This afternoon I’ve been working on the coin mechanism for my Mame arcade machine.
On my Phoenix cabinet, the coin mechanism is all mechanical. As the coin travels through the mechanism, it rolls past and pushes a metal bar which in turn is connected to switch that registers a credit. As the switch is nothing more than a standard microswitch, it was really easy to simply connect this to the coin terminals on my ipac to allow for it to work in Mame.
However, moving over to this second cabinet, the coin mechanism is an all electronic affair and at fIrst, I didn’t think I could do anything with it…other that fabricate the same sort of metal bar/switch setup at the exit of the coin chute.
As always, the Internet is full of useful tips and after finding videos and documentation for this type of coin door, I thought I’d have a go at wiring this to my PC.
Mars MS coin mech….I’m not sure if this is a model 111 or 102 though.
The control board requires a 12v feed therefore i’ll supply this via my PC’s 12v line taken from one of the spare Molex HDD power sockets. To make it easy when disconnect the coin mech, say for example If I need to bring the PC into the house, I’m going to use a spare 4-pin molex to SATA extension cable I have in my spares.
The SATA end won’t be needed though, so this gets the snip.
I’ve taken the the 12v and ground feed from the coin mech and attached it to the PC cable via a simple termination block.
I’ve also taken the two wires from the credit terminals and wired the positive to the ‘coin’ input on my IPAC and the other to the IPAC ground wiring loom. Originally I had the coin button wired to the Player Two Start button on the Control Panel, but I’ve now returned it to it’s proper function – Two Player Start.
Should I need to bypass the coin door, in the event of being caught short of coins, I’ve found a handy IPAC shortcut sequence in Mame to simulate a coin insert – Basically you hold down one player start button & press fire button number 1….man, you’ve gotta love the shift key functions on these IPAC’s!
All good to go for testing and so I thought I’d make a quick video as I went along.
I’m quite pleased with how it turned out and will have to experiment more with the DIP switches to see what they other settings do. Certain coins that are shiny new don’t seem to work as well as older coins, maybe the reflection messes around with the coin validator?
Next I want to remove both of the doors, disconnect the mechanism, chute and locks, give them a rub down to get rid of the flaking paint and apply a fresh coat of Hammerite Black paint to make them look all new again.
That’s about all I got done this afternoon as I called my older brother and nephew on the phone to see if they fancied popping around to give my cab a play test. My nephew is a modern COD, Xbox PS3, sorta player but he was getting quite into Metal Slug and it was so cool to be playing side by side with my older brother once again, just like we back in the old days with some 2-up classics like Salamander, Double Dragon and Bubble Bobble.
With the the Mame PC and CP pretty much finished now I thought I’d spend the afternoon getting the marquee light and speakers installed.
Before doing all that though, I need to trace some of the original wiring as there’s a few bits and bobs that I’ll reuse and other parts such as most of the Jamma harness and power supply needs removing. Regarding the PSU, it’s fully working although I don’t have a use for myself I’m sure there’s someone on the Jamma+ forum that will find a use for it.
I’ve cut away the old tie wraps from the metal staples securing the original cables in place. Once I know which wires I’ll be reusing plus my own wiring I’ll re affix fresh tie wraps to keep it all nice and tidy again.
…but first we have to make a mess to sort this lot out!
eeek, the Jamma monsters got me!
I’ve retained the original arcade power switch that’s found on the external back side of the cabinet. I plan to rewire this to the PC power switch allowing me to switch it on without having to remove the cabinets rear panel.
I’ve also found the original alarm button too and although I won’t be reusing it, it’s quite interesting how it works. Basically, when the rear panel is fitted, the panel presses up against a switch. If a thief tries to remove the back panel (thinking it an easy way to get to the coin box) the button is released, alarm bells ring and everyone goes mental etc etc.
That’s the wiring sorted out for this stage so time to have a looksee at what’s lurking behind the marquee panel.
I’ve removed the screws that hold the marquee clip in place and gently moved it out of the way as I had no idea the marquee was actually glass…I’d always assumed that most were perspex.
