RE: Cinemenu round 2!

> Nope, never saw your Sega Menu :-) I just knew I couldn't display all
> the
> games and move a pointer around. The "useless" text was to balance the
> display and prevent spot killing.
>
:-)

> But Clay, you never said if you could select different games... Well?
> Or
> were you correct in saying your inputs don't work (hardware problem).
> If
> thats the case, I need another tester Mark! Also, is the LED off now?
> (Zonn, I'm reseting WDTimer *once* and doing 2 WAIs) If it resets, the
> game will revert to AA.
>
I did the test super-quick during lunchtime, so I didn't mess with the
control inputs. I'm testing in a RipOff cocktail machine with a dubious
input system... I have to find my other Cinematronics boards in the
attic or fix what I've got.

> Since a space has no lines, it doesn't move the beam around at all, so
> I'll
> add a delay at the start of the string drawing routine. I'm wondering
> how
> much time it's actually taking to draw this stuff - What if I set the
> intensity bit to bright after drawing the text until the next frame.
> Then
> someone (Clay?) could check the duty cycle to see what % of the CPU
> time
> it's using. May as well gather some data while were at it :-)
>
I can do the timing test if you modify the code. Can a "space" in
Cinematroics-land be a draw with the beam off? (that's what I did with
the Sega stuff for experimentation-- just draw a character-width line
with the color guns off...)

> As for DC offset, I wondered if that was an issue, so I tried to keep
> things somewhat semetric. I'll put asterisks around "MULTIGAME" and
> take
> them off Cinematronics to balance them better. The drawing order is:
> Cinematronics, Multigame, Select, GameName - I thought it might be a
> good
> idea not to just go from top to bottom (not sure why). I was a bit
> scared
> when Clay said the first rev was only drawing at the top... Then
> again,
> I'm not sure I buy that whole DC thing - as long as you exorcise all 4
> transistors, each one will have a rest.
>
Hmmm. From my experiments (admittedly on Wells-Gardner monitors) you're
better off making short-jumps and being asymmetrical that trying to make
big jumps and be symmetrical. If there's any residual effects from
magnetism on the yoke I haven't been able to really notice them.
(Doesn't mean they're not there though-- the star background in the Sega
Multigame probably acts as a pretty decent "degausser".

-Clay
Received on Sat Mar 28 18:48:26 1998