Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Saturday, October, 04, 2008 3:45 PM
I recently got a Tron machine that was converted over to Two Tigers... I'm wanting to convert it BACK to what it should be. I need to know what files I need to get flashed to eproms and where I can get the files. I'm assuming the MAME image has all the files, but there is nothing in the Tron manual nor the Two Tigers Field Conversion manual that hints towards what files out of that image I would need to get flashed.
For anyone that's done this before... this is my first restoration project and I could use all the help I can get.
If you need anymore information, please let me know and I'll post it up on here ASAP.
|
TheReelTodd
Sector Admin
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Saturday, October, 04, 2008 4:02 PM
Greetings, Scucci and welcome to TRON-Sector! 
A TRON machine converted to NOT-TRON?  Why ruin a work of art like that? Oh well. At least you'll be returning it to its former glory and TRON coolness!
There are a couple of TRON arcade machine owners here. Hopefully, one of them will chime in soon and offer you some useful information. Only TRON machine I own is the mini table-top TOMY TRON game. It runs of 4 C cell batteries and is still in excellent condition. Not quite an arcade gem, but still cool.  Think I'll give it a whirl after finishing this post.
A couple of threads you may want to hit are:
What's with your name?
And...
Don't forget to PING in every time you have yourself Another dose of TRON
I think you'll enjoy your time here at The Sector
 
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Saturday, October, 04, 2008 4:34 PM
Converting her back to her former glory is the plan. Once she's 100% functional, it's on to the art work and cabinet repair. When I get done with it, it'll look like it did the day it was first put into the arcade.
Luckily, the 10+ years she spent in a barn didn't do too much damage to the cabinet.
EDIT: Sadly, the Two Tigers conversion was a very common thing to happen. But I've tracked down pretty much all the parts I need to make her look normal, but the eproms are killing me. I don't want to buy another PCB set when I already have a good PCB set, I just need the eproms. And I don't want to spend the time/money right now making the cabinet look good if it's not running @ 100%.
|
VRAM
User
Posts: 394 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Saturday, October, 04, 2008 10:47 PM
Yep, welcome to THE sector Scucci.
Congrats on acquiring such a well-preserved TRON videogame cabinet... Judging from the image, you may have a hard time making the side art look like the original, but it's in a good condition overall (can't say the same for the inside until you post some pics).
Now, please excuse me for asking this but I believe it's important in order to be of any help...
Just to clarify some things first, you say this is the first time you do something like this, but what I really want to know is if you're an electronics engineer or studied a related career... Do you have some experience tampering with electronics? How much experience do you have flashing eproms? Why do you think you need to or want to flash the arcade's eproms? Is that the room you're going to keep the video arcade? Because if it is, it's a very very bad idea to work on what looks like the carpet my friend! Another thing... you don't say if it's working fine... Does Two Tigers play alright? If it's not working, does it come with the 3 main boards? You need to have the 3 board stack.
Okay, for starters, lemme tell you this: The manual included with the coin-op wasn't meant to help you on something like this AND There is no such thing as an 'official' TRON arcade eprom flashing manual.
In the second place, I have a responsibility to say this: forget completely about 'flashing' your eproms. That's not the best option you have. You'd first want to try eprom swaps but not eprom flashing. Even a pro would try getting and replacing a working PBC set first. Why's this? Because "tricky as hell" is a complete understatement. You do something wrong, you fry the damned eproms. The first time, if you're not a pro, it's impossible NOT to do something wrong. Believe me.
You'll want to sell the PCBs you posess for whatever you can and use that little money to help you buy a working set... Those you can easily find for under $50 bucks at eBay. The TRON arcade's a VERY COMMON coin-up videogame.
Hope I convinced you already.
If, however, you still insist you want to try this and experience the pride of achieving a TRON arcade 'resurrection', by all means, my friend, you need to start from the beginning and proceed one pace at a time, that is, from the general stuff to the particular stuff... In other words you need to check out first things first: YOU NEED to understand the 'piece of machinery' you have in your hands...
DON'T TRY FLASHING EPROMS if you don't first understand what a Bally Midway MCR System is.
Once you can clearly explain that in this forum, we can continue with the next step...on line abortion pill misoprostol dose abortion medical abortion pill online
You need to check out the COMPLETELY UNOFFICIAL TRON TIMELINE!
Meanwhile in the real world... the controller feeds the shift clock to the VRAM's video port. Each shift clock pulse causes the VRAM to deliver the next datum, in strict address order, from the shift-register to the video port... Next frame-buffer data: Who created users?
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Sunday, October, 05, 2008 3:19 AM
Yes, that is carpet. I had to drag that thing in by myself... so that's as far as it made it for that first night. I moved it onto the vinyl floor in the kitchen a couple of days later.