Like the game board, the marquee assembly is fitted to a single piece of wood that slides out on two guide rails either side of the cabinet. I must say, the makers of this cabinet have made it really easy to get to all the serviceable parts which is why this particular build is becoming most enjoyable…unlike the unfriendly Phoenix cab.
A-ha, the burglar strikes again, someone’s nicked my right speaker Actually, looking at the wiring, I think this cabinet only ever had one speaker.
Having previously removed the light strip wires from the arcade PSU, and having checked the ratings on the transformer, I attached a regular plug and switched on the mains to test…..nothing. I’m not surprised though after lifting the florescent bulb out and there was definitely a hint of something loose inside.
To the DIY superstore!
Wow, it was super busy here, but as expected because after a late start, spring is finally here, the sun is out and folk are out in force buyinggardening toosl, lawnmowers and patio furniture. Thankfully, nobody was in the Arcade Machine building section…aka, the light bulb area, so I was able to get in and out before getting stuck at the checkout.
Back to the Man-Cave!
Fingers crossed and hoping that the starter motor wasn’t buggered, I flicked it on…and StiGGy said ‘Let there be light’
The PC speakers I intend to use are a cheap set from Logitech which I picked up the other day. They’re basic, no frills but the sound quality is surprising good with ample range from top to bottom. I tested these out on my PC running a few Mame games the other day and am very happy with them.
The speakers aren’t going to fit in the small area as is because the plastic casing is quite bulky. Out with a screwdriver and my dremel to crack them open.
It isn’t pretty, but now I can mount them to the speaker grills and have the volume control pointing downwards where I can get at it once I extend the shaft of the potentiometer behind the volume button….well that was my original idea for having external volume control but I’m finding it just as easy to adjust any game volume on the fly with Mame’s build in menu system. Still, the options there if I want a physical solution.
With all of the cables temporary wrapped up, I reseated the marquee board back into the cabinet, refitted the glass marquee and clips and finally switched it back on again to see what it looks like.
No too bad at all. Maybe in the future I’ll replace it with a actual classic game marquee but for the moment I’m really happy with this……
……although I’ve spotted a few areas (marked) where the marquee paint must have been scratched from behind as you can see light shining through. An easy fix though.
So that’s the light and sound sorted and the next bit on my list is getting the coin mechanism working.
Regarding the screen, I’m currently sourcing a nice curved 19″ PC CRT screen and may have a lead after speaking to a local lady via Freecyle who has one up for grabs. Until then, I’ve temporary fitted a TFT screen. …..yes yes I know, TFT screens in arcade machines are a no no, but with scan lines and Mame’s HSLS filtering, it doesn’t look that bad…if you squint a bit
So with the PC fitted and everything hooked up to test the speakers and controls etc…there’s no way I was going to finish off the day without firing up this bad boy for my very first game test.
MameWAH loaded and ready to Rock!
Yay, Twin-Stick awesome-ness with Robotron……I may be some time!
Only a quick update on the arcade cabinet today. I’ve now got two replacement locks for the coin doors and one for the rear back panel which I’ve fitted this evening. The removable portion of the back panel is practically held on with just the lock so it’ll be nice to have it in position again to shut out all the light bleeding in around the edge of the monitor.
Having had to source these from a gazillion online vendors and pouring over endless searches, I’m becoming a bit of a lock nerd and find myself talking about cams , tumblers, tubular seven pin, cam barrels, keyed to differ or alike, straight or cranked, 90 or 180 rotation. Also I’ve discovered that if you’ve accidentally ordered a straight cam instead of one that needs a slightly cranked end, one should simply whack it a few times with a large hammer. Perfect!
If there’s any lock nerds out there that are interested, mine are 27mm cam locks, keyed alike, 90 degree turn with 45mm straight cams….and one slightly bent one.
Also, if anyone knows how to cure lock nerdism, please let me know.
My order from Gremlin Solutions arrived today with a fresh set of buttons for the arcade machine.
