Interest check: Mitsurugi-w's Sega JVS I/O Helper PCB

Dion

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Hey guys.

I just want to see if anyone is interested in buying one of these if I have them produced. I designed this to solve a problem I was having. As everyone knows the days of dedicated pcbs for games is gone and game devs are using pc based hardware systems to release games on. They use a seperate I/O pcb to handle all the the inputs to control the games. I/O pcbs have been used for a long time but the interesting thing is that I/Os that were used by Sega during the Naomi era are still being used for newer systems such as Lindbergh.

Most people that have a Naomi use a Capcom I/O because it is easy and JAMMA standard compatible. But the fact is that using a Sega JVS I/O gives you a larger variety of game selection and newer game platforms will not allow the use of a Capcom I/O.

So my problem was this. I had to make hand-made adapters to play my Lindbergh games and pretty much any racing game. The actual AMP connectors used by Sega are very hard to find let alone the proper pins. My adapters were often very ugly and would break a lot and needed to be redone. I set out to make a cleaner solution to more easily play these games. This is what I came up with:

rruk9x.jpg


It has a DB25 and a DB15 port for two players. The DB25 ports use what I am calling the Walsdawg standard. (lol) It is a modified version of the system MAS Systems used back in the day for their Super NOVA Superguns. I used their button mapping but added more buttons, 5V, and analog controls to the DB25 connectors. I like using this standard because it is very flexible and allows for more than enough buttons to control any arcade game from a single connector. The DB15 ports will allow you to use a PC joystick with very minor modification to play flying or gun games. Here is the pinout diagram for the DB25 connections:

2jb09jp.jpg


If you have other controllers that you want to use you can easily make an adapter for it to work with this pcb. DB25 accessories are easy to find and cheap. The cool thing about this is that it allows you to remap any button using wire jumpers so you could mount one of these in a racing cabinet and then you would have a huge variety of arcade systems and games you could play using a single I/O pcb!



This pcb also deals with a few issues that using a SEGA I/O requires a solution to:

---Power Loopback is automatically corrected. No need to splice any wires for inputs to work.

---Resistors are onboard to emulate the coin meters. Some games will not boot or coin up without coin meters present.



This will work with Revisions 1, 2, and 3 of the Sega JVS I/O to provide digital and analog inputs.

It can also be used in conjunction with the Capcom I/O for analog controls. Now you Capcom I/O peeps can easily play those racing games!

I made two videos. I split it because it was long. Part 1 is the introduction and how it works. Part 2 is the demonstration.


Part 1:





Part 2:



Basically I want to see if there is enough interest for me to do a production run. I made protos for myself and two friends. The production run would not be purple and price totally depends on how many I could produce. Please comment and let me know if you are interested. Also, I'm sure I left some details out as I typed this in between cooking orders. Ask any questions you may have.
 
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ReplicaX

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Interesting Project Mits, definitely opens the door as far as options for many ppl. GL /w it!
 

codecrank

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very nice !

Count me in for one. I'm working on a multi system gun cab, and who knows how games inputs will be mapped across naomi/chihiro/linbergh...

I like how you have the AD0-7 remapable. as the baseball panel requires 6 analog inputs.

and the coin counter spoof a nice touch . :) guess I won't need my pass-through adapter anymore
 

Dion

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very nice !

Count me in for one. I'm working on a multi system gun cab, and who knows how games inputs will be mapped across naomi/chihiro/linbergh...

I like how you have the AD0-7 remapable. as the baseball panel requires 6 analog inputs.

and the coin counter spoof a nice touch . :) guess I won't need my pass-through adapter anymore

Thanks. There was quite a bit of thought put into this and it took a few protos to get it right. It was crazy how often the controls are different between games of the same system. Sometimes break and gas is even different! And randomly mapping a 2P button when there are plenty of 1P buttons open seems a bit inefficient from a manufacturing standpoint as well.

It's cool that a guy like you who is knowledgeable sees the benefit of this project also. But I really hope this helps some of the novices feel comfortable with these newer pc platforms.

As far as the coin counter. They are each activated by placing the jumper in there. It will come with pins and jumpers installed standard. Just pull the jumper to disable. If you wanted to install this in a cabinet permanently and wanted coin counters still active you could wire the coin meters directly to this pcb. Unless you are using a Rev. 2 I/O as the coin meters are wired to the output connector on that one for some reason.
 

