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yuppicide

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I've never used a supergun before.. everything seems to be in excellent condition.. the fuse is good. Some questions? I haven't opened it up yet.

I see composite video.. what's the round connector next to them? S Video?

What kind of joysticks do they typically use? I would like to 3D print an adapter to turn one of them into 4 way.

Oh I almost forgot.. what's the little adapter connected to the JAMMA one for?
 
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Another question.. what relatively cheap item should I get to convert the video output? I'm guessing I will buy an LCD computer monitor of some sort.

Should I go with any old monitor from Walmart or shall I get the Unico 26 inch 4:3 ratio?

EDIT: I bought a 20" CRT with composite and SVIDEO.


Need to find CRT still. I bought one on eBay and the seller backed out on the sale.
 
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I plugged in the supergun today. I tested voltage at the jamma connector and adjusted it.. I'm at +5.05, but the other is like -4.06 and +11.59 or something.. are those fine to leave or should I get a new power supply?

I plugged in The Main Event PCB and got sound.

I just have to wait a bit to test video as my room is a mess. I'm cleaning up and potentially re arranging things. I can test on my QLED HDTV for now until I get a CRT.
 
Share some pics, I'm curious what revision you have. These are some ancient artifacts at this point in time, especially so in the west.

For reference I have an ancient one that was wired to 2x DB25 connections and came with a pair of 6 button joysticks. There was no PCB inside either stick, just bare wire soldered directly to the inputs and routed to the DB25 plug.

I'm assuming the "little adapter" you're referring to would be the auxiliary kick harness connector meant to route the extra buttons to the controls. Mine came with one also.

RE: Display, yeah as a start definitely try for some type of composite input consumer CRT setup if you can find one. That's what these superguns were designed for, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this device isn't sending a safe signal through the video conversion. It was definitely the wild west in terms of supergun design back when MAS still produced the Supernova model, lots that we didn't know back then that is more common knowledge now.

Depending on what you're able to work with and testing results, you may want to look into eventually replacing the video setup altogether inside the Supernova. That's something I'm planning on doing for mine after getting through a ton of other projects in my pipeline. I've wanted to get mine working again for a while and turned into something a bit more modern.
 
Share some pics, I'm curious what revision you have. These are some ancient artifacts at this point in time, especially so in the west. For reference I have an ancient one that was wired to 2x DB25 connections and came with a pair of 6 button joysticks. There was no PCB inside either stick, just bare wire soldered directly to the inputs and routed to the DB25 plug. I'm assuming the "little adapter" you're referring to would be the auxiliary kick harness connector meant to route the extra buttons to the controls. Mine came with one also. RE: Display, yeah as a start definitely try for some type of composite input consumer CRT setup if you can find one. That's what these superguns were designed for, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this device isn't sending a safe signal through the video conversion. It was definitely the wild west in terms of supergun design back when MAS still produced the Supernova model, lots that we didn't know back then that is more common knowledge now. Depending on what you're able to work with and testing results, you may want to look into eventually replacing the video setup altogether inside the Supernova. That's something I'm planning on doing for mine after getting through a ton of other projects in my pipeline. I've wanted to get mine working again for a while and turned into something a bit more modern.
Share some pics, I'm curious what revision you have. These are some ancient artifacts at this point in time, especially so in the west.

For reference I have an ancient one that was wired to 2x DB25 connections and came with a pair of 6 button joysticks. There was no PCB inside either stick, just bare wire soldered directly to the inputs and routed to the DB25 plug.

I'm assuming the "little adapter" you're referring to would be the auxiliary kick harness connector meant to route the extra buttons to the controls. Mine came with one also.

RE: Display, yeah as a start definitely try for some type of composite input consumer CRT setup if you can find one. That's what these superguns were designed for, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this device isn't sending a safe signal through the video conversion. It was definitely the wild west in terms of supergun design back when MAS still produced the Supernova model, lots that we didn't know back then that is more common knowledge now.