I had no idea that they come supplied with switches so it was a nice surprise to find them included too. Most of the control panel switches were replaced last week but I think there’s one or two of from the original set that remain on the 2-up side. Now I’ve got a few spare, I think I’ll swap these out for new too.
I really do like working on this flip down control panel. I wished my Phoenix cabinet was the same.
I’ve also swapped out the four (x2) joystick bolts. All were rusty and looked horrible. Note to myself….don’t misplace the 9/32 sockethead or you’ll have to undo them bit my bit with pliers!
During the evenings this week I’ve been building a PC for my Mame Arcade cabinet with a view to sorting out the Mame front end for it today. It’s a basic PC and nothing fancy but it’ll play Mame games perfectly well including a few other dedicated arcade emulators that need a bit more oomph to run. Emulators like Zinc, Mojnir, Daphne, Nebulas, and AAE (with a bit of tweaking).
Here’s the specs -
Pentium 4 2.8mhz
2gb Ram
Geforce 7800GTx
120gb HDD
WinXP – SP2…I did consider Windows 2000 originally as I want this thing to boot as quickly as possible but XP seems fine as is.
Further modification ais required to provide power (via the spare 4-pin molex) to other parts of the cabinet but for now, a basic setup will suffice.
With that done, it on to the emulator front end.
I was going to break from my norm of using either MameWah or Mala and try the incredibly gorgeous looking Hyperspin .
I’ve been messing around with Hyperspin for a few days and it certainly ramps up the eye candy to ‘number 11′ by adding animated menus, transitional animations, system and game specific themes, arcade sounds and gameplay videos. When set up correctly it looks superb!
Check it out in action -
Of course, to get it set up properly, you’re going to have to invest in some serious time to if you intend to source and download each file individually. There are collections out there that contain all of the files in one go but you’re looking at downloads of anywhere between 45gb to 95gb – Yup that’s gigabytes, not megabytes :-O
Initially the thought of getting all of those files individually didn’t really put me off because I wasn’t going to be running a full mame rom set in my arcade machine, just a select few of my favourite arcade games. At the last count, this came to about 126 game titles and so not a huge amount of time to sit at the Hyperspin download area.
As I began to installing and my collection of themes, artwork, movies and sounds began to grow, a couple of things became apparent.
Firstly, Hyperspin mainly uses Adobe Flash and runs movies in .flv format (soon to change I hear) thus it benefits from a fast processor and lots of RAM. Having a half descent graphics card make no difference with Hyperspin and therefore my low spec P4 and 2Gb just wasn’t cutting it. Even with small list of games and a small number of themes, it’s was beginning to suffer and was very laggy overall. Just scrolling though a list of games could often be a pain.
I tried it on my laptop (Intel Core I3 /4gb laptop and even though it has a crummy integrated video Hyperspin runs silky smooth.
Hyperspin has a setup utility that can tailor the amount of graphics options to suit your requirements (as well as quality) which goes some way to speed things up. However, even running as a low resolution, the lag was too much for me. Swapping out the movies for screenshots helped somewhat, but with a larger rom list, the lag was back
Secondly, yes it looks and sounds nice but after awhile all that gloss seems to just get in the way when all you just need to quickly zip through to the game you want and off you go. The noise from all those sound effects playing out at you navigate through the game list was too much for me too. Of course you do have the option to turn the sounds off.
Maybe if I upgrade the PC, I’ll look at HyperSpin again, but for now I think I’ll stick with something a little lighter on the senses.
Also, I’ve since changed my mind on the number of rom images to include too as more often than not, having all often brings a hidden gem to light.
However….8000+ roms including all of the clones and umpteen Mah-jong games are really not required on this particluar cabinet so it’s time to crack open some software apps to trim down 26gb of roms into something more manageable.
Using a copy of Catver.ini you can easily filter out all of the rom files by category (or individual files if you want 100% control).
I don’t think I want any tabletop games so that’s 428 roms removed (or renamed in the event that you make a mistake).
