MAME Coin op question.

[ChaosAlchemyst]

Problem: My friend wants me to build him an arcade cabinet (MAME of course) and he wants it to be coin operated. This would be all well and good if he only wanted MAME but he wants to play other games (like nes/snes etc) with the same coin op abilities. I know where to get a coin door, But I don't know how I would regulate the other games on the system.

Now I'm not all there when it comes to electronic chips, but is there a way that I could use the coin mech switch to activate some sort of timer that would give power to the controls for, oh i don't know, 30 minutes or so? It would have a small digital timer display next to the tv telling you how much time you had left before it deactivated the controls and went to the home screen of whatever frontend I was using (Mala most likely). They could put in additional quarters to add playing time/reset the timer to the max time.

Any idea on how that might work out?

[Snow_Cat]

^- - ^ maybe a microcontroller if you can't think of a program to do that.
^ - -^ ...(awk, can't help but to think about implementation...)

Spoiler:

Hardware:

• Microcontroller (8051, PIC, AVR, or etc.)
  Inputs:
  • (active low) coin mech
  • serial from PC or mode switch
  Outputs:
  • Numerical Display (7 segment, iron lead or LCD character display)
  • serial to PC or multiplexor to enable/disable
  • Coin Lock out
  • Warning buzzer
  • Warning/status LEDs

Software (micro)

• Main:
  • Mode switch:
    1. stand by
       • controls remain enabled or disabled depending on previous condition
       • Timer stopped/paused
       • Coin-Lock out active
       • Warning buzzer inactive
       • output time remaining and status LED
    2. >30 minutes remaining on timer
       • controls enabled
       • Timer running
       • Coin-Lock out active or inactive if coin-mech is being used in another fashon
       • output time remaining and status LED
    3. <30 minutes remaining, >1 minute remaining
       • Timer running
       • Coin-Lock out inactive
       • If input from coin-mech detected add time_remaining
       • output time remaining and status LED
    4. <1 minute remaining
       • Timer running
       • Coin-Lock out inactive
       • Warning buzzer active
       • If input from coin-mech detected add time_remaining and deactivate warning
       • output time remaining (in 'fast' time scale to induce user panic?) and status LED
    5. 0 time remaining
       • Timer inactive
       • set multplexor to disable arcade controls
       • If input from coin-mech detected add time_remaining and activate both timer and arcade controls
       • Coin-Lock out inactive
       • warning buzzer inactive
       • output time remaining and status LED (or make display dance in 'attract' mode?)
    Timer:
    • (while active)
    • decrement time at interval
    • set mode (b,c,d or e) based on time remaining
    Serial input or external mode switch:
    • set mode a if set to standby
    • set time remaining and mode if instructed to

[ChaosAlchemyst]

Hmmm. That reminds me vaguely of Garry's Mod's Wiremod addon. I dont know how to program like that yet. BUT believe it or not, I'm interning for a microcontroller plant working on the coding side. I might be able to hack together a program by the end of summer. :3

[Snow_Cat]

If you could send me a developer/evaluation kit I wouldn't mind helping you build this thing.

With good documentation for the micro (if it has meow-snow.blogspot.comUSB capabilities) it could even be made into a HID device. Where the inputs from the arcade controls (and coin door) are translated into keyboard, joystick and mouse inputs, with the timer display/buzzer/light also running off of the same micro.

All want is the dev software and to write about it on my blog...
...like the other projects I've done, that are filling up the backlog of articles I need to finish writing for my blog.

Or actually; I'll just provide software design support, just stick my user name (and forum location) in the about section if you publish it on your blog/website.

[ChaosAlchemyst]

That sounds awesome. Anyways, I want to finish this first and I HAVE to finish this before I can even consider starting an arcade cabinet.

I'll keep your offer in mind though and contact you when I get started.

[rikitheshadow]

Just a heads up. Nintendo did release arcade versions of most of their popular console games.

Its called the Nintendo Playchoice, some came as a one game one unit, others came with a dual screen (game on bottom, select screen on top) and multiple interchangable game roms.
I'm not a 100% but I do believe they even had one for the SNES as well.

AND don't forget Sega, they did have something similar....those are hard to come by really, but they did have a smaller screen up top showing a title card for the game being played.
I've seen pictures, but I don't know much else about them.....like names and hardware..............

[Nazraen]

I really don't know if this is possible but you could try buying a really cheap USB pad and soldering the triggers from the coin chutes to the buttons on the usb controller's board. Kind of low brow-ish but possibly a viable solution?

[ChaosAlchemyst]

As far as I know, that would not work and would need additional programming (ie: this microprocessor setup). Unless you only wanted control of the buttons for the .001 seconds the quarter holds the switch down.

[Snow_Cat]

That would be long enough for the program to trigger, if not you could add a capacitor to the mix.

[ChaosAlchemyst]

I am aware of that, and that's why I want to go that route. I think he was asking if you couldn't just directly wire the coin switch to the buttons.

[Nazraen]

I am aware of that, and that's why I want to go that route. I think he was asking if you couldn't just directly wire the coin switch to the buttons.

Yeah, that was pretty much what I was getting at. I thought I saw someone do something similar a while back but I could be mistaken.

[Snow_Cat]

You could but then how would the timer feature work?

[Nazraen]

I have no idea, I honestly didn't think that far ahead when I answered (been running on no sleep all weekend), and I apologize for that. At first I was thinking a joy2key-like method with the chute that would trigger a background app to put everything on a timer, but I would have no idea on how to pull that off. Feel free to ignore my post since again, I'm running on no sleep. Hopefully though you can figure it out with the microcontoller since it's more elegant.

[Snow_Cat]

It is no more elegant or 'right' than using a microprocessor.

If I knew how to write a debugger/sandbox then that would be the way to go; the program I've described would sit neatly in its own thread with no additional HW, instead in a $10 micro.

I am certain that someone on StackOverflow could do it; but what I know how to do is the micro, so that is the approach I am pointing at.