tty2rpi Add-On (shows core based pictures and videos on a HDMI or DSI display)

[RealLarry]

The even bigger brother of tty2oled and tty2tft. The fat ass display setup. A simple but yet powerful Marquee solution.
A marquee/display add-on for the MiSTer FPGA and MAME Emulator

This project is the bigger brother of Venice's famous tty2oled,
and my own project, tty2tft, this time based on a Raspberry Pi of any type.
This setup plays JPG or PNG pictures and almost every video format
from SD card or network.

Get details on the project page and/or just ask here.

This is just a short announcement this time to channel questions.
Project is almost finished...MiSTer/RPi part is done, the part for MAME setup is "working", but needs some polishing and documentation.

[Goodfella]

Here is the marquee that I have:

https://arcademodup.com/product/arcade1 ... uee-mount/

[Goodfella]

So I found a Raspberry Pi and got the image loaded. I see the tty2rpi logo. This is as far as I got. I am not that great with these devices. I understand that you have to get the Mister to load the tty2 program. Is there a file I can load to the updater that will install everything I need like updateall?

Also, how do you navigate the raspberry pi? There is just a logo. I assume I will need to change some things to get it configured correctly.

One more question, how does the pi connect to the Mister to communicate to display?

[RealLarry]

So I found a Raspberry Pi and got the image loaded. I see the tty2rpi logo. This is as far as I got. I am not that great with these devices.

If you can see the tty2rpi logo, your RPi is up and running fine. Write down the IP address shown before the tty2rpi logo, usually something like "192.168.2.55" for example.

I understand that you have to get the Mister to load the tty2 program. Is there a file I can load to the updater that will install everything I need like updateall?

Yes, there is and you maybe have missed part two of the setup documentation

Also, how do you navigate the raspberry pi? There is just a logo. I assume I will need to change some things to get it configured correctly.
One more question, how does the pi connect to the Mister to communicate to display?

MiSTer is communicating to the RPi by a TCP socket (= by network). If you are done with part two (Setting up MiSTer), you have to edit /media/fat/tty2rpi/tty2rpi-user.ini on MiSTer and to setup the IP address of your RPi there. The INI file is showing a line

Code: Select all

TTYDEV="/dev/tcp/IP-ADDRESS-OF-RPI/6666"

Edit this line and replace IP-ADDRESS-OF-RPI with your RPi's IP address (see first sentence). Save the file and exit the editor, then restart the Daemon:

/media/fat/tty2rpi/S60tty2rpi restart

If you already have configured RPi's media files, you should see the MENU video, followed by the MENU picture.
Done. Your tty2rpi is ready to entertain you

[lomdar67]

Great project. What resolutions for the display are supported?

I found a 14,9“ display on AlienExpress that seems very similar: https://aliexpress.com/item/4001191975625.html

[RealLarry]

Great project. What resolutions for the display are supported?

Any resolution that the RPi can support with it's HDMI 1.4 (up to RPi 3). Or use a RPi 4 which has HDMI 2.0

I found a 14,9“ display on AlienExpress that seems very similar: https://aliexpress.com/item/4001191975625.html

Hey, nice find! And cheap! Looks identical to mine and has the same resolution. I'm very sure that it will work out of the box.

[drgruney]

This is great! I've been wanting a pi based solution. Any chance it can be configured to use a pizero as a USB device or through the gpio on any pi? I'm trying to get my mister running without any networking.

[thorr]

Cool! I was going to code something like this myself for my arcade cabinet. I have one of these on order and it will go inside in front of the back wall of the cabinet above the CRT screen: https://www.waveshare.com/product/displ ... mi-lcd.htm I will check out your version to see how it works and maybe it will meet all of my needs (after I get the display in a few weeks). Basically, I want to be able to have it take an action based on the core it detects. I was going to try to mount the MiSTer running core identifying file to the PI and write a script on the Pi side to watch for changes to it, and then have a bash script for each core that can do whatever I want like display an image, show a video, etc. Some cores I want to show the instructions for the controls. Others, maybe just the marquee. Maybe all cores will have an intro video followed by a static image. I also plan to have Mame, so I will be very interested to see how that gets implemented as well and how it works with both the MiSTer and Mame at the same time.

[RealLarry]

This is great! I've been wanting a pi based solution. Any chance it can be configured to use a pizero as a USB device or through the gpio on any pi? I'm trying to get my mister running without any networking.