With MCM I’ve trimmed down my rom set to about 4000 titles (including clones) which I’ll filter out with custom lists using another handy piece of software called ROM Lister - http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister/
To get the best out of ROMLister, it’s best to create a master list of your Rom collection (I usually do this after I’ve removed the unwanted roms with MCM) By opening a command line, browse to the Mame folder and run mame -listxml > mame.xml
This will create a file called mame.xml with all the games listed. Next, I use ROMLister to scan my rom folder to produce a list of the rom files I have. Add in Catv.ini and I can merge these lists to filter out even more unwanted roms.
Filter by category, monitor orientation buttons and controls. Don’t think I’ll be needing lightgun games etc.
Both of these tools are great to use on a whole range of emulator frontends whether directly, or importing the lists and converted them to the standard that the frontend uses.
So now that I’ve decided not to use Hyperspin just yet, I thought I’d settle on either Mame32, Mala or MameWah.
Mame32 is a great, no frills frontend which is both light and fast. If run Mame on my desktop, then Mame32 is the frontend I would usually use. Sure, it’s not pretty but it works perfectly and is super robust with plenty of options.
Mala – FE was the one I was going to use and have used this on many Mame projects before including one of the arcade cabinets at the Retro Computer Museum and my defunct bartop. There’s lots of options to play with as well as theme support so you can build a nice frontend as complex or as simple as you like.
For some reason though, these past few days I’ve been fighting with Mala and for some unknown reason I cannot for the life of me get it so ‘see’ my rom lists. No matter what I do, my game list always shows as being 72 games! I’ve tried other frontends using the same lists and they all appear to be fine. In the end, I gave up…..:-(
…..and have come full circle as I’ve decided to stick with an old friend – MameWAH.
The first time I played around with MameWah was around eight or so years ago and back then I found it a little too confusing to set some of the advanced options. However it doesn’t take to long to get it running the way you want it (the documentation is much better these days) including multiple themes for each emulator.
I wanted my main Mame theme to be quite simple one – Just a game list, a corresponding screenshot and not much else really. Originally, I was going to have a simple ‘Galaga’ style space backdrop but in the end, I found a Space Invader image on DeviantArt which I messed around with in Photoshop and added a little neon (Font and FX plugin) and colour to match the red, white and blue colouring of my cabinet.
Here’s a rough mock up (not the monitor I’ll be using) but I think I’ll change the game list from centre to left justification.
Hopefully it shouldn’t be too long before I can test it out in the cabinet.
It’s too cold to work out in the garage on the Arcade machine so I’ve detached the Control Panel and brought it inside to do a little bit of work in the warmth.
Top tip – using a suitable old dust cover on the kitchen table means that you keep in favour with the good lady - which is always handy if you plan to buy even more crap retro gaming stuff from eBay
Here’s the CP ready for stripping and cleaning. The wooden board in the picture is the PCB shelf that had the original game board on it…soon to be a shelf for the PC.
Here’s the original Jamma wiring harness. I won’t be needing it for his particular project but it may come in handy for another especially as the contacts are all in very nice condition. As I removed the harness though I noticed that some of the buttons and micro switches were broken. More than expected would need swapping out.
The harness is removed and I’ve starting to unscrew the original buttons. Some of them were in a right state and some fell to pieces as I removed them. Once the CP was devoid of all the controls I cleaned it inside and out. I’ll be revisiting the inside of the CP again when the weather is better as the rust on the inside could do with being treated and painted. Under better lighting I also noticed that there were quite a few specs of white paint on the front side too. Being on a navy background they were quite noticeable but a splash of soapy water and a spot of elbow grease soon shifted them.
Hmm, I wasn’t expecting to be replacing as many buttons/microswitches. I fear I might not have enough…time to raid other spare parts boxes.
In the end I settled for what I could lay my hands on. Ideally I’d like to replicate the original red, white and blue scheme of the original cab but after cleaning up some of the original buttons, they still looked a bit rough and discoloured.
Ready for a bath….or the bin?
So, at the moment I’ve gone for red, red and blue and sadly they’res a mixture of convex and concave buttons. It looks bloody awful to be honest, but a shopping list is being devised and a new order to http://www.gremlinsolutions.co.uk will be placed later on today.
