Comments below the pictures. I managed to get myself a gutted Sega Quartet cabinet. I think I'm also going to start a project on a two-player Cyberball cabinet. Anyway, here's what happened with my Quartet cabinet tonight. I got a PDF of the original Quartet manual if you wanna see the specs.

www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/Quartet.pdf (http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/Quartet.pdf)

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0055.jpg

Ok, I had intended this to be the "before" picture, but we had already (a) put in a brace for the 19" $99.95 television, and (b) augmented the hole in the back for the CRT. You've got a good view of the old joystick panel we threw away.

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0057.jpg

Here's the closeup of that brace. Your basic 2x4 with a 2x2 behind it making an "L" -- with a bit more scrap 2x2 to block out the TV so it won't be out of position or thrown loose by someone going a little crazy.

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0058.jpg

We stenciled out where we wanted the buttons to go.

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0059.jpg

Ok, we mounted the TV. Not too exciting, but it's nice to see it all go together.

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0060.jpg

Added $15 of double-strength glass freshly cut at Home Depot, and $5 of plexi-glas (still with the blue wrapper) freshly MIS-cut at Home Depot and re-cut by me with an Exact-O knife.

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0063.jpg

Holes drilled and one set of buttons added to make sure we didn't screw it up too badly. Added my giant volume knob! (Just kidding - that's a spinner, for games like Arkanoid and Tempest.)

http://www.base-nine.org/mame-pics/100_0066.jpg

Anyway, here's the (new slimmer) me standing next to what we got done tonight. We've got a pretty long checklist of things still to do (paint, wiring, bezel, maqruee graphic and lighting...) but we're in the home stretch.

Thats cool as shit :) How much did you invest into it? Ive always wanted an arcade style game in the house... with Mortal Kombat II of course :) If I ever manage to scrape together some cash Ill probably buy one just cause its such a nifty thing to have.

Master Damoiel Mindbend
Retired Enchanter of the 60th Season

Fucking nice man, I always wanted to do that myself but never got around to it, haha. Also, congrats on the weight loss...looking good man. :)

Thats gonna be bad ass!

haha one of my friends has Street Fighter 2 the arcade.

That is so dang cool palimax.

that's pretty cool.

thats pretty cool, ive always wanted to do that with an old cabinet. my dad has about 15 pinball machines, and 5 arcade machines. we have street fighter 2, but one of the buttons is broke atm

Wow Palimax, you really have lost some weight. You look great! Congrats!

The MAME setup looks very good too! Don't stop until you've got it equipped with at least 500 games though... and, for the love of God, do not forget to include JOUST.

Thanks.

I've got a full romset for .72 and haven't bothered to get the .73 roms yet. Basicly, I've got <4,000 games, including all of the CHD (compressed hard drive) games and a good selection of Laserdisk games (including Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, etc...)

I'm about two weekends (based on my freetime) from getting everything "near final."

whoa!! i'm missing something i think. you have 4,000 roms (like games). I'm assuming all of them arent from sega? you can play like nintendo games from that or what's the deal?

I can't count how many quarters I pumped into Space Ace games back in the day.

You will be able to play *any* arcade game that works with the current version of MAME (http://www.mame.net). Roms can be troublesome to get sometimes, but are available. In addition to arcade games, nearly every home game console and computer has been emulated up to about the Playstation (I know a PS2 emulator is in development...unsure about Gamecube and Xbox).

If you're lazy and have $1k to blow (not including TV I guess)...X-Arcade Arcade Game Cabinet (http://www.x-arcade.com/htm/cabinet.shtml).

I just went to Fry's last night and played the new Dragonball Z fighting game on that...the X-Arcade stick feels like a real arcade game...very tight. You can just buy the dual arcade joystick for $149.00 if you want to gimp and just get an old cabinet and modify the joystick area to accommodate an X-Arcade stick.

If you want to see cabinets others have done, just Google "MAME Cabinet."

Anyway, Max...that is bad ass. Looks like a really good job on that cabinet. Once I get my shit back in order, I'm making myself one =).

Palimax,

E-Mail me at don_bachman@premiopc.com I want to discuss a business opportunity with you. Include a phone number and your name so I can call you. Daytime phone would pobably be the best.

Formerly Dennod
Formerly Nidrah
Formerrly Kyck

Currently Gnore

My Name is Don. Like it is hard to figure out from my work E-Mail address.

Woot, good timing. I just acquired a few roms =)

The problem with x-arcade is no spinner. If ya want something like that you need to go custom like Palimax's. Thats a real sweet setup.

What are you using for a TV out Pali, just a regular ATI card with composite out?

Grats on the weight loss too.

