Piforce Tools Support Thread

Ninjando

n00b
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Posts
11
Thanks for the advice, guys. I just ordered a multimeter, so I'll give it a shot once it arrives.
 

Ninjando

n00b
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Posts
11
So I finally have a screen, but now I'm getting error 34 Gateway cannot be found. I double checked everything and narrowed it down to the pic. What should my next step be?
 

aoiddr

Over Top Auto Mechanic
Joined
Jan 10, 2013
Posts
855
So I finally have a screen, but now I'm getting error 34 Gateway cannot be found. I double checked everything and narrowed it down to the pic. What should my next step be?

If you're sure it's the zero-key PIC, then I'd look to get another one burned from a different source. You can ask Fox1 or Mitsurugi-W (he's on another forum) if they are able to make them.
 
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Ninjando

n00b
Joined
Feb 7, 2013
Posts
11
So I've made some progress. I sent my netdimm in to be looked at and it turns out the firmware wasn't even 4.02 like it was advertised on ebay. After an update to 4.02, it boots like normal. I was able to try it out last night and the only game that runs for me at the moment is Fist of the North Star. Every other game I tried to load gets Error 33. Apparently this error is linked to the pic somehow. Any ideas? I have 2 separate pics now, and I'm getting the same error with both.
 

sparksterz

Camel Slug
Joined
May 2, 2013
Posts
511
Sorry this took so long, but I just uploaded version 1.5 to http://downloads.travistyoj.com/piforcetools.img.zip

This was built with the latest version of Raspbian Jessie Lite, so it has faster boot times than the previous version, and supports B/B+/2/3.

Let me know if you have any issues.

I'll try it with my B in the next few days. I've been having a hell of a time with my SD card corrupting for some reason when turning off so I'm needing to make it from scratch again. Is this one partitioned properly? I remember one release not being set up right.
 

leonk

Marked Wolf
Joined
Feb 24, 2011
Posts
211
For those of you that are using the old white text on Blue background LCD (16x2) and wondering why the backlight flickers on for a second and then stays off, you need to edit piforcetools.py file in the piforcetools directory and comment / remove the following line:

lcd.backlight(lcd.BLUE)
 

NoAffinity

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Mar 20, 2017
Posts
74
I guess I'm the first one to have problems with a new Piforce Tools setup since last year. :\

I'm setting up my Pi ahead of my Naomi and NET DIMM showing up, which I hope to have next week.

I got the Pi 2 B+, with 16x2 blue/white LCD screen

Had to do some modification to the code for Piforce Tools 1.5, but eventually got it to the point that I can run piforcetools from the command line, and it appears to be working properly. LCD lights up. Title message displays, then the game list is available. Selecting a game returns "Connecting..." followed by "Error: Connections Failed" which I would expect since I'm net yet connected to a NET DIMM.

However, when rebooting or power cycling, the Pi boots to the login, but the LCD doesn't turn on. How can I make piforcetools run at startup?
 

NoAffinity

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Mar 20, 2017
Posts
74
I figured it out. Not without quite a bit of effort tho. The filesystem was booting as read-only. Had to change it to read-write then edit /etc/fstab so the file system would boot as rw.

Then had to edit rc.local to include a command to run piforcetools.py at startup. I could see it loading at startup before this, but for some reason, it didn't initiate the LCD screen until after making this change in rc.local.

Also enabled I2C through raspi-config. Raspi-config had to be apt-get'ted. And of course, I couldn't do that until after editing /etc/network/interfaces to make the internet connection dhcp. Will have to change interfaces back to static 192.168.1.1...

Am I the only one that wasn't able to just burn the image to my SD card and be on my way? Or are the rest of you guys already that awesome at linux? This was a refresher course for sure. Been quite a few years since I've done anything serious in linux.

Last question: anybody have any good suggestions for revising the code so that the LCD screen turns off after a game is sent/loaded? Or even for the pi to shutdown after the game loads? It seems silly to keep powering either or both once it has served its purpose.
 

fisk

n00b
Joined
Apr 22, 2008
Posts
20
I've got a question. The game list for piforce tools, can it be changed or updated? How does that work? What if I want to add a game that is not on the list? What if the games I have that are on the list are different versions (like mvc2 with all the characters unlocked). Would I just rename it to what it is named on the game list file? Any assistance is appreciated. Thanks!
 

aoiddr

Over Top Auto Mechanic
Joined
Jan 10, 2013
Posts
855
I've got a question. The game list for piforce tools, can it be changed or updated? How does that work? What if I want to add a game that is not on the list? What if the games I have that are on the list are different versions (like mvc2 with all the characters unlocked). Would I just rename it to what it is named on the game list file? Any assistance is appreciated. Thanks!

On your SD Card, go into the folder called "/piforcetools" and open the file called "piforcetools.py" in a program like Notepad++. Then just edit or add to the games using the same format you see.
"World Series\nBaseball": "WorldSeriesBaseball.bin",
"(V)Trigger Heart\nExelica": "VERTICAL/TriggerHeartExelica_v6.bin",

Be sure to make a back-up of the file first, in case you mess up and have to revert something.
 
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