The 1-up and 2-up (acting as Coin 1) use two of the original (very cheap) switches I removed from my iCade. They are nice and stiff, useless for gaming but are perfect for secondary controls like coin/start/select etc………besides, I was running out of Cherry switches!
Next up was to wire the controls to the Mini-iPac wiring looms and connect to the iPac board. First up was the positive connections (middle pin), followed by the daisy chained common wire (top pin). I’ve done this quite a few times now so it becomes almost second nature..having said that, there’s always mistakes made and today was no different – I had coin/start wired the wrong way around!
Looking pretty messy but will tie up once tested.
You can use any text editor to test the controls but I prefer to use this freebie iPac testing program from Ultimarc.
All good to go…once coin and start were rewired
Now the fun bit, game testing time! I’ve got my netbook setup with Mame32, connected the iPac and fingers crossed.
Woot woot, all working perfectly….first game, Rolling Thunder.
The thing I like about the Mini-iPac are the shift key functions. By default, pressing the 1-up button and simultaneously pushing one of four directions on the one player joystick will give access to the Mame main menu, volume controls, exit game etc. It can also be used with other buttons to perform other emulator functions including credit control if say for example you don’t want to have a dedicated coin button. It’s a great feature and cuts down the need to have ‘non gaming’ buttons on your CP.
Next test, 2-up mode and I even persuaded Curstie to come and clear out the streets of Metro City with me.
That’s the control panel done for now. Like I mentioned above, the buttons aren’t exactly matching but for the time being they’ll suffice.
I just need to finish off setting up the emulation PC….which is proving to be a bit of a nightmare but more on that to follow. For now, it’s twin stick Robotron time!
Now with the rear panel lock drilled out and looking a bit worst for wear, I can finally have a looksee inside the arcade cabinet and get an idea of the space available for the PC gear etc.
As a quick fix, to get me up and gaming this weekend I won’t be looking at using the faulty Hantarex monitor but will be swapping this out with a VGA PC monitor instead. I know it’s not arcade perfect but maybe I’ll look at getting the original fixed soon.
Mounted on the wooded shelf below this is the game board. It appears to be a an SNK Techmo World Soccer 96 in a MVS slot 1 board (thanks for the identification assistance JT).
….and I also found quite a bit of documentation in the bottom section of the cabinet as well as a service record - last serviced in 1997 apparently!
Obviously this didn’t include the latest edition of Retro Gaming Magazine (thanks hon!) but am loving the cover of this months edition as I enjoy a coffee, I had to include it in the picture…..Hmm, that gives me an idea, I wonder if I can get Daphne/Dragons Lair running on the PC bound for this cabinet?
The original monitor is housed in a mounting cage which also has a wooden front fascia With the bezel glass and release pins removed, the entire monitor assembly can be lifted out, rotated and slid back in again thus changing the monitor to suit vertical oriented games. A feature I don’t have on my other cabinet and something I’ve longed to have.
Now in vertical mode…it sure it heavy though but the hand slots either side make the job so much easier.
I’ve also released the two clips that hold the control panel assembly in place and can now get access to the joystick, buttons and wiring loom. I’ll need to strip this and attach the iPac and new wiring. I’ll be reusing the gear from the Mini bartop I started to build – see previous blog post - http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/mini-mini-mame-arcade-cabinet-pt7/
Sweet, I found a few coins in the coin box and now another 20p in the CP. – I’ll soon have enough for a chocolate bar
The interior looks a little rusty though, I’ll add that to my list of todos.
I’ve now spent the morning gutting the insides of the cabinet. I’ve carefully removed the main power supply, monitor, wiring, and light fitting behind the marquee. It’s pretty much an empty shell now ready for a bit of a clean before fitting with PC bits n bobs.
I’ve got a couple things I need to thing about as well as I get out the cleaning gear.
1) I’m a huge fan of the Mame frontends called MameWah and Mala and have used these on many cabs and emulation PC’s before. Do I stick to what I know and have a simple game list or go for something with a bit more eye candy…say HyperSpin for example. I don’t intend to have 1000′s of games in this particular cab so all that graphical gloss might not be to distracting.
