I brought it up in another threat and Metallic suggested to start my own threat about it. I thought I might as well do it as some brain storming about it wouldn't hurt.
The problem we have with this gaelco hardware is that it regulary starts to freeze. It drives me nuts as sometimes all works well for several months.
Suddenly the problem comes back ans shows up 2 or 3 times / day.
The last time, I simply reflashed the bad unit and everything was well again. (You can flash one unit with the contents of the other linked one)
I am still not certain that this was the solution for the issue, as before, I have switched the cpu case between the 2 cabintes to conclude that this also made both units functional again. I switched the 2 power supplies, and yes, things where good again for a couple of months.
So, on the other threat, Metallic says that the gaelco hardware uses (nor) flash chips that slowly loose their contents. This could perfect explain why it got fixed using my latest reflash, but doesn't explain why switching it from one cabinet to another is a solution as well, unless the position to the earth magnetic field can also influence it.
Some smart guys will tell me I have a bad wire connection somewhere, but in such case, the problem would remain with the machine, even if I change the unit.
At one point, I was so desperate that I was looking for a pc solution with an emulator. I know that demul (originally a dreamcast / naomi (2) emulator) is able to emulate that gaelco hardware as well. The original hardware also has steering handle force feedback and a signal for 2 industrial async motor speed controllers that make the seat move upwards and down again. (Left and Right).
As demul was closed source, it was a dead end for the purpose of replacing the original hardware.
Gaelco had another football simulator game that used (nearly) identical hardware. As that's a standalone cabinet, it isn't having the option to be reflashed.
There are some headers on the boards for something that looks like Jtag's for the 2 hitachi sh4 processors on it. Maybe that's a possibility for reflashing.
The gaelco football game likely has another bootloader as it doesn't show the black screen when you power the machine with the service button pressed like the ATV track boards do. At that moment, they can be flashed with the other board.
Maybe, a tool on pc to flash such board using the link interface would be handy for people who don't have 2 unit's. The interface is full duplex rs422, so building an interface between that and a pc serial port shouldn't be that hard.
I really don't know well how to start. According to Metallic the system runs in Mame but doesn't show anything on screen yet.
I bought a second hand unit on ebay, but it's not solving the stability issues either.
As cherry on the cake, those systems have poorly designed digital inputs with the wires arriving directly on the inputs of a HC buffer. So occasionally, one of those buffers dies likely due to EMC from perhaps the motor controllers.
Maybe the emulator wasn't demul... It was maintained by a russion group I once contacted on irc.
Any suggestions upon this are welcome. I just noticed there isn't a question yet, so here it comes.
What are my best options to keep this machines alive?
Are there still many around or have most people given up on those?
Anybody else with experience servicing this beasts?
The problem we have with this gaelco hardware is that it regulary starts to freeze. It drives me nuts as sometimes all works well for several months.
Suddenly the problem comes back ans shows up 2 or 3 times / day.
The last time, I simply reflashed the bad unit and everything was well again. (You can flash one unit with the contents of the other linked one)
I am still not certain that this was the solution for the issue, as before, I have switched the cpu case between the 2 cabintes to conclude that this also made both units functional again. I switched the 2 power supplies, and yes, things where good again for a couple of months.
So, on the other threat, Metallic says that the gaelco hardware uses (nor) flash chips that slowly loose their contents. This could perfect explain why it got fixed using my latest reflash, but doesn't explain why switching it from one cabinet to another is a solution as well, unless the position to the earth magnetic field can also influence it.
Some smart guys will tell me I have a bad wire connection somewhere, but in such case, the problem would remain with the machine, even if I change the unit.
At one point, I was so desperate that I was looking for a pc solution with an emulator. I know that demul (originally a dreamcast / naomi (2) emulator) is able to emulate that gaelco hardware as well. The original hardware also has steering handle force feedback and a signal for 2 industrial async motor speed controllers that make the seat move upwards and down again. (Left and Right).
As demul was closed source, it was a dead end for the purpose of replacing the original hardware.
Gaelco had another football simulator game that used (nearly) identical hardware. As that's a standalone cabinet, it isn't having the option to be reflashed.
There are some headers on the boards for something that looks like Jtag's for the 2 hitachi sh4 processors on it. Maybe that's a possibility for reflashing.
The gaelco football game likely has another bootloader as it doesn't show the black screen when you power the machine with the service button pressed like the ATV track boards do. At that moment, they can be flashed with the other board.
Maybe, a tool on pc to flash such board using the link interface would be handy for people who don't have 2 unit's. The interface is full duplex rs422, so building an interface between that and a pc serial port shouldn't be that hard.
I really don't know well how to start. According to Metallic the system runs in Mame but doesn't show anything on screen yet.
I bought a second hand unit on ebay, but it's not solving the stability issues either.
As cherry on the cake, those systems have poorly designed digital inputs with the wires arriving directly on the inputs of a HC buffer. So occasionally, one of those buffers dies likely due to EMC from perhaps the motor controllers.
Maybe the emulator wasn't demul... It was maintained by a russion group I once contacted on irc.
Any suggestions upon this are welcome. I just noticed there isn't a question yet, so here it comes.
What are my best options to keep this machines alive?
Are there still many around or have most people given up on those?
Anybody else with experience servicing this beasts?