Depending on what you're able to work with and testing results, you may want to look into eventually replacing the video setup altogether inside the Supernova. That's something I'm planning on doing for mine after getting through a ton of other projects in my pipeline. I've wanted to get mine working again for a while and turned into something a bit more modern.

Attaching some pictures.. I tested video on my HDTV and it works! Obviously looks like crap. My TV stand doesn't allow me to rotate, so I can only see it horizontally.. so inserting a vertical game is sideways.

Attached are an image of the back of the unit, the unit on my counter (upside down) as I was testing for sound and voltage at the time, and then a picture of the inside.

I took a close up image of the little board because I wanted to read what the chips were. One of them I cannot make out, only that I know it says Sony.
 

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The photos aren't very clear so I can't see much, and I'm sure others who are better informed that I am can correct me.

Your voltages for 5V -5V and 12V are probably fine. -5V is rarely used and typically for sound (Rastan, and Midway boards). 12V is usually for coin counter and also for sound. It's usually less critical to get right compared to 5V and a bit low is probably fine.

With so many wires going into that round video port (again, the pic is blurry so I'm not 100% sure), my guess is that the port is for RGB. If it is and you intend to make/buy a cable for it, you would probably want to make sure the RGB signal is consumer level (75ohm .7v), or you may cause damage to your video equipment (TVs, scalers, video capture cards, etc). You can usually tell the RGB signal is not consumer level when the image is super bright and the colors are a bit washed out.

The Sony chip that you saw on the PCB is likely the video encoder.

One thing I noticed is that the JAMMA wiring harness doesn't have any strain relief when it comes out of that box. I highly recommend that you add some. Otherwise you're one unlucky tug away from a really bad time.
 
Every photo looks clear to me. I did not post the close up of the board I talked about if that's what you were referring to. Someone asked what mine looked like so I posted picture. One of the chips is a hex inverter 74HC04N.. The Sony one is super faded and hard to get a clear picture of.

Tomorrow I'm rearranging my room to make more space. I think my computer desk will fit in the closet lol. That'll be kind of cool. It'll free up 62 inches wide by like 29 inches deep in my room and under the large screen tv I'll put a smaller CRT, and I already bought a cheap desk to set the Supergun on and joystick.
 
@yuppicide thanks for the pics. These superguns are not documented very well on the internet and I'll try do the same eventually when I get mine out of storage. If you could, please also snap some pics of the stick internals along with the "front" side of the supergun itself where the controller inputs are. Curious if yours is wired to 25 or 15 pins. I think the only difference would be the connector itself as even in my case there are 15 or less live pins on the DB25 end, so it becomes a little more work for me to mod or wire up other input devices to account for this.

I believe your stick has a different color scheme than mine for whatever that is worth. Either way, very cool that you have one considering the scarcity and demand these days. It even looks like the stick case is in good shape also, so that's a big bonus.

Forgot to comment prior re: round connector next to the yellow composite video plug. This is indeed for RGB. However as suggested earlier you will want to be careful what you plug this connector into as-is, at least until you get a reading for voltage with live video signal coming out of this output. What I used to do years ago was take a SCART cable connected to this port, run it through an RGB to YUV converter and connect to a component input on a consumer grade CRT. Pretty decent results from memory but it's 480i in the end and that may or may not be a desired result in your case. Thankfully there are many easy ways to pull video from JAMMA these days (plus attenuated audio for that matter) and we don't necessarily need to go the same route as OEM design for this device. As long as it powers on and provides safe voltage to your board(s), you should have the hard parts of this process handled well. Thankfully it comes equipped with a switching power supply, so we're good on that end.

Looking forward to seeing your end results with this supergun.
 
@yuppicide thanks for the pics. These superguns are not documented very well on the internet and I'll try do the same eventually when I get mine out of storage. If you could, please also snap some pics of the stick internals along with the "front" side of the supergun itself where the controller inputs are. Curious if yours is wired to 25 or 15 pins. I think the only difference would be the connector itself as even in my case there are 15 or less live pins on the DB25 end, so it becomes a little more work for me to mod or wire up other input devices to account for this.