I'm very sure that this is possible in some way, but I am the wrong addressee for that as I'm not that familiar in programming (GPIO) interfaces. Try to ask @Venice / tty2oled if he's interested in helping in.

[RealLarry]

Basically, I want to be able to have it take an action based on the core it detects. I was going to try to mount the MiSTer running core identifying file to the PI and write a script on the Pi side to watch for changes to it, and then have a bash script for each core that can do whatever I want like display an image, show a video, etc. Some cores I want to show the instructions for the controls. Others, maybe just the marquee. Maybe all cores will have an intro video followed by a static image.

Jep, and this is exactly that what tty2rpi is doing. There are already many videos available from Arcade Punks that are either displaying an intro or "introductions". If interested I could share videos to some of these.
You are totally free to play media you like. Videos are optional (played if available), but pictures are mandatory. All these media files have to be collected and provided by yourself because they are a matter of taste and for copyright reasons, chiefly.

I also plan to have Mame, so I will be very interested to see how that gets implemented as well

This is already working but lacks of documentation by myself. For now it's a fiddly and non unified task to implement that: It heavily depends on OS (Linux (OK), Windows (Dunno)...), type of OS (Arch Linux, Ubuntu, RetroPie ...) and used "init system" in Linux. Personally I'm using Arch Linux for my MAME arcade, but my scripts should work for almost any modern Linux setup.
MAME is great, but a bitch. You can see what core is/was loaded, but not when entering or returning to menu. I'm using MAME's debug output to grab and analyse these changes between ROMs and "others". This mostly works but is sometimes unreliable and I'm not happy by 100% with it yet.

A RPi isn't absolutely necessary here. I did a dual screen solution for my arcade (instead of RPi->HDMI) while using the same (RPi) scripts on my PC.

how it works with both the MiSTer and Mame at the same time.

Works. The scripts (for the display - whether on RPi or PC) are receiving their commands via network socket, so the display is doing/playing what your commands are comanding. You could even drive a "centralized display" in your room with two MAME arcades and three MiSTer, but this could be getting confusing

[thorr]

Jep, and this is exactly that what tty2rpi is doing. There are already many videos available from Arcade Punks that are either displaying an intro or "introductions". If interested I could share videos to some of these.
You are totally free to play media you like. Videos are optional (played if available), but pictures are mandatory. All these media files have to be collected and provided by yourself because they are a matter of taste and for copyright reasons, chiefly.

This is already working but lacks of documentation by myself. For now it's a fiddly and non unified task to implement that: It heavily depends on OS (Linux (OK), Windows (Dunno)...), type of OS (Arch Linux, Ubuntu, RetroPie ...) and used "init system" in Linux. Personally I'm using Arch Linux for my MAME arcade, but my scripts should work for almost any modern Linux setup.
MAME is great, but a bitch. You can see what core is/was loaded, but not when entering or returning to menu. I'm using MAME's debug output to grab and analyse these changes between ROMs and "others". This mostly works but is sometimes unreliable and I'm not happy by 100% with it yet.

A RPi isn't absolutely necessary here. I did a dual screen solution for my arcade (instead of RPi->HDMI) while using the same (RPi) scripts on my PC.

Works. The scripts (for the display - whether on RPi or PC) are receiving their commands via network socket, so the display is doing/playing what your commands are comanding. You could even drive a "centralized display" in your room with two MAME arcades and three MiSTer, but this could be getting confusing

Thanks! I have Launchbox, Big Box and EmuMovies, so I might be ok with the videos I have, I don't know yet, but I am interested in seeing what Arcade Punks have to offer for comparison.

I thought of using my Mame PC for everything also instead of a Pi, but the drawback to that is it is hotter and noisier to be running all the time. The Mame PC is running Windows, and I thought of using a VM and displaying it on the second screen inside the arcade cabinet. Either a VM or a Pi could mount both the MiSTer and the Mame PC, and anything else and look for what core is running and act accordingly. I will definitely check out what you have put together as it may be better than what I come up with or if I change anything or do it differently, I will share that info. I am still possibly a month away before I am ready to work on this I think. Getting the priming and painting done is very time consuming because I have to keep waiting for things to dry before I can sand, check, and do it again if it still needs more. Then there is about a month of cure time before I can do any rigorous work in/on the cabinet that could damage the paint before it cures. Plus I have to wait for the display to arrive from China. Thankfully I have an extra RPi 3b I can use since new Pi's are impossible to find. Thanks again.

