Pole Position MAME Conversion - Video Added

[InsaneDavid]

Update:

Videos are up of the cabinet booting, some over all video, and the game running, take a look...

Pole Positon MAME Conversion - Part 1.

Pole Positon MAME Conversion - Part 2.

Turning a qualifying lap.

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Last night I noticed there was an ad on craigslist for a Pole Position cabinet that needed some work for $100. Turns out the guy was a couple blocks down the road and someone I knew from the local flea market. I went over to take a look and it was in overall fair condition but as he said, it didn't work. I managed to get it for $50 and hauled it home. It has the typical chared PCB found in most Pole Position games so out it went and while looking at the condition of the internals I realized I'd rather gut it than attempt to rebuild it. So out everything came with the exception of the control surfaces as the cabinet itself and the control panel are in great condition.

I'd like to turn this machine into a deluxe Pole Position cabinet with both Pole Position games as well as the US and Japanese versions. (may also slip Championship Sprint in there too) So in other words it's going to become a MAME cabinet even though I'm going to leave the original Pole Position artwork in tact - besides, I've always loved the Pole Position bezel.

I want to use all the existing stuff for controls, so I'm going to need to hack the steering wheel. I have plenty of experience with the software side of MAME but next to none with the hardware end. Has anyone here performed one of these conversions or know of a place where I can get some ideas from someone who has? Of course I have the same questions about the accelerator pedal.

Right now I'm looking at an Ultimarc Opti-Pac for the wheel and an I-Pac2 for the pedal, shifter, coin mechs, and anything else that comes to mind. I've heard of cheap hacks for the wheel, if anyone's done one please let me know as well - I'm trying to budget out the project right now and cutting my bill at Ultimarc in half would be nice. Thanks!

Here are some pictures after gutting the machine and the initial wipedown / vacuum, my apologies for how dark they are, I took them at dusk...


Over all condition is good, graphics are a little peely at the bottom but I'm okay with that. Has the usual wear and scratches here and there but is 97% in tact.


Marquee, machine front, and control panel are all great. There's a little wear to the control panel (and of course cigarette burns all over the place above it) but the graphics are nice. Will need to derust the bots though.


The bezel is beautiful but I'll have to replace that cardboard piece inside. I'm simply going to rebuild the top section out of matching black cardstock / posterboard.

[Hovoc]

you want to run a mame cabinet out of this? wouldnt it maybe be easier to set up to run one of those multi pcb riser boards?

i think this was the link....

http://www.multigame.com/jamma.html

[InsaneDavid]

you want to run a mame cabinet out of this? wouldnt it maybe be easier to set up to run one of those multi pcb riser boards?

i think this was the link....

http://www.multigame.com/jamma.html

It would if Pole Position was based around a JAMMA architecture but it's not. Pole Position uses a uniqe (and problematic) boardset that can pretty much only be converted to Pole Position II, which is slightly less problematic. From a technical standpoint Pole Position was very poorly engineered for lasting in the long haul. The gigantic twin boardset with a multitude of custom IC's proved to be very temperamental and unreliable. Also pretty much the entire wiring loom on my machine would need to be replaced as it was excessively worn in many places. Throw in a power supply that's obviously been overhauled a couple times and the MAME route becomes a better choice.

I know any cabinet can be fixed but if I wanted a fully restored Pole Position I'd save up the cash and either buy one further along or go into the project with the full restoration costs in mind. I don't want to toss down that kind of cash though. (maybe for a Starblade or sitdown twin Virtua Racing however ) I really just wanted a nice original cabinet to start with for a MAME conversion at a good price and that's what I found. Also of note, the monitor has a manufacture date in the late 80's so it's probably at least the second one the machine has had - pretty bad burn in but I'd give it a 70% chance that it works. I'm going to toss the display out for $10 at a yard sale next month but it'll probably end up leaving with someone for free.

It's also not going to be a fully fledged MAME cabinet, more like a deluxe Pole Position cabinet as I mentioned in the first post. Guess you could call it Pole Position Collection or something like that. I also love Championship Sprint and this is the right setup for that game as well. Hmmm... Turbo uses this setup too... okay, it'll probably end up with a handful of classic driving games but primarly I'm converting this to run Pole Position and Pole Position II under MAME.

