The first Gideros sample is a direct port of my Corona plasma sample (which was a port of some old assembly code from years gone by).
There is minimal code difference between the corona and gideros plasma samples. In corona you can set the colour of each tile, while in gideros you apply the colour transform.
You can download the full source here: [Download]
Almost 6 months ago, I put a 90% complete fight stick project aside to continue work on a Donkey Kong cocktail cabinet with the intention of finishing it off a few weeks later. Today, I finally put the final touches into the fight stick and can now consider the project complete 
A few nights back I decided to get the project finished. First up was making sure the fight stick itself could be recognised by a PC and PS3. This failed to work. The closest I could get was a windows error saying the USB device failed to load. After some testing and investigation, it looked like the USB connector on the Dual Strike PCB was to blame. A closer look at the USB (Type B) port showed one of the internal pins had been squashed back, ensuring a bad connection. Looks like at some point the port had something lean against it, and cause the pin to come lose. I got out the soldering iron and took it off the board. It probably isn’t clear in the image below, but the top right pin (inside the port) has been lifted up and is completely loose.
A replacement part was found at Jaycar for only $3. I added it to the board, connected up the PCB to the PC and success.
After that, I rechecked all the wiring and ensured the button mapping was correct. When I did the wiring, I decided to use molex connectors between the PCB and the buttons. This is really handy for taking off the base of the fight stick as I don’t have to unscrew any wires and can split the fight stick into 2 parts for any work required.
I purchased a 3m long USB cable from ebay ($2 delivered), screwed the base into place and added 6 rubber feet to ensure no slip when it is being used on a flat surface.
After giving it a test run, I’m now happy to say the project is completed. I’ve got some left over parts to build another one – which I possibly will at some point and factor in some improvements. It was an enjoyable project.
I finally got around to completing the project this weekend.
Last week I organised the glass place to measure and cut the glass top for me. I also had some small DK marquees printed up, which will sit under the glass on the table top. These were simply done at BigW at $3 each.
The glass arrived a few days later, along with a second set of glass clips – which I needed to ensure the glass won’t be moving. Before putting the glass on top, I attached the feet (Note to self: Do this before attaching legs next time – it will be much easier). The monitor frame was screwed into place, and the table top itself screwed on. Then came the glass and glass clips.
..and that’s it. All done. Sad to be selling this, as it’s come up really nice
A little while ago I began a little demo to play with fonts, but put it in the incomplete basket as I moved onto more interesting things. I came across the half complete program yesterday, and decided to finish it up and throw it up as another sample. I have having incomplete projects
The demo shows how to load the available font names, and allows you to cycle forwards and backwards through the list, with a sample of the current font shown on screen. Note that available fonts will differ between the simulator and devices, so you cannot just rely on what the list returns you on a given environment.
It also shows off the simple button class (which I have used in other samples) and the local event system I wrote which allows events to be created, and other objects or functions can just register themselves to listen to.
You can download the source here: [Download]
Something a bit different for the 11th instalment in my corona samples series – XML parsing. I’ve turned my focus onto developing a game lately, and have been playing around with the Lime engine. There are some aspects of it I’m not happy with, so began rewriting it. One part (which isn’t really part of Lime) is the XML parsing. When it loads a .tmx file, it parses the lot in one hit. It’s not too slow, but there is a noticeable pause when loading, parsing and then generating the level. I’m building a new engine, based off Lime, that will allow asynchronous loading and level generation – meaning it’s possible to have a loading bar, animation, audio, etc going at the same time.
This sample shows off the xml parser I will be using in the engine. The original parsing code was written by Alexander Makeev (can be downloaded [here]). I used this as a base (and also included it in the demo – see xmlparser.lua)
The sample has a rotating cube, that will continue to rotate as the xml is parsed. You can increase or decrease the parsing rate by modifying the parseRate variable. Increasing this will lower framerate but complete the task quicker, decreasing will lower the effect on the framerate and take longer.
There is room for optimising, but it’s not too bad for loading a level map on the fly, while the rest of the game is currently running.
You can download the source here: [Download]
Some more photos – now with tmolding completed on the control panels, caps added to the legs, a pad lock on the coin door and paint touched up. Lighting isn’t the best, but never mind.
