Jet Get Radio!!!! post here when you get something new!

Oh yes, you're one of those people with enough space for both big CRT sets AND arcade machines, I forgot 😁

One thing about updating particular emulators that bothers me, is if they don't have a built-in updater and you've to download the new release, manually extract it, overwrite the old files etc. It's a trivial task, but a bit of a chore at times. So yesterday, I put ChatGPT to the task, and had a little chat with it about writing a Powershell script for me that updates Cxbx-Reloaded. One slightly tricky thing about the Cxbx-Reloaded release page, is it doesn't appear to have a "Latest" page, and instead, has all the releases together but sorted by date.

So after a few trial runs at scripting it for me, ChatGPT eventually nailed it and spat out this script which will pull down the latest release, extract it to a specified directory (you'd need to alter this to suit your own setup, see "custom extraction directory" for the path) replace the existing files, and then delete the download.

# Function to download a file from a given URL
function Download-File {
  param (
    [string]$url,
    [string]$outputPath
  )

  $wc = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
  $wc.DownloadFile($url, $outputPath)
}

# Replace these variables with the GitHub repository information
$repoOwner = "Cxbx-Reloaded"
$repoName = "Cxbx-Reloaded"

# Set TLS version explicitly
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

# Set up the GitHub API endpoint to fetch all releases
$apiBaseUrl = "https://api.github.com/repos/$repoOwner/$repoName"
$allReleasesUrl = "$apiBaseUrl/releases"

# Logging to check the API response
Write-Host "Fetching all releases from: $allReleasesUrl"
try {
  $allReleasesData = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $allReleasesUrl
}
catch {
  Write-Host "An error occurred while fetching the releases."
  Write-Host $_.Exception.Message
  Read-Host -Prompt "Press Enter to exit"
  exit 1
}

# Sort releases by creation date (latest first)
$sortedReleases = $allReleasesData | Sort-Object -Property { [DateTime]::ParseExact($_.created_at, "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ", [System.Globalization.CultureInfo]::InvariantCulture) } -Descending

# Get the latest release information
$latestRelease = $sortedReleases[0]

if ($latestRelease -eq $null) {
  Write-Host "No releases found in the repository. Please check the repository and try again."
  Read-Host -Prompt "Press Enter to exit"
  exit 1
}

# Find the desired asset in the latest release data (here, we are assuming the first asset in the release)
$latestAsset = $latestRelease.assets | Select-Object -First 1

if ($latestAsset -eq $null) {
  Write-Host "No assets found in the latest release. Please check the repository and try again."
  Read-Host -Prompt "Press Enter to exit"
  exit 1
}

# Download the latest asset
$downloadUrl = $latestAsset.browser_download_url
$assetName = $latestAsset.name
$downloadPath = Join-Path -Path $env:TEMP -ChildPath $assetName
Write-Host "Downloading latest asset: $downloadUrl"
try {
  Download-File -url $downloadUrl -outputPath $downloadPath
}
catch {
  Write-Host "An error occurred while downloading the asset."
  Write-Host $_.Exception.Message
  Read-Host -Prompt "Press Enter to exit"
  exit 1
}

# Custom extraction directory
$customExtractionDir = "D:\Emulators\Cxbx-Reloaded"

# Create the extraction directory if it doesn't exist
if (-Not (Test-Path -Path $customExtractionDir -PathType Container)) {
  New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $customExtractionDir
}

# Determine the file extension of the downloaded asset
$fileExtension = $assetName -replace '^.*\.'

# Extract the asset based on its file extension
Write-Host "Extracting asset to: $customExtractionDir"
try {
  if ($fileExtension -eq 'zip') {
    Expand-Archive -Path $downloadPath -DestinationPath $customExtractionDir -Force
  }
  elseif ($fileExtension -eq 'rar') {
    # Add extraction command for RAR archives (if applicable)
    # For example, you can use: Expand-7Zip -ArchiveFileName $downloadPath -TargetPath $customExtractionDir -Force
    Write-Host "RAR archive extraction is not implemented in this script."
  }
  else {
    Write-Host "Unsupported file extension: $fileExtension"
  }
}
catch {
  Write-Host "An error occurred while extracting the asset."
  Write-Host $_.Exception.Message
  Read-Host -Prompt "Press Enter to exit"
  exit 1
}

# Perform further operations with the extracted files, if needed

# Clean up the downloaded asset
Remove-Item -Path $downloadPath -Force

Write-Host "Download and extraction of the latest release completed successfully."
Read-Host -Prompt "Press Enter to exit"

^^ Tested and working perfectly. I'm sure it can be tweaked, improved, made more visually friendly etc, but it's fully functional. Thank you ChatGPT!

