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Pandora Box

Vimster

By Vimster
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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  • 1 month later...
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Goose

Goose

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So a month and a half later. The CRT in the arcade was fried when I accidentally tried to throw it into a resolution it should not have even looked at. Despite some wiring and testing, it wouldn't display an image correctly. I bought a new Jamma harness and set about removing everything. When I did finally get into the CRT to get it out, I found out it was made in 1987 and some of the cabling to make it work with the Jamma was dodgy to say the least. So I stripped all that out, but rather than re-wire the entire control panel, I snipped all the cables and wired them to terminals. I then sorted out the new Jamma harness, labelled everything up and wired that to the other side of the terminals. Bit annoyed to find the harness wasn't wired ready for six buttons, so I soldered four new cables on and ran them up with the loom. I had an old monitor and connected that up to ensure it all worked before going further (I had tested it prior to doing anything as you can see in the first picture). Pleased that it powered up first time and that the speaker worked nicely. 

 

I looked around for a CRT but no real joy. Then I remembered I had a 24' monitor I'd gotten from work and was using with my daughter's laptop. I gave her a smaller but better monitor and set about mounting the 24' (it was only very slightly smaller than the CRT that had come out). I bought some wood and set about using the Vesa mounting holes to fix it to the first board, as well as cutting holes in the back for the power and video cable. I then bought some sort of card/plastic sheet that's used for making signs. After some careful marking and cutting, I managed to get an hole cut in that covered up the monitor controls and frame, but not the screen. However, the white plastic didn't look great so my wife suggested spraying it matt black, which she did for me this morning. After some swapping of cables, I managed to get the joystick directions working correctly (no idea what happened there). The only thing I didn't bother wiring back in was the coin slot, as there really didn't seem much point. 

 

The wiring isn't pretty and I really wished I'd got some proper cable markers, but none of this is on show so it's ok. Overall costs - the Pandora Box was about £45 from Ali Express, the new Jamma harness was about £6. I needed to buy a couple of tools, as well as the wood and plastic. All up, I reckon it cost £65.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Goose

Goose

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This works fine, and I've been able to hide some of the games I likely won't play (or the multiple versions of some games). 

 

I noticed one great game missing - Splatterhouse. And there doesn't seem any way to get it working. I've got the rom and it appears on the menu when I add it. But unlike Rampage (which I added as a test), it simply gives me a black screen when I try and load it, then goes back to the main menu.

 

Oddly, looking around the web, the few places that reference it also mention it won't work, no matter what rom version is used, on the P6. Someone mentioned that it's do to with the game attempting to boot into a vertical mode instead of a horizontal. No idea how to fix it sadly. 

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  • 3 months later...
Soulweava

Soulweava

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I've recently I bought a Pandora's Box, well as I've now read a knock-off Pandora's Key 7 (3D or summat) . I really like it. It's got loads of games I liked playing in the arcade but my one gripe is that the graphics look blurry, like they've been subjected to a some sort of smoothing out effect that's taken all the edges off. Is it possible to change the image setting? I'm sure someone somewhere mentioned image settings but I can't seem to find them in the Settings menu.

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AceGrace

AceGrace

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Wow! that's a lot for shipping!

 

If you can afford an 8 button I would go foe it because they machines can be used as PC controllers so more buttons should equal better. I went for the 6 button because the 8 button one was out of stock.

 

I've also just got hold of the Capcom Home Arcade as well because..... reasons :blink2:

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Parappa

Parappa

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On 09/11/2019 at 19:04, AceGrace said:

Wow! that's a lot for shipping!

 

If you can afford an 8 button I would go foe it because they machines can be used as PC controllers so more buttons should equal better. I went for the 6 button because the 8 button one was out of stock.

 

I've also just got hold of the Capcom Home Arcade as well because..... reasons :blink2:

I am going to keep an eye on the Capcom Home Arcade and see if that gets hacked to be used on PC etc - and also reduces in price.  Either that or keep an eye out for a 2nd hand Pandora 6.

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  • 3 months later...
mwaawm

mwaawm

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EBay seems to have lots of variants, Pandora's box 9 , Pandora's box 12.....and they all seem incredibly cheap but I'm wary of tagging the plunge and ending up with a dodgy knockoff that had faults / glitches. Anyone got experience of purchasing one of these models?

