New Life Games Tech Forums

Since all the cool kids are making videos these days, I got out my camera and made a video of my jukebox from boot up to shut down.  I wanted to show how the front end program works with the different applications.
My camera didn't capture enough detail to read the screen, but it gets the point across.

Some background info on the clip:
I power the cabinet on and off with a remote power switch.  I bought this from someone who got a box of them off ebay.
The PC bios has been set to turn on when power is applied, so when the power strip in the cabinet comes on the computer will turn on.
While the PC is booting and the jukebox is loading you may hear some crunching sounds.  This is our cat, who decided she needed a snack while I was filming.

Software notes:
I'm using SimpleTouchFE as the 'front end' program - it's freeware.  I've got it in the startup folder, so the PC starts it automatically:
http://home.online.no/~llindga/ (http://home.online.no/~llindga/)

The jukebox program I use is E-Touch - free demo, $25 to purchase full version that won't time out after a half hour of use:
http://www.freeboxjukebox.com/Forum/index.php (http://www.freeboxjukebox.com/Forum/index.php)

Slot programs by Masque Publishing - around $20 per title:
http://www.masque.com/ (http://www.masque.com/)

Misc. games by Pop Cap Games - not all are touchscreen friendly:
http://www.popcap.com (http://www.popcap.com)

Enough of the yapping, here's the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rNvk-CZKJs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rNvk-CZKJs)

Paladin,
That's really cool!  :131- :131- :131- :3-
You made that?
Can you show us the cabinet and everything?
I like that! :89- :89- :89- :89- :183- :184-

I didn't make the cabinet, it started life as a touch screen kiosk at a community college.  I bought it just as the cabinet with a power strip, 3 fans and a worn out 17" CRT touch screen monitor.  I put in a 19" LCD touch screen, added a computer system with speakers and covered the hole in front with metal grill and speaker cloth.  It turned out better than I thought it would.

My web page has a write up on the conversion process:
http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/kiosk (http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/kiosk)

START
(http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/kiosk/images/kiosk01.jpg)

END
(http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/kiosk/images/kiosk10.jpg)

INSIDE
(http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/kiosk/images/kiosk11.jpg)

Of course the secret ingredient is a talented cat that can operate a computer.  You can see her in that last shot, she was stepping out for a lunch break. :97-

That looks great! I'm doing similar..using a case from a old VLC 8825 thats in very nice condition.Stripped it completely,going to put the CPU in the bottom, the ELO screen where the CRT was and the Audio power amp in the top.Keyboard will be wireless USB.
The folks at www.geeks.com have some nice SMALL HP desktop machines running at 3.0Ghz with a fresh load of XP for $149.95
they are USED..but in nice shape. Bought one from them with Ubuntu Linux on it last year...still running strong.
It should be fine for this application.

K+ for your sharing and links to the software!

Kirk

That sounds like a great deal on the PC.  It cost me $80 just for XP Home OEM at the local Fry's. 

The PC is a 3ghz P4 with a 256MB video card and Soundblaster Audigy sound card.  The speakers are a 2.1 Creative setup, with a set of S2000 slot speakers added to the sides.  The other 2 speakers are mounted behind the touch screen pointing out 2 round air vents pointing at the wall behind the cabinet at an angle.  The sub is pointing out the 12x4 inch opening in the front door.

Link to GEEKS.COM corrected......what the hell was i thinking...jeesh!

Paladin, I see that you've already disabled the active desktop. :3-  It occurred to me that since that PC is dedicated to your jukebox/slot platform, you might want to try the following steps to lower your operating system overhead and to free up resources to improve performance:

• Remove all of the icons from your desktop.
• Remove any TSRs that aren't essential (I see several icons loading in your system tray on the lower right of your taskbar)

           This would include any anti-virus software, WinDoze Defender, firewall, and update, as well as any other automatic updates running in the background.
           (Do NOT disable these if you keep the system connected to the internet to get the album covers!)
           You may want to check for and disable other nonessential TSRs that don't appear in the sys tray.

• Go through all of your processes and disable all those that won't be needed for your applications (that would be a significant number of them).

           (Set them to "Disabled", don't just set them to "Manual".)


Some of our other computer gurus may have a few more suggestions to maximize your system's performance.

BTW, THANKS for posting the pictures and video of your project!  :3-  
I guess that I should have posted that first.  :5- :25-   Silly me..  :200- :31- :97- :97-
It also seems that I should have given the instructions to your talented cat.  :71-  Please pass them along from my cats to yours.. :79-

I've always wanted to look into stripping down a Win install, but it was never that high on my priority list.  When I see how long it takes to boot it makes me want to do it, but once it's up and running everything runs fine and I decide that it's not necessary.  It's a great idea, and I'll see if I can bump it up the list!