I do think those JAMMA multigame boards like the one Flack put in his Aero Fighters cabinet are badass though.

[Hovoc]

It would if Pole Position was based around a JAMMA architecture but it's not. Pole Position uses a uniqe (and problematic) boardset that can pretty much only be converted to Pole Position II, which is slightly less problematic. From a technical standpoint Pole Position was very poorly engineered for lasting in the long haul. The gigantic twin boardset with a multitude of custom IC's proved to be very temperamental and unreliable. Also pretty much the entire wiring loom on my machine would need to be replaced as it was excessively worn in many places. Throw in a power supply that's obviously been overhauled a couple times and the MAME route becomes a better choice.

ah, rock on then

[Leo_A]

How would you play Championship Sprint? Its been a while, but I thought the Pole Position wheel wasn't free spinning?

[InsaneDavid]

How would you play Championship Sprint? Its been a while, but I thought the Pole Position wheel wasn't free spinning?

It is.

[8-bitNesMan]

Cool project! Keep us informed as to your progress. Good luck to you!

[XYXZYZ]

I think I'd go the MAME route myself, it's the easiest way to get the most game-age out of that machine.

Making a Pole Position collection machine is a great idea, but you've got to be able to sneak a little Outrun in there on the side, when no one's looking...

[InsaneDavid]

I replaced the steering optics with a board out of a mouse last night and after a little adjustment in MAME it works accurate to how I remember Pole Position being. I decided against using the original optics due to age and wear, again, throughout the entire machine. Also saved me $45 on an Opti-Pac. I think I've figured out a way to get the mouse board to run EVERYTHING the machine will need, but I have to do a little more research.



Pedals and shifter can go through the mouse buttons, that way the primary controls are all on the same line. I'm going to change the pedal to button based instead of pot based but still leave everything in tact. This is all around easier, won't require an A-Pac, and besides - I can play Pole Position fine pumping the accelerator lightly in hard turns. I may go back and put in the analog acceleration later (why I'm keeping everything original) but that depends on how much I use my cabinet.

Next step is to clean up the shifter and the entire control panel, then remove the pedal assembly and give it a good cleaning / repair / digital modification.

[InsaneDavid]

After another night of basic reliability testing I have Pole Position running spot on in DOS MAME. (qualifying well, weaving in and out of traffic, racing competitively) I tried Championship Sprint which worked well but runs too slow on the ancient laptop I'm using as a test bed to see if there's any sense in continuing this project. I think there is. After all, I spent almost two hours playing tonight in the cobbled together state in the picture above.

Why use DOS MAME? Well there are a few reasons such as speed since I'm going to be using a PII 350MHz boardset in the cabinet that I have lying around, but the big one is ease of power off. With DOS I can just kill power to the cabinet to shut it off - no shutdown proceedure required. The system will have Windows98 SE installed but will boot directly to DOS command prompt. I've decided against adding any buttons to the cabinet and the coin mechs will run off a single-key keyboard hack. The entire keyboard will be inside the coin door, however. Why? Well, this is simple...

When the system is turned on Pole Position will automatically load via a batch file. Nothing will be different from how it was in the arcade. As the "arcade operator" I can open the coin door and exit MAME via the keyboard inside. Upon exiting MAME a list will come up in DOS of all the games on the cabinet. Simply type in the number next to the corresponding game, and it loads up. This is all accomplished through DOS batch files. Close and lock the coin door and things are back to stock original. I suppose it's equivalent to a board swap in a normal arcade cabinet but it's done faster and through software.

If they'll run on my hardware setup, I've worked out that the following games should be playable without any modification or addition to the Pole Position control panel...

Pole Position (requires MAME recompile for proper shift handling - always in LO gear, button down for HI)
Pole Position II (requires MAME recompile for proper shift handling - always in LO gear, button down for HI)
Championship Sprint (pedal used for start as well)
Super Sprint (pedal used for start as well)
Turbo (requires MAME recompile for proper shift handling - always in LO gear, button down for HI)
Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat (shifter used for nitro)
Super Off-Road (shifter used for nitro)
OutRun (requires MAME recompile for proper shift handling - always in LO gear, button down for HI)

And so forth, think that makes sense anyway. The recompile stuff has to do with the Pole Position shifter only having one microswitch. Pole Position defaults the gear setting as LO when it's not pressed and HI as long as it's held down. MAME doesn't work like this but that can be changed.

