3 Months of Work On Hydro Thunder 

21:08 you say you were going to change the code from 4A to 49 but you input 39 instead, could that have caused an issue resetting all the scores and play times as you pointed out?

This game doesn't have any emotional connections for me. But your delight, enjoyment and fascination with it is something I find AMAZINGLY enjoyable to watch.

Howdy! I was part of the track design team on HT, love to see the enthusiasm and love for the game here! I don't know if Its an still an issue this many years later, but I had long hair when we were developing this and the "speaker" holes in the seats had these screws that would repeatedly yoink out my hair. For years it would make me crazy to see hairs stuck in the screws whenever I saw a cab in the wild, I begged for there to be a change in that aspect of the cab deslgn lol.

Man, as always, an absolutely amazing job you did. The fact that you actually make your work public instaed of monetizing it is amazing, especially when talking about arcade cabinets where information can often be kept behind bars.

Fantastic to see it all come together so well! I think it's safe to say with all this new information about maintaining those systems the units that remain out there won't be scrapped when they eventually break but can now actually be repaired with non-unobtainium parts and accessible information. I'm also hopeful for the feasibility of emulation now with all the EXE mods, I'd certainly join in on a Diego PCB communication reverse engineering stream if there's one in the future, from what I've learnt sifting though the EXE it appears to communicate in frames on COM1 so I'm hopeful it's well structured, easy to modify and susceptible to simple replay and hopefully no checksums anywhere! But Shebly puts it quite aptly that it took a lot of stubbornness and the stupidity not to give up in order to crack that highscore checksum and it most certainly did, there were many wrong turns taken, obscure issues and even falling flat just before the finish with a seemly unsolvable off-by-one bug that was looking like it would need to be brute forced, but after not giving up and just taking a step back to check everything it ended up being a simple fix. It was a delight working with you on it Shelby, thank you too! It's made me look back at a different checksum cracking project a while ago that I had given up on entirely that had a complex checksum and even very robust ECC, but now I think I should have another crack at it!

This is just marvelous! HEX searching, 3D designing, code reverse engineering, hardware "cloning"... Jeez! I'm getting an overdose of geekiness right now! Excellent work, exposition and philosophy for sharing it! This is why I LOVE this channel!

My throttle bracket also tore! I was shocked that it did that (I started typing this as you mentioned me hahah). These are really interesting videos. I love that you're diving into the alternate hardware options and maybe even emulation! I'm tempted to order some of those replacement parts myself. My dash also has broken mounting bits but someone drilled holes into the sides and it holds well enough.

As a guy who's background is more mechanical than electrical, I'll offer a few thoughts on your sheet metal design experiences... some you may have had yourself by now. Understand I'm not trying to kick you when you're down. 😉Simply jumping into what is legitimately an entire career for some people isn't for the faint of heart. You did great considering this was your first time. 👍 1 - 3D printing is one of the cheapest and most powerful tools available to pretty much everyone. Printing your concepts before sending them out would saved you a lot of grief. Even just printing templates (somewhat like what you were doing with your paper printer) would have gotten you close. You can also glue up puzzle-pieced parts and make fixtures for things far in excess of what your printer can simply "print" (or in your case, to potentially eliminate a lot of supports). I thought I had seen a printer on your channel before, but if not, I really encourage you to grab one. 2 - Most local machine shops are able, and willing, to do small production run parts. They're also, to a point, willing to help you design them around the tooling they have on hand. The default values for K-factor and such in most design packages are normally fine, but the guy running the machine would actually _know_ what it is for their tools and your material. Mail order services are absolutely great for many reasons, but I think a lot of people simply don't realize that they have local options too. 3 - Unless there are specific reasons not to, you should always break all of your sharp outside corners with a radius. Your parts will have a better appearance and be safer to handle. You had a poor example to work from in the original steering bracket example, but we also don't know how those parts may have been nested (industry speak for how the parts were laid out on a big sheet of steel) when they were originally cut so maybe they had their reasons. Inside sharp corners should also be avoided as they're stress risers and will localize areas for cracks to form. I doubt that's going to be an issue on your dashboard clamps (the lower inside corners), but it's good practice to avoid it if possible. Should you decide to go further down these sorts of rabbit holes in the future, my door is always open if you'd like help.

a better solution for a gain knob would be a in line RCA bass knob for car audio. they make them as cheap or as fancy as you could ever want, rca is easily adaptable to anything, and they are dead nuts reliable! great content keep up the great work, i plan on building an arcade cabinet of my own to run emulators of all varieties and your progress here has given me hope on one day having hydro thunder run on it!