For the rest of you, try this:
www.midway.com/futuretens...g_pop.html (http://www.midway.com/futuretense_cs/cg_pop.html)

Kad

I assume he will be running a flavor of linux, and maybe use on of the many Rom/emulator startup scripts to get the system going after warm boot.

I am still looking to score one at an auction or junkyard cheap. I was inspired to do this from the Jubie project, that appeared on slashdot a while back.

I'm kinda curious about talking with Sauder or Charleswood about making a kit for an arcade game cabinet. Seems like they could prolly slap one together that you could buy for $100 and put together yourself. Hell of a lot better than paying $1099 for X-Arcade's cabinet =/. Most of the old cabinets were particle board/pressed wood anyway.

Spinner? Geek.com Arcade Joystick comparison (http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/hardware/game/mamejoy/)

The Devastator has a spinner, but I don't like the buttons (awful for fighting games)...and the workmanship needs to go to the next level =)

Why Linux? Dos seems much easier...

Meh...I post that about the Devastator and now there's a Devastator 2 that looks much better...IT, however, is $395.00 w/ $60 shipping =/

Devastator 2 link (http://www.treyonics.com/)

...and you still can't play Frontline or Heavy Barrel as they were meant to be played with either of these joysticks =(

Visiting.

I've heard about the Devastator, the D2 looks awesome. I'm not familiar with those two games you mentioned tho, why cant you play them right? I've heard some rumbling about 8 way sticks not working right with 4 way stick games, is that what you mean?

Kad

Regardless of what OS you use you still need something to pipe it to TV out instead of VGA out, tho I suppose you could do it externally too if you wanted it to look crappy. My experience has been that its better to have video out on board. The reason why I asked Palimax what board he's running is cause I'm expecting to buy a 3rd PC for mame and was figuring on doing it on the cheap and throwing like a Radeon 9600 in it. I expect to run Knoppix MAME on it, and video drivers can be problematic.

Kad

I'm currently running Windows for MAME, in that the front-end software I like so far runs under it.

I'll probably end up staying with MAMEWah, which has some nice feature-shots here:

mamewah.mameworld.net/screenshots.html (http://mamewah.mameworld.net/screenshots.html)

Wow never seen anything like that before. Has my wheels turning at the moment. Would like to build something like that for my basement gameroom some day.


Ibudin

HEAVY...BARRRELLLLL!!!

The games required a joystick that you could turn as well as move in all 8 directions...moving the joystick moved you around on the screen...turning the joystick aimed your gun. No good way to implement that tho for just a couple of games. I'd prefer a normal joystick for the 99.9% of games it works fine on =) Heavy Barrel was one of my favorite arcade games, tho =).

Here's a few other links for some nice MAME cabinets:

Blake's MAME Cabinet (http://www.blakesmame.com/)
Russ' MAME Cabinet (http://www.russprince.com/cabinet/)
Rob's MAME Cabinet (http://cmdrtaco.net/jubei/)
"Plain" MAME Cabinet (http://plainmame.emugaming.com/)

Anyway...you get the point...here's a page that links a whole bunch of MAME cabinets...CLICK HERE!!! (http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade_examples.php)

Anyway...can't wait to visit you, Max...and beat your ass with Blanka!

Progress, Max? I wanna see some pics!!!

I've started planning mine =) I'm thinking of prolly making my cabinet from scratch...we'll see when I get closer to actually doing it. Think I'm gonna go for a trackball instead of a spinner. I hated Tempest and breakout clones like Arkanoid don't really interest me. I like the trackball because playing games like Crossbow with a mouse/trackball kicks ass =).

I'm curious what input encoder you used...i-pac? I don't know if I want to go USB because then I can't play from DOS...I don't really want to have windows/linux on this box if I can avoid it...unless it has some benefit.

Anyway...let us know =)

That's it, dammit. I'm starting a collection of MAME games. I've been freaking meaning to do it for YEARS. Lord knows I need Spyhunter.

I miss the arcade version of Pitfall II and Crossbow, those two games were electronic CRACK! Luckily my father owned a restaurant and had those two there hehe, man o man, I was hooked. Would do chores for quarters :b

I made a *little* progress this weekend.


http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-155S.JPG

My friend Nathan (as seen stuck inside my cabinet) and I wired up the on-off switch that poweres the box. We only managed to blow the breaker twice this way. It's only 110, I guess. Not like we could have killed ourselves :) We just dilled a hole for a SPST switch to the top of the cabinet, and then ran that through to a two-outlet plug. The two outlet plug powers the lighting, and feeds a power-strip that runs the computer setup. It's hard to see, but they're actually in nice electrical boxes. 50 cents well spent.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-156S.JPG

Ok, turned out the room lights. Turned on our rocker switch. It works. Nobody dies. We didn't pop the breaker (again).

