iMame iCade iLove

O.k so where did yesterday afternoon go? I started playing around with iMame and my iCade one minute, i look up and it’s dark outside!

It’s such a shame that Apple decided to pull iMame from the app store, but i guess you can understand why they did. It’s just a shame that more of these classic games aren’t released for purchase to feed our retro gaming needs. Yes i’m happy to play a new Sonic game but i want to play the original untouched versions. Atari greatest hits was a step in the right direction despite a few dodgy 2600 titles but surely if someone like Sega, Taito, and Capcom came along with a pack for ios that contains some of their classic titles complete (with iCade support of course)they’d make a mint.

Retro gamers are hungry for them and it’s no wonder that iMame was snapped up so quickly by everyone and news of it’s release spread so quickly on the web. Hoping you was one of the lucky ones that managed to get it.

My iPad and iCade setup ready to play.

After transferring a few files via iExplorer.

All of the familiar MAME options are available including screen orientation and graphics options, filtered lists (type, year, clones etc) control sets allowing you to restrict joystick movement for those classic two and four way games as well as setting deadzone and joystick sensitivity.

Control of the games menu is via joystick up/down with left/right quickly scrolling to the first title per alphabet letter.

The usual in game MAME menu’s are available too by pressing the coin and start button together. From here you can play around with the dip switch settings and fine tune your controls for that particular game.

Emulation of the iPad2 is absolutely spot on with no slow down on anything i’ve played so far including some of the later titles like Street Fighter II and The Simpsons. iMame supports an older rom set so later titles like Tekken aren’t possible. However, it still supports well over 2000 roms and all the old favourites are here.

Taking on the mothership from Phoenix is good test of the buttons. They’re very responsive but have quite a lot of travel before the microswitch makes contact. I prefer mine to be a little more sensitive and so I’ll be looking at changing these a bit later on.

Bluetooth connection is spot on and i’ve not once experienced a button press or control movement that’s been missed. I think i’ve mentioned before how loud the microswitches are and although perfectly acceptable, gaming could be vastly improved via cherry microswitches or the new leaf switch switches i’m currently investigating.

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One of the best bits about the iPad is it’s auto orientation which means you can switch between arcade games originally played out on vertical or horizontally mounted monitors. Of course, you can play horizontal games in portrait mode if you wish and iMame will scale the screen size accordingly.

Scramble in it’s native vertical mode.

Flipping to horizontal mode for a couple of Sega classics.

Games that require analogue controls are best played directly on the iPad using the virtual (analogue) joystick – games like, Star Wars and Missile Command spring to mind. I was quite surprised though on how well Outrun, Thunderblade, Afterburner and Space Harrier played with the iCade stick therefore it’s worthwhile checking out both methods to see which you’d refer.

Tweaked in the MAME menu, Star Wars analogue controls can be mapped perfectly. Flipping the Y axis really helped.

A-ha, that’s what happened to my afternoon – TNMT!

Even without iMame, the iCade still a great device and support for ios games is on the increase. Without iMame i was tempted not to bother with it but as the price of the iCade is on the way down and games like the retro pixel blaster Velocispider and Space Immersion playing very well on the iCade it’s might be worth giving it a look.

I think i’ll take my setup down to the next RCM meet and see what the other fella’s think.

Vectrex vs. Vectrex

Taking a (short) break from all those Commodore shenanigans I had an idea to run the most excellent Vectrex emulator (ParaJVE) on my vertical mini Mame cab side by side with my actual MB Vectrex console.

As you can see, I’ve still not got around to painting my mini Mame cab yet due to having way too much fun actually playing with it. Work will recommence shortly!

ParaJVE is by far the best Vectrex emulator out there and includes such great features.

- Customisable graphics options including vector glow, anti aliasing, Vectrex console chassis and persistence settings to recreate that famous Vectrex phosphorous glow.

- Accurate reproduction of the coloured overlays for all the commercial, demo and home brew games.

- Like for like sound emulation including that authentic Vectrex buzz.

If you’ve not tried it before, or in fact have never played on a Vectrex console before, it’s well worth checking out ParaJVE.

http://vectrex-emu.blogspot.com/

Emulated – Minestorm

Actual – Minestorm game with transparent overlay.

Scramble is one game I’d really like for my Vectrex because I really like the colourful overlay. I don’t have the original game cartridge/overlay yet, but I’m still able to play the original rom via my 72-1 Vectrex Cartridge. Of course, the emulated version is complete with reproduced overlay.

