Mametastic
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
It lives!

Well a bunch has happened with the progress of my MAME cab. I was able to snag a case, mobo, PSU, cpu, cd-rom, and 20 GB hard drive from a co-worker of mine (thanks Neil!). The system had definitely seen better days, as it had been in a flood and sat in water for a weekend. But regardless, it was a freebie, so I was going to try my best to get the thing working. Unfortunately, after many unsuccessful attempts, I had to pronounce it officially dead. Cause of death - a fried motherboard.

So anyways, I salvaged the hard drive, and I'm going to use the PSU, cpu, and cd-rom as spare parts if I need them.

Now fast forward to today where I bought a case, mobo, and PII 400 Mhz cpu that was going to be scrapped for parts from work (it definitely helps being an IT guy) for $15 bucks. Plus I had ordered a 300W power supply from TigerDirect a few days ago, and it arrived today. A couple of phone calls and a quick trip to a local computer shop later, and I had myself 128 MB of SDRAM. A final stop at Circuit City and I snagged a cheapo sound card (and Trans-Siberian Orchestra's new CD!). I already had a spare 64 MB GeForce 2 Pro video card and a MS Internet keyboard sitting around, so I now had all the parts I needed.

As I write this, I'm loading XP SP2 on the system. I'm hoping to have the pc installed in the cab and functioning before I go to bed! After that, all that's left will be to get the marquee printed and attached.

posted by Brian at 5:22 PM 0 comments


The computer, in the process of having SP2 installed. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 5:22 PM 0 comments


A quick shot of the power supply box and sound card box. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 5:21 PM 0 comments
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Let there be sound!


Here's a shot of the speakers I bought today at Best Buy. Both of the speakers fit perfectly up in the marquee, and the subwoofer sits pretty snug in the bottom-front end of the cab. To test it out I hooked up the speakers to my TV and they sound pretty good for what I paid. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 10:47 AM 0 comments
Saturday, November 20, 2004


Just a quick shot of the marquee I designed today. I made this one from scratch and overall I like how it came out. I think we have a winner! Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 11:43 AM 0 comments
Friday, November 19, 2004
Getting close!

Here's a couple of more pictures on some of the progress I made last weekend (it's taken me a week to get around to taking pictures!). Basically the monitor and control panel are now in place. The only things left to do now is buy a couple more computer components and decide on a marquee.

posted by Brian at 4:05 PM 0 comments


A view from the front where you can see the monitor and control panel now attached. All that's left is the marquee and computer! Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 4:04 PM 0 comments


Here's the monitor from the back, resting on the mount. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 4:03 PM 0 comments
Monday, November 15, 2004
Small update

On Friday my t-molding came, so this weekend I redid the t-molding on the cab, and finally lugged the thing out of my garage and into the house. I also made a monitor mount and attached the back door to the cab.

This weekend I got lucky finding a monitor. I was calling all of the computer shops around my area when I came across a small local shop called Mossor Computers. It turns out they had two older, used 15'' monitors that they never tested to see if they even worked, but they told me that if I'd come and get them they would give me both of them for free! So I booked it up there and grabbed them both, brought them home, and tested them - and both worked! The one that's going in the cab looks great, but the one that will be my spare doesn't like to go very bright before it gets cranky and starts to look like crap.

Granted, a 15'' monitor looks a bit small in the cabinet made for a 19'' arcade screen, but I'm not going to complain since the monitor was free. Plus, I can always upgrade to a nicer monitor later.

posted by Brian at 5:31 AM 0 comments


The cab with the control panel connected and the new t-molding applied. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 3:36 AM 0 comments


A view from the back. You can see here that I've got the back door mounted now, and on the inside you can see part of the monitor mount I put up. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 3:35 AM 0 comments


The monitor that's going to go in the cabinet. It's a 15'' compaq. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 3:34 AM 0 comments
Thursday, November 11, 2004
A moment of triumph

The wiring is finished! And I must say, I'm rather proud of myself. Other people might scoff and think the wiring is child's play, but for me - the guy who never touched a crimper before in his life and had absolutely no idea what a keyboard encoder was or how arcade controls worked less than a month ago - it feels great to know that I've reached a milestone.