Edit: Ah you got the link before I remembered to search for it.

There isn't a load of games for the Atomiswave, and most have been converted over to the Naomi. Naomi setup is a lot more complicated than a Atomiswave though.

Picked up an Atomiswave mainboard and a non-legit :) copy of The King of Fighters XI.

Found it strange to have an AtomiswaveSD cab without one, small and compact enough to sit beside the MiSTercade. Therei s a battery hidden inside the unit itself, next is a hunt for that. Yay!

I saw that multicart, there is a limited game set on the Atomiswave and at least for me most of these games have since been converted over to the Sega Naomi so I'm set with a NetDimm setup. A Naomi/NetDimm setup is overly complicated if you don't have it with a cab, the Atomiswave is very neary just JAMMA plug/play.

If I only had the Atomiswave or like yourself wanting to get one for Dolphin Blue, the multicart makes complete sense - even a dodge cart is 80e and I think the flash cart is 200e ish? The flashing times seems a little long from what I read, 5-10min at a go but sure - once its flashed, its flashed until you want to play something else.

Have a replacement fan ordered up, as even inside the cab its a high pitched whine - Noctua fan to the rescue soon :)

I was very tempted by that myself! Absolutely lovely bit of design and hadn't heard of it at all until that for sale thread popped up here.

Best of luck getting it working.

I've LONG had a desire to get back to vintage PC gaming, but not through virtualization or emulation, and instead on actual vintage PC hardware.

So I've just started my journey, a vintage PC has been purchased. I'll need a 31Khz crt monitor next to go with it.

This will be the first of three planned machines. I'm starting with the Dos/Windows 95 era, so I've gone with a Pentium 233 MMX, it should comfortably handle the majority of Dos games and Win95 era stuff too.

The next machine will be a 98/2K machine, and then to finish off I'd like a high end XP machine. I can use the same monitor on them all and just swap them out easily enough.

Colour me excited! It's been decades since I've seen some of my favourite PC games running natively at low res on a crt.

Class. Atari Expo, that rings a bell, was that the one in the Square, Tallaght (Dublin)?

Yeah I remember it. I seen Street Fighter 3 for the first time there, not sure which edition it was but I remember playing it and sinfully not liking it straight away ☹️😁

Also remember playing a twin sit down Ridge Racer 2 there also.

Yeah I believe so, there was apparently some super cool cabs from there, although most that were left were junk/prize/gamblers and got scrapped. I also recently got a Club Kart Naomi stand up from there (I took the prize thing off). Last year I was offered an Outrun 2 Super Deluxe (with the moving cars) but the thing was huge and like 10k lol.

Wow that's cool I didn't know that I wonder does mine have it as it's not the usual Naomi system in it, what's weird about this cab it has some sort of printer on it, maybe printer a code with progress or something (not like the card printers on newer cabs).

Atari Expo is still there, just 99% casino now. There are still some video gaming cabs in the entrance inside opposite subway. Most games are in poor condition though. Tried to play batman recently but the gun buttons on top of the wheels are gone. Then in the "Ice Man" water blasing game the water stinks

In the early 00's though they were all video game arcade. Let me try to remember what they had:

4x Ridge Racer 2 deluxe cabs linked. (6x gears and clutch)

The F355 deluxe you have I remember that one being there too - it was just before they went 99% casino

Police 911 - great Konami gun game where you move your body to hide

Twin Rave Racer with FFB

Virtua Cop 2 Delux

Killer Instinct

Killer Instinct 2

War Gods

Naomi Virtual Tennis

Lots of Dance Dance Revolution cabs

A row of Mega lo (or something as big as megalo with RPTV) running various Jamma games including SF3, SF Alpha 2

Various stand up Jamma cabs with CPS2 games like xmen vs SF, Xmen COTA, Neo Geo etc.

I don't suppose that came with the networking module? If so, would you be willing to sell it?

Even better than that they one had the entire Virtuality setup in there two, two cabs networked together. Blew my eight year old mind at the time.

This is back when they had an upstairs with a bunch of pool tables.

Long since gone sadly.

No, came will a filler panel. Believe they can be adapted to be used with a Dreamcast.

Oh I remember that!

Was a big fan of the Captain Ventures that was in the space before that too.

Younger me loved the ballpit and the big slide.

Those were the days eh?