RE: CRT gun driver levels?

> Sundance is hard to play without intensities since many of the
> distance cues, as
> to where the falling star is located, are done with intensities.
>
Ahhh, as you can probably tell, I haven't played many of these... ;-)

> SQ game play won't change much, just the "coolness" of having your
> explosions
> fade away, and the variable star in the middle.
>
Gotcha...

> If you jumper the CPU board for "norm" instead of "var", these games
> will play
> on a standard monitor with all vectors being drawn as "bright". As
> will Boxing
> Bugs and War of the Worlds.
>
Yep, I vaguely remember that too. The "two level" intensity is easy to
do though...

> The easiest way to accomplish this would be to copy the cine'monitor
> up to the
> outputs of the R/C op amps. I'm not sure of the levels needed for the
> WG
> monitors so you might need an extra stage of gain here.
>
I've got the analog output stages lifted from one of Al's "pirate"
schematics. Pretty simple stuff. I changed the transistors to some
that I have a couple reels of already (what I was using spice for) and
it looks OK at this point. I'll need to change the DACs to something
other than the DAC1280 on the pirate schematic. I'm thinking some
Analog Devices or Maxim part that's in production still...

> Then use the two digital lines to control the beam On/Off and the
> intensity
> High/Low.
>
Yep, got that covered ok.

> If the levels were high enough you could probably just use an old
> Cine'monitor
> deflection board and be most of the way towards a Cine->WG B&W
> convertor.
>
True, but I only have one Cine Monitor, and I'd just as soon keep it
that way. ;-) I don't really want to have a Cinematronics cabinet
around, but If I could play the multigame in an Asteroids cab or Space
Duel or something that'd be kinda cool. ;-)

Al suggested a latch and a PROM to act as an intensity-look-up table.
That could work-- bank switch the PROM depending on what game is
selected for "N" intensity resolution... Could probably even have it
handle the "two-level" intensity. My idea was KISS since I think Mark
is still planning on something more complex. I'm more along the lines
of cheap-easy-get-it-done since I'm long on projects and low on time.

-Clay
Received on Fri Aug 21 15:35:27 1998