Posted by Krusty on 8, 2001 at 11:57 PM:
I have been toying around with an idea today regarding powering up an arcade monitor in a cabinet. As you know, sending a default video signal to the monitor could damage it, so it should not be turned on until the computer has switched the VGA mode to an arcade-friendly one.
There are circuits that you can build to do this, but I found a very simple way to do the same thing (well, it seems simple, anyway).
First of all, you will need an X10 Firecracker kit. This is the one that they are always selling for ~ $6 shipping. You can check out the X10 website to see if they are running the special (they don't seem to be currently), or you can check out a Fry's Electronics store (they've been known to sell the kit for around $6 on occasion as well). At any rate, what you will need from the kit is the Computer Interface (serial interface) and the Transceiver Module. The Transceiver Module is rated for a 400W TV, so it should work fine in our case. Set your Transceiver's House Code, and make a note of it (A-P). It will always be module 1, and that can't be changed (at least not from the outside). You will need to take the 2 wires coming from your monitor's Isolation Transformer, and put a two-prong AC plug on them. That will plug into the Transceiver Module, which will then be plugged into an active outlet (I just have power outlets in my cabinet running off of the main AC line). Now, hook up the X10 Computer Interface (Model CM17A) to an available serial port, and make note of the serial port number. Now, go to this site and download one of the SWITCH programs. These are DOS-level programs that will allow you to control your X10 devices. There are two available; one for COM1 and one for COM2. Once you have the software, make two batch files: One for turning the monitor on and one for turning the monitor off. The command structure is: SWITCH x1ON|OFF where X is the House Code of your Transceiver Module. Therefore, to turn your monitor on with a Tranceiver set to house code C, you would type SWITCH C1ON. In the batch file, I had to first change to the directory with SWITCH.EXE, since it relies on the file BRUN45.EXE (comes in the .ZIP file).
Now that you have these batch files, you can configure ARCADEOS to use them to turn the monitor on and off at the proper times. There are two configuration lines of SWITCHON= and SWITCHOFF=. Under each of these, call your batch file for each function, i.e. SWITCHON=MON_ON.BAT. You will also need to make sure EXTRAHARDWARE=1, and INCABINET=1 for this to work.
With all this in place, when you run ARCADEOS, it should set the video mode to the proper arcade frequency, and then turn the monitor on. Alternately, when you exit, it will power off the monitor.
I haven't actually wired this up in my cabinet yet, but I've set it up with a desk fan instead of a monitor, and it seems to work just fine. If anyone sees any obvious flaws in this setup, please let me know, because I'll probably be implementing it in the next 30 days or so.