Jolt Country

Check your PMs, if you could be so kind.

The guy I bought Mr. Do! from installed the high score save kit - it got garbled on me yesterday (Sunday). Just posting this to record the date to see how often it goes bad.

I picked up a spare board from a fella down by where I work. It has a speed-up chip installed.

In fact, it is THE speed-up chip that was dumped and used for the faster Mr. Do! variant in MAME. In other words, this board is more famous than me.

Which is very awkward. I feel I should let it have my cube chair, and I should be the one watching from the whiteboard. And I'm here calling him "Mr." Do, too, natch. Jesus. I can't work like this.

My brother got me a replacement marquee for Mr. Do! for my birthday. He is the best brother ever. Once I find the camera, I shall take a photo. Do! has a lot of work, but at the same time, since I am not getting it to behave consistently (lots of lock-ups and garbage in the high score table) I'm hesitating throwing too much into it.

Along the same lines, I had forgotten what I needed to do to reset the high score table when it gets garbled. Rather than make this mistake over and over again, I am quoting the lines where I can find it.

From jrok's page on his high score save...

Test mode clears the High Score RAM.

NOTE TO SELF: To go into test mode, you have to hold the player one fire button down while turning the game on.

Awww. Thank you sweetie!

As you can see, I need to make a new bezel and control panel overlay for it. It's pretty ghetto right now, but I love it.

So, Mr. Do! had been locking up quite frequently. And it would put distorted shit into the high score table. So I had to constantly empty the high score table. This is not ideal, because I love Mr. Do!.

Well, I got cocky measuring the voltages on Arkanoid last night. I said, "what the hell" and did the same thing for Mr. Do!. I was under the impression that -- since it doesn't have a modern, switching power supply, but Old Shit -- that I wouldn't be able to adjust the power.

How wrong I was! What a moron, me. There are four knobs on the power brick to adjust that shit. +5, +12 ... and I don't remember the other two.

I measured the power getting to the board near the edge connector. +12 was at 12.05. +5 was at 4.6! That is ridiculously LOW. No fucking wonder it was crapping out at me constantly.

I should have measured it the day I got it. But I was just living in a world where I understood that I needed to use my multimeter in a certain way to set things right, I just didn't know how. Like the cast of the old TV show "Voyagers!"

Mr. Do!'s +5 is now at +5.05 volts. Here's hoping that solves the problems forevermore. With the game locking up, not the problems with Mr. Do!'s garden. Only Mr. Do! ... and you... can fix that!

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Awww. Thank you sweetie!

As you can see, I need to make a new bezel and control panel overlay for it. It's pretty ghetto right now, but I love it.

Fuck that! I bought one! NEW OLD STOCK!

Here's how it looks now. I think it's a million times better. And now that it's getting five volts where it needs five volts, it's a goddamn rock of stability. Of course, when I applied the new overlay, I had to dig through the five previous layers of shit on the control panel, and it took about three hours to do so.

There is also a bulge. I will own up to the bulge. I honestly think it was lacking adhesive there, but whatever. It looks worse in the pics than it does in person.

Why is the joystick always on the left side? Are there that many southpaws in the land of the rising sun?

Nice restoration work. The stuffed Q-Bert in place of the cat is a nice touch.


When does the arcade open to the public?



A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS
AARDVARK

I have found that it works best if you have the hand that requires the most dexterity be one's dominant hand. So for me, that is right. This means that I like layouts where the spinners are on the right (Tempest, Arkanoid) and when playing games like Pac, it's good to have the joystick in my right hand. But in something like Galaga, where you are shooting hundreds of times? The joystick on the left is fine. You're just moving left-right in that one.

Since that panel was originally for a Qix, someone did NOT adhere to this! Qix has two buttons, a fast and slow draw. The joystick really should be on the right.

For Mr. Do! it is not so bad, because the fire button being on the right is useful. But yeah, it'd be better if the joystick was on the right.

I was thinking of the NES and the SNES where they movement stick is always on the left side.





I always disliked the consoles for this seemingly backwardness


THE
CROSS MY ARMS
HOPE TO LIVE
AARDVARK

I got another new old stock control panel label for my Arkanoid, and it didn't fully stick to the panel either. I'm kind of done with NOS artwork! At least if a sticker is available through MAME Marquees. And we're talking control panel art. 25 years is too long for me to manipulate it.

Anyway, I link you to Stuart Campbell's blog that has a screenshot of a new mobile Mr. Do! game. The instructions for it finally gets to the bottom of why Mr. Do! was out in his garden. Sort of. Kind of. Well, it's more info than we had.

http://wosblog.podgamer.com/2010/03/06/ ... -the-plot/