my take on the "mame cabinet"

[Genome]

so i have had this idea in my head since 1998 or so when i first saw roms. though then i was in middleschool and had no source of income. now though i am married and can final build what i have been planning out these last 10 years.

anyway my plan was simple, i didnt want a cabinet design as i want to also be able to sit and enjoy the home console games. i decided on a coffee table. this seemed to be the perfect idea. however though the cost of such a project, and the fact that i live in an apartment with limited space led me to this decision.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/252/pic12qu5.png

this was made by johnny boy over at arcadecontrols.com



im basing my project off of this guys design, basically its a smaller mame all in one.

anyway the construction has begun, i have bought the arcade controls,(2 joysticks and 24 buttons, $40 dollars counting s&H ) and this wednesday my marquee wich i will place behind the control panel comes
(20x30 print made at wal-mart for $16 dollars:happy: )

i will update as more falls in place, this project will also include home consoles in additon to mame. (mame being the smaller focus).

here is a mock-up i did in photoshop, basically this is the plan for what it will look like when its done. i'll post more as it comes;)

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/2684/finishedmockupkh5.png

[ulaoulao]

Looks pretty nice. I assume this is gong to attach to TV via vga to hdma? The box design looks good. Are you going to slide a computer case in there or build everything in to the box? Well cant wait to see it progress, keep us up to date..

BTW: What is the bazaar looking thing in the lower left corner? ;)

[Genome]

just bought the plywood today, 3 pieces of 3/4". not doing anything with them till the weekend though, i worked 11 hours today and i have to work 12 tomorrow so im taking it easy.

the plan is to build everything into the box placing the screws into the bottom so they wont be noticeable from the outside.

your right i already have a tv-out cable. so 27" monitor ( or 15" if my wife is trying to sleep and i have to play downstairs) thats another great advantage of building it this way, arcade to go!

lol im sure you wouldnt know what that is :laugh: its my mockup of your blissbox snugly secured in its home:happy::happy::happy::happy:

couldnt buy plexi today like i planned they blocked off the plexi isle and wouldnt unblock it for me.....damn home depot.

more pics will be added this weekend:happy:

[Genome]

small update, i just got my 20x30" poster print that im going to use for the background (behind my arcade buttons)...
i also recived 4 buttons extra that i now have to find uses for.


not being able to post pics is f-ing lame. dont worry though a whole load of them are coming.;)


sorry i cant add more right now.

[Genome]

update!

well i got off to a late start today, my father in law was out in the woods taking a walk for most of the afternoon and it was pretty cold out, so we didnt get started. tommorow looks better. warmer, sunny. he said he would call if he was available for helping me.

anyway here are a couple pics, not much to look at right now but hey its better than nothing.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3511/dscf2490pg5.jpg
first here is my prototype control panel. i cut myself a 20x30" piece of cardboard which was very easy to come by as i have an unlimited supply.
i think the control is very intuitive
2 sets of 8 buttons, 2 joysticks, 2 coin buttons, 1 and 2 player start, pause, reset, exit, and console buttons.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/5629/dscf2491xh5.jpg
this is my current supplys. 3 sheets of 24x48" 3/4 plywood ($40) and a sheet of 1/8 25x35" plexiglass ($13).

and here is the last:happy: my control panel decal that will lay under my buttons and joysticks and will be covered with plexi to protect it.

its a 20x30" poster i got at walmart. it only cost me $16 and took one week to get it. in fact i ordered it on my own at the photo kiosk.:happy:
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/2699/dscf2493hp0.jpg

well i hope to have more productive posts soon, im only $30 bucks away from ordering my motherboard and cpu. its a work in progress but im very happy with it so far.;)

[Genome]

well i got alot done yesterday. we put the box almost entirely together. i have lots of progress pics. :happy:

first you can see in this one the slope of the box. i noticed most people who make mame cabinets seem to forget that arcade control panels are sloped. i wanted to recreate this in my project. in this picture you can see the angle that it slopes. this should provide much greater comfort for playing and give the ability to play for hours more.
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4589/web1uz0.jpg

in this picture you can see the box assembled. all that is missing is getting some piano hinge to attach the top, which is also a lid.
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3040/web2zi0.jpg

and you can see in this last image my cardboard mockup placed on top. my father in law is holding one of the joysticks up. ;)
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3192/web3cv4.jpg

more to come as time allows. what do you guys think?

