Cannonboard Outrun Interface Ideas Please !!

[ColinD]

Hi Guys,

Will be working on some tweaks to the V2 Cannonboard soon.....

This will add USB HID Driving Controls so you can play other games on your outrun machine hooked up to a PC with soft 15Khz. Plus will also support Cannonball with the Motion Control.

This is merely an interface for the Game I/O and Audio (via 3.5mm Jack) from the PC to the Outrun Machine.

So you could probably play Outrun 2 Coast to Coast on your Origonal Unhacked Outrun Machine and other games too !!

In the future Rasberry Pi may be supported and I have a video card option for this so we may have a full plug and play solution in the future.

Initially the HID controls will just support the Coin, Start, Gear , Steering , Brake and Accelerator which is all you have on outrun, but I can probably add a few more Buttons if required.

Is there any Specific Features that you would require/need for Driving Games ??

Thanks, Colin

 

[minwah]

This sounds pretty interesting, I wish I had an OutRun machine!

I'm not sure how the OutRun shifter works (one switch presumably?), but I know MAME handles certain shifters differently so you might want to think about that...

 

[ColinD]

Some major progress..... although still in dev phase !!

The new interface supports USB HID Steering Controls , not mapped any buttons yet !!, USB Serial Comms (using a special protocol) , It can also but not tried support keyboard keys, so coin , start , gear , test etc !!

It also supports Cannonball (the Outrun re-write) and should handle the full motion control when I've got all the i/o's debugged !!

There will also be some nice diagnostics available and the board can be easily re-flashed with any software updates using a simple upload tool, so no special hardware required

Currently all the I/O and USB Steering is updated at 100Hz , so there is no input lag !! - The Game runs at 60Hz Max !! - A CPLD has been used (to reduce the chip count and act as security) to handle 'most' of the I/O lines (8 ins and 16 outs) running some custom VHDL code, although the Motion Control inputs and analogue inputs go directly to the cpu module that plugs in the back !!

https://youtu.be/7JOyXvqPSAY

Cheers, Col

ColinD2017-03-08 22:11:46

 

[FinalFight]

col its saying video private when i click on it

 

[ColinD]

Changed to unlisted !! - Hope this works now !

 

[Hurray Banana]

This is a great project Colin, you've got some skills there mate

 

[FinalFight]

working now nice work mate !

 

[smarty]

Nice one Col, great to see the project progressing.

 

[esoteric_rt]

I just acquired an Outrun Deluxe, so I'm really pleased to see this is still being worked on!

(my game PCB may have issues...)

Put me down for one when ready

 

[Arch]

Great work, Colin! If this ends up in a plug-and-play solution I am _very_ interested.

 

[esoteric_rt]

Hi, is this project dead?

I still have a damaged board set for my OutRun deluxe. Would be easier to install a MAME PC via J-Pac but need some way to interface with the cabinet motor etc..

Cheers

 

[clarkey]

Hi, is this project dead?

I still have a damaged board set for my OutRun deluxe. Would be easier to install a MAME PC via J-Pac but need some way to interface with the cabinet motor etc..

Cheers 

It would be fantastic to have a backup option to the pcb set even if they work now. Time is only going to cause more to fail.

Any benefit to a small kickstarter style fund raising to get it finished?

 

[ColinD]

The project is on hold at the moment and just needs a little more time to test, It's very viable with a PC with suitable video and sound output and cannonball does support it (well the PC build anyway) but it's still a little experimental.

I was hoping for a decent port onto the Raspberry Pi that could support the USB interface and output video to a gert666 (or low res hdmi to cga), but I wouldn't know where to start with this.

If a suitable RPi build appeared, I'm sure I could find the motivation to continue as we would have quite a neat solution but it looks like we are stuck with a pc currently.

 

[clarkey]

The project is on hold at the moment and just needs a little more time to test, It's very viable with a PC with suitable video and sound output and cannonball does support it (well the PC build anyway) but it's still a little experimental.

I was hoping for a decent port onto the Raspberry Pi that could support the USB interface and output video to a gert666 (or low res hdmi to cga), but I wouldn't know where to start with this.

If a suitable RPi build appeared, I'm sure I could find the motivation to continue as we would have quite a neat solution but it looks like we are stuck with a pc currently.

Thanks for the update, what are the dependancies for it interfacing to the motor driver board? I know it was discussed thst the bespoke pcb version could interface to the driver board for the deluxes?

 

[ColinD]

The board appears as an RS232 interface via USB. It sends and receives small packets (about 16 bytes iirc including a packet number and checksum).

One of the bytes in the packet that it receives is the motor control value that is normally sent out via the I/O chip on the original game board. Another byte controls the Digital Outputs such as the Start and Brake Lamps, Amp Mute and upright Shaker Motor.

The board sends back the Analogue Values from the Pots , the digital inputs from the motor board and the digital inputs for the game such as the coin, test, gear and start button. iirc it also relays the digital outputs as a sanity check.

It uses the same pinouts as the original board, so plugs straight into the harness. It also has some diagnostics built in too.

Finally, with the Mk3 , it also doubles up / appears as a set of Driving Controls over USB, so can be used with other games (but without the motion control).
ColinD2018-07-12 09:41:39

 

[clarkey]

The board appears as an RS232 interface via USB.  It sends and receives small packets (about 16 bytes iirc including a packet number and checksum). 

One of the bytes in the packet that it receives is the motor control value that is normally sent out via the I/O chip on the original game board. Another byte controls the Digital Outputs such as the Start and Brake Lamps, Amp Mute and upright Shaker Motor.

The board sends back the Analogue Values from the Pots , the digital inputs from the motor board and the digital inputs for the game such as the coin, test, gear and start button.  iirc it also relays the digital outputs as a sanity check.

It uses the same pinouts as the original board, so plugs straight into the harness.  It also has some diagnostics built in too.

Finally, with the Mk3 , it also doubles up / appears as a set of Driving Controls over USB, so can be used with other games (but without the motion control).

This sounds absolutely spot on, where do I send payment?

 

[esoteric_rt]

The board appears as an RS232 interface via USB. It sends and receives small packets (about 16 bytes iirc including a packet number and checksum).

One of the bytes in the packet that it receives is the motor control value that is normally sent out via the I/O chip on the original game board. Another byte controls the Digital Outputs such as the Start and Brake Lamps, Amp Mute and upright Shaker Motor.

The board sends back the Analogue Values from the Pots , the digital inputs from the motor board and the digital inputs for the game such as the coin, test, gear and start button. iirc it also relays the digital outputs as a sanity check.

It uses the same pinouts as the original board, so plugs straight into the harness. It also has some diagnostics built in too.

Finally, with the Mk3 , it also doubles up / appears as a set of Driving Controls over USB, so can be used with other games (but without the motion control).

This sounds absolutely spot on, where do I send payment?

Likewise lol

I wonder how many deluxe units were manufactured, surely there is a demand for this system as the original boards fail

 

[esoteric_rt]

I still hold hope this project will be completed one day, we need something to interface a PC with the Outrun motor board

 

[dlightbulb]

This is great - I think you'd make a packet on plug n play versions of this in the future

 

[chunksin]

Here is my homebrew version!