[madman77]

I can't believe you're turning that baby into a MAME cab $50 was a great price for that!

[InsaneDavid]

I can't believe you're turning that baby into a MAME cab $50 was a great price for that!

Did you read the part about how nothing worked and it needed to be gutted? Or about how problematic Pole Position boardsets are? If it was working or was in a repairable without replaceable state then I would have restored it. $50 is an average price for an empty cabinet, just glad the control surfaces work and the glass is there.

[Bratwurst]

Did you read the part about how nothing worked and it needed to be gutted? Or about how problematic Pole Position boardsets are? If it was working or was in a repairable without replaceable state then I would have restored it. $50 is an average price for an empty cabinet, just glad the control surfaces work and the glass is there.

Can't please everyone David. You've got my blessings. MAME's the way to go.

[madman77]

Yes, I read all of that. Most of the $50 cabs I've seen are in absolutely terrible condition with completely trashed artwork. I'm just not a MAME fan, but that's my personal preference. It's a nice looking cab for racers.

[InsaneDavid]

Dealing with the cable system on the accelerator pedal is a p.i.t.a. There was a factory mod to wire up a simple switch, but you need to have some resistance on it (you can use the potentiometer if it's good).

I've disconnected and overriden the potentiometer in the accelerator pedal. I left the original parts in there of course (no need to destroy something that works fine) and saved the resistance spring and connecting cable. However now I'm simply using a microswitch that the pedal depresses at about 75% down. I'll toss up a picture when I get back home tonight. Basically I have all the control surfaces wired up to that mouse board and working wonderfully at this time.

[InsaneDavid]

I didn't take any "before" pictures as I intended but that's only because of the good pace I had going into the salvage and rebuild phase. I didn't want to kill my momentum, which has gotten me much farther along at this point than I would have assumed. Here's the accelerator pedal assembly after being restored and converted. (disassembled, cleaned, painted, tread sticker reapplied to pedal, digital conversion installed)



I have the analog potentiometer spring and cable put away in case I want to use them one day. As mentioned in my previous post I'm using a microswitch to control pedal on/off. It runs to a molex connector which ties it to the control panel encoder (mouse hack). I've been using it outside the cabinet on the floor of my shop for about a week now and have had absolutely no problems.

Here's the control panel rework...



Everything is interfaced through the board of a PS/2 mouse I found sitting atop a pile of free computer components on a curbside. The horizontal optics are used for left / right steering. Mouse button 1 runs to the accelerator pedal while Mouse button 2 runs to the lone shifter microswitch. I set up a recompiled version of MAME tonight on my test system (that defaults to LO gear unless the button is depressed, as it should be) and it was a blast. The Pole Position games and Championship Sprint are really why I'm working on this project - building things up to allow more games to be supported would be nice but Pole Position is what I'm really looking forward to playing.

Spent the rest of this evening cleaning out, tearing down and rebuilding the coin door and mechs.

[XYXZYZ]

[InsaneDavid]

Nightly update...

I went to hack the keyboard I found on that curbside along with the mouse tonight, only to find out that it didn't like being opened. My single button keyboard hack (direct to the PCB) worked fine, but the rest of the keyboard didn't - a problem since I plan on using the keyboard as well. Oh well, it was pretty thrashed anyway. Then I remembered I had an old PS/2 keyboard beneath my workstation. After getting it open (freaking screws hidden UNDER THE KEYS!!!) I traced the connection points for the "5" key and wired up the IC. It worked fine during testing so I soldered on a molex connector and connected the lines to the switches on the coin mechs. Fired up DMAME and dropped a couple quarters into the coin slots - works perfectly. I could have used any key but "5" is the default MAME credit key so why over complicate things?

