Gunsmoke Emulator

[Vickiana Sconyers]

Onlineemulated version of Gun.Smoke was originally developed as arcade game or coin-op game, a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers. While exact dates are debated, the golden age of arcade video games is usually defined as a period beginning sometime in the late 1970s and ending sometime in the mid-1980s.

Virtually all modern arcade games (other than the very traditional Midway-type games at county fairs) make extensive use of solid state electronics, integrated circuits and cathode-ray tube screens. In the past, coin-operated arcade video games generally used custom per-game hardware often with multiple CPUs, highly specialized sound and graphics chips, and the latest in expensive computer graphics display technology. This allowed arcade system boards to produce more complex graphics and sound than what was then possible on video game consoles or personal computers, which is no longer the case in the 2010s.

This emulation is powered by MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) project, an open-source emulator designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software on modern personal computers and other platforms. Its intention is to preserve gaming history by preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten.

Naturally, MAME (and back then MESS) was a recurring topic on those workshops, both as a tool and also as an educational asset. The source code of these emulators are effectively unofficial documentation of the inner workings of the emulated devices (both arcade games and also all sorts of other electronic equipment) and this enables a programmer to learn how to develop software targeting those specific boards.

Once I got it working on the emulator, I used my universal programmer and burned the data into actual EPROM chips and placed them in the original arcade board. In the mean time I bought myself an arcade cabinet and was able to play my proof-of-concept in the original GunSmoke board. It was a pretty exciting moment!

Instructions:

Click on the game window and hit the ENTER key to start Gunsmoke (you might have to hit start twice) . On a computer you can click the Zoom to expand the game to a larger size. On mobile phones and Iphone use the gameplay control buttons shown on your screen (only on mobile) to play and start the game. If you grew up in the 80's you shouldn't need additional gameplay instructions. Sorry, no sound on mobile devices in this NES emulator.

Game History:

Gun Smoke is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game created by Capcom in 1985. The game, which has a Western theme, centers around a character named (in the NES version) Billy Bob, a bounty hunter who is after vicious criminals of the Wild West.

Seems like for years I've been hearing about a mysterious "Gold Valve" cartridge emulator that would transform the forks on the GS into race quality works of art. I was curious enough that, when Tom McBride posted a note on the GS mailing list that he was looking for someone to split a Gold Valve kit with him, I decided to try one out. Tom had done all the leg work, calling Race Tech to find out which parts were needed and how much they cost. We ended up with the Harley Showa 41 mm kit, Race Tech part number FEGV S3802. He even forwarded me the install notes put together by another GS lister, Jorge Carbo (I've converted Jorge's original Word document into PDF so everyone can read it). Jorge's notes are good, but they seem to confuse which side of the GS fork does what. BMW separated compression and rebound damping on the GS, using the left fork leg to control compression damping, and the right to handle rebound. This, according to Anton Largiader, who runs Classic Twins, a BMW repair service in Charlottesville, NC. Anton says that the compression side damper rod

The Gold Valve replaces the compression damping* function of the brake side fork leg on the R100GS (for those of you unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the GS front suspension, rebound damping is handled by the left leg). The valve works by modulating the flow of fork oil through holes in the valve body. At slow fork speeds (like when you aren't hitting any big bumps) the oil flows through a small hole in a washer in the middle of the valve. The hole is only about .12" in diameter and doesn't let much oil through, so when the bumps get bigger, something has to give. That something is the washer, which unseats from the valve body and lets oil flow around its outer edges. The spring you see on the right side of the valve makes sure that the washer returns to its seat when the bump is done. The spring also controls how far the washer moves, allowing some fine tuning of the valve. In fact, the Gold Valve comes with both 40 pound/inch and a 64 pound/inch springs (Race Tech recommends the 40 pound/incher, so that's what I installed, with three turns of spring preload).

Installation of the Gold Valve consists of removing the brake side fork leg (usually the right leg as you sit on the bike), tipping out the spring and spacer, shortening the spacer, drilling some extra holes in the damping rod, and throwing the thing back together. The extra holes are necessary to allow a less restricted flow of oil to get to the valve so it, instead of the original hole in the damping rod, can do the work. And the spacer gets shortened to make up for the length of the Gold Valve and its adapter ring.