[ulaoulao]

good solid construction, perfect precision on the measurements, superb artwork, I think you underway of a nice looking vintage piece of equipment. Keep it up..

[~!!WhoCares!!~]

This sounds cool man I hope you finish soon.............

[Genome]

me to lol. i plan to finish up the control panel tommorow. it wont be wired yet but i dont want to wait for my board. ill add pics of the wiring to once i do it.

hopefully another update is coming sunday.

[ulaoulao]

Hey Genome, if you and the wife ever decide to move to FL, we can open the first emu-arcade LOL!.

[Genome]

lol that would be great, actually my wife and i had wanted to open one here. doubt there is any market for it though. you know what that means don't you. if you open one there and us one here....franchise:p

[Genome]

update

so sort of a smaller one. the control panel didnt get finished yet. the guy at the hardware store gave me the wrong screws. i do plan to have it done this week though. im also planning on sanding and primeing this week as well.

as for the update, my pc parts came in!!!
the shots below feature my equipment.

this first one is showing the control panel. you can see where we cut the holes in the plexi for buttons. once we run the pilot holes for the screws i will be able to assemble this part completely.
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6756/pic13ac9.jpg

this shows the case fans i recived. i placed my order at portatech. i would definatly recommend this site. they have a VERY easy to use order form. plus i got these 2 case fans and the fan in the next pic for FREE. because i filled out one of those survey thingys after my order. it was worth it since it took less than 5 minutes for the both of them.

here is the heatsink/fan i recived. (*luigi not included*). if things dont work out with this project i can at least use it to keep my whole apartment cool in the summer:p (sprry for the blur)
http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/2289/pic15xm6.jpg

this is my motherboard out of its box, with my 2 - 1gb ram sticks in my hand there. this system should own some pac-man;)
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/8561/pic17oi9.jpg

and here is the last one. my mobo box next to my processor
http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/2785/pic14qa2.jpg

system specs:
1.7 ghz dual core processor
2gb ram
radeon 9600xt gfx card

i think that should prevent ANY possible lag that could happen in a game. plus gives me the ability to hook this up to my tv.;)

except for the remaining body work i think this is in its concluding stage.

my last remaining major purchases are:

1-KeyWiz-ST (board for my arcade controls)
1- blissbox (ulalulao!!!!)
1- 1tb hdd

after that its all screws and fan grills. nothing more than 10 dollars an item.

more to come....

[Genome]

okay got some work done this weekend. i couldn't go to my in-laws and do alot of what needs to be done, i will be down there this week though. in the mean time i did "finish" the control panel. it still needs paint on the edges and i have to wire it but i think the progress so far is good.

(click the thumbnails to enlarge)
here is one with the holes cut in the wood and plexiglass.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5384/up1gl1.th.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=up1gl1.jpg)

here is after i worked on it with buttons, labels, joysticks added.
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5522/up2yk0.th.jpg (http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=up2yk0.jpg)

sorry for the mess;)
feedback is appreciated!!!!

[Zach]

I thought about doing the emu-arcade thing for a while, a couple years back.. Dunno how you'd go about securing all the rights to do it legally tho.. Unless you have loads of cash

[Genome]

I thought about doing the emu-arcade thing for a while, a couple years back.. Dunno how you'd go about securing all the rights to do it legally tho.. Unless you have loads of cash

thats pretty much it, unless you do it illegally.

further with a progress update!

literally just finished painting the edges of the control panel.

im currently placing my pc parts inside to measure screw holes and how it will all fit.

cutting holes this weekend for speakers and fans. then painting the whole thing and assembling it.

pics to come. make sure to check back!!!

