After many years of not having my own mobile phone, thought it’s high time I finally joined the masses & brought myself an iPhone. Really enjoying it so far & thought I’d checkout this funky WordPress app for blogging on the go.
Currently typing this from inside the Greenhouse!
Having an impromptu day off work today whilst I wait for my new iPhone to be delivered, I’d thought I’d continue work on my MAME control panel.
I’ve been apply the black spray top coat for most of this week and has been quite a lengthy process due to the veeeery long drying times for each coat. I’ve also brushed on two top coats of clear varnish which has provided a wonderful smooth and shiny surface (thanks Alan!). My heart sank when I applied the second coat of varnish and everything started to go a bit ‘milky’. Thankfully all was well when it dried!
With the painting finally done, I set about reinstalling the buttons & joysticks. Excitement levels increasing 
It’s all starting to come together now.
Hunting out for my bag of bits from my arcade parts box, I set about arranging all the various components like the Ipac, wiring harness and microswitches.
After attaching the microswitches, I installed the Ipac. This is the device that will relay the signal from the button/joysticks to the PC.
The Ipac board is supplied with four mounting feet which screws into the wooden control panel. The two ports shown are PS/2 style connections. One is used to connect to the PC (via the supplied PS/2 to USB cable) and the other acts as a pass thru for a PS/2 PC keyboard if required.
With that done, I could crack on with wiring the controls. This comprises of two parts – Firstly, all of the negative contacts on the microswitches (COM) are wired in series using a daisy chained wiring harness and terminated to the negative pin on the Ipac. The pre-crimped ends help to speed up the process as they simply slot on to the microswitch terminals – unlike the first CP I’d built that had to be hand soldered (although, I missed having the excuse to weld a soldering iron!).
The second part is the ribbon of positive wires that are terminated at one end onto a standard IDC block which fits over the double row of pins on the Ipac. You have two options here, either follow the wiring guide so that each wire corresponds to the Ipac/Mame factory defaults i.e wire no.15 is button 3 or wire out of order and remap the keys in Mame. For ease, and to help locate any shorts or unconnected wires, I decided to follow the wiring diagram.
It’s here I hit a slight snag. I don’t have the wiring diagram anymore (I’d ordered the Ipac many moons ago) and a quick scan online shows that my model I’m using has been superceded – including a new wiring order 
I called the company I’d ordered my kit from and the really nice chap I spoke too was more than happy to email a copy of the older diagrams for me. I’m really chuffed with them, they’ve been a great help. For reference, all my arcade bits are ordered from http://www.gremlinsolutions.co.uk/
So, with a new (old) diagram, I set about making all of the positive connections by attaching each wire to the positive terminal on the each microswitch (NO).
I’ll point out here that, although my CP is a 1-up joystick/four button (plus x2 extra) control panel, the Ipac and wiring harness support 2-up joysticks/six buttons each and also has connections for mouse, trackballs, spinners, multiple coin and start buttons as well as many extras.
It’s all starting to look a bit messy but once I’ve tested that all is working correctly, I’ll tie wrap everything so it’s neat and safely tucked out of the way.
With all the wiring done, I connected the CP to my netbook and launched the Ipac testing software (supplied with the kit but can be downloaded here – http://www.ultimarc.com/ )
Sadly, I’d hit another snag and couldn’t get a single control to work Thinking it might be a Windows 7/WinIpac issue, I swapped to the another PC running XP but still no connections detected. Thanks to the keen eye of a friend (cheers Bobby!) we’d spotted that my wiring was out by one pin therefore the negative contact was not connected. I had to practically start again and once reconnected, all worked perfectly.
Testing each control with WinIpac.
Now for the fun bit, testing it with Mame!
Everything appears to be working just fine and the controls are nice and responsive.
So that’s the control panel done. There’s just the wiring to finish off and it’ll be ready to install in the Arcade cabinet. Next job – Coin Door.
Last a week, a friend of a friend (cheers fella’s) gave me quite a collection of old computers, floppy drives, joysticks, software and odd bits of hardware. Most just needed a good clean but the odd one will get the RetroBright treatment soon.
Commodore C64, C64c, C128, Plus/4 & Vic20 – Acorn Electrons, Atom & Speccy.
Amongst these was a rather nice BBC Model B, Monitor, twin floppy drive and a 28mb Viglen external harddrive. The HDD intrigued me as I’ve never had the opportunity to have a play around with before.
28mb – I bet that was HUGE back in the day!
Sadly, the BBC computer lacked the relivent ADFS Rom so I was unable to test it. It appeared to power on o.k. and sounded like a jet engine!
Fast forward to yesterday and a trip down to see my mates at the Retro Computer Museum HQ. I took the harddrive with me and we connected it to a BBC Master.
Result! – Glad to see it’s working o.k and have now donated it their collection.