[RealLarry]

Thanks again.

You're welcome. No hurry. The longer time you wait to start the better tty2rpi will be
But for testing and playing around you don't need a special display to use tty2rpi...use a simple cheap whatever HDMI monitor or TV to get some experience. Videos and pictures will be squeezed and stretched then, but better this than nothing.

[thorr]

Thanks again.

You're welcome. No hurry. The longer time you wait to start the better tty2rpi will be
But for testing and playing around you don't need a special display to use tty2rpi...use a simple cheap whatever HDMI monitor or TV to get some experience. Videos and pictures will be squeezed and stretched then, but better this than nothing.

True. Right now I am just focused on arcade cabinet construction and completion and only pre-planning things like this. Once everything is at that point, I will dive in and work on it. I have other things pent up too like figuring out exactly how I will do the electronics for the control panels. I have many options there and want to make sure they are as flexible as possible given the limitations of how the MiSTer handles multiple joysticks where some games need them to be separate per player and other games like Super Smash TV on the SNES need them to be one controller. This is easy in other systems, but requires hardware solutions on the MiSTer to solve. I need to revisit the USB controller stuff that dstevens was working on and see if it will fit my needs for both the MiSTer and Windows.

[FDA]

nice idea!
Do you think is possible something similar using an android tablet?

[Goodfella]

So I found a Raspberry Pi and got the image loaded. I see the tty2rpi logo. This is as far as I got. I am not that great with these devices.

If you can see the tty2rpi logo, your RPi is up and running fine. Write down the IP address shown before the tty2rpi logo, usually something like "192.168.2.55" for example.

I understand that you have to get the Mister to load the tty2 program. Is there a file I can load to the updater that will install everything I need like updateall?

Yes, there is and you maybe have missed part two of the setup documentation

Also, how do you navigate the raspberry pi? There is just a logo. I assume I will need to change some things to get it configured correctly.
One more question, how does the pi connect to the Mister to communicate to display?

MiSTer is communicating to the RPi by a TCP socket (= by network). If you are done with part two (Setting up MiSTer), you have to edit /media/fat/tty2rpi/tty2rpi-user.ini on MiSTer and to setup the IP address of your RPi there. The INI file is showing a line

Code: Select all

TTYDEV="/dev/tcp/IP-ADDRESS-OF-RPI/6666"

Edit this line and replace IP-ADDRESS-OF-RPI with your RPi's IP address (see first sentence). Save the file and exit the editor, then restart the Daemon:

/media/fat/tty2rpi/S60tty2rpi restart

If you already have configured RPi's media files, you should see the MENU video, followed by the MENU picture.
Done. Your tty2rpi is ready to entertain you

Thank you for the response. I am confused on how to setup the Mister. How do you get the correct files on your Mister? I am new to this and don’t understand what these instructions are saying to do.

[RealLarry]

I am confused on how to setup the Mister. How do you get the correct files on your Mister? I am new to this and don’t understand what these instructions are saying to do.

At what step in the documentation are you confused?
BTW: Did you see that you have had a private message from me in your inbox for two weeks??

[Missus]

has anyone set this up on any other 'fruit' pis?
would be nice to be able to use a cheaper/more available sbc!

after reading the documentation, kinda seems like this could work on any linux sbc or pc even!

[RealLarry]

has anyone set this up on any other 'fruit' pis?
would be nice to be able to use a cheaper/more available sbc!

after reading the documentation, kinda seems like this could work on any linux sbc or pc even!

That would be very nice to know, indeed. I'd say if it can run a Linux and has the possibility to drive a display, it will work. Whatever hardware, whatever display, whatever Linux. The hardware and software requirements are very low as it is already running on a RPi1.