[ulaoulao]

I thought about doing the emu-arcade thing for a while, a couple years back.. Dunno how you'd go about securing all the rights to do it legally tho.. Unless you have loads of cash True, but damn it would be cool....

Good news Genome, Keep it going!!


BTW: I finally got my new chip in and I'm able to write my units now. I'll be posting an update soon..

[Genome]

BTW: I finally got my new chip in and I'm able to write my units now. I'll be posting an update soon..

now thats how you start your morning!!!

thats great news!

as for my project im about to assemble the pc and test it.

i will post updates this weekend.

[Genome]

spot of bad news to start.

it seems when i was repairing the pc that is to go into my arcade device, that i got screwed once again by microsoft/emachines.

the machine was origionally an emachines desktop. when i replaced the fried motherboard and cpu i found out that i could no longer log into windows. i now have to confirm a cd key, and the one i already had is "invalid"

i talked to the rep for emachines and she said that the motherboard is hard wired into the operating system that came with the emachines install cds. so once my pc doesnt recognize that old motherboard it doesnt work.

i tried running through a list of cd keys i "acquired" and they wernt working.

she said i basically have to buy another copy of windows xp for this to work. :fuckyou:

all this wouldnt be a problem since i am replacing windows xp with windows xp media center edition. IF my entire rom collection wasnt sitting on that disk and i currently have no way to move the information somewhere else to reboot that disk.

a small hiccup perhaps but right now its pretty daunting. :(

the worst F****** part being that i DO own a legal copy of windows xp and the only way those assholes said i can fix it is to buy ANOTHER copy.
god i hate microsoft.

i even tried linux and the machine wouldnt work with it for some reason.
to come:
hopefully paint!
cuttin' some holes
a working pc?

i also just checked the update on ulalualos page and it looks like the blissbox project is back up and running. which is great news for me because his project is going to be integrated into mine enabling controller support.

[Genome]

the holes have all be cut. im going to put some trim around the edge of the speakers for looks.

the first coat of paint went on last night.

as soon as i can get the hard drives to work i will be ready to pretty much wrap this up.

i will host some pics in a few days.

i want to get a little farther before a pic update though.

[ulaoulao]

an emachine is not a good choice for a project like this... Shame shame shame Genome ;)

emachines try very hard to keep you out of the system, they instill the m$ paradigm in any way they can. If you were not f#$% now you would have been further down the line. I know they are cheep, but you dont want that. stick with asus MB, geforce VID, and spitfire ram. You need a good engine for you firebird not a golf cart..

[Zach]

Dude if you have a legit copy of Windows, box, your own serial, etc in front of you. CALL MICROSOFT. DO not call Emachines, they are just trying to make money off of you..

If you call microsoft and tell them your hardware failed and you had to swap it out for new stuff, they should be able to give you a new CD key

[Genome]

i already did that and thats how i ended up at emachines call center.

actually the only piece of emachines left in it is the f-d up operating system they handed me on the disk. i have replaced every part since then.


its okay i borrowed an external hard drive, and im borrowing a tower today. i can cook up a way to move the info i need off of the drives. then put windows xp media center edition on the hdd. then i can move the info back.

got my arcade board in the mail yesterday!
finished painting!

need the wind to stop in order to paint the speaker though. im just going to use a ton of black spray on them. but for the last 2 days there were 45mph winds all day. and tommorow it is reported for a ton of snow.



pics to come.

[ulaoulao]

tomorrow 80d's here LOL..

Good to see your make progress. BB is going insanely well. Ill get started on your as soon as the template arrives.

[Genome]

awesome:happy:

i sketched it out on paper today. cant send anything till at least monday though.

out of cash and stamps (had to use my last one to mail my natural gas bill today)

i could always make it to scale in photoshop and email it to you. whichever works best im already mailing you those nes plugs either way.

got my speakers painted. i put them inside a corndog box and crouched down on the back porch in the cold ( 31 degrees).

bought the trim for the speaks. going to paint them tonight if i can.

