"Arkanoid"

[milker]

You are the one who is LIT!

[Draal Ranger]

TILT!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, what was I thinking, of course I want the coin doors lit! It looks awesome when going downstairs to check 'em all running and seeing the little eyepoints of light down there.

I think I am going to make Arkanoid require quarters from the coin door (it does not have a free play mode). This is because, in order to continue your game, you have to hold the start button down as you insert another quarter. It's fairly annoying, but at the same time, that's a genuine arcade feel right there.

Last night I had to deal with the edge connector on the PCB. A wire had broken off at some point, and it happened to be the player one fire button. It took forever, but I figured out how the little pins get removed from the edge connector (go into them, push down and then apply a small bit of force from the top - they slide right down). I then moved the spare pin to where player one fire is, and soldered the wires back on. Cool.

I have a cheap overlay coming from mamemarquees. It's generic - because I am using an old Egg Venture control panel, the holes aren't going to lineup for a real Arkanoid overlay. Plus, the Arkanoid control panel overlay looks like shit. Romstar made a version that is okay, but I can't get that one printed anywhere and the holes still would not line up.

So, tonight I am hoping to replace the ballast's starter and lamp, and I hope to make the wiring harness I personally need to get the buttons and spinner diving into the wire harness for the edge connector. Basically, my goal is to have the controls working but unmounted tonight.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So I don't forget later: the spinner was connected with green wire to the left.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Update! Replaced the starter and the lamp last night - of course, I now can't get the metal bracket on the ballast back on. It was just to keep the wires of the ballast away from things. It's one of those brackets where you have to crush your fingers to get it on, and you also need four hands.

Doing all this showed me that the marquee isn't, ah, exactly the right size for the space available. The marquee I got for this thing was definitely not the classic Arkanoid design - which is fine, but I really have a problem with it not being big enough. So I think there is another order with Mamemarquees coming down the pipe. Maybe next month, as it's about $55 to get one of his marquees with the plexi and best printing option. (A normal glass marquee for something like Arkanoid is probably ten bucks. Unfortunately, it's not the right size for the cab I have. Hmm... in theory it isn't. Now that I think about it, I guess I could check and save some dough.)

One of the challenges left is getting the wires for the control panel back to the PCB. I could run the wires and have them look like a rat's nest, but I really wanted to get a plastic connector solution that would let me unplug the wires on the control panel if I had to do some work there.

I went to http://www.action-electronics.com and I have to say I was very happy. Basically, the kind of connector I want is what everyone has seen on their computer power supplies, and floppy connectors and such: I determined that I needed eight wires going from the PCB to the panel, and got a couple of connectors (with pins). But at the same time, I have no idea what any of this stuff is called, so I wanted pictures. I was like a four year old ordering food off the menu by pointing to the pictures. This is me, OK? OK? This is me: waaaaarrrrrrrggh. The wires involved, if you are curious, are:

Ground (for everyone)
Player One Start
Player Two Start
Credit
+5 for the spinner
Move left
Move right
Fire

I think that's all of them. There are two spots in the connector if I forgot something.

I put the order in late yesterday, and Action Electronics shipped it today. Awesome.

I can't remember if I wrote this previously or not, but I also ordered the most generic overlay in the world for the control panel. Haven't received news on when that is going to ship, as the mamemarquees guy is very backed up with work (as he should be, he does a hell of a goddamn job). When the plastic connectors come in, though, I will wire up the panel and make sure all the buttons work.

After that, I'll have to deal with the fact that I didn't get a bezel for the monitor. You can reach out and touch the monitor itself (and also see the mounting brackets). It looks ugly. Ideally, I'd like to get some plexi from Lowes and paint it to look vaguely Arkanoidy. Maybe get the instruction card printed and placed on it as well. The fun thing about conversions is that you are not striving for some new old stock ideal: the goal is to make it look good, and make it look like it could have been authentic back in the day.

And Christ, as soon as I find the camera I will upload pics of my progress so far.

[AArdvark]

Arkanoidy

That made me feel very gleeful today.



THE
KEY WORDS
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Here is a thread about a possible Arkanoid save kit. There are some vague references about being able to make your own Arkanoid levels, too. That... would be awesome. I think they made 33 Arkanoid levels, so I would think that Taito would have used a methodology that allowed people to input values for each of the brick spaces available (brick existence, brick color, what power-up it drops, if any). And then something for background and rate of the robots coming for you.