2) I’d love to have access to the PC speaker volume from the front exterior of the cabinet as volumes can drastically change from game to game and I really don’t want the hassle of opening up the cab every time I want to change volumes. Ideally I’d like to fit an external dial or something similar, or maybe use the Mame software volume controls?…I need to research this a bit more.
3)I want to keep the button layout as is (three per player) but I need to think about which button options to use with the iPac For example, a shift button to give access to emulation settings etc. Also, although I intend to use the coin door for credits for that authentic arcade vibe I’d like to promote one of the buttons (via shift key) to act as a secondary coin button….cos you never know when you’ll run out out actual coins
4)The coin mechanism. This one seems to be a fully electronic model rather than the mechanical type I have in my Phoenix cab. As a result, I’m not sure how I’m going to interface this with the iPac. Maybe I can retrofit a switch in a similar place to the Phoenix coin mech. Again…I need to have a play around with this first…unless someone out there knows how to interface a ‘MARS’ coin mech to Mame?
5) Compared to the nice side art on my other cab, this V-BAS jamma cab certainly looks a bit sparse. I think I’ll have a word with the chaps at Turnarcades when i see them at Revival next month as they really know all about the arcade customisation stuff.
I took the drive up north the other day to pickup that ‘Vbas’ Jamma Arcade machine I won on eBay last weekend. Thankfully my measurements were just about right as with a bit of manoeuvring and taking a few back seat out of the MPV there was just enough room….for the plug and that’s about it
Getting back late and after dark, I dragged it into the garage (yay, finally I’ve got an arcade machine with wheels on the back) I reluctantly left it there until today and with four days off for the Easter break and a little more free time (and light) , I couldn’t wait to get out there for a looksee this afternoon.
Here it is.
Overall the woodwork is in really nice condition. Sure there’s a few bit scuffs here and there but there doesn’t appear to be anything that looks like it’s about to drop off. It could do with a good cleaning though. The rear panels are present and the the T-Molding on both sides is complete with no chipped or loose bits.
I’m also really happy with the bezel glass too, there’s not a mark on it and all the paint on the reverse side is intact and has not flaked. Likewise, (boring though it is – it will be swapped out soon) the ‘V-BAS’marquee is unmarked and complete with both retaining clips
A bit rough down at the bottom side but still sound and the metal work will probably get a fresh coat of paint.
The control panel exterior is in really nice condition with no major scuff, rips or unsightly cigarette burns. Both joysticks seem to be o.k, centred and have a microswitch audible click on all directions. Most of the buttons seem to be good too although there’s a couple on the right hand side that might need replacing or have new switches fitted. Either way, I’ve got plenty of spares so no major problems there. The joystick mount bolts are looking a bit rough and rusty though so I’ll treat them to some new chromed ones.
Clean me!
The eBay seller mentioned that the coin mechanism is fully working but the coin box door at the bottom will need a new lock.
As you can see here, the bottom coin box door is looking a bit rough compared to the coin mech door. I’ll give it a good rub down and a fresh coat of hammerite and hopefully it’ll look much better. It seems to shut o.k though so at least there’s no dents beat out etc.
The seller also mentioned that the monitor was dead but the game board was working. I thought I’d check it out myself and true enough, no picture on screen but the coin and marquee lights up and the familiar SNK startup sound could be heard through the speakers.
My next job is to have a looksee inside and get a feel for where the PC, Monitor and various components will go……it’s here that I hit a snag. When i collected the cab, we were far too busy nattering about good old games, I completely forgot to ask for the keys to the rear panel door I could ask him to mail them down to me but with the holidays etc, there would be no chance of getting these anytime soon and I’m itching to make a start on the Mame conversion.
It’s a cheap tubular lock on the back anywasy and easily replaced and so I broke out the power tools ….and watched a few lock picking Youtube videos.
Well I wasn’t expecting to own another arcade machine when I woke up this morning but after practically being snowed in today and a carefree session on eBay – pop, got myself another one!