[Genome]

a much needed update

since last weeks snowstorm the internet here hasnt wanted to work. it still doesnt but i managed to find a window in it:happy:

okay it took some real finagling but i managed to get the computer to work!!!!

which means my project is officially green lighted.

i finished the entire assembly of the box. pics will come this weekend i absolutely promise. i just have to get the camera back.

everything went together with no problems. the latch supports i was going to use for the lid wont work however, as my fan placement makes this impossible (my mistake:o ).
also i designed a power button that really suits the project so i have to build that and install it.

the speaks turned out great, now i just have to glue them.

i underestimated my pc parts my system actually runs as follows:
2.60 dual core processor
2 gb ram
156 mb radeon 9600xt gfx card (weak i know)

it works beautifully though, last night i was playing mario 64, mario party, and then jumped into some famicom disk system games.

the current snags are bothersome however.

i have a 250 gb hard drive which already has content on it, and i cant seem to find the right jumper combination to get my pc to recognize it correctly. im still working on this pretty actively.

and after i moved 12gb of content of my laptop (what i use for internet since it has built in wifi) and onto a friends external hard drive both computer immediatly decided they no longer want to recognize the device. so im going to get his drivers disk and see if i can recover that information.

i already looked ahead and next month i will recive 3 pay checks, so im going to go and buy a 1tb hard drive because thats in no way excessive and i need it:p
and hopefully the blissbox will soon be done it looks at though ulaoulao has had some great progress with it.

if it gets done soon enough i will wait on putting my pc in my box so i can cut the hole for it and not have to take everything back out when it comes.

im designing my panel for him at the same time im writing this so i will email that later.

what else........ah currently setting up my frontend. i chose gamex and i really think i will be happy with it. getting the extra software i need to run it right now.

pics will come soon and i think everyone will be quite pleased. the physical part of the project is basically done however i will keep adding whatever further developments are made for those intrested.

everything left now is :
transfering
moving pc into box
setting up software
adding blissbox
buying controllers
enjoying

[ulaoulao]

i have a 250 gb hard drive which already has content on it, and i cant seem to find the right jumper combination to get my pc to recognize it correctly. im still working on this pretty actively. - Jumpers only determin slave and master not size? Maybe it was partitioned at the factory? Post a screen shot of your disk management..

GnomeBox is under way ;)

Quickplay is better the gameEx IMO.

hope to see pics soon.

[Genome]

i will put a pic up once i get the camera back (later today)
i used this hard drive before on a diffrent pc and it worked perfectly, it currently houses a TON of information i was counting on to go into my project.

im really stumped though no matter what jumper settings i try it seems that it all has the same result. as soon as i connect either my second hard drive or my dvd drive all of the ide devices i have disapear. my pc keeps trying to install scsi drivers and i have a feeling that it needs to do this to make it work, but right now i cant connect it to the net, not until wednesday. its like my pc refuses to have slaves.

the external hard drive that has 12 gb of my info is still in limbo. im kind of worried about that to. my friends cd that came with only had drivers for older operating systems. so that didnt help.:(

im trying out the frontend "atmoic fe" so far im pretty happy with it. i had my music and background in it in less than 5 minutes. so far so good, im going to test how it handles games today.
i did take a look at quickplay. i wasnt too crazy about the graphix. i want my frontend to make it feel like your not even on a computer. just some great dedicated machine that i found somewhere at a yard sale or something lol.

[Zach]

Actually if the drive is relatively old, it would have a jumper to help DOS use it. But that is very rare, esp on such a huge drive.

Some older mobos may also have a BIOS limit on what the BIOS can see. My first 4GB drive had a jumper setting to limit the partition size to 2GB for FAT16 file systems of course.

Have you tried using just the single problem drive itself? At any rate replacement drives are pretty cheap these days... 1TB SATA for just under $300 USD mmmm oh god yes :p:p:p:p

It's probably some weird quirk like your drive doesn't like one of your other drives

[ulaoulao]

1TB SATA for just under $300 USD mmmm oh god yes - !49.99 Compusa close out special if you have one near you.

