ZVG Configuration on DOS

I tried it on my machine and it didn't work. The capacitor trick did though. As with any of this, I'm not trying to be the "only way", just a "possible way".
 
Update 11/3/11...

Just a little update on where I'm at.

1) I made a cable that plugs into a drive power plug in the PC and provides 5V to the lights in the coin door. I used a 9 pin Molex plug at the other end so this is a nice smooth method to connect without cutting any wires since the 9-pin attaches to the coin-door mini harness. I could also connect the coin switches this way if I wanted it to run on tokens.

2) I bought two leaf joysticks and a TurboTwist2 spinner from "Groovy Game Gear". The joysticks have a different than normal bolt pattern so I'm not going to be able to use them. I found two Wico style joysticks in my parts so that should be OK. I got the spinner to work with a USB cable and taking the mouse driver out of high memory. This wasn't very stable and actually caused the machine to reboot when I exited Tempest. There are a ton of mouse drivers out there so I'll be experimenting with a lot of settings including turning off legacy USB in the BIOS (and using just PS/2 cable).

3) I got one of Troy's (Takeman) VectorMAME control panels and it's incredible so that's how I'll be handling the control panel portion of this build. The thought of cutting holes in the nice original Space Duel panel just wasn't cutting it for me. And I must add, if you're thinking of getting one of these, just buy it. It is absolutely incredible. A perfect match for a Space Duel cabinet, right down to the hinged bottom. The paint is nice enough that even without a CPO, it's a usable.

Section 1 was filmed and 2 is still having the details worked out with the spinner. I hope to get a few hours in on it tonight.

Thanks for reading,

-Al-
 
Snag!!!

I'm having a major snag in trying to get the TurboTwist 2 spinner working on my system so I'm going to do the next video without it and get basic joysticks and buttons working with an iPac. I was really hoping I would get everything working, but I'll just put a bolt in the hole for now and move on with the video. Hopefully have it working for my mid-month release I promised. When I work out the spinner, I'll make another video.

Advice and comments welcome!

-Al-

PS - I've tried multiple mouse drivers in multiple configurations, but the best I can do works only if the spinner is turned slowly and also causes a crash on exit of MAME. EEEK!
 
Video 4 in Production

I'm working on the 4th video now. It will NOT include the spinner. Still working that out. I do have a functioning game right now though...

Thanks,

-Al-
 
EclipseEye said:
Dude

What kinda motherboard/cpu did you use? How did you get on with getting a soundcard working in DOS?
Click to expand...

This is all covered in the videos. The computer is a P4 Gateway E4100 with a Soundblaster Live! card. Configuration is covered in the videos in detail.

Videos at: https://www.youtube.com/user/PinsAndVids - Start with DOS (the most popular one).

New one later this week!
 
New Video this weekend!

I'll get the new video out this weekend. I might have gotten a working spinner as well.

Finally coming together!
 
Video Number 4 is Up!

The new video is up on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYix3_ILRBM

This one covers coin door lights, Control panel build, Some MAME and Autoexec.bat tweaks.

I had a working system after these steps. I did not include the Spinner, but I have beaten the problems I was having to make it work and you'll see it in video 5.

Comments and questions here or on YouTube.
 
Videos 5 and now 6!

Video 5 will just be about the spinner. Someone who is following along wanted to know how to do it for a Christmas gift so I'll do that part right away.

6 will be review and tweaks. Look at the comments on video 4's YouTube page for details about where I'm going with the spinner if you're keeping up.

-Al-
 
Al,

Where did you get Dos 6.22 from? got a link? I see some boot disks
out there but no full install disks.

Mike
 
I downloaded it from MSDN but you need a subscription (or someone who has one). The MSDN version is an "Upgrade" meaning that you have to have a version of DOS installed for it to work.

Now that said, If you boot disk 1 of the Upgrade version. Exit at the first screen. Run FDISK and partition your drive. Run FORMAT C: /S to format and put the boot stuff on the drive. Reboot with the Upgrade diskette 1. You can then install since there is a copy of DOS on the drive.

I just rebuilt my machine two days ago to get a clean install on a different Hard Disk. I had done quite a bit of experimenting to get things working so it was a mess.

This went really well this way.

You may be able to get a Boot Disk from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and then download the "Step-Up" from:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=21936

and make that work similar to how I did it, but I haven't tried it that way. It's still a commercial product so M$ still owns it.

Good Luck.
 
Video 5 in the series is up. Sorta...

Video 5 is kinda sorta up at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY7Pl-rigJo

I had originally intended to do a longer video and finish off the series. I had a request to release the spinner installation portion early so here it is. I'll do the tweaks and wrap up after Thanksgiving.

Gotta set up the Christmas lights to music display first!
 
The TurboTwist 2 did 3 different things in different configurations. I tested in Tempest.

In USB/Legacy mode it worked but wouldn't track at "Normal" playing speeds. You could move the gun, but if you tried moving it at what you thought to be regular playing speed it would jump all over the place. I tried all of the mouse drivers on that page plus a newer one I have on disk from MS. I tried slowing it down with various parameters, it just wouldn't work.

In PS/2 mode it recognized the drive and the device in some drivers but when playing the game it jumped all around and randomly shot (I think it played better than me). I tried a TON of drivers, nothing worked.

In PS/2 mode with some other drivers, it locked up the system if it was attached. It was a pretty nasty lock-up as well. Nothing on the screen, CTRL-ALT-DEL not working. Power down only.

I'm returning the spinner. Incidentally, GroovyGameGear were helpful in trying to help me get it going. They made suggestions and shared what another DOS user had told them. We think it might be the Z-Interface built into the control board. DOS drivers might be confused by it.

I had another issue that was a little weird when testing the mouse drivers. The MAME.CFG file got written as directory entries within the folder I was using for a mouse. When you did a DIR, you saw partial MAME.CFG entries. Weird. I fixed it by installing a different hard drive and reloading. This wasn't entirely a bad thing. I was able to get a 2+GB partition this time instead of a 512MB one. I had made a few changes in the BIOS. Now there's no "Test Stuff" on it.
 
dezbaz said:
Cheers, nice work! :)

So if someone has a trackball and a spinner, they will need 2 x interfaces possibly? (eg: Happ trackball 3")
Click to expand...

No, you use the one interface. There are two connections on the board. Buy the ME4 with all of the cables as a package. It's cheaper that way if you're doing both.
 
Final video encoding now!

The final video in this series is being encoded now. When I get a YouTube link, I'll post it. This video includes a 2 minute review of the project and some instruction on tweaking and getting things to work. Running time is 24:37. This one took forever to do, but it came out pretty well.
 
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