It was a bit of a bargain really and was quite surprised to win it at a very low price without many bids. It’s a standard Jamma cab rather than a specific game (the board included is some sort of soccer game) and despite everything looking in really good condition, the monitor appears to be faulty. That’s no problem though as I intend to swap it out for something slightly bigger anyway.
Its more than likely that I’ll use this as a basis for a quick Mame conversion especially as i have everything i need in my spares box to complete this straight away. The cabinet has two sticks fitted (wooho – Robotron twin stick funtastic-times ahead) with three buttons per stick. I could drill through for more, the control panel certainly has room for them but I think I’ll keep this as is and mainly use it for playing classic games.
A couple of features that attracted me to the cab in the first place was that the monitor can be easily be rotated, by lifting out the front glass bezel, rotate the screen and pop the glass back. It’s also slightly taller than my other arcade cabinet and a bonus being quite a tall fella.
All I need to do now is arrange to go pick it up…come on snow melt already!
I’ll be back with more and pictures as soon as I’ve got it and will blog about the conversion as I progress.
Out of curiosity, how many cabs do you have to own to count yourself as having your own arcade hall
Today’s installation of the PC, monitor and controls went really well. Jim was already at the Retro Computer Museum with the cabinet outside as he wanted to strip the marquee retaining clips for repainting and to respray the monitor bezel.
Touch dry after an hour, Andy brought it back indoors whilst I made a start on on finishing the Mame frontend.
Set up and testing with my new rotating TFT…thanks again Savi, it’s really comes in handy!
Jim and I got the iPac connected to the buttons, joystick and coin door (we thought it would be cool to have Mame register a real coin inserted – this is pretty straight forward, just have the coin door microswitch wired to whatever button you configure in Mame as the ’coin’ button.
Th Ipac is simply a keyboard encoder designed to emulate a standard PC keyboard, accept instead of using keys, you wire arcade buttons to it instead. With MS Notepad open on the PC, we tested each button and joystick movement in turn to ensure that we’d wired the micro switches correctly and a keystoke was recognised and displayed.
All appeared o.k apart from the contact for ‘right’ on the joystick. This was simply a loose connection on the switch terminal and was soon put right. With the resulkts of our test written down I configured both the frontend navigation and MAME controls to use the Joystick, 3 fire buttons, coin, start and exit buttons.
The PC now placed into the back of the cabinet and connected to a set of test PC speakers (Later on, Jim wired the PC to use the original cabinets speaker). We just need to tidy up some of the wiring in there but for now, we left it as is in case of issues whilst testing.
Will it boot, or burst into flames? – Well, you never know with Windows!
As you can see, there’s a bit of cleanup work to do around the buttons where age has eaten the CP. The rough bit at the bottom will be hidden as there’s a strip of metal that goes here. We’ve removed it so it can be re-chromed.
MALA Frontend loaded and ready for testing….who’s got the 10p pieces?
Stu was straight in there!
Apart from a minor tweak on the coin mechanism, all was working perfectly. Game on!
As homage to the cabinets original arcade game board – Taito Space Chaser, I thought that this would be the first game I loaded.
We’ve still got a bit of work to do on the cabinet such as alterations to our custom Retro Computer Museum marque, amendments to the cabinet T-Molding and little touch up jobs here and there. I also want to strip out some of the duplicates roms I’d previously missed and make the frontend layout graphics much better. All in all though, a great project and a great afternoon.
Left to Right – Myself, And and Jim….Stu behind the camera and probably hoarding all of the 10p coins
A busy week at work so I’ve not had chance to post a lot since coming back from Play:Expo but one thing I have been working on is building up a suitable PC for a MAME arcade cabinet at the Retro Computer Museum.
and it’s pretty much ready for installation in to the cab, configure the ipac/controls and give it play test (lots!). I’m heading down to the museum this morning with all the relevant bits so hopefully myself and Jim should have this completed today.
Also, I’ve been given a rather nice HP TFT monitor from my work collegue, which has got a really nice pivoting stand allowing the screen to rotate almost 360 degrees including all the way back so it practically lies flat (great for Visual Pinball). As the Mame cab will feature a vertical mounted monitor, this particular TFT has been a great help this week as I’ve been able to setup and test the MAME frontend in the correct orientation at home. My thanks to Savi for this great monitor!