Some close up pics of the wiring:
..and lastly, the top panel painted with tmolding added, ready for some artwork and glass:
Next up is getting the monitor covered in contact, organising artwork for the top panel, along with glass.
It’s been a good few weeks on the cocktail cab project. As always, managing an hour here, 30 minutes there to keep moving it all along. I have spent time painting the monitor frame and table top panel over the last few weeks – a slow process when you can only get 1 coat in per day.
Firstly, there was a set back with the monitor. Originally I wanted to use a CRT PC monitor, but sizing issues and reliability issues meant I decided to switch to a 15″ LCD monitor. It also lightens the cab by a few KG’s which will be good when it comes time to ship it off
The first thing that went on since the last update was the coin door, along with it the coin mech, coin catcher and coin counter. Just to the left of the door (inside) sits the service and test switches. These have all been wired up and tested.
The power board and switcher were also installed.
The speaker went in and was wired up, along with the game board and JAMMA harness. I spent time also tiding up the cabling.
The player 1 control panel has also been installed and wired up.
To make sure the wiring was working, I hooked up the monitor tonight also and gave it a test run – everything is working fine.
Still more to do, but the end is near. Next I will get the 2P control panel attached (it’s ready to go, just need to screw it into place). T molding to be added to the sides of the control panels. The table top panel has been painted with tmolding added (will add a photo next time) and really just requires the glass. There is some paint I want to touch up also, along with adding feet to the legs and some very very minor cable tidying.
I plan to get a few pieces of DK artwork printed for the table top panel also, but more on that another time.
After many months of postponing the completion of this project – it finally comes to a close
Last friday I went to the printers with the bezel artwork and acrylic and then returned yesterday to pick up the final piece of the arcade machine.
The bezel looks great – now to install it..
and with that, it’s complete
I’m now looking to get a few different boards for the cab – I currently have Wonderboy and Bubble Bobble. I’d love to add Yie Ar Kung Fu and Popeye boards, along with the horizontal multi game board.
A few shots of the completed cab:
I hope to post a cost break down in the coming days also.
It’s been a busy 2 weeks on the cocktail cab.
First up was a pair of control panels – for player 1 and 2.
Note the strip of white t molding at the front of the control panel also (the picture doesn’t really show it) – keeping in line with the upright cab version. Also – yes – the orange jump button is missing – I’m currently sourcing two.
I’m pretty happy with how it looks. There is a second one (not shown) which is an exact copy of this one – maybe a little better in some ways as I trimed the holes for the buttons / joystick better on the second one.
The outside of the cab has been given 4 coats of paint, along with black paint on the inner facing side panels. The grills have also been painted black. Legs added to the sides, and tmolding added too. Now it’s actually starting to look good
There are a few small patches on the paint that need patching up, but that’s not a big deal. This week I hope to get the coin door installed, along with the coin catcher and some of the power wiring hooked up.
I carry a small 10″ netbook around with me a lot and wanted to have Backtrack installed. The netbook runs Windows 7 starter – which I want to keep, and the plan is to have Backtrack 5 R2 running also (so a dual boot).
The netbook doesn’t have a CD drive, so installation for Backtrack will have to be done via USB. The netbook does allow for USB booting (very standard these days), so getting it installed should not be an issue.
Following the installation guide from the Backtrack site (http://www.backtrack-linux.org/tutorials/usb-live-install/), I located a 4GB USb stick, downloaded Unetbootin and followed the prompts before rebooting to run the install.
No go.
Each time the laptop would boot to nothing more than a blank screen with a flashing cursor. Keyboard entry did nothing, and leaving it sit for an hour also got nowhere. I tried a few more times, and did notice a linux boot message of sorts appear for half a second (before the blank screen), but otherwise – nothing.
I tried the USB boot on two other machines (thinking maybe it was an issue with the laptop), and had the same issue.
I did some more research and found some comments (found here) from users referencing a tool called “Universal USB Installer”.
Downloaded the tool, ran and had the ISO “burned” to the USB stick and rebooted. WORKED! First time.
You can find the download available here: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
For anyone having issues getting Backtrack (or perhaps any Linux flavor) to install via USB, I’d recommend giving Universal USB Installer a go.
