Posted by Andy Warne on 24, 2000 at 12:49 PM:
Hi all,
I have written a modified version of I-PAC code which enables a machine to be used in full Arcade mode. This is how it works:
The PC boots up into ArcadeOS. Player then moves cursor over selected game using joystick. Insert a coin. The first coin inserted sends a "1" which kicks off the emulator and starts the selected ROM. This and all subsequent coin inserts are now counted but not yet sent to the PC.
After a 15 second delay (to allow the ROM self-test to finish) all the stored coins are sent to the PC by sending a string of "5"s and are therefore credited in the game. Now any coins inserted are immediately sent to the game in the normal way. The player plays and after using all the credits then presses "esc" (start1 + start2) and goes back to ArcadeOS. The cycle then starts again with coins stored as above.
I am not sure whether to offer this version or not, I have written it but not tested fully. There a couple of drawbacks:
First, the way the code knows that we have gone out of AOS into the emulator is by noticing that the "num lock" LED has gone out. That works fine but rules out using any games that use the LEDs.
Second, ROMs have varying length self-tests so we have to cater for the longest, which means a game with a quick self-test waits for a while before getting the credits clocked up.
Third, Although it will count any coins that are inserted before the game starts, there is a "dead" period when quitting a game when any inserted coins could be lost, although it is only a couple of seconds.
Any comment/feedback welcome! Is there any demand for this?