putting a vertical monitor in Pac/Ms Pac?

joemagiera

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Pacman and Ms. Pacman are vertical oriented games, however they use a horizontally mounted monitor. Assuming I can get by the hardware side of it, i.e., retrofitting a vertically mounted monitor into the cabinet, what needs to be changed to swap the display orientation on the monitor so that it displays correctly in the game?
 
Pacman and Ms. Pacman are vertical oriented games,
Correct

however they use a horizontally mounted monitor.
not in a pac cab, its mounted vertical
Assuming I can get by the hardware side of it, i.e., retrofitting a vertically mounted monitor into the cabinet, what needs to be changed to swap the display orientation on the monitor so that it displays correctly in the game?

are you trying to play a pac board in a non pac machine with a horizontal mounted monitor, If so someone did do a rom hack for this a while back, it was on rgvac several years ago. in the hack the maze looked the same as if you just turned the monitor, but pacman and the ghosts were rotated 90 degrees and the joystick worked correctly without re-wiring it.
 
No, what he's talking about is the fact that Pac cabinets use a standard horizontal shelf mount monitor, but turned sideways (vertical). This is different than some later vertical games that use a _vertical_ mount monitor, mounted "normally".

The ONLY difference between a vertical mount monitor and a horizontal mount monitor is the metal frame itself. Most monitors were designed with a "horizontal" mount frame that sits conveiently on a shelf - but some were designed with a "vertical" frame so they too, could mount conveniently on a shelf, without having to mount the horizontal frame sideways. But electrically, the two types of monitors are identical. They're just fitted into different metal frames.

It's really best to stick with the frame type that the cabinet's mounting hardware was designed to use, if possible, unless you can come up with a simple way to do it. The last time I had to do something like this was when I needed to mount a vertrical style monitor into a Tron (which uses a horizontal shelf type monitor, mounted sideways). I just swapped the monitor frames, mounting the picture tube and chassis from the vertical monitor into the horizontal frame of the old monitor. Had to get creative with the chassis mounting, as I was putting an Electrohome chassis into a WG frame, but it went together well and worked perfectly.

-Ian
 
pac/ms. pac style cabs can handle either a horizontal shelf or a vertical shelf with the existing hardware (i've had cabs with both mounted.) they could probably also handle a universal frame like a K7000 series.
 
pac/ms. pac style cabs can handle either a horizontal shelf or a vertical shelf with the existing hardware (i've had cabs with both mounted.) they could probably also handle a universal frame like a K7000 series.

Ian and you are on to what I am asking about. Since a horizontal mount monitor is normally used, somewhere along the line, something has to rotate the picture 90 degrees to get it to display vertically once mounted in a cabinet. So if I threw a verital mount monitor in there, wouldn't the display also be rotated 90 degrees (which is what I DON'T want)?

I guess where & how does the display rotation occur? Is it in the game code? If so, then I'd need to trick the veritcal monitor into not rotating the display somehow.

I've never tried something like this, it just seems like I'll have to do something extra to get it to display correctly.
 
Ian and you are on to what I am asking about. Since a horizontal mount monitor is normally used, somewhere along the line, something has to rotate the picture 90 degrees to get it to display vertically once mounted in a cabinet. So if I threw a verital mount monitor in there, wouldn't the display also be rotated 90 degrees (which is what I DON'T want)?

I guess where & how does the display rotation occur? Is it in the game code? If so, then I'd need to trick the veritcal monitor into not rotating the display somehow.

Ah, I see where you're confused.

There is NO difference between a horizontal monitor and a vertical one, electically. The game has no idea which way the monitor is mounted. The display isn't rotated. If you take your computer monitor, right now, and turn it sideways, the picture will be... sideways - because it doesn't know the orientation of your monitor either.

-Ian
 
it is possible, however unlikely that the orientation would be off once mounted.

you can generally fix that with by swapping yoke wires. Bob Roberts has a nice tutorial on his website about how to do that: http://www.therealbobroberts.net/yoke.html

if you do at some point try this, make absolutely sure you know which wires you're swapping as doing it the wrong way will ruin your yoke.
 
Yeah, unfortunately, there wasn't a hard and fast standard to which direction the monitor got rotated to become vertical. Do you turn it 90 degrees to the right, or 90 degrees to the left? So, occasionally, you'll wind up with the display upside down when swapping things around. But it's real easy to correct. Some games even have a single dip switch to flip the display, for this very reason. But, as pointed out, it's also real simple to swap the yoke wires.

-Ian
 
Too simplify matters:

The game PCB determines how the picture is displayed on the tube, and it doesn't matter how the monitor is framed. If you're worried you'll put it in and find it's mounted upside down, hook it up before installing and mark the top. Or just swap the yoke wires (or flip the orientation with a dip switch if it has that function on the board).

The only way to get the picture to rotate without changing the programming, is to rotate the yoke, but then the picture will look pretty bad.

There is no need to change the way the monitor is normally mounted in the cabinet. If you don't have the right frame or mounting brackets already, you can probably pick them up from someone here cheap.
 
Help!

I found a 1989 Konami Bottom of the Ninth arcade game for $125. I was thinking about purchasing it and installing a 60 in 1 multicade game board. The problem is that the screen is horizontal instead of vertical. Do you know if I can just turn the sceen to vertical inside the cabinet and this will work? Is the cabinet made to allow for this?

Also, are there any good multicade game boards for horizontal games? Is the bottom of the Ninth even a good shell to try something on like this? I'm really new to all of this but it is very interesting.

Newbie saying thanks in advance!
 
the first problem you're likely to encounter with Bottom of the 9th is that it's a medium resolution game and not a standard res like most if it not all multi-boards out there. unless the monitor is a model that can accept multiple resolutions then it's not going to work.

rotating the monitor is easy is some cabinets and very difficult or almost impossible in others. it would be best if you posted a picture and someone could probably tell you.

there are several horizontal multi-boards out there including the 19-in-1, the Arcade Shop programmable [it'll do either vertical or horizontal, but different games for each orientation,] and JROK's multi-Williams. my understanding is that none of these will work with a medium resolution monitor.
 
i see on Klov that it says that bottom of the 9th is a medium resolution, but i dont think it is. i have the pcb and it plays great in my double dragon machine (std resolution).. and i am using a wg 7000 series monitor.
 
if it's not actually a medium res (or it work on both standard and medium res) then i'm glad i didn't go out of my way to pick up a Bot9 for the monitor last year.
 
Irregardless of the monitor resolution, whether you can turn the monitor vertically will depend on exactly which cabinet it is in. Some cabs have no room to turn the monitor, some will need a different frame for mounting to get it to fit, some will need some major alterations in the cab internals to get it to work, and others will be as easy as pulling it out, rotating it, and sticking it back in....
 
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