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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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Just received another set of JAMMA adapter boards!

Some of these are enhanced versions of existing adapters that I designed a while back, and some are new.

The important one here is the Nintendo adapter. This one is a brand new design that I’ve been working on for a couple of weeks. It includes a high speed, low cost video inverter and audio amp. This adapter has video selection jumpers for normal or inverted video selection and a jumper for audio amplification, which means that it can be used with both the Nintendo and the bootleg versions of games like DK and DK Jr. Bootleg versions typically output non-inverted video and have their own sound amplification.

Included in the batch are also the new Namco Pacman and Galaxian adapters which used to be a single adapter before. I split these apart, and the reason for that, was to support bootleg video and audio configurations. I tested both and they seem to work perfectly with my boards. There is also a new Namco Galaga adapter in the batch, and an improved version of the Irem adapter.

Finally I got a new set of 44 pin and 36 pin universal adapters. These exist to simplify the assembly procedure for games with a lower pin count.

Maybe one or two more batches, and I’ll have a fairly complete set of Jamma adapters and will probably be done with these for a while. The next set on the to do list are a Falcon set (I have many versions of Make Trax and bootleg Ms. Pacs), a Nintendo VS adapter and possibly a Playchoice 10 if I can locate one cheap.

I will be soon be listing these on eBay, and as always, it will be for a very, very good price, so stay tuned for that.

More info on each adapter will be available shortly in the project section.

 

 

 

Hey everybody,

I spent some time last weekend changing all my CPS-2 batteries and I thought I’d write a tutorial on how to do this. My record for doing these is about 30/30 right now, so I feel that the procedure I use is pretty reliable and at this point I feel confident sharing my information with everyone.

You can find the guide here in the new Guides section.

Also, if you’re in the Toronto area and need someone to do the work for you, contact me and we’ll likely be able to work something out.  The work will be fully guaranteed and the prices will be very reasonable, but I haven’t decided on the exact amount yet.

I’m going to be posting some information about projects that I’ve been working on recently that I would like to share with you.

Coming up first will be a nice selection of JAMMA adapters for arcade PCBs that I’ve been designing over the last few weeks. Most are in the prototype stage, but I’ll have them ready for purchase in a couple of weeks. This is the current list of the adapters.

1. Capcom
2. Sega System 8
3. Sega System 16
4. Konami
5. Data East
6. Tehkan
7. Taito
8. Namco Galaxian
9. Namco Pacman
10. Irem
11. Phoenix
12. Mr.Do Universal
13. Namco Galaga
14. Nintendo
15. Universal (56 pin)

More info coming soon… stay tuned.