[Genome]

keeping my promises!

i havent been on at all this week because i have been having such success (and fun) getting my frontend menus working. most things went off so far without a hitch. i did have a huge problem at one point and lost all of my work, but then when i got back to where i was i had a breakthrough and now games LOAD!!!!!
there were a few kinks though, some of the system (currenlty 3) dont load. when i open them they kill the frontend and dumbly bring me back to my desktop. i'll get them working though.
last night i had to entirely script what i wanted for nes to do because their default is to use nestopia *which i loathe* so now i have it running virtuanes with no problems.

okay here are two pics of the box.
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9906/upload1ho1.th.jpg (http://img90.imageshack.us/my.php?image=upload1ho1.jpg)

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/7043/upload2zb7.th.jpg (http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=upload2zb7.jpg)
it still needs some detail work but it should be done pretty soon.

i will host a few screenshots of my frontend working.

the biggest thing i still need is my blissbox *Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint Hint *


FEEDBACK PLEASE

[Genome]

some videos i took of my arcade running. sorry for the quality.

first play video one then video 2, as my digital camera cut off and i had to put it into 2 parts.

enjoy
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.myvideos&MyToken=0588c87b-aa1c-4108-85f8-6a57fad40dac

(^ doh, fixed it thanks zach.)

[Zach]

You can't use that link, it will dump people into their own video manager, because it's not linked properly

[ulaoulao]

i did take a look at quickplay. i wasnt too crazy about the graphix. i want my frontend to make it feel like your not even on a computer. just some great dedicated machine that i found somewhere at a yard sale or something lol. - not sure you found the best solution yet but I saw this today.
http://www.camya.com/eccblog/
I know the site name is weird.. cam-ya ?? but its legit.

[DssTrainer]

Nice looking box.. but I'm a bit confused. If you are making a Joystick panel, why do you need a blissbox? Isn't a blissbox meant as a hub for using the actual gamepads? I would think what you need is an iPac/2

[Zach]

Having the option to use original controllers is always a bonus.. Maybe that's why he is including it

[ulaoulao]

I'm sure gnome can answer better, but in working with him he does want the option as Zach said.

For example, I host Street Fighter comps and the one complaint I get the most is, I could have kick your so and so , if I had the original such and such controller. Granted there is little you can do to "perfect", other then getting the original set. However, it never hurt to go as far as you can. Gnome is looking to achieve just that, closes to original as posible. The only thing that will differ as the unit, well and the fact its an emu.


Isn't a blissbox meant as a hub for using the actual gamepads? - Yes, but I'm make his a custom panel for his box.


And daym the tg16 was a tricky cut, but looks to be the best. The tricky ones always are.

[ulaoulao]

hmm, the forum dupped my post?

Sorry Zach.

[ecc]

Hi,
i dont think, that emuControlCenter is the right tool here. Ok, thats hard, because i´m the developer of emuControlCenter! :)

With emuControlCenter you can manage all your games and start them direct... but it dont support an joystik interface so far. So i dont know, if this really is usefull for a cabinet because you need an keyboard or mouse!

But emuControlCenter can fit, if you want manage your complete rom collection for 135 Systems and start each game direct with the mouse or keyboard! :)

Maybe its worth a look at it :-)

http://www.camya.com/eccblog/

http://www.camya.com/ecc/ecc_state_small.gif

[ulaoulao]

eccblog, was mentioned in post 831..

I think he is pretty set on his software now.

BTW: ecc, any luck with 7z yet?

[ulaoulao]

Ahh i see the new version has 7zip nice...

[ecc]

Yes, 7zip is now implemented :-) Was a harder task, but now i´ve managed it.

[ulaoulao]

I salute you..

[aevans0001]

Any updates??? How did the bliss box work out any pics?

[ulaoulao]

Gnome has been MIA for some time now, could try this (http://forums.emulator-zone.com/showthread.php?t=11266)post - got your emails ;)