The end of Dexter

Was the adhesive really faulty or was it not expected or intended for the discs to last 40 years anyway? You could argue that it's a design flaw. I have a hard time calling any adhesive faulty that far outlasts the original intended purpose. If adhesive failed on a 40 year old car, you probably wouldn't call it faulty would you? Now adhesive in home building on the other hand… it should last more than 40 years.
It wasn't a 40 year failure for laser rot. It was 1 to 5 years.
 
As many know, I am a purist to a fault with my games (all linear supplies, etc). I have an UR Star Rider I'm getting ready to restore and have a plan for the LD Player.

For Star Rider, they had a custom player made with a Centronics Connector for digital communication with the game hardware. I do have an original player (not working), along with a 'good' disc.

My plan:
  1. Take out the internal power supply from the player (and preserve).
  2. Design and make (3D Printed) custom brackets for the Dexter (I have already - still in the box)
  3. Install Dexter inside the LD Player and wire all inputs/outputs to their original points on the player. All connections will be original
  4. Power light and read lamps in the Player will work (wired either to the Raspberry Pi - Maybe Matt will help!, or I'll make a custom board based on read traffic)
  5. When done, it will appear the game is running on the original LD Player, but have the reliability and longevity of the Solid State Dexter (Thanks Matt!)
I'll probably create a dedicated restore Thread when I start this project (finishing up some cocktails now)

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~Brad
 
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As many know, I am a purist to a fault with my games (all linear supplies, etc). I have an UR Star Rider I'm getting ready to restore and have a plan for the LD Player
What's wrong with the player? Does it not spin up?

Is there even a good image for the star rider disc? I couldn't find one when I looked.
 
As many know, I am a purist to a fault with my games (all linear supplies, etc). I have an UR Star Rider I'm getting ready to restore and have a plan for the LD Player.

For Star Rider, they had a custom player made with a Centronics Connector for digital communication with the game hardware. I do have an original player (not working), along with a 'good' disc.

My plan:
  1. Take out the internal power supply from the player (and preserve).
  2. Design and make (3D Printed) custom brackets for the Dexter (I have already - still in the box)
  3. Install Dexter inside the LD Player and wire all inputs/outputs to their original points on the player. All connections will be original
  4. Power light and read lamps in the Player will work (wired either to the Raspberry Pi - Maybe Matt will help!, or I'll make a custom board based on read traffic)
  5. When done, it will appear the game is running on the original LD Player, but have the reliability and longevity of the Solid State Dexter (Thanks Matt!)
I'll probably create a dedicated restore Thread when I start this project (finishing up some cocktails now)

View attachment 711568View attachment 711570View attachment 711569

~Brad
Assuming you aren't able to get the original player working, that's a pretty neat idea to put a Dexter inside of it.
 
You guys keep this debate going for another 10 years or so. This popcorn is GREAT!

If a person wants to go laser, then go laser. If somebody wants to go Dexter/Merlin, then go Dexter/Merlin. In the end, who cares? Keep the game running and play it!


I agree 100%. Piece of history and the cabinet design is epic. One of the few games in history that was so popular when it came out that they had to put a spectator monitor on top of it so people could watch the game being played because there were so many kids standing around it. What a true piece of art and an icon of the arcade. I am blessed to have one in my collection.
You could also say it was due to a cabinet design that didn't help matters. MK1 and 2 had long lines and a group of spectators, but the cabinet design was better, though still not everyone could see as much as they wanted to. MK was super engaging and the vs battle aspect was epic. I'm mostly mentioning this not to compare the two games (very different animals and different times) as much as to mention the high impact of fighting games for a few years.
 
hmm this is fair. to your point not all laser games rehash the (e.g.) Dragon's Lair gameplay and mechanics

What about games like Firefox, Mach 3, and Cube Quest? They seem much more "immersive" than the quick time event based ones.

