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Sega Versus Billboard Commander

twistedsymphony

twistedsymphony

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This is a sister project born out of my Billboard Reverse Engineering project: VS Billboard Output from Sega ST-V/Model 2/Model 3/NAOMI

I figured it's really it's own thing so it should have it's own thread.


So if you own a Versus City, New Versus City, or a Blast or Megalo with the Billboard Marquee Then this will allow you to control the billboard and make your own custom macros/text scrolls.

It will require a Pi3 in addition to a simple harness to connect the Pi to the billboard connector in your cab. and that's pretty much it.

Once I build an interface to program and save your own macros I'll release the first version.

After that I'll work on an add-on to allow for manual score keeping in games, complete with winner lamp flashing an animation fanfare for each win scored.

let me know what you think or if you have any ideas on how to make this better.
:thumbsup:
 
nice how its standalone. dont have the billboard but this is nice work
 
This is awesome, man! Great stuff @twistedsymphony The score-keeping option is going to be handy! Don't know if this is possible but can you write in your own messages on each side? For example, say a player's name/handle on each side?
 
jugu said:
Do you know if CPS2 or CPS3 supported such a thing?
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neither CPS2 nor CPS3 support the billboard, that was the impetus behind building the score keeping option.


werejag said:
dont have the billboard but this is nice work
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For those that don't have one, my other project will remedy that. The billboard in this video is on loan to me from Xed. Ultimately my goal is to add custom made billboard modules to my Virtual On Twin cabinet since the Virtual On games all support the billboard module.


kingpin said:
Don't know if this is possible but can you write in your own messages on each side? For example, say a player's name/handle on each side?
Click to expand...
Yeah, you could totally do that. Though there are some letters that the Billboard is unable to display: "M" "W" and "X" I've been thinking that I could do "nn" for m and "uu" for w but I'm unsure of the best way to display an X
 
PascalP said:
Is there a list of which platform/games have support for the billboard?
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I don't know of any official list, but I've compiled a list of games that I've discovered here:
VS Billboard Output from Sega ST-V/Model 2/Model 3/NAOMI

It seems that the billboard system was a Joint effort between Sega and Tecmo that Started with the Model 2 Hardware. So far only Sega hardware systems seems to support it (Model 2, Model 3, ST-V, NAOMI, NAOMI2, and Tri-Force) and only games on those systems developed by Sega or Tecmo.

To compile my list I went through the entire NAOMI catalog and tested every Net-bootable, game. for Model 2, Model 3, and ST-V i went through MAME and checked the test menu for output options, and for Tri-Force and other newer systems I looked up service manual information. I did also test Lindbergh on actual hardware but none of the games had support. Similarly none of the Model 1 games or any of Tecmo's other hardware seemed to have any support (also went through other stuff such as CPS2, CPS3, etc.) At the time I didn't own an ST-V so I suppose that now that I have a multi I can do a proper test to vet the games on that system.

There's nothing special hardware wise needed to support the billboard, it's mostly just the support being added in the game code, the hardware just need to have 8 available output pins to send the control signals.
 
Thanks!
Nice list, too bad Dead or Alive 2 on Naomi is not supported, as Dead or Alive 1 on Model 2 is...
But Virtua Tennis with the billboard should be some fun as well :)

I'll definitely follow this project from now on :D
 
Small update... I've been making some good progress on the editor.

the main macro editor UI has been built, currently it allows for creating new or opening existing macros, viewing, editing, removing and inserting steps as well as importing or exporting macros from the program (macros are all stored on the Pi, but if you want to download them for sharing with others or manual editing of the files/re-import them).

Still left to be done:
-work out a bunch of details in the save functionality, mostly sanitization and validation of what you're trying to save and checking that you're not overwriting something you're unaware of
-I'd like to add a "test" button so that any time you can test your macro in progress to see how it plays on the billboard
-I'd like to add a few "tools" such as the ability to quickly made a text scroll by typing what you want scrolled and the program builds the macro for you, as well as the ability to convert a macro for the P1 side to the P2 side, or mirror a macro so that it plays on both sides. and a speed multiplier so you can increase or decrease the speed of every step by a given amount.

In my video I said it'd be out "soon" so I just wanted to let you all know I'm chipping away at it.

Anyone familiar with Git-Hub? I've never use it but I'd like to set this project up there and would be interested in talking with someone about the best way to go about it.
 
The basic macro editor is complete and working well and I've put the source for the billboard commander up on git-hub: https://github.com/twistedsymphony/vs_billboard_commander

I need to figure out how to add the aggrid and jquery mobile libraries to my project, and I'd like to change the output pin configuration to something more sensible. and I'd also like to setup an update script so people can update to new versions of the software through a menu option. Once that's done I'd like to build a image so people can just burn that and not worry about any manual setup.

but If you REALLY want to get this running you'll need to do the following

to install:
-install a Debian Jessie image on an SD card for your Rapberry Pi 3
-install apache server
-install the pigpio library: http://abyz.co.uk/rpi/pigpio/
-download the source from github and place anywhere in /var/www/html/

-build a billboard harness (pins listed in server.py file, you'll want to run the pi from the arcade PSU, or tie grounds together more detailed documentation to come later)



to run:
-start the pigpio service and then run server.py (this should probably be baked into a startup script
-visit the url of your pi in a web browser

EDIT:
Libraries added to git-hub so that removes a few steps.
 
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I recently came across this video, thought it was relevant to the billboard:


for what it's worth some of the letters like X K M and W I just shoot for patterns that are as close as I can get them.
 
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