[Missus]

That would be very nice to know, indeed. I'd say if it can run a Linux and has the possibility to drive a display, it will work. Whatever hardware, whatever display, whatever Linux. The hardware and software requirements are very low as it is already running on a RPi1.

ill volunteer to test! i got a few MrChromebox'd flashed machines with HDMI sitting around, much cheaper and more reliable than a pi!

example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364155895993
(no affiliation, but i have a couple of these) small form factor, comes with everything needed including small ssd, power brick, wifi/ethernet and they are fairly easy to flash.
at $30, unbeatable value!

guides:
disable bios write protect https://kodi.wiki/view/Archive:Chromebo ... te_Protect
flash with MrChromebox: https://mrchromebox.tech/#fwscript

but when it works does that necessitate a name change to tty2linux? or perhaps keep the rhyme going with tty2hdmi? haha

[RealLarry]

That would be very nice to know, indeed. I'd say if it can run a Linux and has the possibility to drive a display, it will work. Whatever hardware, whatever display, whatever Linux. The hardware and software requirements are very low as it is already running on a RPi1.

ill volunteer to test! i got a few MrChromebox'd flashed machines with HDMI sitting around, much cheaper and more reliable than a pi!

example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364155895993
(no affiliation, but i have a couple of these) small form factor, comes with everything needed including small ssd, and power brick and fairly easy to flash.
$30, unbeatable value!

guides:
disable bios write protect https://kodi.wiki/view/Archive:Chromebo ... te_Protect
flash with MrChromebox: https://mrchromebox.tech/#fwscript

but when it works does that necessitate a name change to tty2linux? or perhaps keep the rhyme going with tty2hdmi? haha

Appreciated! I'm here to help wherever I can (I'm a Linux-only guy).
Yeah, the name was in thinking of "RPi - the most available and valuable board available", but shortage Is telling us the truth when pooping in front of the neighbor's door. A name change is out of the question, but you're right for a more generic name. But what could it be? "HDMI" isn't really applicable as you could use also (at least) a DSI display. In commemorations to tty2oled I still prefer tty2rpi, and this is also a working and reliable solution for MAME cabinets (if not using a Dual-Screen setup).

Thanks anyway; contact me if you need help in setting up your Chromebook for tty2rpi (maybe I should get a cheap one for myself for some handicrafts).

[Missus]

Thanks anyway; contact me if you need help in setting up your Chromebook for tty2rpi (maybe I should get a cheap one for myself for some handicrafts).

Thanks @RealLarry

If you're in the states, I'd be happy to send one your way (sans power brick, dont have any spares) if you'd like.

Otherwise I will post here once i get a chance to dig in.

BTW this offer is open to any devs who read this (RealLarry feel free to pass this offer along), send me a PM if you want one!

[RealLarry]

If you're in the states, I'd be happy to send one your way (sans power brick, dont have any spares) if you'd like.
Otherwise I will post here once i get a chance to dig in.

Many thanks for your offer, but I'm residing on the other side of the northern hemisphere, in Germany to be precise.
But I read a 'lil bit about setting up a Chromebook, and as long as you can "open" it to gain full access, everything else should be a more-or-less standard setup of Linux. A culprit could be the graphics driver, but that would be unusual these days.
tty2rpi is using some simple scripts, ffmpeg and vlc only (along with some other standard programs), so nothing spectacular ahead.

[Missus]

Many thanks for your offer, but I'm residing on the other side of the northern hemisphere, in Germany to be precise.
But I read a 'lil bit about setting up a Chromebook, and as long as you can "open" it to gain full access, everything else should be a more-or-less standard setup of Linux. A culprit could be the graphics driver, but that would be unusual these days.
tty2rpi is using some simple scripts, ffmpeg and vlc only (along with some other standard programs), so nothing spectacular ahead.

Ah ha! That -is- far away.

I can confirm, I currently use a couple of the Acer model as headless service hosts running ubuntu in a closet. Theyve hummed along just fine! I did try a few different OS/distros, they worked fine, no driver issues to speak of.

That said I did not do much in the way of video playback at the time, so I am curious to see if some flavor of h245/6 @ 4k is possible! If Not, no big deal, 1080p will be fine. But I think it might be fun to have some huge display playing a 4k attract video beside a little 14" CRT where the actual gaming is

Cheers!

[RealLarry]

I can confirm, I currently use a couple of the Acer model as headless service hosts running ubuntu in a closet. Theyve hummed along just fine! I did try a few different OS/distros, they worked fine, no driver issues to speak of.

I'd prefer Debian or Mint (for the use of tty2rpi) instead of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is going a strange way these times with their Snap applications. Customers of my company who are using Ubuntu are complaining about loosing network access to NFS shares from Snap Apps, which is unacceptable. We changed their Desktops to Mint and all problems were gone. I'm afraid Ubuntu could do the same with vlc or mpv (and I'm sure they will do that). This could lead to problems users of tty2rpi would complain to me and I'm not willing to solve Ubuntu's "shit".

