ajcrm125
Well-known member
Due to the frustrations of having to physically coinup my 6 player X-man every time I want to play (grrrr), I decided to spin a new version of the CoinUp. One that will support up to 6 players total. 
Working title for this product as of right now is the CoinUp-6UP and it will support will support 2 modes:
Classic mode:
This mode is for games that have independent player start buttons. You press the start button, the CoinUp coins up that player and then starts the game.
Each player is completely independent which means players can jump-in on an ongoing game at any time.
Fixed Character Mode:
This is for games that have no player start buttons (X-men, TMNT, Simpsons, etc), and each character has its own dedicated coin switch which dictates which character you play.
In this mode the user chooses an action button to coinup the game (Punch for example). When pressed, the device will coinup that player and then start monitoring the action button. As long as that player is playing (hitting the button occasionally) the CoinUp goes idle. But once the CoinUp sees that the button hasn't been pressed in a long period of time (configurable via dip switches) it wakes up again and will coinup the game if the action button is pressed.
Cool Feature... You guys decide how many credits you want the device to give you… and that's all you get.
Griffin and I had a long discussion about this and I've also heard countless stories from fellow collectors who like me, get their grail home, sent in 100 credits, beat the game and all nostalgia was lost. With this feature you can push yourself to see how far you can go on a limited # of credits, or make it feel more 'Arcade like'. For example, set it to 3 credits and set the timeout to be longer than the "continue?" prompt so that once the game starts you only get 3 credits and that's it.
Of course you can essentially bypass this feature by setting the timeout to be slightly smaller than the continue prompt, and press the action button right before it times out.
Questions for you guys:
What's the max # of credits you see yourself needing to be sent by the CoinUp when you start a game? Many of these 4-6 player games already have DIP switches on the PCB or in-game menus that allow you to specify how many lives to give you per-credit. So I'm guessing I don't need to support a large number of CoinUp pulses.
What kind of timeout range do you guys need? I've been looking at the Konami titles and all appear to be in the 20 sec range. Any others titles I should be aware of?
Working title for this product as of right now is the CoinUp-6UP and it will support will support 2 modes:
Classic mode:
This mode is for games that have independent player start buttons. You press the start button, the CoinUp coins up that player and then starts the game.
Each player is completely independent which means players can jump-in on an ongoing game at any time.
Fixed Character Mode:
This is for games that have no player start buttons (X-men, TMNT, Simpsons, etc), and each character has its own dedicated coin switch which dictates which character you play.
In this mode the user chooses an action button to coinup the game (Punch for example). When pressed, the device will coinup that player and then start monitoring the action button. As long as that player is playing (hitting the button occasionally) the CoinUp goes idle. But once the CoinUp sees that the button hasn't been pressed in a long period of time (configurable via dip switches) it wakes up again and will coinup the game if the action button is pressed.
Cool Feature... You guys decide how many credits you want the device to give you… and that's all you get.
Griffin and I had a long discussion about this and I've also heard countless stories from fellow collectors who like me, get their grail home, sent in 100 credits, beat the game and all nostalgia was lost. With this feature you can push yourself to see how far you can go on a limited # of credits, or make it feel more 'Arcade like'. For example, set it to 3 credits and set the timeout to be longer than the "continue?" prompt so that once the game starts you only get 3 credits and that's it.
Of course you can essentially bypass this feature by setting the timeout to be slightly smaller than the continue prompt, and press the action button right before it times out.
Questions for you guys:
What's the max # of credits you see yourself needing to be sent by the CoinUp when you start a game? Many of these 4-6 player games already have DIP switches on the PCB or in-game menus that allow you to specify how many lives to give you per-credit. So I'm guessing I don't need to support a large number of CoinUp pulses.
What kind of timeout range do you guys need? I've been looking at the Konami titles and all appear to be in the 20 sec range. Any others titles I should be aware of?