I can't describe how cool it felt to be sitting there on the floor with the control panel hooked up to my computer configuring Mamewah and playing games with the thing. It's AWESOME!

posted by Brian at 6:16 PM 0 comments


Here's a shot of all the wiring going into the KeyWiz encoder. It was more time consuming than anything, and not really difficult. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 6:16 PM 0 comments


A close up shot of the Keywiz all wired up. The purple ps2 connector is my keyboard wire, and the white ps2 connector is the male-male wire that goes into the computer. To switch between using my keyboard or the control panel, all I have to do is flick the black switch to the right of the connectors. Pretty slick stuff. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 6:15 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Working on the Control Panel


The controls came today! Everything is from Happ Controls. I ordered 2 Super 8-way joysticks, 8 red buttons, 2 yellow buttons, a one player button, and a two player button. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:44 PM 0 comments


This is the Keywiz Max 1.5 Keyboard Encoder. This is what I wire all of my controls to, and then I plug this into my computer's ps2 port. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:43 PM 0 comments


This is the keywiz from the side where you can see the ps2 connectors. One is for your keyboard to plug into as an input, and the other is for a male-male ps2 connector to go out to your computer's ps2 port. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:41 PM 0 comments


Here's the tools of the trade! From left to right, you have the crimping/wire stripping tool, then the female quick disconnectors, then some wire connectors in case I need any, and finally a 90 foot spool of 22 gauge stranded wire. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:39 PM 0 comments


Here I'm stripping off the end of the wire so that I can thread it through the quick disconnector. Basically you put the wire through the tool at the spot that matches the gauge of your wire, clamp down, and then pull the wire. Oh, and my dog Sansa makes a guest appearance here... she's quite a camera ham :) Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:36 PM 0 comments


Here you can see how to put the wire in the quick disconnector. Basically take the ends of two wires (when daisy-chaining) and twist them together, and then thread the wire through the red part of the quick disconnector until a little bit of wire pokes out the other side onto the metal. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:34 PM 0 comments


Here I'm crimping the wire to the quick disconnector. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:33 PM 0 comments


Here's the female quick disconnector finally connected to the ground of a button. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:31 PM 0 comments


Here's the control panel with all the controls. Pay no attention to the red tape strip going across. That's still left over from when I was painting :) Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:28 PM 0 comments


Here's the control panel from the back, with all of the ground wiring set up. It's 10:30 p.m. now, so I'm stopping for the night. Tomorrow I'm going to hopefully get the wiring to the keywiz done and test it out on my computer. Sweet! Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 7:27 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Marquee



Small update... I've been working on my marquee tonight and this is what I came up with. The original background is from Arcade Art under the Homebrew section. I basically fired up Photoshop, resized it to my marquee's dimensions, played with the levels and color balance to get it to be green (it was blue originally), and then added the text.

This is a REALLY small version of the marquee. It's real dimensions are 23.75 in. x 6.75 in. Since I had to mash it down so much, the text looks a little more blurry and shadowy than it really is. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 5:47 PM 0 comments
Monday, November 08, 2004
It's all about the molding

Today I ordered 40 feet worth of black t-molding from the aptly named www.t-molding.com. The current molding was pretty beat up, which actually came in handy when painting the cab since I didn't have to be careful about getting paint on it.

Today I got emails from both Happ Controls and Groovy Game Gear (GGG) telling me that my orders have shipped! I ended up settling on the KeyWiz MAX 1.5 keyboard encoder from GGG since it appears to have everything I need while being quite a bit cheaper than the more pricey encoders from Hagstrom Electronics.

I can't wait to get my stuff!!

posted by Brian at 8:01 PM 0 comments
A fresh new look

After quite a few hours of work, the painting is finished! I painted the front and back black, and the coin doors green to match the sides. The control panel is now also green without the old retro graphics.

I then took a field trip to Lowes and WallyWorld (a.k.a. Walmart) and got some supplies, including:


  • various screws

  • new bolts for the control panel

  • plexiglass, which I got cut for the marquee and the main display

  • various length pieces of wood cut for what will be my monitor support

  • a 12'' florescent light unit for the marquee

  • black posterboard which will be used to make a bezel



When I got home I mounted the lighting for the marquee, and I also mounted a power strip inside the cabinet where the old power switch and wiring used to be.

It was a lot of work this weekend and I'm a little sore and tired today, but it was definitely worth it. Check out the pics!

posted by Brian at 3:23 AM 0 comments


The finished paint job, with the marquee light visible. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 3:23 AM 0 comments


Here's another angle. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 3:22 AM 0 comments


Inside the cabinet, I took out the old wiring and power supply and mounted a power strip. Posted by Hello

posted by Brian at 3:21 AM 0 comments