I started by removing the cap from the end of the front axle, then loosening the axle pinch bolts (all four of 'em). Then I put a jack under the skid plate and lifted the front wheel off the ground. Chances are the wheel will be off the ground to start with, but the jack ensures that the front end won't come down unexpectedly. At that point it was it was a simple matter to pull the axle, let the front wheel drop, and roll out from under the fender. My bike has a low fender, as only real dirt bikes need a high fender, and we all know that the GS is as much a dirt bike as a pig is a ballerina. As such, the lower fender keeps rain and road muck off me and the bike much better than the poseur high fender ever could. But to get the fork leg out I had to remove the four bolts that hold the fender on, disconnect the brake caliper from the fork leg, and move the whole mess up so I could get at the two bolts that hold the fork brace to the right leg.

That's not such a big deal, and it saves opening up the brake line and getting fluid all over the floor. I used a bungie cord through one of the caliper mounting holes to hang it and the fender from the 'roo bar. At that point it was a simple matter to remove the two bolts that hold the fork brace to the fork leg.

It was a good time to drain the fork while the bike's holding up the fork leg. Having gushed fork oil all over the floor on several previous occasions, I decided to take it easy on pulling the drain plug. Toward that end I made sure that the drain screw covered part of the drain hole when it came free of the threads. Tipping it a bit deflected the fluid down into the drain pan instead of letting it shoot across the floor. When the bulk of the oil drained, I worked the slider up and down a few times to make sure none remained in the fork. I slipped a new "O" ring over the drain screw before re-installing it.

I put the axle back into the slider so I'd have something to keep it from turing and removed the damper rod bolt from the bottom of the slider. I made sure that the slider stayed over the drain pan, as some fork oil still remained in the tube. Doing this before removing the fork tube nut lets the fork spring keep pressure on the damper tube, and that keeps the damper tube from turing.

It's easiest to remove the fork tube top nut before dropping the tube out of the triple clamps. I started by loosening the top pinch bolt (I didn't loosen the lower bolts yet, as I didn't want the fork tube to turn while I was unscrewing the fork tube nut). Jorge had suggested squaring off the open end of the 30 mm socket that fits the fork nuts, and when I checked the socket I had it was clear that the big chamfer it had would keep about half of the flats from engaging the fork nut. I'm fortunate enough to have a lathe in the garage, and a few minutes with a carbide cutter quickly put things right.

To get to the fork nuts I had to remove the handlebars, and to protect the tank I just removed it. It's only a couple of fuel lines, the vent line, and the bale at the back (the steel strap went the way of the dodo a long time ago). Then I used an old bath towel to protect the fairing as the bars would lay across the two open sides. Removing the four bolts that hold the handlebar clamps in place had the bars out of the way in no time.

I put the forks at full left lock before engaging the 30 mm socket, and firm pressure with a breaker bar had the fork loose without much trouble. I used steady pressure on the nut so it wouldn't go flying when it came out of the last thread, as the fork spring is under a couple inches of preload. The wrench was pretty close to the fairing at that point, so I had to be careful not to mung anything up with all the loose pieces. With the nut off, It was easy to snatch out the plastic preload spacer and set it aside (after giving it a good wipe down).

As a last step I loosened the lower pinch bolts and wiggled the fork tube until it came out of the triple clamps. Inverting the tube over the drain pan let the spring and damper rod slide into my waiting hand, and the little dribble of fork oil landed in the pan.

Now it's not necessary to remove the spacer from both fork tubes, but I wanted both on hand to keep track of how much to shorten the right one. The idea here is to get the total stack height of the right spacer and Gold Valve to equal the stack height of the original spacer. When I did the math, the spacer length turned out to be6.646" - 1.010" = 5.636", with the first figure being the original length of the spacer, 1.010" the length of the Gold Valve and its spacer, and 5.636" ending up as the target length of the shortened spacer. As you can see from the dial gage, I ended up short by about 0.025", but that was plenty close enough.

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