After Scramble, Berzerk is another of my favorite games on the Vectrex, indeed any port of this game gets a thumbs up from me, but on the actual console with the analogue controls, it plays really really well. The minimalist graphic overlay is produced perfectly on the emulator.

Side by side Vectrex Berzerk – ‘Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert’….etc etc

Pole Position may look pretty good on the emulator, but it’s a bugger to play without analog controls. On the Vectrex, it’s much better…I so wish I had the colourful overlay though

ParaJVE not only contains all the original Vectrex games, but also has got quite a few homebrew titles like Defender clone ‘Protector’ and a great conversion of ‘Thrust’ complete with custom overlay. Many of the homebrew titles are also present on my 72-1 multi cart but sadly these two are missing. There are other Flash carts out for the Vectrex that will enable me to transfer Trust so maybe I’ll take a look at these in the near future.

As you can see from the screenshots above, I don’t really own many overlays for my Vectrex. In fact, the only one I have is for Minestorm. Occasionally the odd one will pop up on eBay but usually ends up sold for quite a hefty price.

I came across a site providing instructions on how to create your own DIY overlays and although they’re tricky to reproduce and results may vary, it’s something I’m going to be trying over the next few weeks.

Here’s a quick video of me loading Minestorm on both my fake and real Vectrex.

Mini-Mini Arcade Cabinet Frontend

Following on from this afternoons post, I’ve been messing around with Photoshop and Mala’s Layout editor and have created my own  menu graphic.. Most of the layout templates I could find for Mala were standard PC desktops resolutions that didn’t scale very well on my 768 x 1366 (portrait mode)  screen.

 

I’ve used a combination of Photoshop layers and Out glow styles to create the blue neon lines and added a slight Gausian blur to smooth the pixels a little. Placement of layout objects such as the screenshots, marque pictures and text (as well as the size, color & font) are all done via Mala’s layout editor which is included in Mala’s download.

Couple of pictures of the menu in use.

 

 

….and a quick tube vid

Mini – Mini Mame Arcade Cabinet – Pt8

Today I’ve been testing out a variety of Mame frontends including Mame32, Maximus Arcade, Hyperspin and Mamewah. In the end, I’ve settled on Mala as it’s easy to setup, easy on the system resources (My Netbook isn’t very powerful when it comes to high graphic settings) and can support a whole host of options, emulators and custom themes.

Here’s a quick video I shot showing you my progress so far. Still lots to do, but at the moment am enjoying the odd game or five

Mini-Mini Mame Arcade Cabinet pt7

This afternoon I began installing the arcade controls and getting them configured for the MAME emulator. Next to actually playing with the finished arcade cabinet, adding the controls is by far my most favourite part of the build.

First job on my list was to install the joystick. I’m going to be using another Sanwa 4/8-way ball topped stick similar to the one used in my full size cab.

The joystick is mounted underneath the control panel via four screws/nuts and so I measured out the mount plate and fixing holes.

Pencil marked and holes drilled with my Dremel.

This is the underside of the joystick showing the four directional microswitches and the (clear plastic) restrictor plate. This is used to limit direction for either four or eight (diagonal) control. It’s down to personal choice but I generally leave this as an eight way stick and haven’t had any problems with control of four way controlled games such as PacMan and Donkey Kong.

Joystick is now fitted but when I test fitted I realised I’d made a bit of a mistake! By moving the front panel towards the back slightly when putting the panels together, it doesn’t leave enough clearance for the joystick. I have two options here, move the front panel forward again or scrap the control panel, cut a new one and mount the joystick further forward. In the end I decided, for ease, to move the front panel forward.

Next is the arcade buttons, three on the control panel and a 1-up and ‘coin’ button on the front panel. I’ve got lots of these arcade buttons in various colours and can’t quite decide which colour to use. I’ve settled for this Red/Blue combination but to be honest, now that I look at the pictures again, I’m thinking a single colour would look much better.

I’ve added both the 1-up/start and coin button the front panel and attached the microswitches to each button. Clearance between these and the control panel buttons was about 1cm!

To connect each control to my netbook I’ll be using specialist keyboard encoder called an iPac. I used quite a few of these before and they do the job perfectly. Once connected to the PC via USB interface, the PC see’s it as another keyboard and controls can be mapped in MAME as you would with a regular keyboard/controller.

The tiny circuit board is attached to the underside of the control panel via four mounting feet – although I’ve only used two here as space on my mini control panel is very short.

