When will your rom reader device be available? As far as the poll goes - I'd recommend offering both at the onset - a prebuilt fully assembled drop in unit that you'd just have to plug in and connect some wires to, and a build it yourself kit. After a few months you can see which is more in demand and raise/lower price accordingly for each option.

I really don't see this product requiring breadboards/soldering irons/and a spool of 24 gauge wire...If it does require that then I'd definately say to just offer the prebuilt unit.

destruk wrote:When will your rom reader device be available?

We had initially planned to release it around the product launch.

I would like the complete system from you. Plug and play so to speak.

i think a combination of both a complete drop in relacement for those who are not very computer savvy and just the hardware/software component would be best. Providing a list or requirements for those whoe want to just purcahse your hardware/software component and a recommended hardware list would be fine.

As far as support, those who buy just the hardware/software component would already realise that if problems do occure then it would be up to them to sort and having this forum to swap problems and solutions would soon provide a vast list of hardware that would be compatible.

if all else fails then there would be the option of getting the complete solution minus what already has been purchased.

one more question as i couldn't find it anywhere here: i have a machine with no roms at all (missing when i bought it) what are my options to get the roms files?

dan76 wrote:one more question as i couldn't find it anywhere here: i have a machine with no roms at all (missing when i bought it) what are my options to get the roms files?

We can't supply the roms. You might want to try Illinois Pinball. I think they had extra roms they could sell.

I would think this setup should run off a e6550 2 gig of ddr2 and a nvidia 8800gt all of which are dirt cheap. Correct me if i am wrong. Me on the other hand i am gonna full tilt overboard and throw a full blown overclocked water cooled setup in there

To be hones i would think that alot of these guy's( i would hope anyway) if they own pinball machines should not be scared of a building a pc and or Linux. What distro are you using?

yetterben wrote:I would think this setup should run off a e6550 2 gig of ddr2 and a nvidia 8800gt all of which are dirt cheap. Correct me if i am wrong. Me on the other hand i am gonna full tilt overboard and throw a full blown overclocked water cooled setup in there

To be hones i would think that alot of these guy's( i would hope anyway) if they own pinball machines should not be scared of a building a pc and or Linux. What distro are you using?

We're using Ubuntu since it's probably the easiest to use distro. That may change though. BTW graphics speed doesn't seem to matter. The worst integrated video works great

lol i have that distro here then.

What about a dev package for making new games? Is that going to be available? Would it be a programming nightmare or as simple as stringing together routines in a perl script for game mechanics and then building animations? I have no fear of cutting out a playfield, router out the details, populating it, and wire it. But the idea of code above a very basic scripting language is pretty much a deal breaker for me.

Count me in as one of the "do it yourself" guys. I have built every home PC to date and some speciality boxes for video editing and gaming (Crysis is a bitch on hardware). If Nucore is hardware dependent simply listing the minimum system specs for RAM,CPU,Video card specs would be the info needed for the DIY guys. I am most interested in the LCD and graphics interface requirements.

Very nice job on the concept and execution. I really enjoyed building a multi arcade MAME based video game. I look forward to the release of Nucore as well.

I guess I would be leaning toward the do-it-yourself type. In particular, I have certain things I would like to accomplish with the replacement. For one, my goal would be to go fanless and maintenance free. This eliminates some options from parts selection and likely adds cost. However, it's something I may also decide to do in steps. Get the motherboard fan free (getting more and more common) first. The processor cooling options are tougher. As far as the power supply, tough as well but there is one area where I can make some inroads with personal design work. But, standard power supplies are pretty easy to replace when they fail so I'm less concerned here. Solid-state hard drives are also possible as cost goes down... how fast will depend on the resources required by the OS and installed programs.

As you guys are aware, the fans are the most common failure with PCs (which then cascade into other failures). So, that's where I'd like to go with my machine.

I'm not a huge expert on Linux. I've used it a very limited amount. But, Windows I am very comfortable with. Making the installation process as easy as possible for people would be greatly appreciated. Personally, I will be looking to image my setup once it's up and running so it can be reloaded at a later date if necessary.

Also, so you know where I am coming from... the cost of getting into NuCore is less of a concern for me than acquiring the intimate knowledge of how to set it up from scratch and maintain it. 10 years from now, you may no longer have any interest in things (or any other of 1000 other possibilities) and people will once again be on their own (as they are now). Whatever I buy from you guys I want to be as independent from you as possible going forward so as to be as future proof as possible.

That said, having kits ready to go for those that need that is a great plan. Plus, having a list of "we have successfully tested it with this hardware" would be fantastic for those that want to build their own. Lastly, there is a difference between "we will not support those having issues..." and "we cannot guarantee support for those having issues but will attempt to work to support other hardware as we can". The latter will make your product stronger.

Jaz

In thinking about the previous post about a fanless solution, what do people think about using the Beagleboard?

http://beagleboard.org/

It runs Linux, it is really low draw, fanless, and has great graphics. Here is a picture with a DLP engine mounted on top of the system (which we would not need)

http://dominion.thruhere.net/koen/cms/pico-dlp-arrived

Cheers,

Hank

Jazman wrote:I guess I would be leaning toward the do-it-yourself type. In particular, I have certain things I would like to accomplish with the replacement. For one, my goal would be to go fanless and maintenance free. This eliminates some options from parts selection and likely adds cost. However, it's something I may also decide to do in steps. Get the motherboard fan free (getting more and more common) first. The processor cooling options are tougher. As far as the power supply, tough as well but there is one area where I can make some inroads with personal design work. But, standard power supplies are pretty easy to replace when they fail so I'm less concerned here. Solid-state hard drives are also possible as cost goes down... how fast will depend on the resources required by the OS and installed programs.

As you guys are aware, the fans are the most common failure with PCs (which then cascade into other failures). So, that's where I'd like to go with my machine.

I'm not a huge expert on Linux. I've used it a very limited amount. But, Windows I am very comfortable with. Making the installation process as easy as possible for people would be greatly appreciated. Personally, I will be looking to image my setup once it's up and running so it can be reloaded at a later date if necessary.

Also, so you know where I am coming from... the cost of getting into NuCore is less of a concern for me than acquiring the intimate knowledge of how to set it up from scratch and maintain it. 10 years from now, you may no longer have any interest in things (or any other of 1000 other possibilities) and people will once again be on their own (as they are now). Whatever I buy from you guys I want to be as independent from you as possible going forward so as to be as future proof as possible.

That said, having kits ready to go for those that need that is a great plan. Plus, having a list of "we have successfully tested it with this hardware" would be fantastic for those that want to build their own. Lastly, there is a difference between "we will not support those having issues..." and "we cannot guarantee support for those having issues but will attempt to work to support other hardware as we can". The latter will make your product stronger.

Jaz

Fans do fail like mine did at expo :p The nice thing about motherboards today is you can have them shut the machine down if a fan fails. This is what I do.

Also good point on the support issue. We can't possibly support every hardware permutation and I just wanted to make that clear. That being said there is a rather large community here that can *possibly* provide support. We will also make a test application available to people for free so they can test their hardware configuration before buying Nucore to check compatibility.

I just reread the poll questions for this thread and realized an important option was left out.

"Please make a complete solution. I'm an expert with computers and thus don't want to f**k with it."