I believe your stick has a different color scheme than mine for whatever that is worth. Either way, very cool that you have one considering the scarcity and demand these days. It even looks like the stick case is in good shape also, so that's a big bonus.

Forgot to comment prior re: round connector next to the yellow composite video plug. This is indeed for RGB. However as suggested earlier you will want to be careful what you plug this connector into as-is, at least until you get a reading for voltage with live video signal coming out of this output. What I used to do years ago was take a SCART cable connected to this port, run it through an RGB to YUV converter and connect to a component input on a consumer grade CRT. Pretty decent results from memory but it's 480i in the end and that may or may not be a desired result in your case. Thankfully there are many easy ways to pull video from JAMMA these days (plus attenuated audio for that matter) and we don't necessarily need to go the same route as OEM design for this device. As long as it powers on and provides safe voltage to your board(s), you should have the hard parts of this process handled well. Thankfully it comes equipped with a switching power supply, so we're good on that end.

Looking forward to seeing your end results with this supergun.

I'll open a joystick up soon.. the outside is DB25..

The whole unit is indeed in excellent condition, however during shipping there's slight damage to the top. A screw or something poking through.

Here's a slightly blurry picture of the board inside and two pictures of the damage. There's actually 3 places it got damaged that didn't seem to be there in the original picture.
 

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Your voltages for 5V -5V and 12V are probably fine. -5V is rarely used and typically for sound (Rastan, and Midway boards). 12V is usually for coin counter and also for sound. It's usually less critical to get right compared to 5V and a bit low is probably fine.

I just wanted to add that many boards do require -5v.

-5v is usually for the sound.
 
I'm not sure it'll be any better, but I have a Retroscaler 2X coming in the mail. I bought it because it was cheap and why not. I figured don't spend a lot of money because I hope to get a CRT soon.

I almost had a Sony 32" tube TV, but passed on it ultimately. For now I have a 24" LCD with a rotating mount, so I can make it vertical or horizontal.

No pictures as I'm waiting for that Retroscaler to come and I still haven't re organized the bedroom.

PS - You live in Piscataway? I have a friend who lives on Dupont Ave. I'm from Green Brook originally and have some relatives in Dunellen still.
 
I'm not sure it'll be any better, but I have a Retroscaler 2X coming in the mail. I bought it because it was cheap and why not. I figured don't spend a lot of money because I hope to get a CRT soon.

I almost had a Sony 32" tube TV, but passed on it ultimately. For now I have a 24" LCD with a rotating mount, so I can make it vertical or horizontal.

No pictures as I'm waiting for that Retroscaler to come and I still haven't re organized the bedroom.

PS - You live in Piscataway? I have a friend who lives on Dupont Ave. I'm from Green Brook originally and have some relatives in Dunellen still.
I am not far from DuPont Ave. I had a good friend living on that road growing up too.
 
Small world, I used to live in Central NJ also, not far from that area. Went to Dunellen at minimum once a week.
 
I have a couple of these and still use them, as I do the sticks now and then. If you really need anything if it's easy I can probably provide!

It does suck there isn't much documentation on them for how well-known they are.

Through the big DIN on the back you can get Svideo or RGB. You can get a Neo Geo AES RGB cable and that should be the same pin size/arrangement.
 
I think I have a manual for the MAS somewhere…
 
Do you know if your joystick ports are DB15 or DB21? I have a MAS that I got years ago that uses DB21, but the sticks are rewired to use Japanese DC sticks instead of the tanks. Do you know if the power supply inside gets hot after a while, mine does. It's being repaired right now but these are the best pics I have on hand.
 

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I think mine are older than yours, but they do use the same joystick ports, those old printer-cable plugs, same size.

I never had either of mine get too hot even after a few hours of use
 
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