Looking for a new project

[amckee]

When I get out of college and get a bigger place, more money, etc. I want to build a full cabinet MAME box. Though you can do your MAME stuff on gbpvr...I really want a full cabinet that I can stand in front of. Also looking at doing the whole bit of wiring for the controls and all of that.

[SuMo]

It's a picture of a jukebox Remote Selector (also commonly called a Wallbox)

Hopefully I can figure out the reading of the serial port.

Hopefully I'll get a bit of genius soon and figure it out

And this is where I have to come clean and admit I know nothing about serial cable programming

You probably found this one already....

[Ted the Penguin]

And this is where I have to come clean and admit I know nothing about serial cable programming There are only really two pins to connect. A ground, and a pulse (well three if you count the 25VAC pin). As far as I can tell, it sends two chunks of pulses. One for the letter you chose, and one for the number. (ie. 1 pulse +short pause + 1 pulse + long pause + 1 pulse would mean you chose B1) Which pins I need to hook up and how to read those pulses I'm still at a loss for.

not quite sure about that, but you might have to write something to sit on top of the linux serial port driver to listen for data on those pins, since its timing based you will have to build that in too, and determine the pulse lengths

[flyswatta]

Well, for a project idea, you could build a "UHF Blaster" I would give my left eyetooth for one of these. You could probably find a market for selling them since the trend is to go UHF in STBs.

Essentially, the idea is that you use one of these to talk to a UHF STB (like Dish Network). The advantage would be no line of sight, so you could set it up anywhere in the house (like, next to your pc) and not have to worry about IR-UHF then UHF-IR.

After finding no commercial options, several members of this forum suggested some ideas to me, but alas, my electronic skills are virtually non-existant along with my programming skills.

Anyway, food for thought.

[pastro]

Cool. Sounds like it won't be that hard to interface to. Have you looked at the timing of the pulses? Do you know the high and low time of the pulse?
A serial interface is pretty simple if the signals look like rs232 data. If they don't you might need some logic to turn it into a real serial stream.
Do you have a logic analyzer or scope that you can look at the signals with?

[pastro]

And this is where I have to come clean and admit I know nothing about serial cable programming There are only really two pins to connect. A ground, and a pulse (well three if you count the 25VAC pin). As far as I can tell, it sends two chunks of pulses. One for the letter you chose, and one for the number. (ie. 1 pulse +short pause + 1 pulse + long pause + 1 pulse would mean you chose B1) Which pins I need to hook up and how to read those pulses I'm still at a loss for.

What's the voltage level of the pulses? Do you have any data for what happens when you press other buttons? The long pause of no info, might be other bits that are 0.