Whilst I was there, I had the chance to get my mitts on Alex’s new Commdore C64 SD adaptor. I have a similar device myself (Ultimate 1541 Cart) but I’m always interested in any modern storage devices for older computers (especially Commodore). In a few weeks, I should have another homemade C64 SD adaptor which I’ll post pictures when I get it.
Loading a stored C64 game took less than a few seconds.
More homemade hardware to sample and as a HUGE Oric -1/Atmos fan, have been looking forward to seeing. This is an Oric Microdrive unit that allow software to load directly from 3″ floppy disks in seconds as opposed to veeeery slow tapes.
Sadly, before heading up to RCM HQ the day before, Richard gave it one final test and has blown something somewhere and it’s refusing to work. Hopefully he can get his beta version working again and can start producing a few more – suffice to say, I’ll be getting one!
Oric - Defence Force running on an Amiga?…I wish
We managed to set up the second Commodore SX64 – Sadly it ‘sounds’ like a faulty SID chip but once it’s replaced it should make another fine addition to the collection. One day, just one day i’ll have my own SX64 (- pretty please Mrs StiGGy!)
Just an quick update to say there’s no update The black gloss spray paint is going on well but so far has required three coats to obtain a nice smooth finish. However, it’s taking 24-48 hours per coat to dry therefore not much work can be done just yet.
In the meantime I’m rebuilding the PC I’ll be fitting inside the arcade cabinet and am currently ‘test driving’ another multiple emulator frontend (Maximus Arcade) as an alternative to MameWah.
I’ve been mostly working out in the garage and making small adjustments to the Control Panel and preparing it for painting.
Yesterday I added a few wooden batons to both sides and front of the control panel so that it sits nicely on to the cabinet and doesn’t slide about.
Getting it to fit perfectly was a little trial and error really. Maybe the old cabinet woodwork has warped a little in the +20 years since it was original built?
In the end, after fitting, adjusting and fitting again, it all started to come together and pretty much replicated the fitting of the original control panel.
With the fixtures in place, time to give the whole panel a good sanding prior to painting.
Oops, have taken a picture of the wrong side ..and I was so proud of my smooth finish!
With regards to painting and detailing, I’ve seen lots of amazing examples on the internet complete with custom artwork, graphics, lights and plexi glass. However, as my cab is very colourful as it stands, with its full side artwork and colorful marquee & glass panel I thought I’d keep the CP very plain so as not to insult the eyes too much!
So with that in mind, I’ve decided to go with an all gloss black finish which should make the buttons and joystick stand out quite nicely. If it’s not smooth enough, I may go down the route of installing a plexi glass finish.
For the actual paint, I’ll be using two spray based products designed for wood/metal and then a high gloss seal if required. I’ve not used either before but my tests show they give a nice finish. For reference, they are Rust-OLeum Surface Primer & Rust-OLeum black gloss enamel.
It’s really cold outside in the garage and ideal temperature (according to the manufacturer instructions) is between 10c – 25c. Well it’s bearly 4c at the mo so I’ve decided to deck out the study with protection and spray in there instead. I’ve rested the CP on a couple of plastic plant pots and have used a large piece of polystyrene I found in the garage to act as a guard. I’ll be able to move this around as I spray.
Don’t want to get into any trouble with Mrs Stiggy
The first coat seems to have gone on o.k and will apply the second this afternoon and then i’ll leave it overnight before I begin the gloss base and top coat. In the meantime I’ll start working on rebuilding the coin door/mechanism.
My homemade arcade control panel is starting to take shape now thanks to Alan and his multitude of tools!
I won’t mention here, my complete brain melt during yesterday and the many trips back and forth between home, Alan’s & the hardware shop
Having transferred the measurements from the old CP to the new board we began cutting and drilling. It’s quite nice to see that Alan was able to replicate the angled cut at the top of the board which should ensure a nice fit and hold the bezel glass in place.
I’ve marked out the placement of the buttons and joystick however, I had to change the layout slightly to that of my original plans. I found that by placing the controls higher up the board, this would provide me with more space at the bottom and thus more room to rest my wrists during gameplay. However, as a result, the coin and 1-up buttons have had to be moved to the left hand side.
Here’s what the CP looks like after we’ve drilled out the 28mm holes for the buttons and joystick mounts.
Although I’ve still got a lot more woodwork to do, couldn’t help myself and attached the joystick and buttons to get a rough idea what the finished CP will look like. So far, really really happy with it.
You know, I still can’t decide weither I like the red or yellow joystick ball top? I had early concerns about the clearance for the Sanwa joystick shaft and originally thought to replace it with a longer shaft. To be honest, this test fit show’s that it’s good to go and feels very comfortable as it is.
Here’s a shot of the underside showing the joystick and buttons – minus micro-switches etc.
So…that’s how things are looking at the mo. I’ll continue with the woodwork this afternoon, give it all a good sanding and them I’ll start on the the paintwork/wiring.