Man these videos encompass so many of my interests (CAD, 3d printing, programming, retro games, PC hardware, etc). Love it

We need more people like you! Arcade machines just aren't like this anymore

Love these hydro thunder vids! Those machines could not have wound up in better hands

One of the best arcade machines ever, and nice job remaking it! It feels like the 2000s all over again.

If someone ever says that you lack passion and dedication towards anything, just send them the link to this video Shelby. Due to lack of time I missed some of your streams but man is it awesome that you made THAT MUCH PROGRESS with the Hydro Thunder arcade machines. Can't wait to see what you come up with for the Marquee up there. Keep it very much up! 44 Minutes of pure gold and, if you have the slightest interest in things like that, you feel the relief for every hurdle you encountered. I salute you very much Sir!

Shelby, I'm a newer sub to your channel. I have to say, seeing the pure joy you experience during your various projects always manages to put a smile on my face.

HydroThndr is my favorite arcade game of all time. Thankyou for helping to preserve these cabs.

your smile is infectious, brother! Love how happy you are with this!! =]

You have no idea how amazing it is to see my childhood revived in this project series. Thank you so much!

The world needs more people like you dude! This was genius level work.

Your work on these machines and for the following that loves them is absolutely fantastic. So cool to hear about all the folk helping you out too. A true awesome effort! 💜

This was fascinating! I love hydro thunder, retro repairs, and coding so this was such a pleasure to watch. This was the first video I've seen of yours and you did such a great job. Subscribed and can't wait to see what else you have in store for us. Keep up the phenomenal work!

Never thought i'd like watching all the tech and mechanics behind these machines but here I am. Love your content, keep em coming!!! 😃

Awesome work! ❤❤❤ I stumbled across your videos regarding HT and I'm so glad I did. We have a HT in our arcade in UK (Timewarp Arcade) but ours is doing the 6 beeps error and we think our Dieago board has issues. But we are going to try the things you did in the video to hopefully get into the game. Looking forward to the next update video and hopefully your work on the Diego board 🤞🏻. Keep up the awesome work mate ❤

Your work on preserving, maintaining these machines is nothing short of extraordinary! Thank you for keeping these games running, backed up, and physically maintained, hope to see more progress come in the emulation space in time too!

This video helped me to rescue some data on a corrupted hard drive for my father. Thank you very much!

Your dedication to keeping these machines running is absolutely unreal, happy I could be of some help with the CAD!

so crazy going from never hearing of this channel, to following this Saga for a year or so.

The reason for the checksum dates back to the NVRAM arcade days. No, arcade machines almost never use EEPROMs for various reasons. All configuration and subsequently, high score table data is stored in an NVRAM chip - usually a battery backed SRAM. That's why arcade machines often have battery leakage problems because they used 3 AA batteries to maintain SRAM contents. It would not surprise me if Hydro Thunder adapted their NVRAM code to use the last sector(s) of the hard drive for this purpose - it saves having to have a battery, you have the capability of writing to it etc. However, as part of this, there will be times when the SRAM is invalid - perhaps you changed the batteries, or the unit came from the factory, and you just installed the batteries (we're talking old school arcade machines here). Or, when the hard drives were being imaged - the imaging utility will likely capture the DOS partitions and data just fine and extend the final partition. You'd ignore the last sector to avoid having to calculate it every time a new hard drive model came in. The game would read the "NVRAM" data off the hard drive, see it was invalid, then revert to defaults because the checksum was invalid. Likewise, if there was an error saving the configuration or high score information (e.g., power outage), this corruption can be recovered from. Remember, this is an appliance - you don't want to run SCANDISK or CHKDSK on startup so you don't want to write to the filesystem, so excepting a few instances (e.g., updates), the main game data shouldn't ever be touched. Using the last sectors thus ensures configuration and high score information can be reverted if it gets corrupted.

RU-vid recommended played me like a fiddle with this one. I played this game growing up, and wasn't even a fan, but this video had me glued from start to finish

I always love when I find a video, that for all intensive purposes I had intended to just click through and not really watch start to finish.......BUT I end up sitting through the entire thing. The enthusiasm and persistence is infectious. Congrats on your accomplishments with the project(s) and thanks for sharing.

Wooooow, what an undertaking! I appreciate all the effort and resources put in to this and the lessons learnt.

I really appreciate your enthusiasm and how passionate you are. Seeing that run on alternate hardware is amazing.

As a kid I just love HydroThunder I just got into emulation and retro gaming because the community is so awesome. You are creating files for people enjoy this machine longevity in the future! A lot of this is over my head but I’ve loved watching every video you are one very cool dude. 😎

Your enthusiasm is properly contagious.

Fascinating content. Well done for pushing through the obstacles. That's a brilliant range of skills used in the furtherance of a worthy project. Kudos to you.