Usually, the iPac is shipped with two cable bundles, the first contains coloured wires that terminate into a 40 pin IDC block and the second bundle (usually black cable) is used to daisy chain all of the negative/ground terminals together.

Wiring is pretty straight forward, you can either use the wiring diagram which accompanies the iPac or use software to reprogram the iPac chip. Either way, the wiring process is the same – connect a coloured wire to the ‘NO’ terminal on each control microswitch and a black ground wire to the ‘common’ terminal on the control microswitches.

For detailed information, you might like to visit here – http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_wiring.shtml#General_Theory

Once completed, you’ll end up with a mess of cables like this

At this stage it’s natural to start tie wrapping the cables and tidying them up, but until I’ve tested the controls I tend to leave them as is in the event that I need to make any changes.

With the iPac connected to my Netbook I can use a program called WinIPAC to test and/or program each control/button.

WinIPAC let’s you create a replica of your control panel and provide tools for testing and key mapping. You can see here which keys I’ve mapped to each control.

Satisfied that all controls where working as they should, I tie-wrapped the cables into neat bundles so that they wouldn’t snag on anything and used adhesive plastic hooks to attach the bundle to keep it of the ground.

The finished control panel.

Mini – Mini Mame Arcade cabinet – pt6

Due to our very poorly cat, I’ve had to extend my time off work as we look after him and visit the vets etc. Whilst he (Smokey) had a nap, I thought it be an opportune moment to spend a little more time on my mini-mini Mame cabinet.

Yesterday, I had all the various panels ready for assembly and so I spent the first half hour giving them all a good sanding and ironing out any blemishes. I’ve put a slight rounded edge to side panel fronts to simulate the t-moulding you used to get on full size arcade cabs. I’ll decide later on if I want to paint this ‘t-molding’ a different colour.

Here’s a photo after I’d attached the two side panels and back panel using the large fixing batons and three screws per side panel.

With this done I attached the front panel and according to my initial plans I intended to have it flush with the side panel front edges. However in the end, I thought it looked much better and more like a full size cab having it recessed by a little.

I’ve also been musing over how to semi affix the Control Panel as I want to be able to easily remove it should I need to check the wiring and also to make it easier to insert/remove my netbook.

As an experiment I though I might try some of those small magnetic door catches. The magnetic part is attached to the cabinet side panel and a small metal plate is attached to the underside of the Control Panel. Getting them to line up correctly was a right pain but in the end, it all seems fit really well and ensures the Control Panel is secure without sliding about but can be easily removed if required.

Although they work really well, they are magnets after all, and therefore am concerned what this might do to the control panel or netbook components. They aren’t very powerful magnets and are a fair distance away all the electronics but I’ll certainly be keeping a lookout for problems once I begin gaming (I mean testing )

It’s starting to look like a mini cab now!

The cab roof was an easy fix and attached to the back panel via a small hinge. I’ve placed two small screws at the front of the cabinet for the front of the lid to rest on. In time, I’ll swap these out in favour of those small metal shelve plugs you can get (I think this is what’s used on the iCade as well).

On the underside of the lid, I’ve attached a small baton to prevent my netbook from falling out if the cabinet is tipped forward.

The netbook screen mount was probably the most challenging part of the build and I had to change my initial plans quite a lot on the fly. Using more batons attached to the side panels affixed at slight angles to tilt the screen just wasn’t working out very well. I guess if I was fixing a separate LCD panel that was the same thickness all around then it wouldn’t have been a problem. However my netbook (Acer1825 PTZ) was thicker and heavier on one side due to the battery pack and it didn’t seem to look right to me.

After trying out various other methods throughout the afternoon, I opted for fixing metal ‘L’ shaped brackets to the back panel to help support my netbook at the correct position. Fixing them in the correct position was trial and error but I think I’ve got there in the end. All I need to do now if fix rubber padding to the metal support to help grip my netbook and prevent it from getting scratched.

Smokey was starting to wake up so that’s about it for today. Just before packing away, I test fitted my Netbook to how things are looking so far.

So far, I’m really happy with it, my netbook is secure in the cabinet and nothing appears to be rattling around or feel loose. I might need to make a few minute adjustments to the mounts as the screen looks a tad too low in the picture above but at the brackets are made of thin metal, they’re easily bent into different positions.

