Zsnes arcade mode "insert coin"

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bob-cl
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Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:15 am

Zsnes arcade mode "insert coin"

Post by bob-cl »

Hello,

[To begin, I apologize in advance for the following English, I am French and I don't speak Shakespeare's language, so I use an online translator... hoping it won't hurt the meaning of my request]

I would like to know if it is possible to add a credit system to the emulator, like an arcade game -> insert a coin to play on the emulator, such as a "PlayChoice-10" type born arcad
"PlayChoice-10" payment system: We didn't pay for a number of credits but for time. Each coin inserted gave the right to a play time. A countdown was carried out.
I didn't find any discussion about it. Anyone ever thought about it? Is there this type of functionality on other Snes emulators?

Reason for my request:
I built a Mame cabinet on Hyperspin frontend to enjoy the old arcade games and I added a real coin mechanism for the pleasure of realism. And frankly just the sound of the coin passing through the coin acceptor is too good!!!!! 8) :mrgreen:
In short.....
I added a Snes game category in the mamecab with the Zsnes emulator of course. But in this case it is impossible to use the coin acceptor . What a pity!!!!! :(

I'm aware of the singular nature of my request and perhaps I'll be the only one to ask for this kind of thing.

I'm not a professional developer, I manage a little bit in c++, I think I can develop a small program that would run in the background, with a timer for credits for each coin insert, nothing very complicated, I see it very simply.
But would it be possible to control the Zsnes emulator from this program?
The command to pause/play the emulation should be more than enough.

Does my project seem achievable to you?
or is it more complicated than I imagine...
if you think that's impossible, let me know. :wink:

I would like to thank in advance those who will take the time to respond to my request.
bob-cl
New Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:15 am

Re: Zsnes arcade mode "insert coin"

Post by bob-cl »

For those who are interested, here is the progress ...

I started developing the program.
This is a Qt, developed in C ++.

Ok -> The timer is a QLabel.
Ok -> The window is made transparent with the Class QPainter (invisible so we only see the timer).
Ok -> The positioning of the timer on screen location according to the game.
Ok -> The program in "Always On The Top" mode even when it does not have the focus.

In progress -> Capturing keyboard/joystick events without focus, for timer credit.

for the capture of keyboard/joystick events without focus, my arcade cabinet being on Windows, I focus on the Windows API library with the classes: SetWindowsHookEx, CallNextHookEx, UnhookWindowsHookEx, GetAsyncKeyState, a kind of small keyLogger in sum .. .

Coming -> Block keyboard / joystick events (except: credit and echap) when the timer is at zero.
Coming -> Pausing the emulation when the timer is at zero; re-launch the emulation if the timer > zero.
Coming -> start and quit the timer at the same time as the emulator.
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