I'll still pump a few quarters into the GF for you Bill, however until that DM comes back I just can't promise as much (I get bored of GF a lot faster than DM)...
Hope it's fixed soon!
C

I hear our board is coming back early next week.  we will burn it awhile to make sure it will hold up.  Will keep you all posted.  :-)

Do you know details about the damage to the board?  Is it a consistent part (or parts) that keeps burning out or is it something new each time?  Does DM seem to put out higher voltage or amperage through the relevant connectors than GF, which I assume has a similar setup inside?

I don't mean to jump in and try to diagnose it myself, since you guys are always on top of everything, but I'm legitimately curious, personally invested (haven't played DM in a month after improving by leaps and bounds at S-Con), and my dad did a little bit of work on cable/satellite equipment in the past, so I always get especially interested when this kind of stuff comes up again.  Plus I just can't remember if there was a voltmeter laying around in the warehouse (I snoop around everywhere I go, bad habit of mine) when I tested IIDX with Jerrad back in the day, so I want to make sure all the bases are covered.

Bill, keep me updated.  As soon as that DM drops back, I've got $10-20 with your name on it.
Best,
C

Chris, hang on to those quarters.  :-)

It is blowing the input chips for the I/O.  The old system 573 boards were very bullet proof.  This newer system is very sensitive and fragile in comparison.  Anything much over 5 volts through an input will whack this board.  We have already made many modifications to clean up stray voltages coming in from the cabinet.  Dam, the bars holding all the drums are not even grounded from the factory.  A few more mods, and tests, and hope to take it on a test run once again.  Maybe next week?  A good board just arrived today, but we do not want to rush things just to have problems again. 

Yeah Bill, the PS2 based systekms are, reliabilitywise, a huge pile of crap. There's a reason Konami cut them for V4; they're just really unreliable. The good thing is that, as you probably found out, spare parts for the V3 hardware are pretty easy to come by.

I played on the GF V3 at Acme on Saturday. It was great! The volume could do with a little turning up, but everything worked well. There's a bunch of static and crackling on the machine, but I'm not sure how much can be done about that.

TGM also works great as usual, thanks. Looks like those SakuraCon problems haven't returned.

Pop'n had an "out of order" sticker on it but I'm sure that's been called in by now.

Checkin in...

Anyone been at ACME lately or can comment if the DM is back?
Thanks,
C

It's not.

It's still in the shop.  Trying to make double sure nothing is going to fry this latest board once it heads up there.  Hoping soon, but the project is moving slowly. 

Slowly but surely is better than getting it out fast and crappily.
Glad to hear things are at least progressing well.

Same here. At least it's coming back one day!

I'm not being impatient; just like being updated.
Take your time, Bill!

Updates are being made to the Acme Bowl ITG cabinet.

From 7:00pm onwards tomorrow, MAKE SURE TO MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR ITG USB DATA BEFORE YOU USE YOUR DRIVE ON THE MACHINE AGAIN!

You may lose the ability to upload scores directly to GrooveStats if you don't.

wait, are you upgrading it to r23?

Nope. We're adding the ITG3 and ITG Rebirth packs. Themes are coming next week. Expect ITG3, ITG Gold, the J444mes theme, and the ITG Eternity theme. Also expect a few more songs. If anyone has requests...

Boo, Kevin got me excited thinking the DM was back.

Guess it's good news for ITG players though.

Hopefully. Anyway yeah, people should not come at 6:30 expecting to play. The machine will be running Linux at that time. I think we'll be done by 7:00 though.

That's pretty awesome!
You bet it is!

WTF?  I take it this can all be loaded through the USB port?  I only assume as we do not have a tech scheduled to swing by for a door unlock.

We have an ITG3 marquee at the shop.  I wonder if we should use it?

WHY AM I IN COLORADO RIGHT NOW?!?!?!?!?!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!


oh well.
You can expect me to be there the minute I get back to Seattle in July

This makes me uber happy kevin! I've been wondering when that machine was going to be converted to "ITG3"

So Bill, everything was done today and it worked out really well! I'd put the ITG3 marquee up now if you want to. I think it might drum up a little interest. Currently, we have just added the songs from ITG3 and a community made pack of songs called ITG Rebirth. The ITG3 theme and graphics haven't been added yet, but I plan to do so next weekend. As you said, everything can indeed be done with a USB drive and a keyboard without the operator key. The only thing that you might need to keep in mind is that if we add enough songs, the game will start to lag unless you add more RAM to the hardware. We're nowhere near this amount yet, but I'll let you know if that's in danger of happening. I won't add songs that will make the cabinet lag. Instead, I'll just state in the Acme Bowl Custom Song Request thread that requests are closed until the machine has RAM added.

Speaking of this new thread, I'd hereby like to announce the opening of the Acme Bowl Custom Song Request Thread. It works like this:

1. Post in the thread a link to the song that you want added to the machine. Make sure the audio is in the correct format, the SM file works with R21 syncing, and that you have a banner/background file if you don't want a generic one.
2. I'll play the song on my custom ITG build, and tell you if it's appropriate to add to the Acme machine.
3. Barring any weird stuff going on in my life, I'll add the song to the Acme ITG cabinet next time I do a hack-job. This should occur every two weeks, starting today.
4. If you have a song that you want added but don't have the file yourself (or it's a really common file), just post the song name and author and I'll look for it. I have all the DDR song packs converted for hacking, so that should be possible to add immediately.

Other planned hacks currently:
ITG3 Theme
ITG Gold Theme
Theme Switcher (enter a pad code on the main menu, and a menu will pop up letting you switch the theme before your game)
Long Version Hack (Bill, this is highly relevant to you. People can no longer abuse the custom song feature in the game to play 20 minute long songs. If they do so, they will count as 3 songs much like the long versions in GuitarFreaks and Drummania.)
Song Wheel Speed Hack (speed up the song wheel to make scrolling less painful)
Custom Speed Mods
Custom Rate Mods
Custom Marathons (some are theoretically on the machine, but I didn't check to see if they work or not).

Most of this stuff should happen NEXT WEEKEND if I'm lucky.

i heard the itg screen is all crispy again

The new packs are interesting, but I must say the double charts are worse than MJ's in a lot of cases.  If anyone actually has good double charts or knows how to write them, there's definitely a need at the moment.

Expert double charts to be more specific... the hard ones seemed to be ok; but most simfile makers can't write any doubles worth anything.

The machine should add interest for anyone who didn't like the previous song list, step charts, or just wants some new variety; but it definitely needs to have a new marquee/interface to signal to people that there was a change that happened and it's not just the old machine anymore.

Any yes, the screen is crispy again. Amber was very ecstatic about this.

PS: Some community fliers were also placed on the machines again since the old ones were gone.