God I wish Atari went through with making the Battlestar Galactica Firefox conversion. My wife would *kill* for one.

ditto to your youthful awe at seeing the game. i would have been (around) 8 and recall being stunned by it (and then brokenhearted when my rarely-given 50¢ from mom disappeared in 5 seconds with GAME OVER 😭).
it was literally the only game of DL i ever played, maybe i have unresolved deep psychological trauma from it and that's where my "ehhhhhhh" of laser games comes from (i will consult my therapist) ... but they are visually stunning and to someone living their youth through the arcade era it was definitely unmatched in a few ways no doubt

and also, at that curious age, Princess Daphne added some appeal as well, so I will give the makers of DL credit there 😃😁

This is where nostalgia plays a huge factor. Yes it is a quick time event game, but I went to show biz pizza place when I was a kid when I saw dragon's lair for the first time. There was a line to get to play the game, and when got my chance to play, it was pure magic. I had never heard of the game before, didn't know about the tech driving it, and was presented with the game (and it's unique cabinet) with cartoon graphics, great sound effects, and a story that I wanted to see the entire thing. I was a 12 year old kid playing mostly 8 bit computer games (and atari 2600 games). Just imagine from my perspective the leap in graphics and presentation.

It was very cool to experience it when it was new. Also to experience it when I was young helped fill in the gaps and flaws in the game and just see pure magic.
 
As many know, I am a purist to a fault with my games (all linear supplies, etc). I have an UR Star Rider I'm getting ready to restore and have a plan for the LD Player.

For Star Rider, they had a custom player made with a Centronics Connector for digital communication with the game hardware. I do have an original player (not working), along with a 'good' disc.

My plan:
  1. Take out the internal power supply from the player (and preserve).
  2. Design and make (3D Printed) custom brackets for the Dexter (I have already - still in the box)
  3. Install Dexter inside the LD Player and wire all inputs/outputs to their original points on the player. All connections will be original
  4. Power light and read lamps in the Player will work (wired either to the Raspberry Pi - Maybe Matt will help!, or I'll make a custom board based on read traffic)
  5. When done, it will appear the game is running on the original LD Player, but have the reliability and longevity of the Solid State Dexter (Thanks Matt!)
I'll probably create a dedicated restore Thread when I start this project (finishing up some cocktails now)

View attachment 711568View attachment 711570View attachment 711569

~Brad

Star Rider is hands down probably my favorite laser out of the bunch. The one thing that deterred me from ever owning one was not the laser player but that specific laser player itself. I came across an upright bitd, the player was mia - good luck finding that. Good talks with Yellowdog on this game...

Back to laser rot, I do own a couple of the earlier Discovision laser titles that were/are notorious for rot. My Battlestar Galactica copy is pretty unwatchable. I do believe I own a Dragon's Lair disc that was suffering from the "snowy effect" as well
 
Seems we're talking about LD being something on a parallel with Sega vector monitors.
Flawed and rushed from the get-go.
This was a fun histroy lesson on these- thank you!
The early Dragon's Lair machines used the Pioneer PR-7820, which was a much heavier machine.
They got 100's of them at a great discount from General Motors, who was using them as interactive training devices for their sales teams.
They were robust, but slow at searching the disc, because it actually moved the disc rather than the laser.

When those ran out, and they now knew that DL was a big hit, they switched to the lighter/faster/cheaper LD-V1000.
They had been designing the game for years on the 7820. I don't think they knew just how long the V1000 would hold up.

Then when the other manufacturers got into the game, they couldn't get any commercial grade players. They had to settle for home-use players which had no computer input port. They were controlled by the IR remote control.
At that point, they had to know they wouldn't last long, but it didn't matter. Every Manufacturer had to have a Lasergame.

My experience exactly!
hmm this is fair. to your point not all laser games rehash the (e.g.) Dragon's Lair gameplay and mechanics



ditto to your youthful awe at seeing the game. i would have been (around) 8 and recall being stunned by it (and then brokenhearted when my rarely-given 50¢ from mom disappeared in 5 seconds with GAME OVER 😭).
it was literally the only game of DL i ever played, maybe i have unresolved deep psychological trauma from it and that's where my "ehhhhhhh" of laser games comes from (i will consult my therapist) ... but they are visually stunning and to someone living their youth through the arcade era it was definitely unmatched in a few ways no doubt

and also, at that curious age, Princess Daphne added some appeal as well, so I will give the makers of DL credit there 😃😁

I probably haven't put even $5 total into LD games in all these decades.
I couldn't get into Dragon's Lair even on freeplay so that is telling I think.
Some of the others could be awesome I suppose.
 