Paladin...

That is truly a remarkable set-up.  You are making many of us very jeolous.

PS~ It's all about the Floyd dude!!!  Nice selection of tunes.

Jim

You have 3 button externally - that I saw you pressing in the video. What are they and what are they wired to ?

It appeared that the two smaller buttons were Volume -- up and down. The large button is a spin button.. could it be slot-related? :128-

This is how you handle mechanical buttons in a MAME enviorment.....

http://retroblast.arcadecontrols.com/reviews/keywiz.html (http://retroblast.arcadecontrols.com/reviews/keywiz.html)   

You simply program this interface to "emulate" keystrokes when you give it switch closures.

So closing contacts 1 and 2 can equate to pressing the "+" key on a keyboard (Volume UP)
Closing contacts 3 and 4 can equate to pressing "-" volume down....

ETC ETC..........

Hope this sheds some light on this. Yes..I have one ready for the VLC cabinet project, HP Pentium computer is on the way.ELO screens are here....next winter time project.


Kirk

Kirk's got it.  I've got an Ultimarc I-Pac interface wired to the slot button, so it sends a space bar to the computer when pressed.  The space bar = repeat bet in the slot programs.  I also have up and down arrows hooked up to the small black and red buttons, which send the up and down keys to the freeware program 'VolumeTray' that allows mouse or keystrokes to control Windows volume (works on XP, not Vista).  The I-Pac and KeyWiz are the same type interface, made by two different people.  I had the I-Pac handy, so that's what I used.

The hardest part of the whole project was getting my MP3 tags in order.  The E-Touch jukebox program gets its info from MP3 tags, and mine were missing lots of info.  I used another freeware program called 'MP3Tag' to automatically/manually fix the tags.  I also used a program called 'albumartdownloader' to get the album covers I was missing.

FANTASTIC JOB...    :89- :89- :89-   Hats off to you...  :3- :3- :3-    K+

One question, In the video You seem to have some kind of menu system set up to choose between the jukebox and the slot games... what did you use for this?..    :103- :103- :103- as this is where I am stuck in making mine!

See quote below...


Dan #2

I have a fairly simple question...
With this set-up,
can you play Pink Floyd from the music catalog
while you're playing a slot machine program?
If so, I wanna make one! :72-

I bet you could! set it up as a dual screen and run the jukebox on one display while you play the slots on the other.......


Kirk

The only issue is that the XP volume only controls the 'master' volume.  So if the music is at a decent level, the slot sounds are too loud (at least for me).  You can turn off the audio in the slots programs, though.  You couldn't use that menu program, as it only runs one application at a time.  What I did was start the jukebox program from the desktop and load the queue with what I wanted to listen to, then minimize it and start the slot program.  So it is possible, with the limiting factor of the volume.

I've never run dual screens, so I don't know if the volume control also splits across.

From what I understand, Vista will let you control volume for each application that's running - although I haven't tried it and don't plan on changing the operating system on the jukebox.

On one screen you have the audio properties open and move the sliders for each "input" seperately :)
You can set up the screens to mirror or be totally seperate and can drag the mouse across from one to the other.
I will try it this weekend and see if I can get it to work on both screens full time.



Kirk

The separate volume sliders in the Windows XP control are not program-specific. One controls all Wave sources, another, all Software Synth sources, another, CD player volume, etc., and while many programs have their own volume controls built-in, it is all too common for them to simply affect either the Windows master volume or the specific Windows sub-volume (usually the Wave).

It is also likely that the ripped/downloaded music files and the sounds from the slot game would both be tied to the Wave sub-volume. However, there are some programs that do design their volume controls to affect only the output of the program, which would be ideal for this setup. You would have check this with each program installed by lowering the volume in the program and then checking all of the Windows slider levels to see if they were affected. You could also simply change the volume in the slot program with the jukebox running and see if it has an effect on the music volume.

Great job on the juke box I have a question I installed a LCD touch screen in a CDS slot it brings up the game great but the touch screen dont work it needs the drivers installed I can put the touch screen on my computer and works great Any ideas on how to get the drivers loaded to the slot so the touch screen work .    Thanks Paul

Sorry Paul, that's way over my head as I've never even played a CDS slot much less worked on one!  I'd post the message in the slot tech or CDS forum.  I'm sure you'll get an answer there.