Chazz

I've never been able to get 'Zorgons Kingdom' working, it always crashes with a file not found error. Has anyone ever been able to get this one going?

Brilliant! That worked perfectly Nologic! Thanks for the tip!

Exactly. I have a bunch of Game Over batch files I've made for different animations. I'd like to run one randomly when you're returned to the game list. GameEx doesn't necessarily need to be the one doing the randomizing, I just wasn't sure if there was some little app that could run a random file in a directory.

Anyone know how to run a random batch file when GameEx returns from a game?

Well I've made some major progress. It seems as that although the Betabrite will work with the Alpha sign, it doesn't seem to work 100%. I have a Qbasic program to generate my .LCD files and I use the following to setup the file for the sign: ]!Z00]"AB]1942 (set 1)]$ I've also been trying to get the plug-in to work, but I'm getting this error:

Hey Headkaze, With the help you gave me in the other thread I have both signs working perfectly with the .LCD files. My next step was to try to use my GIFs at the GameEx menu, and the LCD files when the game is running. Right now I just have a GAMEOVER.LCD file that displays a simple Game Over text, but I'd rather be able to run a random GIF than just the basic text. I tried looking at the .LCD files, but had no idea what did what: ?00AAoMario Bros. 2-way Joystick (Horizontal)1:Jump I couldn't figure anything out from the files, and I tried reading the manual, but I didn't even have a clue as to how to write the ASCII. I was able to use the software the Alpha sign comes with to send message to the sign to save the output to a file. I can now use this text file to load the GIF which is working great. So now I can load LCD files, AND I can load a GIF... but now I run into my next problem. With a GIF loaded, when you run a game the LCD file loads, but it doesn't look like it's unloading the GIF. It only loads half the text, then shows the GIF again. Thanks again Headkaze for listening to my ramblings.

All that works great for sending the pre-made .LCD files that were generated, I guess I'm just looking to get fancy now. I can make my own .LCD for the Prolite sign, but I have no idea what I'm doing with the BetaBrite protocol (all that ascii stuff??). I have an Alpha 4120 sign, which is compatible with the BetaBrite sign, but I have no idea how to load a GIF to the sign with a .LCD file. I have my two signs working great. When playing a game the top sign shows the name of the game, and the bottom sign shows the controls. When I return to the menu I'd like the top sign to say Game Over (that works now), and I'd like the bottom sign to load one of my arcade graphics. Thanks for putting up with me HeadKaze!!

This is kinda off topic, but I know some people here are doing some work with the Betabrite LED signs. I was wondering if anyone knew how to send a GIF to the sign with a batch file, or copy a text file to the sign to load the GIF. What I'd like is to have the game info displayed using the LED Plug in when the game is started, but load a GIF when back at the menu (a Game Over, or Select Game GIF). Thanks! ~ Chazz

My Betabrite sign works fine in the plug-in setup test, and the LCDTest works great too, but nothing works when I try to run a game. Any idea's or tips? Thanks!

I have a Prolite sign that's working great using the 'Run On Launch' option to send the game text to the sign. I'd really like to use the plugin for my sign, but the settings for the sign are 300,n,8,1 and I can't change the settings for the plugin to go below 9600. Any ideas? Thanks a billion!

Hey Headkaze, The command line worked excatly as you said, I didn't have to change a thing. As for Image Magick, I just gave it a try and I'm not having much luck. I resized a marquee to 120x16 and saved it, but nothing seems to be saved. It saves it as a blank file (0 bytes). Could you try resizing one and let me know what you come up with? Also, how would I convert the colors to only Red, Yellow, and Green? Thanks!

Hey Atari800, I have about 10 animated marquees that I've done. They take a few hours to a day to do, depending on what it is. There are programs that will resize images for you, but I doubt it will work with the sign. Resizing any image to 120x16 will look crappy, that's why I had to draw all mine from scratch. Here are all my GRAPHICS. The sign has the basic animations like wipe, slide, split, and stuff like that. It doesn't really put off too much heat, a little warm, but not hot. And I'm not sure how much it weighs, but it's not light.

IT WORKS!!! Sending the file to the COM port with Run on Launch works perfectly!!! Thank you so much Headkaze!!! I didn't think it would be that simple!!! I'll take some pics later tonight! Thanks again!!

Only the Alpha sign uses the GIFs which is just an slideshow of the graphics I've done. You couldn't just grab any image and send it to the sign unless it was 120x16. The Pro-Lite is the one that I'd like to have interactive with GameEx as I did with MameWah. The LCD files are just simple text files that get copied to the COM port. Here's an example for Vs. Super Mario Bros. SUPRMRIO.LCD = <ID01><PA>Vs. Super Mario Bros. I have all the LCD files for every game in a LCD folder with Mame.

Hey Bazzman, These are the only graphics I have made so far. If you have any requests I might be able to do up some new graphics. I use Photoshop to do the graphics, and for the animated images I use Photoshop and Flash. It's can be tricky to draw the graphics, but If you have the time it can be fun. The hard part is drawing the image when you're limited to only 120x16 pixels and 3 colors. This is the real size of the GIFs >

Thanks for the interest guys!! I have two signs connected to my Cab. The top one is a Pro-Lite, and the bottom one is a Alpha 4200. With MameWah I was able to use the LCD Files with the Pro-Lite sign using the COM port. As Atari800 said it's easy to send a LCD file using the excat command line he mentioned. Is there an easy way to do this with GameEx? Can this be done with a batch file? The bottom sign is a Alpha 4200 which I can use animated GIFs with. I've made a bunch of arcade related graphics for the sign : Graphics

A few more pics

Is it possible to use the LCD Files with GameEx? I had it working great with MameWah on my Pro-Lite, but the LCD Smartie Plug-in doesn't seem to support this sign. Thanks!

Setting up the shift button worked great! Thanks guys! I read about the shift key, but I wasn't excatly sure how it worked. You guys explained it perfectly. The other issuse is just when you got a bunch of kids around the cab and one is trying to select a game from the list, and the other kids are messing around with the other controls it can be a pain. It would be nice just to be able to use the joystick to navagate the list (and of course the shift button!) Thanks again everyone. ~ Chazz

Just a quick question maybe someone can help me out with. I'm running GameEx on my cab using an Ipac, so all my buttons are mapped to letters, which means when someone hits P2-Button 3 it would jump to 'Q', or if you hit P1-Button 4 it will jump to 'M' (I think you get what I'm getting at). First I'd like to know if I can disable the option of jumping to a letter on the list when typing letters. I'd only like to be able to navagate the list with the joystick... ...except, I'd like to have my P1-Button 1 be the PageUp button, the my P1-Button 2 to be PageDown. Is this possible? Thanks!! ~ Chazz