Majority of what you've done (prolly 97% haha) is way above my knowledge but as a hydro thunder enthusiast, I still love watching the video and makes me want to find one and eventually learn what you've been doing. Awesome video and keep up the amazing work! cheers

My favorite Arcade game I grew up Dumping quarters into this thing with my kid brother we knew Every damn hidden shortcut you name it I bought the Dreamcast for this game & Quake III

The sheer enthusiasm for the projects on these machines based on your love for the game is something so cool in itself, let alone the projects :P Great work dude, really enjoying following this!

wow, I am picking up my jaw from the floor watching this. Those arcades couldnt end up in a better hands than yours.

18:00 on an HDD the end of the drive is the most inner ring on the platter, it's the slowest velocity and slowest transfer speed. I imagine they were storing small ASCII data there so all the important big files can load faster.

I had no idea this game was on arcade machines, I played hurricane way back on the Xbox 360 and I fell in love

They are so cool, what a hoot to have in your home to play!

It might come down to me actually building one at this rate. I love this game that much! Thank you for this video!

Im so glad someone like you is taking charge of preserving and restoring these machines! I badly wanna own two for myself one day so its nice to know that when i can finally make space for them that there will be quite alot of work already done to make that experience alot better

Online VPN multiplayer attempt next? --It'd be great to get a little Pi(?) VPN setup together that could work on any of these hub-based midway/atari-games cabinets. How many hydro thunders can hook together? 8? (guessing based on my Rush 2049)

I hadn't even heard of Hydro Thunder before I saw your restoration project, but I'm invested now. Great work restoring these cabinets to their former glory and beyond!

Thanks for the throwback. The Aopen AX6BC was the board I used in my first self-built PC back in the late 90s.

So glad I recently found this channel. Every new vid's a must-watch.

This series has been really cool to watch! I always wondered how arcade systems functioned under the hood.

This series of videos was the reason I got Hydro Thunder for the Dreamcast, keep up the good work Shelby!

Just bonkers amazing!! Love that you keep archiving and fixing all the things.

It's mad that this degree of success is even possible for such a niche project

I'm jealous you have not 1 but 2 Hydro Thunder arcades. Most of us just play the N64 version emulated on a pc, or try to get the Eurocom PC version working which is the closest to the arcade but seems harder than it should be. Hopefully the emulated PC-Em of the actual game dump like you have will be working someday. Also amazing is how necessity turns to ingenuity to design replica parts as needed for these older games. I built a Star Wars cockpit from scratch with a pc running emulation and it's a blast to play in an old Atari cockpit. I'm an avid classic gamer, but like most people just don't have the room for such arcade treasures. Keep up the great work and updates.

This is my first time watching your work and I have to say is very nice. Also very, very surprised to see your Plasma Desktop.

This dude is literally the "arcane whimsical magician" that's is into the old ways and has de wisdom to understand and repair treasures from the past.

Hindsight is 20/20 but a 3d print of your model woulda caught your mistake, but you prolly already knew that. Good video. Interesting stuff. Thanks for making it!

I have fond memories of playing this on the PS1 and on one or two occasions on the actual arcade machines. I played the re-make on the 360 and now have a copy on the Dreamcast, needless to say it's one of my favorite games and I really appreciate your work in preservation!

My favorite arcade racer, as a young adult. I played the later 360 edition to death. I wish you were my neighbor.

I used to play this ALL THE TIME back in the day along with San Francisco Rush in the arcades... I'm also an enjoyer of hacking and reverse engineering firmware, so this hits all the right notes for me.

Great job Thanks for taking the time to make the video and share it...

Very well done!!! That was a considerable amount of developer work you did. Nice to see people willing to commit to a project. Good for you..

Wow what a cool video. I don’t really understand much of what you did. But I was completely captivated. The Pizza Hut in our town had hydro thunder. It was by far my favorite arcade game.

You and the rest of the crew of talented goobers cranking on this problem are all wizards and I can't thank you enough. I've got two racing rigs side by side emulating arcade racers, I get so much grief from people that Hydro Thunder isn't available and that H2Overdrive isn't even a halfway decent substitute. It's been a really amazing time watching these restore videos and I seriously can't wait to see what you pull off next. Stay excellent Brother!

If you can get a glide wrapper working then that'll really open up the possibilities.

