Draven

Inspired by the exploits of Goblincat and Blake, I've started working on my own arcade machine.

Forgive the crappy geocities website, I haven't gotten my "nice" one setup yet, so no linkage as of now and I wanted to "show off" before I did .

Draven's MAME Cabinet

I can't take all the credit. My father was in town, and we spent about 9 hours this weekend working on this. I didn't have a digital camera at the time, but we took pictures as we put things together. I'll post them as soon as he gets them developed.

All the info is on the site. Eventually I will paint a marquee and my own custom design. There will be an access door on the side for the computer, with a window to show off my "MAME" mod which I will start on next week. We used a pic of an MKII machine and plans I found online, but I can't locate the link for right now. We modified them heavily, so eventually I will take measurements and do up my own specs for the machine.

Comments and suggestions welcome

joshd2012

Looks nice. Can't wait to see more pics.

Goblincat

WOO HOO! Awesome!

Also, it's Blake, not Blade.

Draven

whoops Thanks, that's what I get for trying to give props from memory. I realize it isn't a lot to look at now. I should be able to get some more things done next week.

Goblincat

The problem with Geocities is that you exceeded the allocated data transfer for the hour. No one can get in right now. Luckily I was able to see it before that happened.

Looking real nice so far. You really should built a control panel. It is much easier than it looks.

Draven

I've been thinking more about this, and I think I may attempt to build a control panel. I'd like to do a 6-8 button layout per player, a player1 and 2 button, and a trackball mounted in the center. It would be nice to install a secondary joystick for each player for a little Smash TV and Total Carnage as well.

I've found some good resources on the web, and I know I will go with Happ Controls. Any suggestions on how to find out exactly what I will need?

Goblincat

http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade.htm

Goldberg74

Now I want to build one...

Goblincat

Well, it's been several months... How about an update?

Drexl

One thing I would suggest-IF you have enough room, would be to install a keyboard and mouse in the front, near the X-arcade. You could either put it behind the stick, or maybe on a pull-out tray under the stick. That way, not only could you work with the computer (if only to switch games easily or install new versions of MAME and new roms and drivers and things), but also, you might get the urge to play something on it that would be good with those peripherals (like a strategy game or a FPS). Then again, forget the strategy games because you're using a television, not a VGA monitor. If you decide to do that, you might want to get one of those keyboards with a built-in trackball to save space.

Or, there is a program called "joymouse" that will let you use a joystick as a mouse. You could set up the X-arcade's buttons for vital tasks like enter, alt, and those little Windows keys that call up the Start menu and the context menu (assuming you're using a version of Windows).

Also, this goes without saying, but please do not use Windows 95 or 98. Use XP or possibly ME (at least I had good luck when I used that last one). Stablility good.