[gonzojoey]

Congrats on your progress so far!
I'll be watching this thread closely as I also have a Pole Position cabinet that I've been thinking of converting to MAME. Mine was a free cabinet, so it doesn't look nearly as nice as yours (it was painted blue), but it does have the CP, wheel and shifter, "dashboard", pedal, and working coin door / mechs..
I know you're not quite there yet, but what are your plans for the monitor? Just a standard 19in CRT?

[InsaneDavid]

I know you're not quite there yet, but what are your plans for the monitor? Just a standard 19in CRT?

17 inch that I had sitting around collecting dust. I was about to toss it until I picked up this cab. I've already test fit it and it looks great, the size difference is no big deal since it's set down into the cabinet somewhat.

[carloss]

funny coincidence, I just picked up a pole position 2 cabinet (actually is PP 1 but was updated to 2) a couple weeks ago and spent yesterday morning converting it to MAME. It's working fine with only one glitch that I'm trying to solve.

I kept the pot for the gas pedal, I really wanted that over on/off. I used an ultimarc A-PAC and it worked perfectly with the existing pot. My steering wheel also works great.

The problem is the shifter- it works, but in HI the switch stays depressed. I have it wired as a keyboard button, like I usually do with MAME. However, unlike normal buttons this one stays on when in HI and I've found that MAME is looking for the switch on/off sequence to go from low to high gear (I'm using this for Outrun right now). So, to shift gears I have to go LO to HI and back again, then it works. Also if I leave it in HI then it makes my other keyboard things act badly, such as when I go into tab for settings or even when I try to press escape to exit the game (windows sees the esc+button as the windows key!).

I also want to hook up a brake pedal, the sitdown PP2 had these but not upright. Other games use a brake too, and there's room in the cab next to the gas to put one. Happ makes one I could use but it's a bit expensive, I'm going to try checking out the local thrift stores for something I can hack into a brake. It won't be too hard since the brake is usually digital so didn't need a pot.

good luck, keep us updated on your conversion....

[InsaneDavid]

Here are some pictures from last night, the first being the entire setup cobbled together in my shop and the second a close up of the new guts for my cabinet.



I spent this evening after work getting my menu system set up and the initial configuration for each game completed. I'll have to tweak the steering sensitivity a little on some games I'm sure, but I want to wait until everything is inside the auctual cabinet before making those adjustments. Most of the night was spent playing Pole Position and Konami GT. Finally finished a race in Pole Position, not bad considering the control components were loose outside the cabinet.

For the curious the chipset is a Pentium II @ 350MHz with 128MB RAM. This is without a doubt the most stable board and chipset I've ever owned and it was nice to pull it out of storage again. I'm planning on begining work on the cabinet itself on Tuesday and hopefully by the end of the week I'll be piecing things back together.

[InsaneDavid]

Quick post since I'm pretty tired. I spent today pulling things together, which is a far bigger operation than it would initially seem. I scrubbed down, sanded, and repainted the cabinet where needed. The inside was scrubbed top to bottom. The rear top and back panels were sanded and repainted. After that it was installation time. I didn't take any pictures during the rebuild outside of the beginning and end for a simple reason - it's a lot of work and you're grimey as hell the entire time. I was determined to get things completed today so there was no stopping. Things work great although I still need to cut a new carboard interior bezel. I'll take more pictures in the coming days but here are a couple...

After the final internal scrubbing...



The machine running...



Yes, it's outside still, it'll be out there until I move next year. Have no fear though, that area will be enclosed by the end of the month so it won't be out in the air for long. I will say however that it's pretty damn enjoyable to stand outside in the night air and turn laps around Fuji Speedway.

[madman77]

Why'd you turn a great analog gas pedal into a digital switch? Other than that, it looks pretty nice.

[InsaneDavid]

Why'd you turn a great analog gas pedal into a digital switch? Other than that, it looks pretty nice.

Because I wanted to keep things on the cheap. Using the analog pedal in MAME requires use of an A-Pac encoder or a similar device, I wanted to run all my controls off a single mouse board. As I've said, the pedal can still be converted back to analog, everything is there, and I have the tension spring and cable for the potentiometer put away. I didn't destroy anything, just disconnected. Hot glue was used to mount the digital switch so that it could be removed later if I so wanted. Since I used glue I didn't have to drill holes for screw mounts, leaving the pedal completely stock in tact.