Just got dexter working on Badlands!

We plugged Dexter into BJZ's Badlands cabinet at CAX and it worked great! Steve Hertz even beat the game while we watched. It was really exciting because we have never tested it on Badlands before and didn't know whether it would work. It had a few minor issues but nothing that can't be overcome in software.

At CAX, got some interesting hurdles to overcome

Well, we're testing the dexter hardware here at cax to prepare to show it off only to discover that the dragon's lair image file I brought seems to be missing audio. So now we are coming up with creative ways to rectify that situation.

Dexter PCB ready for CAX demo

My Dragon's Lair arcade monitor suddenly decided to start working again. So here's the current state of Dexter. As you can see, it has a few minor issues but otherwise works great!

My Monoprice VGA->NTSC RCA converter came today. It is extremely well designed and I am quite impressed. So far it seems to perform to my level of expectations also which is great.

For fun, I hooked up Rockford's projector that he shipped me. I plan on using this projector at CAX if necessary so this is a good test.

I took a picture from my wife's phone so the quality isn't that great but you can still get the idea.

Consolidated two DB25 ports down to just one

This morning I consolidated the two DB25 connectors I had on the rev 2 design down to just one by adding a relay. This should free up space on the PCB and also make it easier for our primary persona to figure out where to plug his cable into when he is looking at the PCB (now there will only be one place his cable will fit into whereas before there was two).

The next challenge is figuring out how to control the relay since we are out of AVR pins.

Design Personas identified

I also wanted to mention that I am zeroing in on design personas, which are imaginary people that represent the users for the dexter product.

To summarize, there are four of them right now and here they are:

The Nostalgic : Person who wants to relive childhood
The Restorer: Person who likes restoring old stuff
The Tinkerer: Person who likes to modify stuff
The Preservationist: Person who likes to preserve childhood

We will be targeting Dexter primarily toward the first one. The others may get their own interfaces if appropriate.

MAX11503 chip finished

I've finished adding the s-video port and the MAX11503 chip to the schematics.

The only thing left before doing the layout is merging the two DB25 ports down to one and adding a relay. Then I'll see the bad news about how much space we _don't_ have on the PCB.