Nucore Experience ? Pinball 2000

[Caveoftreasures]

Guys, As I have spent time talking with Chuck and had the chance of viewing the standard CRT and the LCD with new core I can assure you there is a massive difference. In the thread it has been mentioned that the picture is 5 times better I do not know about the metric here but what Chuck stated at Expo 09 was that the programming and graphics design was ahead of the CRT's ability to display.

What is not talked about here is that with a CRT you loose a lot of the picture as the CRT needs to fit inside the cabinet therefore you loose about 50mm of picture display capacity. When you use a LCD display you get the picture to within about 10mm of the cabinet edge (Assuming you buy the max size you can fit) You can then view parts of the image that were simply not viewable on the CRT.

The image displayed comes alive Night and Day difference.

I am building a full Nucore RFM in the new year and will post some stuff when it comes to life.

Don't forget positives like with the nucore program you can have SWEP1 & RFM roms loaded and it auto reads, the juke box is cool, but one of the neatest features is you can invert the screen so as you can take the glass off and work on the game with a readable display

Just a few thoughts

Chillie, it will be great to see how u go with the full upgrade. I added a LCD monitor to my star vtrek voyager shooting game, and again, the lcd display and the clarity was amazing. Its not until u add the lcd that u realise how much u were missing when viewing the std crt monitor.
It will be great to see the nucore upgrade anbd maybe a video of before and after if u could. It certainly gives any pinball 2000 a new lease on life. 

[Pinballer]

With all hardware components, mounting plate & software here and ready to go, lets get the system ready for use...

Please note, what follows is how I went about building a Nucore system.  Not a step by step guide or manual.

[Pinballer]

The CPU is setup with all jumpers in the default positions.  CPU, heatsink & fan installed and connected.  2GB RAM installed.  500GB Hard Drive mounted and connected.  DVD Drive installed and connected.  Power Supply connected (don't forget to check it's setup for 240V operation - check the selector switch on the PS). 

All components assembled on the mounting plate.  Monitor, keyboard & mouse connected.  Ready to flick the switch!?

[Pinballer]

PS switch flicked and system powers up successfully.  Well after shorting the pins on the motherboard where the power-on switch should be connected  

Will make sure this feature is disabled in the BIOS later so it boots once power is applied.

It's alive!  Hard to see in the photo, but the CPU fan is spinning and the green LED on the motherboard (bottom RHS adjacent to the PCI connector).

[Pinballer]

Checking the BIOS settings as per the recommendation of the Nucore manual.

[Pinballer]

System restarted with the Ubuntu disc in the DVD drive.  System boots up and displays the Ubuntu desktop.

[Pinballer]

After checking the necessary Ubuntu installation options as per the Nucore manual, its time to install Ubuntu.

[Pinballer]

With Ubuntu successfully installed and some further software setting changes made to the Ubuntu operating system as per the Nucore manual, its time to install Nucore!

Reboot the system, wait until Ubuntu loads to its desktop, then install the Nucore disc in the DVD drive.  Once the disc auto loads, click run and the Nucore installation is underway.

[Pinballer]

Ah well....almost....don't forget to connect the system to the internet.  This is the only part not mentioned in sequence, in what is an otherwise excellent installation manual.  Just make sure you have a LAN cable (network) cable connected to the motherboard of your Nucore system prior to following the instructions from "STEP 4 - Final Installation", pg 20 of the Nucore User Manual.

If you forget, its no big deal, as the installation will fail and you can run it again once you've connected the LAN cable.


Network cable from my modem connected to the system and the Nucore installation is underway.

Will continue the thread when I can.

[ajlaird]

Excellent! Hope this is going well!!

[Strangeways]

Awesome !

Looks very straight forward 

[Caveoftreasures]

thanks for taking the time to post. this is one post i am dying to see all come together.

the nucore setup is something that most pin 2000 users will have to move to sooner or later.

thanks for the pics and details so far. 

[Pinballer]

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.

To continue on, I need to give some background info.  I purchased enough parts (as described earlier in this thread) to build 2 Nucore systems.  One for my RFM and the other for a non working RFM I picked up cheap last year. My aim is to convert the non working RFM to a SW:E1 and sell off the 2nd RFM playfield.  As I purchased a SW:E1 playfield kit about 10 years ago, shit! was it really that long ago!?

Since my last post, I have one Nucore system ready to install.  All the Ubuntu & Nucore software has been successfully installed.  That system now boots up to the Nucore playfield selection screen, ready to roll.  

During the process of the first software installation, I ran into a problem immediately following my last posting here.  The next thread will describe the problem I encountered and what was done to successfully resolve it.  I'm installing the software to the second system as I put this thread together.

[Pinballer]

Pg 22 of the Nucore User manual states, that when the Nucore software installation is complete, a new file will appear on the Ubuntu desktop.  The file is titled nucore_install.log.  The manual suggest you open this (it's just like a Windows txt/Notepad file) and view the 2nd last line.  It should read "Nucore install was a success".  This is what my install log file reported.

If it doesn't report this, the manual points you in the direction of the Big Guys Support webpage (Nucore Headquarters) for further help.

With my system reporting the Nucore software was installed correctly.  I moved onto the next step as described on pg.25 of the Nucore User manual.  This involves you going online with the Nucore system at this point and downloading the Nucore ROM package from www.pinball.com, from the actual link supplied in the manual.  I suffered some frustration at this point and want to document what happened and how I resolved it, hoping that it may help others in future.  

The image below shows the Firefox icon on the task bar of the Ubuntu desktop.  I took this picture prior to the instructions on pg.22 of installing the Nucore software.  Once the Nucore software was installed, you will notice what happened to the Firefox icon in the next picture.  The Firefox icon disappears and is replaced with a black square. Hover the mouse pointer over the icon and it still knows it is Firefox by the information bubble that appears. However when trying to run Firefox to go online and download the Nucore ROM package, I got the following error message displayed in an error box: -

ERROR
Could not launch application failed to execute child process "firefox" (no such file or directory).


NOTE: Firefox is an alternate Internet Browser, similar, but much better than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  

[Pinballer]

The error basically alerts the user that the Firefox program is corrupt or not installed correctly, as it cannot locate the necessary files to run Firefox.  I assumed that this error would be documented somewhere and I'd find a solution online, wrong!  

I read through any related thread on the Big Guys Pinball Forum hoping to find a solution.  I couldn't find one.  I decided my next step was to start the installation process again.  I did this by going back to step 1 and installing Ubuntu & Nucore again.  This included formatting the Hard Drive of the Nucore system and starting the installation from scratch.  Unfortunately this didn't resolve anything, as I was right back to the same position, with the same error.

Being a complete novice with Ubuntu, I just started exploring the options available for the Ubuntu user from the desktop.  At the top of the screen in the menu bar you will find "Update Manager" listed under the "System" menu.  This allows the user to Upgrade the installed Ubuntu software and any other installed software packages.  When you run this option, it gives you a list of all installed components and the ability to upgrade some (user selected) or all components.  This is where the time browsing the postings on the BGP Forum was invaluable.  As one posting mentioned that Nucore wasn't yet compatible with the latest version of Ubuntu.  So I decided to just select and upgrade Firefox only, as shown below.

Several minutes later the download of the Firefox updates was completed and installed.  Glancing up at the Firefox icon on the menu bar, showed it was again legible.  I clicked on it and Firefox loaded up successfully and I was able to continue on as described on pg.25 of the Nucore User manual.  WOOHOO!

When Firefox ran for this first time, it appears the Home Page has been set to a very popular internet Forum!!  Someone at Nucore must be an AP fan!