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View Full Version : Megadrive to Jamma


8bitplus
07-27-2009, 09:48 PM
or as I call it, the JammaDrive. Nothing too special or clever here I'm afraid, but it works great and was lots of fun making.
http://www.8bitplus.co.uk/mainsite/projpage/jammadrive/jammadrive12.JPG
under side:
http://www.8bitplus.co.uk/mainsite/projpage/jammadrive/jammadrive13.JPG

more photos and a video of it working on my site:
http://www.8bitplus.co.uk/mainsite/projpage/jammadrive/jammadrive.html
ASSEMbler
07-27-2009, 10:08 PM
Very nice, always good to see extensive hand wiring. I know how hard it is.

How does the video output look?
8bitplus
07-27-2009, 10:22 PM
Crisp and clear in 50 or 60Hz. No visible noise at all.
I hand wired my cab and loom also.
undamned
07-28-2009, 03:38 AM
always good to see extensive hand wiringTill something goes wrong:crying:

Dude, nice work, 8bitplus! What MD games do you play on your cab? I've wanted to do this to most of my home consoles, but realized that I should have certain games in mind before going to all the work :banghead:

The Capcom, Taito, and Midway collections alone would be justification for a JAMMA ready PS2 :thumbsup:
-ud
8bitplus
07-28-2009, 04:14 AM
Almost any MD game plays great on a cab. Platformers are the best I think, since I made it I have played a lot of Gunstar Heroes, Aladdin and Sonic, although playing a sonic game on a arcade machine seems odd at first.
Shooting games feel right at home also; Hellfire, xenon2 and so on.

PS2 might be fun, but I think the controls would be a nightmare for a start. Jamma only has 3 or 4 buttons per player and some games might have to be changes in the options menu to got the best from them.

I love Megadrive for its simplicity. Just put the game in and switch on. No loadtimes as well.
hl718
07-28-2009, 04:15 AM
Why only wire up the three button pads? Why not do the six button pads?

-hl718
alecjahn
07-28-2009, 05:01 AM
If I understand correctly, 6-buttons would require some separate wiring as the Jamma connection only allows for 3 action buttons (or easily 4 (NeoGeo) or maybe 5 with some NC pins?) , unless he custom-wires it on all sides...

I'm assmuming the direction was to make it universal-ish instead of proprietary.


You know, I just thought about how great of an idea this is. I have a friend that's getting a bar-arcade up and running, and I think it'd be pretty sweet to make one of these to open up the game selection a little... though the whole coin counting thing would be pretty difficult to manage, and I don't think you want to end up telling the wrong drunk guy his time is up.
undamned
07-28-2009, 10:05 AM
Why only wire up the three button pads? Why not do the six button pads?Yeah, alecjahn is correct, 3 buttons is standard JAMMA. And be honest, as much as it would be nice to have 6 button support, how many 6-button MD games do you really want to play on your arcade cab? About as many as the 6 button PCE games.
-ud
hl718
07-28-2009, 10:19 AM
Yeah, alecjahn is correct, 3 buttons is standard JAMMA. And be honest, as much as it would be nice to have 6 button support, how many 6-button MD games do you really want to play on your arcade cab? About as many as the 6 button PCE games.
-ud

I suppose I'm just biased by experience here as the last time I wired up a MD into an arcade cab it was for the express purpose of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II. ;)

-hl718
_SD_
07-28-2009, 03:01 PM
Get some Streets of Rage 2 and Thunder Force III or IV on the go. There's enough good 2D shooters on the Mega Drive to make this a worthwhile project.
8bitplus
07-28-2009, 03:14 PM
Get some Streets of Rage 2 and Thunder Force III or IV on the go. There's enough good 2D shooters on the Mega Drive to make this a worthwhile project.

Absolutely right. Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Alien Storm play like a dream.
I need to get some of the Thunder Force series in my collection. I have a Tototec 32mbit flash card somewhere, but my pc has no parrallel port:banghead:
alecjahn
07-28-2009, 06:38 PM
Pffft.
SF2 = CPS or bust. Haha!



Absolutely right. Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Alien Storm play like a dream.
I need to get some of the Thunder Force series in my collection. I have a Tototec 32mbit flash card somewhere, but my pc has no parrallel port:banghead:

Nab a PCI card!
8bitplus
07-28-2009, 08:43 PM
I have SF2 on the CPS-2 as well. PCI parrallel? might just try that.
Jamtex
07-29-2009, 04:12 AM
Nice, it's quite easy to do the same for the Super Nintendo and PC Engine too.

Although why the effort to build a voltage regulator circuit when you could have fed the 12V from the JAMMA connector straight to the MD power connector? The Megadrive does have power regulators on the board, they are under that beat heatsink...

Would have like to seen a small bit of veroboard with a couple of chips on rather then the destruction of two probably decent pads.
feder
07-29-2009, 05:49 AM
Arcade Cabinets that had a 6-button setup used different "JAMMA Plus" connectors. For example, in Street Fighter II without the JAMMA Plus Connection you could only use the 3 punch buttons, but the board also had a 10-pin male connector (the JAMMA Plus connector) next to the standard JAMMA connector, there you had the connections for the kick buttons for the 2 players.
8bitplus
07-29-2009, 02:38 PM
Would have like to seen a small bit of veroboard with a couple of chips on rather then the destruction of two probably decent pads.

They were in a very poor state to start with. I wouldn't use any of my good ones.
ASSEMbler
07-30-2009, 04:39 AM
Sadly my eyesight has gone bad, what would you charge to do the mod?
smf
07-30-2009, 04:16 PM
Would have like to seen a small bit of veroboard with a couple of chips on rather then the destruction of two probably decent pads.

I need to do this as my supergun has megadrive ports but none of my controllers have turned up after my last move.

Do you have a schematic?
ElBarto
07-30-2009, 05:27 PM
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=controls:megadrive_genesis_controller_ 3
8bitplus
07-30-2009, 05:55 PM
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=controls:megadrive_genesis_controller_ 3

I have seen that. I even ordered the IC chips to use, but when I started I just got lazy and used the control pads ;-)
8bitplus
07-30-2009, 06:13 PM
Sadly my eyesight has gone bad, what would you charge to do the mod?

pm sent
smf
07-31-2009, 04:05 PM
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=controls:megadrive_genesis_controller_ 3

I assume the triangle pointing up on the resistor array is +5v (pin 5) and the triangle pointing down which is connected to the other side of the switches is ground (pin 8).
8bitplus
07-31-2009, 05:31 PM
Correct.
Druid II
08-01-2009, 06:49 AM
how many 6-button MD games do you really want to play on your arcade cab?

Bare Knuckle 3 with translation patch, Eternal motherfucking Champions.
drakon
08-15-2009, 09:20 PM
looks great. My pad pcbs didn't looke like those ones though
mrmark0673
09-21-2009, 08:24 AM
I had a 2 player J-Gen that was a lot of fun for a while:
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j204/beaglepussband/stupid%20shit/100_0610.jpg

Of course I can't find a picture that shows the quality (sold it a long while back), but i remember it being very crisp. Lots of fun for platformers and beat 'em ups, if you have the funds it's probably worth grabbing. Either that, or you could get a Jammacast and just toss in a a self booting Genny emulator in your dreamcast.