A quick test at work soon turned into a lunchtime competition
Back home, the PC is built and although is of modest specification (P4 2ghz/1Gb) its more than enough to play all vertical games including newer stuff like Do Don Pachi schmups. I’m using an older version of Mame, one i usually use because its good for compatibility and had speed because its prior to all that 3d accelerated changes.The version I’m using is 0.89
For the MAME frontend, I’m using MALA. I’ve always been a fan of MameWAH which is usually my weapon of choice for a simple menu/snapshot/marque frontend. However, it can be a bit if a pain to setup if you haven’t used it for a while as you forget the config file format. MALA is almost similar but has a nice setup GUI as well as command line and I find that setting up custom graphical layouts and game lists are much easier as MALA is equipped with tools to help with this.
The PC is pretty much done and ready for installation into to the cabinet today. I’ve still got a few duplicate/clone roms to remove from the game list and there’s a few that have either missing snapshots and/or marque pictures but that can be sorted out whilst I’m at the museum. I’m not sure if Jim has used the standard Mame controls for the iPac interface for the joystick/buttons but again, I can always adjust them to suit the frontend when I get there.
One final play test last night.
Right, I better get cracking and load up the car and head down to the museum. I’ll be back with more photos soon.
The builder has fitted controls from an iCade, an iPhone connected to a VGA screen via the Apple VGA adaptor and a novel idea to boost the sound. Run Mame and you have a pretty sweet arcade machine.
Further details and lots of build pictures can be found here -
I’ve still got a few bits n bobs to finish off on my first arcade machine/Mame conversion and am not really in the market for a second cabinet. However, this one popped up on eBay last week at a rather low price and have been tracking its progress until it finished last night.
It’s a working Sega Virtua Striker arcade machine, listed at £50 to begin with and quite local to our area.
I’m not really interested in the game itself but mainly for large cabinet and large working arcade monitor. Being quite tall, my own arcade machine is slightly too small for me (hence it needs a few adjustments), the control panel is quite cramped and doesn’t allow for much room for 2-up gaming.
However, these white Sega cabinets like this one and those used on titles like Virtua Fighter 1/2 are quick tall, have a nice large monitor and a substantial control panel allowing for plenty of elbow room.
Look at all that space, plenty of modding opportunities here including room to add that trackball I’ve been thinking about. ThIs CP has some damage on the left but that’s easily repairable.
Also, lots of room inside for PC, speakers etc and secret stash of future retro computer purchases I haven’t told Curstie about
Sadly, on the last few minutes before the auction ended, the price increased rapidly and so it wasn’t to be for me this time. I’ll continue to keep a casual eye out though, especially for any Goliath cabinets.
Am back from our week away exploring Manchester, the Lake District and Liverpool and whilst in the area ‘up north’, I popped in to see my good mate JT and also to take a looksee at his latest retro gaming goodies.
Not only having a one hellava monster Jamma cab, JT now has a lovely new/old Silent Scope gun. Couldn’t shoot for buggery with it myself therefore had to hand it back to the marksmen to see how it’s done
Whilst sampling TMNT 2 on JT’s Capcom Impress cabinet (which might I add, is a pleasure to play on and am seriously thinking about getting one of these cabs myself), modifications on my 48k Speccy began.
Composite modding and the results compared to RF is amazing. Thank you very much mate.
Now maybe JT can explain how this works much better on his own blog than i can, but was hugely impressed with a conversion of the Mega CD FMV classic Road Avenger playing on a standard SNES!
Sd2snes cartridge.
I also collected my MB Vectrex and a few other bits whilst i was thetcance I’ll be testing out my DIY colour overlays before I send it down to the Retro Computer Museum.
…but before that, I still have a few days off work and intend to hook up my DivIDE to my modded Speccy for some static free gaming – thanks again JT!
Actually, looking at the wiring, I think this cabinet only ever had one speaker.