Reclaimer

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Awesome stuff Mitsurugi!

Count me in, I'm excited about the ability to hook up a wheel and play Crazy Taxi. :)
 

Dion

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Awesome stuff Mitsurugi!

Count me in, I'm excited about the ability to hook up a wheel and play Crazy Taxi. :)

I imagine I will have these about ready to go by next month sometime. I am waiting for a few pcb orders from another project to come in and compare quality and quotes that I'm getting before going through with an order for these. I might add one small thing to the final version. I want to get some parts in hand to see if its feasible. More info in that later perhaps.

BTW--I bought several different race wheels to test with modding. I'm trying to see which are the easiest so that you can do it yourself. I will give info on which are good later. Maybe we can start a list for wheels, joys, etc. There are some that just won't work. If it does not use Pots then it will not work for an arcade control. Some use a different type of system for the pedals. I've tried to make them work also but never have been able to. PC wheels and Joys tend to be better quality from what I have seen.

I bought this Excalibur Electronics Carl Edwards Racing TV Plug-in game. I bought it for $3 at a pawn shop but I was able to successfully convert it to work with arcade games. It is actually the best wheel I have modded so far! It uses the hand pedals which I love. The controls are tight and it just works! For such crappy game it is a really well built wheel with good pots. It is not a mod for beginners but the end result is very good for racing games. I even modded it to have the LED in the middle of the wheel light up to verify you have 5V.

14wak4p.jpg


23mjyqc.jpg


Please note. Some wheels have hand shifter paddles. These actually work like a button. Make sure you verify whether the wheel you buy has hand shifter paddles or pedals to make sure you get what you want.
 
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codecrank

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Didn't everything sega made used 5K pots ? how are you handling the force feedback btw ? is that done via JVS opcodes or more analog i/o pins ?
 

wataru330

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Are you able to map shifter knob functionality to buttons? For a game like Jambo that uses the shifter to throw and pull the net.

Also, have you used a flight stick on SegaStrikeFighter yet?

This project is totally awesome. I'm interested for sure.

***Edit*** I just reread the 1st post. Fight sticks for shooting games? Please hip a shooting noob. I thought the shooting games required optical sensors + guns.
 
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Dion

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Didn't everything sega made used 5K pots ? how are you handling the force feedback btw ? is that done via JVS opcodes or more analog i/o pins ?

Yep. Sega used 5K pots. And a lot of these wheels work perfectly fine. I only have one wheel that is a little wonky and it is just really loose feeling. Like you have to turn it more than you should have to.

I am not dealing with FFB right now but I am open to it in the future. As I understand it you don't HAVE to have force feedback working for the games to play in a cabinet. If you have a dedicated cabinet it should not be difficult since the FFB pcbs are pretty standard starting around Sega Model 3. If I had a Sega Racing cab I would totally look into a universal solution for that also. As I've stated this is meant to help mostly with playing the games without a cab.

Maybe in the future I can put together some kind of universal output pcb also.


Are you able to map shifter knob functionality to buttons? For a game like Jambo that uses the shifter to throw and pull the net.

Also, have you used a flight stick on SegaStrikeFighter yet?

This project is totally awesome. I'm interested for sure.

***Edit*** I just reread the 1st post. Fight sticks for shooting games? Please hip a shooting noob. I thought the shooting games required optical sensors + guns.

I'm not sure how Jambo works. Is it an analog control or a control that uses a digital command (like a button press)? Most shifters just activate a button press.

Yes I have used a control stick with Sega Strike Fighter. It seems that the Naomi games need to have the 5V and GND switch on the pots. The controls were reversed when I used the same stick as I used for Lindbergh. IE, try to go left and you go right. Try to go up and you go down. Not difficult to fix at all. I actually have an entire PC flight setup coming that I want to mod for Sega Strike Fighter and Airline Pilots.