Thanks for giving this game the love it deserves! You're an excellent entertainer. I don't know or care much about the technical aspects, but you break it down so even I have an idea what's going on. Good luck on the world record hunt!

i know what you're saying from technical point makes sense, but i didn't understood anything, still it's nice seeing the machines restored and working better than ever

For metal parts you should remove oils, lightly sand with some 600 grit or so, then prep, then use an etching primer, then thin coats of paint, thin coats as in so thin they may not even cover in one coat, let tack up for 15 or 20 minutes, making sure its not too humid and above 73 degrees F, and continue Thin coats until you have your desired number, i usually wait a little bit longer on second coat and a little bit longer than that on third coat so the solvent has time to offgas, this will make sure your primer bonds to the metal, and subsequent coats of paint bond to the primer and each other forming a much more resilient finish ruducing chipping substantially and producing a very even and powdercoat looking result... etching metal primer is a must by the way as well as every step mentioned.

can't wait for the day I'll have the money and the time to show that same love to Top Skater machines

Absolutely fascinating watch. Your enthusiasm is infectious!

Great work! Thanks for sharing with the arcade community. Great help to preserve these machines for the future. It was very interesting even without having any arcade machine background. Thanks!

I need a set of those dashboard and throttle brackets for my hydro cab!

Amazing work! Thanks for putting so much time and effort into this - it's great to see these old games being preserved and looked after, and made for a great video 😊

I just fixed my Hydrothunder monitor and got my game up and running. I’m going to order the throttle bracket.

very happy to see an update the first video was very interesting and i liked it alot

the most retro thing about this video is when you said thank you to forum user linkin park

Super, super cool. Been following this for awhile!

fantastic.... our one still needs repair that might happen later... but good to see LPark's work in your vid

Was quite nice watching/listening to this. I dunno why I find stuff like this so interesting.

Awesome work! I remember there being a long line to play this when it first came out in the arcade. It was a huge hit

We had these at a movie theater. Absolutely my favorite arcade game.

there's a bank of 4 of these at the vegas pinball museum and it's my favorite arcade game from my era as a 90's kid.

Cool video. Played a whole lot of hydro thunder on either ps1 or n64, forget because it’s been decades

Excellent Job on these! Good info on the video cards. Ive worked on dozens of these over the years and they have been very dependable machines. In fact I still operate 3 of them on my route. Actually I still run Arctic Thunder and Off Road Thunder! For your monitor with the focus problem I have had flybacks cause focus problems. The only way you can tell for sure is to test the focus grid on the CRT with a tube tester/rejuvinator before replacing the flyback. I have seen this many times with flybacks for Wells Gardner monitors. FYI I'll be posting a repair video on an H2Overdrive soon. Good Luck!

38:25 This is a big reason why 3D printing is so valuable for the industry. My engineering colleagues 3D print everything the can, before sending it to a manufacturing company. Allows you to check measurements, assemblability and even fit if you have a well tuned printer.

Nerdy Adam Driver you're the best. This was fun.

Fantastic job mate your hard work should help a lot of people out, looking forward to the next update.

Dude been following all of the progress of this project. its been very cool to see what goes into software and parts to this machine and also finding out why this game isn't on mame. you are way smarter than me when it comes to all of this and i don't have a clue what all you are doing with the software and wish i would of learned that stuff when i was younger instead learning how to play with myself lol. anyway keep the good work can't wait till see the next video. awesome documentation

I love this series! I loved this game and I love the work you've done.

Such a great project, I love how passionate you are on them! :)

This is software/hardware archival history, looking forward to future projects

Your work into this is amazing! Thank you so much for the time and effort you have put in!!!

Awesome video! It's a little weird seeing my initials on a machine I've never touched before.

amazing work. stoked to see the next video in the series

i would enjoy seeing more content like this one. ❤

Awesome! Have not watched a sec even and I just know. Awesome! Like every video.

Want to know a trick for painting steel parts and making it stick? Make sure you prep it beforehand with some really light sandpaper, that way you can key it so paint sticks better, after scuffing it use a filler primer spray and then give that a light wet sanding then paint your four layers and it will be as smooth as you want it to be and will not chip. Same as dealing with body work on a vehicle.

Like this goes beyond of just replacing the PC on the official arcade, you can literally build your own Hydro Thunder machine if you really want to and you gather all the essencials outside the PC itself. Although it could be a bit expensive for the part of doing the full on sit cabinet because all of the surround sound on the chair itself, the metallic parts and of course having the enough knowledge to do all the circuit stuff (but i just think you can literally buy all the other circuitry related to controls and stuff if you look well enough and its just a matter of looking at pictures of how its arranged inside the cabinet and replicate that) but if you have the patience, knowledge and enough money you can pretty much built your own unofficial Hydro Thunder arcade, and im not saying it in the way of "pirating" or bootleging but in the way of we can literally now do "brand new" Hydro Thunder units pretty much.

Amazing work! Bravo!

This is just epic, I love this game as well!

For painting a good primer and clear coat will do wonders for lonfervity on the steel parts. Though it does mean basically tripling the painting time, that is if you DIY it, like you say,a powder coat will be the best for life.