I hope the guy making the kit does open things up to people, I'd jump on that immediately to make a level or two.

[hygraed]

When I was in middle school (2000-ish), a game called DX Ball was all the rage. It was a Breakout clone with shiny graphics and awesome (at the time) special effects. It also included a level editor, and you can bet your boots that any computer on which DX Ball was installed had at least a half-dozen levels that looked like dicks.

I think in deference to tradition you should have a dick level in your Arkanoid cab.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

If I can get away with it, you know I'll try. At least I am relatively certain that Taito didn't put a dick level in-- wait, they are Japanese game designers. It's more likely that levels 10 through 33 are cocks from all angles.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Heeeey, the overlay shipped already. Mamemarquees.com rules.

So I imagine that will be here on Wednesday, and the plastic wire connectors here tomorrow. (I ended up needing a connector for Polybius, because some animal damaged the molex connector for video that was in the cab. Didn't matter when I was using a VGA monitor, because it went directly into the VGA port, but it became problematic with a real arcade tube.)

Looks like Lowe's sells plexiglass as well, so I'll have them cut me a bezel for Arkanoid. If you can spray-paint plexiglass, that'd be awesome -- the monitor brackets won't be at all visible. If not, I'll need to make some sort of opaque underlay for the plexi. Which is fine, as I can make one with the theme of a shitload of differently colored bricks, possibly even in the shape of a cock, and print that at Kinko's.

Soooo, assuming one of the two spinners work, looks like this thing'll be completed on Wednesday. Cool.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Well, a ton of stuff happened since I last posted.

The molex connectors appeared the next day, and the control panel overlay came in the mail today. The overlay was shipped on Friday and showed up from Michigan today? The USPS really does have their act together with priority mail.

So, I built a little wire harness with the molex connectors. The control panel plugs into wires that go to the PCB. Just what I wanted. I found out that I need a crimper, but I was able to make due with a wire cutter squashing the tiny metal fasteners in the meantime.

Lowe's does in fact sell plexiglass. I needed a 21.5" x 23.5" piece. Unfortunately, the pre-made piece they had that was one size up was out of stock, so I had to go two sizes up. You pay for the whole sheet, so it was unfortunately $14 instead of a few bucks less.

I was going to spray paint the sides, creating an opaque bezel, on Sunday, but I started masking off the wrong section - where the monitor is supposed to go. You know what, sometimes you just have to admit you don't have it on a particular day. So I didn't do any painting.

More, it stuck me that construction paper is what a lot of bezels were made out of in the 80s, so why not do that so there's less chance of a screw up? Cut the paper and attach a print-out of the instruction card, and then glue or tape it to the plexi. Centuri was happy with that solution for Gyruss, so it's good enough for me. I'll probably go that route, I just have no idea who sells construction paper. (OK, probably Wal-Mart, the Hobby Lobby and every other store on the face of the planet. I just haven't seen any personally in thirty years.)

I had an issue with the control panel not being bolted into the cab. This caused it to fall out with little trouble - I am using a control panel from a game called Egg Venture, which just so happens to perfectly fit the cabinet I am using, whcih is Centuri's "The Pit." I mean, it's a perfect fit. The Egg Venture control panel has four bolts at the bottom. I drilled four smaller holes into the inside of the cabinet and attached brackets. The control panel bolts slide through the brackets and can then be tightened, and it really works well. All I have to do to ensure that the panel can't come off is secure it towards the top, and I think I am going to see if a couple strong magnets are a possibility. The control panel is metal, otherwise I would drill a few holes in it and use a standard side-cab locking mechanism.

The overlay went on tonight and while it's generic, I think it's OK for Arkanoid. A gal on the Awful Forums makes die cut stickers (and I found the Arkanoid font) so I can get the Arkanoid logo created, and trick out the overlay with it. Once again, it's great that there are no dedicated Arkanoids. You can't really fuck it up.

But yeah, other than that, it's pretty much set. It plays fine. I'm not happy with the marquee (the one I picked up is too frigging small) but the spinner is smooth as butter, and the gameplay is great. A little more work to do, but I'm very happy with how it is turning out.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Whoa, I never posted that I got it working. I, er, got it working.

It's been good for a couple weeks. I did something stupid recently, though.