There are a few different types of gun games. There are ligth gun games that worked on CRT monitors, there are gun games that use sensors such as for flat screen systems, and there are the old X/Y positional gun games. These positional gun games us the value of two pots to determine where the gun is pointed at on screen. Many games you have played use this system. Some examples:

Revolution X
Operation Wolf
Terminator 2
Silent Scope
More or less any game that has a gun fixed to the machine

As you see in my video Rambo uses these guns as well. There is also a version Of House of the Dead 4 on the Lindbergh multikit (which we can sell you) that uses positional guns. The cool thing is that you can use basically any X/Y gun to play any of these games. That's how I use a Revolution X game to play Rambo.

Joysticks operate on the exact same principal. It uses two pots to determine the position of the stick. It is not ideal to use a joystick to play a gun game. But it can be done. Spare guns can be found all over ebay. That's where I got mine.
 

codecrank

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Yep. Sega used 5K pots. And a lot of these wheels work perfectly fine. I only have one wheel that is a little wonky and it is just really loose feeling. Like you have to turn it more than you should have to.

that's where the pot amp board comes in handy. it adjusts the resistance range and center in case it's beyond what can be done with calibration. Usually needed with the large analog joysticks because the pot travel range is too low.

It seems that the Naomi games need to have the 5V and GND switch on the pots. The controls were reversed when I used the same stick as I used for Lindbergh. IE, try to go left and you go right. Try to go up and you go down.

yeah even on the same system the polarity differs, if you ever tried to play Monkey Ball with the Baseball or Zombie Revenge panel, you'll notice. I once made an analog loom with a DPDT switch inline ;) that was until I had a proper monkey ball panel. maybe for rev2 you could add a jumper that flips VCC & GND .

HOTD4 with x/y guns ? interesting hack :D
 

Dion

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that's where the pot amp board comes in handy. it adjusts the resistance range and center in case it's beyond what can be done with calibration. Usually needed with the large analog joysticks because the pot travel range is too low.



yeah even on the same system the polarity differs, if you ever tried to play Monkey Ball with the Baseball or Zombie Revenge panel, you'll notice. I once made an analog loom with a DPDT switch inline ;) that was until I had a proper monkey ball panel. maybe for rev2 you could add a jumper that flips VCC & GND .

HOTD4 with x/y guns ? interesting hack :D

I'm still newbish about some of this stuff. What is a pot amp board? I'd like some info on that.

I would need to really change the design of the pcb and the modded control would need very specific modding. You would need an individual GND and 5v line going to each pot in the controller. Some are reverse. Some are not. So a blanket swap would still make some controls wrong in some cases. I guess it is a good option for if ALL controls are reversed. I would need to play around with a bunch more systems and games to see what is common. Not a bad idea at all.

I would really like to add a JAMMA edge, sound amp circuit, and video amp circuit to a future revision to do away with that portion of the Capcom I/O and also add JAMMA functionality to some systems that don't already have it. I am not a circuit master so that is kinda out of my range at this point.
 
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codecrank

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What is a pot amp board?

allows you to amplify the analog range when dealing with short throw sticks. There is a nice article on system11 http://blog.system11.org/?page_id=141 , I didn't write it but hey ... that desk looks familiar :lolz:

sega made a nice one too, doesn't require adjustments. http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8429/7554058828_cc543e488f_z.jpg but it is nearly impossible to find.

You would need an individual GND and 5v line going to each pot in the controller. Some are reverse. Some are not.

I'm not sure how PC parts are built, but so far all the arcade analog sticks I've seen work he same. Each stick has a single VCC and GND pin on the connector, they get split and go to each pot's VCC/GND. So they're always the same polarity.
 

Dion

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Hey I spent some time tonight and modded another wheel and it works great. Logitech Wingman Formula GP. Here it is:

25s77n6.jpg


zlvoz7.jpg


This wheel had a gameport connector but I've found that the way they are wired for PC use doesn't use enough wires for arcade play. So after I rewired the pots to accommodate what the arcade games want, I added a few more wires and I changed the connector. Works really well and being able to attach it to a steady surface really helps.

BTW---the two joysticks I have successfully modded are:

IBM Joystick 76H1571 (really nice)
Logitech Wingman Joystick (works well but only two buttons)
 

Lemony Vengeance

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Shot. Putting a Sega JVS IO in my noir clone soon. I probably should get one of tease too. Hook me up, mango.
 
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