That said I did not do much in the way of video playback at the time, so I am curious to see if some flavor of h245/6 @ 4k is possible! If Not, no big deal, 1080p will be fine. But I think it might be fun to have some huge display playing a 4k attract video beside a little 14" CRT where the actual gaming is

You mean h265? Depends on the used GPU, but if it's capable of hardware assisted decoding of h265, yes, absolutely doable.
'm using some NUC-like devices (old, but well hung Zotac CI323) for "media things" and they're doing a great job with h265@4k (GPU support) and an acceptable job for AV1@1080p (no GPU support). So it's more a GPU thing that CPU (or raw CPU power if GPU lacks support).

[RobitGames]

Amazing project! I got it up and running this weekend and am waiting on a nice marquee sized monitor to arrive for my custom cabinet.

One question: The marquee temporarily switches over to a digital clock every so often. It only last a few seconds but I'd like to disable this. I didn't see anything in the documentation or INI files. Any ideas?

p4SAYPd.jpeg

[RealLarry]

Amazing project! I got it up and running this weekend and am waiting on a nice marquee sized monitor to arrive for my custom cabinet.

One question: The marquee temporarily switches over to a digital clock every so often. It only last a few seconds but I'd like to disable this. I didn't see anything in the documentation or INI files. Any ideas?

Ah, a new user! Welcome to the absolute show!
Your solution are the lines SCREENSAVER*** of file tty2rpi.ini you should take over to a file named tty2rpi-user.ini (create that file next to tty2rpi.ini if it doesn't exist).
tty2rpi.ini, which contains all default values, shouldn't be edited as this file will be overwritten at next update...hence the hint of

If you want to change a setting below (Userdata), enable and edit that line in tty2rpi-user.ini

The default values are:

Code: Select all

SCREENSAVER="yes"                       # Set to "yes" to enable screensaver mode on display
SCREENSAVER_START="2"                   # Start screensaver after x minutes (1-59)
SCREENSAVER_IVAL="10"                   # Screensaver Interval (1-59) seconds
SCREENSAVER_AMPM="no"                   # Use the 12h system?

and should be self-explanatory, but if you intend to disable the screensaver at all, just set SCREENSAVER="no" in tty2rpi-user.ini

The screensaver is just a simple and stupid one and is out of my control (for now). The program which I'm using to display pictures (feh) has a "random rotate mode" and displays all pictures in a single directory. While using tty2rpi (at least after showing MENU), the only available pictures are LOGO, MENU and CLOCK which are randomly displayed, but sometimes "feh" dices out the same picture as shown before.

[RobitGames]

Your solution are the lines SCREENSAVER*** of file tty2rpi.ini you should take over to a file named tty2rpi-user.ini (create that file next to tty2rpi.ini if it doesn't exist).
tty2rpi.ini, which contains all default values, shouldn't be edited as this file will be overwritten at next update...hence the hint of

If you want to change a setting below (Userdata), enable and edit that line in tty2rpi-user.ini

This is very helpful thanks! I was confused due to there being two tty2rpi-user.ini files (one on MiSter and one on RPi). I was looking at tty2rpi-system.ini for the screensaver settings instead of tty2rpi.ini.

[RobitGames]

Actually, I'm still having issues. My tty2rpi-user.ini file looks like this:

Code: Select all

SCREENSAVER="no"			# Set to "yes" to enable screensaver mode on display
IPTIMEOUT="0"				# Seconds to show the IP information

I ran the update script on both the RPi and MiSTer but the screen saver is still appearing every 2 minutes and the IP info appears for a while too.

Edit: I noticed I was also getting voltage errors because I'm using a weak power supply on the RPi. I have a proper one coming tomorrow. Maybe that is causing issues?

[RealLarry]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll have a look at this issue today...

[RealLarry]

I ran the update script on both the RPi and MiSTer but the screen saver is still appearing every 2 minutes and the IP info appears for a while too.

Congrats, you've found a bug which I have fixed now. Please re-run update_tty2rpi.sh on the RPi.
Bug was a missing conditional: The screensaver routine is always called, but never checks for SCREENSAVER="no".

Edit: Normally no need to manually update the tty2rpi parts on the RPi as it has it's own auto-update routine which runs every Friday at 2 PM +/- up to 7200 seconds or "ASAP when missed last Friday".