of information that was posted earlier and will have to repost it. Not looking forward to that.

Lesson to be learned? Need to back it up after every change, or at least more often.  I’m not letting this happen again, and with the web host that I’m using, it’s very likely that I will be having issues.