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-175S.JPG

Again, a little proof that we did the wiring right.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-160S.JPG

And here's the while thing all fired up.


[WAIT!] I'm running into the other room now to actually fire up a game.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-162S.JPG

So, as I was saying, here's that switch we wired to the top that shorted out the room 3 times.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-163S.JPG

Dragon's Lair up and running, emulated with DAPHNE. DAPHNE's main site is offline right now (daphne-emu.com), butthere's still good info elsewhere. (http://www.sys2064.com/daphne.htm) The average laserdisc on this box is taking up about 2 gigs.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-164S.JPG

A little more Dragon's Lair demo-mode with a shot of the full cabinet. Eventually, I'll probably let that mouse hang off on a fold-up side "flap" but the front-end software I'm using doesn't need anything except joystick input.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-165S.JPG

More of the same. Just a good shot, I think.

http://www.i-hack.com/content/images/mame/MVC-166S.JPG

As I was saying about the joystick. The wiring is in place, but not connected to the harness (well, for 8 of the 28 connectors). Each player is a joystick (8 wires) and 8 buttons (16 wires). There's also 2 player start buttons and 2 "internal" buttons which I'll be using for ESC and "Coin" right now. I'll eventually be wiring up real coin doors, but that's on the longer-term to-do list. The real coin doors will let me turn the "Coin" button into "Service"

So, with 16 wires in place, I've got 32 to go.

The picture is actually pre-wired wrong, but everything is on quick connects. The ground side could all be daisy-chained, but I'm just going to do it the hard way for easier trouble-shooting. I've currently got THREE wires to each post, but they only take two. One is "normally connected" and the other is "normally open" That is, if it's wired backwards, it'll always be pressed until you press the button, breaking the connection.

So, I've got 8 extra ready-cut-and-crimped wires, plus a few more in the box, and I'm about half-way through the cutting and crimping of wires. Ugh, my hands hurt.

I've also got some wiring to setup to the reset switch on the PC, but I'll probably use a barrel-key for that.

So, all these wires go into an Ultimarc IPAC (http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html)

http://www.ultimarc.com/images/ipac2_diag.jpg


In the meantime, we're cutting posterboard for the monitor bezel, and I'm working on the speakers.

More updates after this weekend.

Well, I finished adding all of player-1 to the IPAC and wiring the speakers. Spent a half an hour playing Dragon's Lair, and my daughter is playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

Life is good :)

Player-2's buttons, a few more "control" buttons, monitor bezel, some sturdier mounting, a real marquee, then I'm down to mostly minor cosmetic.

That's excellent, dude.

Very nice work you're doing there! Allow me to share my own little project... Here's my room, with an original Joust cabinent :) Since then I've overhauled it to bring it back to like-new condition. Hehe I love the thing!

http://semedi.homestead.com/files/room1.jpg

I see Sem posted a picture of our loooooove nest!

/wink Sem

(many happy times on that bed there)

Chicks tell me all the time that nothing turns them on like a guy with a shitload of video games and cum stained twin bed to have sex on when they are horny.

Chicks tell me all the time that nothing turns them on like a guy with a shitload of video games and cum stained twin bed to have sex on when they are horny.


holy crap i almost choked on my lucky charms reading that hahaha :rollin

So that's what I've been doing wrong this whole time!

i <3 shew...wow

By the way we need a little get together inbetween the whole Disneyland shit.

Shew would rather impress the ladies with his impressive collection of M:TG cards.

For people that want to have the whole MAME rom collection without the hassle of downloading, check out www.us-lazarus.com/ (http://www.us-lazarus.com/)

thats really cool palimax, just out of curiosty are you planning on having some sort of CD system where you play games from CDs that you burn or will you have multiple *huge space* hard drives to store your ROMs on? From what you said that would take a huge amount of space.

Most game ROMs themselves are small. Pac Man, for example is probably 16 or 32k - less when zipped. The largest games (with some exception) are the Neo Geo games, which can be upwards of 75 megs. I'd say that 95% of all games are under 100k, and the entire ROM collection is about 6 gigs.

However, a lot of new games shipped on hard drives. Nothing too big, but something like Area-51 is about a gigabyte. There's a dozen or so supported hard-drive games, so my total ROM+Drive collection is about 20 gigs.

But wait! There's more. DAPHNE (the laser-disc emulator) needs entire copies of laser-discs. A good copy of a game like Dragon's Lair or Space Ace runs about 2 gigs each, and there's plenty of games like Firefox or Mad Dog McCree which I still haven't taken the trouble to download. So, I'm halfway to another 30 or so gigs of laser-disc games.

In short, I devote about 30 or 40 gigs of an 80 gig drive to video games.

thats not too bad, then you wont have to worry about having to have an entire shelf to hold them all. :p