The game was resetting itself. I did not think this was a huge problem, because hope to buy the save kit when it is available. But I suspected power. Y'see... I never tested the volts on the power supply. I just assumed that they would be fine. And when the game came up and worked, I assumed just that. Stupid, STUPID - it could have been set very poorly and I would have fried the board!

Well, if you've ever played Arkanoid in MAME, you'll notice that it does a hardware check countdown. My game was doing that every couple of hours. Sort of annoying. I could tell, because I'd come out of the office and see that the high score for the session was back to zero.

I adjusted +5 on the power supply. I thought it was too high, so I turned it down. But I didn't get out my meter and check it. That was another stupid thing.

Tonight I passed by and the board was displaying garbled garbage. I turned everything off and got out the meter. +12 was at 12.2. +5 was at 4.9.

Well, that's no good. I moved it up to 5.2 and turned the game on. Don't do this! This caused some tearing to appear. It then went into a continual hardware check loop.

I put it at 5.05 when I realized, ah, that the meter would offer me that extra digit. I know, I'm a moron for not going with that level of accuracy immediately. With +5 at 5.05 it played OK. So, it looks like what was happening was:

- Game was originally too high, for +5. This caused the intermittent resets.
- I put it too low when I adjusted it. This caused the garbage on the screen tonight.
- I then adjusted it too high, to 5.2. This caused rather rapid problems.
- I ultimately put it for 5.05, and everything seems to be cool. It's one in the morning, and I just want the thing in a working state before I go to bed. I have a sort of problem where I will abandon everything else if a game isn't working right.

All this being said, it's probably time to get a backup PCB. They are certainly cheap enough, and if I continue to damage this one, who knows how long it's got left.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Here is a flash tutorial on a multimeter. I should probably memorize this.

http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/natsci/sl ... iMeter.htm

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Last night, Arkanoid was again resetting itself. I bumped +5 from 5.05 to 5.10.

I can't go much higher than that. This is troublesome. And worrisome.

[pinback]

I can't go much higher than that. This is troublesome. And worrisome.

Is it fair to say that you are Ark-annoyed?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I am slightly Arkannoyed!

On the other hand, I just got a heads-up on a print of the correct Arkanoid marquee. The marquee I have now is kind of ass. The print is $15 and I just need to supply my own plexiglass, WHICH I HAVE, thanks to making a bezel for Arkanoid a couple weeks ago. Fifteen bucks is a lot less than:

- A repro elsewhere, which can run up to $55
- An actual Arkanoid marquee from the 80s, which is probably flaking and probably going to be on eBay for $20 + shipping.

Do you know who wins? Do you? I WIN.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

(Playing the part of the DURR guy will be DURR. )

DURR, so recently you adjusted the +5 line for your Arkanoid?

... That's correct! You're drooling! Not because you are really interested in Arkanoid, but because you're a troglodyte that shambles through life in a stereotypical stupid fashion!


DURR, so you increased +5 at the switcher, and tested .... DURR, how?

I shoved the ends of my multimeter into the female end of the molex connector.


DURR, I don't even --

What you were supposed to take from that... was that I did not test ON THE ACTUAL BOARD.


DURR, my BRAIN HURTS when I THINK THOUGHTS, AND i

Yeah, I fucked up. I needed to test ON the board, if I wanted to get an accurate reading.


DURRRRR --

So there was no spot to test on the front of the PCB. But I eventually realized that I could test on the opposite side, and looked a bit down from where the power pins connect. Sure enough, less than +5.05. It was at like 4.5. I can't believe the fucking thing worked up until now.

...

Durr?


DURRRRR --

Yeah, I know, I already said I did it wrong. If anyone out there has other Arkanoid tips, lemme have 'em.


DURR, I would check +5 elsewhere on the board?

We're speaking with question marks now? Is that what we are doing? Don't qwantz me, kid.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I bought a backup board for Arkanoid, because it was cheap.

It is in the box it was shipped in.

The contents of my flask were dumped onto the box when Boggit jumped on the desk and knocked it over.

I think... I think none of it seeped through. We should be OK.

But nevertheless, I was... arkannoyed (thanks Ben for the great line)

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Also, my game said it had an I.O. Error, and I fixed it by moving the coin switch wire around - I am just writing this here so I can recall what I did when it happens again.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I ended up selling the Arkanoid game that I made/assembled to a fellow collector, who made a Robotron out of the monitor. I don't know what he did with the cab and I would do anything for Boggit to jump up and knock arcade parts over again.