What's wrong with the player? Does it not spin up?

Is there even a good image for the star rider disc? I couldn't find one when I looked.
No, there is no CHD file or good dump of the Star Rider's Laserdisc footage/data. Only the game's ROMs have been preserved.

From my research, I believe the game uses a special kind of data encoding called "Manchester codes". We would need a device like the Domesday Duplicator to get an accurate rip of all the data on the disc. Here's a video that explains how it works:

I think it's extremely important to preserve Laserdisc games like Star Rider with the Domesday as soon as possible because of disc rot and other factors. Capturing the data this way ensures that all the analog data encoding is preserved correctly.
 
I'm surprised the company that created the $400K motion simulator didn't spring for having the discs pressed. I found a RLV unit and some discs on a surplus pallet at my grad school. Those discs were in caddies though.
 
Dexter is built upon the Raspberry Pi 2 model B, which is no longer made.

It may just be that Matt is not able to get large quantities of this board at a reasonable price, and doesn't want to redesign it for newer versions (which may not offer composite video).

No, laserdiscs do not play faster on inner tracks. One rotation is one scan line, regardless of track.

Dexter was built by Matt Ownby, with the assistance of Warren Ondras. Jeff and I had nothing to do with it.

As for restoring/repairing laserdisc players... Andrew, I hope you are able to find that definitive method and want to do the work, because honestly, I don't see anyone else picking up that gauntlet.

Merry Christmas!
It's just become a bigger and bigger hassle to put together a working unit.

I have to go on Ebay and literally buy single Raspberry Pi2's 50 times (if I do a batch of 50 Dexters). Then since these are used, I have to test every single one to make sure the video/audio works and that the SD card and USB ports work. About 1-5% of them are bad so I have to deal with the hassle of returning them. And about 10-20% of them come in a useless case that I have to take apart and hopefully not break so that I can re-assemble it in case I need to return it.
It's easy to get these on Ebay, if you are buying just 1 but if you want 50, it's a huge pain.
Yes, I could probably update the Dexter software to run on something like a RPi 4, but I've decided that I really don't want to deal with this.
Also, I first designed Dexter to work with an RPi 1 (which it did!) which meant Dexter has a 26-pin header to match the RPi 1's 26 pin header. As of RPi 2 and onward they switched to a 40 pin header, so Dexter needs a 26-to-40 pin adapter. Adafruit used to make these but apparently stopped so now I have to buy the parts and crimp every single cable. 50 times per batch of Dexter.
The good news is all of the ICs used to actually make the Dexter board are still easy to get and sold by Digikey and other places so making the PCB itself is still pretty painless.

I still love working on the technical aspect of Dexter: solving interesting puzzles, reverse engineering arcade PCBs and disassembling ROMs to understand how the game used the laserdisc player and what I need to do to make the game think it's talking to an original player and provide as authentic experience as possible. But the acquisition of old Raspberry Pi's, the creating of cables, the assembling of Dexter units, the programming and Q/A of each Dexter unit, the shipping of the packages and the tech support are just becoming increasingly un-fun, even when I am already paying family members to do a lot of this for me.

So I'm ready to move on to a new project.
 
Yeah. Preservation also means making the car drivable or the game playable so it survives. So replacements have their place. How many classic cars have modern engines, fuel injection, programmable engine systems, and run on gas that you can actually buy at the pump? A LOT. There are some trade offs needed to keep things around. Not many people want to invest in a classic car that they can't even drive. Same with laser games!
Exactly! Not many people want to invest in a classic game that they can't even play!
 
Matt..
I just want to say Thank You for your outstanding work on Dexter.
It has saved hundreds of games, for now and into the future.

Also, Congratulations on the completion of this very successful project. All good things must come to an end.
I've enjoyed working with you, and hope we can find common projects in the future.
-Shaun
 
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