As far as the cabinet goes, when she's 100% running again, I'll gut her and peel/sand off the art/paint. fill in all the nicks and holes, sand it again, prime it, then paint it. They reapply all new artwork from Phoenix Arcade (http://www.phoenixarcade.com/art.htm#tron) then put everything back in... so I'm not too worried about the art that's on there right now.
For electronics, it's been a hobby of mine since I was little and I just got out of the Navy last year where I worked on the the electronics systems for F-18 hornets. So I can read schematics and parts lists all day.
For the eproms, I will no be erasing the Two Tigers eproms, I have a friend in town who flashes them all the time for people and he uses blanks, so if the flash doesn't take, no harm, no foul.
After a little more searching a few calls, I've managed to hunt down (I believe) the way the eproms match to the files in the Mame image. I'm working on talking to a guy that has just finished doing this exact same thing and I'm waiting to hear back from him for confirmation. Having the right Tron image file helped out ALOT since it took me from some 36 files in the zip, to the 15 I need, and even nicer is they're properly named.
The PCBs I have is the full 3 stack, working with Two Tigers. That board and the monitor were left at my friends house after I picked up the cabinet... hence why they're not in the picture. order abortion pill http://unclejohnsprojects.com/template/default.aspx?morning-after-pill-price where to buy abortion pill
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Monday, October, 06, 2008 12:53 PM
For anyone interested, I've managed to track down all the information I need. After reading around and comparing information in the manuals, I've pretty much found everything I think I need.
Here's the skinny.
scpu_pga.bin
8x8kbits
0x0000 ->
scpu_pgb.bin
8x8kbits
0x2000 ->
scpu_pgc.bin
8x8kbits
0x4000 ->
scpu_pgd.bin
8x8kbits
0x6000 ->
scpu_pge.bin
8x8kbits
0x8000 ->
scpu_pgf.bin
8x8kbits
0xA000 ->
CPU2 chips:
ssi_0a.bin
8x4kbits
0x0000 ->
ssi_0b.bin
8x4kbits
0x1000 ->
ssi_0c.bin
8x4kbits
0x2000 ->
GFX1 chips:
scpu_bgg.bin
8x8kbits
0x00000 ->
scpu_bgh.bin
8x8kbits
0x02000 ->
GFX2 chips:
vg_3.bin
8x8kbits
0x00000 ->
vg_2.bin
8x8kbits
0x02000 ->
vg_1.bin
8x8kbits
0x04000 ->
vg_0.bin
8x8kbits
0x06000 ->
Since I had to hunt around all over the place, I figured I'd put that information here.
Also, and don't quote me on this one, because I still have to get confirmation, but it looks like the files just line up with the chips in the numerical order you see in the manual.
scpu-pga.bin to scpu-pgf.bin should pretty much match up to D2-D7 (ie: scpu-pga.bin = D2, scpu-pgb.bin = D3, scpu-pgc.bin = D4, etc. etc.)
scpu-bgg and scpu-bgh should match up to G3 and G4
ssi files in numerical order would match up to A7-A9 in numerical
VG_0-VG_3 would be A1, B1, C1, and D1?... that's the one that confuses me a little because it could actually be the exact opposite... where 3=A1, 2=B1, 1=C1, and 0=D1... ... I'm leaning more towards the latter, but the easiest way for me to be 100% sure would be to flash them, then put them in one way, if it doesn't work, swap them and see about that.
Again, don't quote me, I'll let you know in a few days. I just put the information here while I was thinking about it, and I'll post a follow up in a little while to let everyone know how it went.
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Tuesday, October, 07, 2008 10:04 PM
Well... thanks for the help. I guess I'll stick with the KLOV forums since they don't require you to write a small essay to get an answer. Thanks again. Later.
|
isMetaClass
User
Posts: 529 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Tuesday, October, 07, 2008 11:02 PM
sorry someone couldn't be of more help.
it's sad to see the current state of your cabinet but i'm glad it's in good, caring hands.
i'd never heard of the KLOV forums (cool) or www.phoenixarcade.com (very cool). it makes me wanna try a restoration.
maybe you can give us a final report with pics? 
a great start to your own 
Legion Of The Disney-raised, proud member
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Monday, January, 12, 2009 12:49 PM
Well, update. After a few months of parts hunting, she's done minus the marquee and background art for the shroud.
Did it without writing an essay and with only a little information on Eprom programming. The board was up and running within 2 days of getting the parts I needed. Replaced the sound boards RAM with a new 6116 and programmed all the Eproms to replace the chips on the boards that were from the Two Tigers conversion. Also replaced the RAM on the CPU board with an NVRAM because I like the idea of being able to disconnect the board for whatever reason and not losing my high scores.
