Re: list charter

At 05:11 PM 5/6/97 -0800, you wrote:
>>Wire up enough switches and connectors on a control panel to switch between
>>all the games. Have enough boards laying around to switch in the game I want
>>to play.
>[...]
>>When the security chips are no longer a problem I might bank some things,
>>but I'll just use a switch, some glue logic (or maybe a PIC ;-), even then
>>I'll just open the coin box, flip a switch (or seven what do I care how many
>>switches?), press reset and a walla a new game.
>
>*Ewwwwww* Kludge alert! Kludge alert!
>
>Just messing w/you Zonn... :-)
>
>I always prefer a quick/easy to use multigame. I don't like to play a
>single game to death, rather I like to play on game "X" for a while then
>game "Y" then... You get the idea. :-)
>
>It's a lot like the SW/ESB kits. ESB isn't the greatest game, BUT when you
>can flip a switch and play it for an hour or something and then switch back
>without a problem (or yanking stuff from inside) it's pretty cool.

A "switch"??? Kludge!! One switch, seven switches all in a row? What's
the diff? (Just messin' a little myself! ;-)

>It's
>the kind of thing I can leave with Tara's little siblings and not worry
>about them destroying it-- and it seems to appeal to the more "consumer"
>level collectors too.
>
>I want to do nice, menu driven Sega multigame board for my personal use, so
>if anyone else likes the idea I'll certainly share the method to do it.
>(And since my tolerance of wire-wrapping "one of a kinds" has eroded to
>nil, I'll probably make some sort of plug-in kit printed circuit board to
>do it. ;-)
>
>Like I said earlier, I've been having fun writing Vectrex games for a
>while, but I want to have some new (better) hardware to play with. I'd
>really like to get a system working where those of us that like to write
>games on these old hardware platforms can do so, and be able to give
>something to an average person and have them plug it in and play a new
>game.
>
>(The G-80 system kinda has me re-thinking the RetroVector platform I was
>working on -- I could probably make a new CPU/Sound combo board with a
>G-80 compatible bus interface and get a lot of mileage out of the existing
>G-80 vector hardware... Especially once programming "ground rules" are
>established for how to make sure a game runs on a Wells Gardner color
>monitor without any glitches.)

I knew when I sent the other message that I hadn't worded it right!

Let me make it clear, I'd love to have a menuing system! Count me in when
it's done! What I'd like is to have maybe a dedicated cabinet or two, and
then a universal one to play "all the rest" (or is that Professor and Marian
-- sorry I just want to go home.)

And the ESB/StarWars switch that you and Cliff came up with is cool, I've
installed a few myself.

No I guess the problem I had with Dave's schedule, is that nothing was to be
released until your board(s) were done (or maybe just Zektor if I read it
right), then in the next message from you, you seemed to indicate that in
order for you to finish work on the boardset, you need to be able to run the
games on non-standard Sega gear, so you then need to work on getting a Sega
to WG convertor up and working (Could someone just lend Clay a Go-8?), and
you'll need to fully understand the Vector generator in order to write the
menu system.

Then of course there's the time needed to layout the board after you've done
the schematic capture, or worse, layout the board by hand. And the turn
around time for the initial board to be made (and any needed revisions).

A lot of work, and it's to be commended! I don't have that kind of time!

And when it's done, man, I'd love to have a copy! I'd *like* a hardware
platform with serial ports for debugging/hacking code. And given the choice
between a nice banked menu driven selection system, and a row of switches,
hell I'll take the menu anyday!

I just didn't see the logic of having to wait for all this to be finished
before Dave's beautifully hacked code was released to the public, since all
that nicely hacked code would run just fine on someone's old Star Trek
boardset in the meantime. Am I missing something?

-Zonn
Received on Tue May 6 18:10:35 1997