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  • 2 months later...
amc

amc

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A couple of years back I bought a little Pandora 5s bartop and it was great fun. Still have it but found it a bit of a pain to use on the big TV plus it had a bit of trouble with a few games, not many but it couldn't handle the Sega super scaler stuff. So I've bought supposedly the best one that's built into a joystick to plug into your TV. It'll probably be knocked off its perch by next week, the amount of these things that get released (in fact there is one that's exactly the same chip set but has wifi for connecting to some dodgy Chinese site for game downloads but fuck that) but for now it plays a very decent game. It has 3D capability, stuff like PS1 plays fine but I've bought it for the older arcade games tbh.

 

Has a decent amount of options, you can turn off any image bullshit and the main thing for me, it has save states. Just played Atomic Robo Kid and Cadillac's and Dinosaurs to near completion. Oh and it has a pretty great search function and the ability to add games via usb.

 

Yeah you can set up a PI and all that and I have mame on the big PC and a load of devices that have myriad emulators but I just want something plugged in and ready to go at the flick of a switch and this does it sweet. Very impressed with the QOL stuff they've added since my 5s and everything I've played has played great. Loving it.

 

Robocop next. 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
Parappa

Parappa

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So I managed to go a 9s and while the emulation is OK I fancy hooking it up to my PC and using Launchbox and Mame.  Can anyone tell me if you have to have the power on for it to work with PC? I have seen videos where it says you don't however Windows does not detect the controller until it is powered on.  

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  • 3 months later...
  • 2 months later...
Goose

Goose

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If I wanted to connect a PC to an arcade joystick, would I just need a zero delay USB device? 

 

I've got an old PC and I was tempted to put something like Coinops Diamonds on it - a windows based front end emulator thing. At the moment I've got the arcade machine set up as the above pictures. If I remove the cables, and wire them into the zero delay (then connect to the PC) will the joystick work via the PC? 

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SeanR

SeanR

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Posted
2 hours ago, Goose said:

If I wanted to connect a PC to an arcade joystick, would I just need a zero delay USB device? 

 

I've got an old PC and I was tempted to put something like Coinops Diamonds on it - a windows based front end emulator thing. At the moment I've got the arcade machine set up as the above pictures. If I remove the cables, and wire them into the zero delay (then connect to the PC) will the joystick work via the PC? 


yes. I rewired an x-arcade twin stick with two zero-delay USB adaptors and can use it on my Pandora3D+WiFi*(which replaces a Saga XII that broke after a month) AND my laptop.
 

It’s easy enough to do.

 

 

* Button mapping is broken on the new pandora though, no idea why.

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OnionNon

OnionNon

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Yes. I put a zero delay board in my old MadCatz TE FightStick.

 

It was really easy to do, and I’ve no experience in that sort of thing - just plug and play with screws to attach the thing to the base. I think you get different sets depending on the brand of button/joystick you’re using (Sanwa etc.). 

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SeanR

SeanR

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10 hours ago, OnionNon said:

Yes. I put a zero delay board in my old MadCatz TE FightStick.

 

It was really easy to do, and I’ve no experience in that sort of thing - just plug and play with screws to attach the thing to the base. I think you get different sets depending on the brand of button/joystick you’re using (Sanwa etc.). 

 

that'll be the five-pin connector self-contained stick jobbie, aye?

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  • 3 months later...
Lorfarius

Lorfarius

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Does anyone have one of those smaller tabletop variations of these? Pandora Box Mini or possible the foldable one? Want something nice and portable to tuck away somewhere for the odd play session that isn't going to require loads of deskspace for storage.

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  • 4 weeks later...
X_2_0

X_2_0

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I recently got the Pandora King of Air 2, which is designed for vertical monitors.

 

I’m impressed with it so far!

 

It’s 516 games about half of which are from the early 80s, which I guess when vertical monitors were standard, the rest are shooters from the mid 80s through to early 90s.

 

The games are in no order at all but you can select 99 favourites which are then listed first. I had no trouble filling this list up. 
 

There is an autofire option when a game boots which is really handy and you can save state to keep high scores if you want to.

 

As mines is in a cocktail cab I was really pleased to find a cocktail option,  this switches compatible games to cocktail mode. There is a 2p head to head space invaders I’ve not seen before that I look forward to playing.

 

You can add games apparently, but the instructions are very vague so I haven’t tried this yet.

 

Overall this is doing more than expected, so very pleased with it.
 

 Definitely worth a look if you have a vertical cab. 

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