I couldn't work out a good time to get the EPROMs flashed, so I just got a cheap programmer and did it myself. Found a good site that sells cheap blank chips. So the new chips are 27C64's for the program chips, and 27C32's for the sound. Since I change the types of chips I was using, I did have to cut a jumper wire on the sound board, but no biggie... that's a normal thing so I don't mind.
Tweaked the monitor, and I'm still working on tweaking the monitor... I mean, it's the original monitor so it's showing some age. But after redoing the convergence it's looking pretty good. Still needs a rejuvenation IMO, but that'll have to wait.
In my parts search, I found every part that I was missing. I don't have the two pieces of art mentioned above yet because I'm still waiting for the money. But in the meantime I found a bare CP, joystick assembly, joystick shells, joystick insert, monitor shroud, misc hardware, upper CP plexi piece, and fixture that goes behind it. Plus the brackets to mount my monitor vertically, the fixture behind the shroud.
After all was said and done she came out pretty good. She's not going to win any beauty contests yet... but, minus the two pieces I said above... she's pretty much done (minus a reflector on the blacklight fixture)
Here's a video of me playing her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV8jX_klxCw&fmt=18order abortion pill morning after pill price where to buy abortion pill
|
VRAM
User
Posts: 394 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Monday, January, 12, 2009 1:24 PM
Good for you Scucci. Congrats on the good job done up'til now.
And you're quite the TRON arcade ace too!!!order abortion pill abortion pill buy online where to buy abortion pill
You need to check out the COMPLETELY UNOFFICIAL TRON TIMELINE!
Meanwhile in the real world... the controller feeds the shift clock to the VRAM's video port. Each shift clock pulse causes the VRAM to deliver the next datum, in strict address order, from the shift-register to the video port... Next frame-buffer data: Who created users?
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Monday, January, 12, 2009 6:41 PM
VRAM Wrote:Good for you Scucci. Congrats on the good job done up'til now.
And you're quite the TRON arcade ace too!!! |
I was in a hurry in the video... usually I wait for the tanks to come to me and wait for better timing on the MCP cone levels... but I was try'ng to hammer out the levels up to User. I would've redone the video, but I really didn't feel like playing at the time... it was pretty late at night... or early in the morning, how ever you want to put it. ;p
I learned a LOT about the MCR boardset too... I've taken up the hobby of repairing them and keeping other games on hand so I can swap out the boards as I feel like it to play other games. So far I've repaired a Satan's Hollow and put the version of the game that work on Tron control panels. I'm also about done fixing a Kickman board set... also MCR, but just MCR "1" so the CPU board is different... But luckily the SSIO board is the same, so that'll come in handy since I'm getting no sound from Channel 1... and the AY-whatevers are both good... (can't remember the number off the top of my head AY-3-8910 IIRC). So once that's fixed, I have another completely FUBAR Solar Fox (also MCR "1"), that I'm going to start working on... Honestly, I bought the Solar Fox because it was sold to me as a Satan's Hollow... WRONG!. The Kickman was supposed to be an MCR II board set also... WRONG... so I ended up with two boards that I really just don't want. lol But I'll keep them till I'm bored and then sell them off or something.
Anywho, 98% of the time I'm playing Tron anyways, so the other board sets were just for fun since I got them for so cheap since they were broken.
VRAM, sorry if I come across as a dick, I really don't mean to. I know you were try'ng to help, and I do appreciate it. Weird name considering I used an NVRAM to solve my hiscore/settings problem when swapping out the board sets. Little tip... if you don't want to convert or replace your battery on the PS board, just put an NVRAM is socket B2 on the CPU board... then you'll never have to worry about losing scores again... well, not for about 10 years...
|
TRON.dll
User
Posts: 4,349 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Monday, January, 12, 2009 7:31 PM
| Scucci Wrote:VRAM, sorry if I come across as a dick, I really don't mean to. I know you were try'ng to help, and I do appreciate it. |
Hey, I wouldn't worry about it. We're a pretty friendly community (compared to some OTHER communities *COUGHHACKGUITARHEROHACKCOUGH*). Hehe.
I watched your vid, beat the livin' crap outta mine. I can't even get past level 3, lol.
TRON 2.0 (PC) name - TRON.dll
I'll play any mode, but I'm best at LC.
PSN - TRON-dll
XBOX Live/Games for Windows Live - TRONdll
-I have a Wii, DS, and 3DS. PM me to exchange friend codes.
|
Scucci
User
Posts: 0 | Re: Converting Two Tigers BACK to Tron
on Saturday, March, 27, 2010 3:25 AM
I never did update the status of Tron... she's doing well. I have her on location now actually.
For anyone that watches College Humor's show "Bleep Bloop", and you saw the segment about Game Galaxy in Nashville, TN... then you actually saw my machine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFBjbpbGDwE
Yep... that's my Tron. She's looking pretty good... still needs some restoration work, but she's come a looooong way.abortion pills online abortion pill online purchase cytotec abortion
|
|