I was looking for some information on arcade monitors, specifically Capacitor Kits, and everything I found seemed to be in the way-back archive. So duly reformatted and hopefully to include photographcs, links to manuals and schematics, check out the new Monitor Information Page. (very much Work in Progress)
If you have the galaxian multi game, then I have a beta to test - Clean Sweep finally makes it in there. It should work with high scores and dip settings although it hasn't been extensively tested. Grab the rom images here.
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I have now added the eagle files for the Galaxian multigame PCB's to the multigame page so you can create modified versions should you desire..
The gerber files for the Galaxian multigame are now available here! - It started off as a easy to fit version of the 8 game, since they were a real pain to solder all the wire links for the colour prom and kept getting bigger.
Shipping around the world for kits has been getting increasingly dodgy, with more parcels gone missing this year than they have over the previous 15!, besides my stock of the components needed has dwindled.
Well, now you can get the PCBs made up yourself, most of the parts are still available from ebay or old PCB's (dead bootleg SF2's are a particularly good source for the GAL chips, and many been recycled this way).
If you make one (or more) up, then please make a donation to the WWF or Buy me a Coffee..
n.b. There still may be one more game to go in there at some point, as I have basically completed Clean Sweep, just need to sort out the menu and high score changes for it.
Following on from Astrocade hardware, I thought I would like to do a core as near as possible from scratch. So apart from using the Z80 from opencores, and basing the timing code on that used in the Pacman core, I went from the Crazy Balloon schematics to produce a complete core for it. Where the documentation is good enough, the analogue sounds are also done correctly, but since it uses the SN74677 sound chip and does things to it not even mentioned in the manual. I ended up sampling my cab for those three sounds
Well, what a weird year iot has been so far.
I've been learning to code in VHDL and Verilog on the MiSTer platform, first task was one I have wanted to do since I bought an FPGA Replay (just never managed to get on with it for some reason), but have not had the same problems with the MiSTer. So, take the existing Bally Arcadia console core, add in the necessary extra ram, pattern board, sparkle circuit etc. and it should be able to run the Arcade astrocade games (including Space Zap, Robby Roto, Wizard of Wor and Gorf) - was no where near as easy as I expected, but after trying to get the timing for the pattern board correct, it finally all works! (ir also runs Seawolf II and Extra bases)
New game on the way for the multigame, a conversion of Clean Sweep from the Vectrex. Have it running on standard galaxian hardware, just need to do some address and control changes to make it compatible with the Multigame setup.
Finally updated the untested PCB list, should bear more resemblance to reality. (although there is at least one PCB I didn't find that I thought was still there ...)
I heard from a user about a problem with the signed Xeltec drivers. So in case you are having the same problem
"My
new PC has windows 10 installed as UEFI. Installing it that way enables secure
boot by default and saves the default keys to your motherboard. Secure boot adds
another layer of driver authentication, which causes the Xeltec patched
driver to fail.
In order to fix this, you need to disable secure boot (which is motherboard specific).
Once disabled, the driver plays nice. Only caveat - your system is now (technically) susceptible to rootkits and other forms of malware that attack your drivers. Not a huge concern if you're not using fishy software."
Thanks Bill
Finally finished building my new test rig!
Hopefully get the rest of the test gear setup again and start fixing some boards.
Just changed email address, the domain I used to use expires soon, and I changed it a while back anyway, so hopefully updated all old email links.
Aaron mentioned that Amidar in the multigame always runs in cocktail mode, no matter what settings you selected - I am amazed no-one else had noticed since it's been like it since the start! Anyway, for the one person who actually plays Amidar in two player mode, I have now fixed the bug. Grab latest version from usual place.