Next comes the fun bit, wiring the controls and giving it a test

Mini – Mini Mame Arcade Cabinet pt5

It’s been quite a while since I last posted an update regarding my mini – mini arcade cabinet / DIY iCade as things have been a little hectic here to carry on.

After building the cardboard mock up (see previous posts and YouTube vids) and getting a rough idea on measurements and construction details, I’ve decided to slightly modify the design again. Originally, I’d thought to base the overall design on the iCade, albeit a slightly taller version to accommodate my 11.6″ tablet netbook fixed in portrait mode and also include enough height for a backlit marquee at the top (unlike the iCade). However, looking back at my cardboard model, and especially with my netbook being a few inches taller than an iPad, it really did way too tall so I’ve decided to scrap that idea and exclude the marquee/lower the overall height.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this won’t be the last mini cabinet I build so maybe I’ll incorporate this idea into another cab (am already thinking of doing another for horizontal games).

So, with a new set of plans, headed off to the hardware store for materials.

I’ve decided to make my cabinet out of thin MDF as it’s easy to work with and provides a nice smooth finish. I did think about using rigid foam board and plastic at one point but went down the route I’d find the easiest. Likewise, I was going to use 9mm board but after looking at the slightly thicker 12mm board I decided to use that instead. It’s still very light but doesn’t seem to wobble like the 9mm board.

A good size 1m x 1.5m piece of MDF sheet (the smallest they had) cost me £6.99. More than enough for this cabinet with plenty of off cuts for the next build.

I also brought PVA wood glue, suitable wood screws, panel pins, two small inline brass hinges (for the top lid) and a pack of magnetic door fasteners (huh!)

Back home and outside in glorious summer sunshine despite it being mid autumn I transposed my measurements to the board and drew out the layout of all the panel pieces Here’s one of the side panels.

Cutting wood with an electric jigsaw makes the job very quick and easy. However, one can often go slightly wobbly when you’re trying to cut two pieces to match (excuses excuses!)

No matter, my Dremel and sandpaper attachment to the rescue!

All the parts cut and awaiting sanding. I’ve cut the side panels, back panel, front panel, top lid and control panel. My original plan included a bottom panel, but a test fit shows the whole cabinet to be quite sturdy and as there wouldn’t be any inner workings fixed to the base, I decided to exclude it in the end and reduce the overall weight.

You may notice in the picture below that some of the parts aren’t cut perfectly. Again wobbly jigsaw but half an hour with the Dremel and all are looked good. I’ve also sanded some of the corners on the side panels and on the Control Panel corners and front.

Using the 28mm drill bit I brought at the beginning of the year for my full scale MAME arcade cabinet, I’ve cut the holes for the joystick and buttons on the Control Panel and two holes in the front panel. The Control Panel will hold three fire buttons, which will be more than enough to play some of the classic vertical games, and the front panel will include the 1-up button and ‘coin’ button.

I’ve attached wooden fixing batons to the back and front panels with PVA glue and have set them aside to set overnight. Next time i’ll start putting all of the pieces together including the Netbook mount and Control Panel wiring.

At this stage I still don’t have any definite ideas for paint colour and decals….any suggestions!

iCade Skin Design Competition

Excerpt from the ThinkGeeks website -

Here’s the link

http://www.thinkgeek.com/contests/icadeskin/index.shtml

It should be interesting to see what folk can come up with….also, that PDF document link to the iCade blueprints should come in handy

Invadercade

Woo, this is exciting news for all iPad owning retro gamers out there.

First there was the iCade -

Then the exciting news that Atari was also developing it’s own arcade dock for use with all those lovely Atari classics currently on the app store.

…and now it seems that Taito want a slice too with an announcement of there new IVadercade!

Although it’s doubtful I’ll be purchasing one myself or any of the above due to lack of game support (unless this changes) Taito’s classic Space Invader artwork certainly would look nice on my own DIY icade

Mini – Mini Mame Arcade Cabinet Pt4

After yesterdays lunchtime fun on my cardboard Mame cab and iPad, I thought I’d have a bit of a laugh and go one final step forward by installing my Netbook tablet and USB Arcade controller.

The controller was slightly too big for the control panel housing so the cardboard had to be butchered mercilessly and as a result, copious amounts of tape had to be used

Loading my first Rom with Stick n buttons at the ready. Maybe I should have cut out some cardboard credits?

Pac-man loaded and colleagues start to gather around as the sound of this retro classic fills the office

Phoenix = Happy Me.

He’s a quick vid showing PacMan running…eventually