Main > Project Announcements
Astro City 2 dual JAMMA / emulation cabinet
Kokapetl:
Hi everyone, first post!
I picked up a working Sega New Astro City Astro City 2 cabinet, minus some (hopefully) minor monitor problems which I'm going to convert to be a dual JAMMA / emulation cabinet - i.e., I want to be able to easily switch between using a JAMMA board and using a PC for emulation.
This is my second cabinet project (the cabinet on the left was a gutted and battle-damaged cabinet that I picked up cheap and did up using a TV and XBOX core).
Kokapetl:
The astro is in decent condition, so other than respraying the doors and bezel I hope I can avoid doing too much to it. My aim is to modify the cabinet at little as possible, but here's one modification that I'm adding:
I filed out one of the holes in the coin door to be larger and square. I think this hole was for sticking a screw-driver into when the coin-mech jams up, I'm adding 2 USB ports. In the picture, I've just poked it through to make sure it fits, once I've resprayed I will fold the tiny metal lips over.
I'll mainly use the USB ports for playstation 2-ish controllers which will be configured for all emulators as being a secondary input source so that, if desired, you could use control pad rather than arcade sticks. This is a necessity when emulating nintendo 64 etc. for the analog stick but it also offers a convenient solution to friends who complain that you're only kicking their ass at Street Fighter because they're used to playing with a control pad ;) For 4 player arcade games, these will be players 3 and 4. I'm also making a trackball controller but rather than messing up my astro (I can't see how it would fit anyway) I've decided to make my own trackball controller which can be plugged in via USB.
Kokapetl:
Here are some pics of my set up for switching between JAMMA / PC.
I've picked up an arcadeVGA and J-PAC for the conversion, the thing on the right is a kick-harness I built so that I don't need to double up on wiring.
On one side of the mdf board (left) is the JAMMA board, the other half is the PC interface (currently plugged in).
For now, I've simply merged the PC stereo signals into one which goes through both speakers. I may eventually change this, but I haven't even opened up most of the cabinet so this was the easier solution.
Also, since PC audio signals aren't amplified, I gutted some old PC speakers. I'm using the amplifier from the old speakers so that the original arcade speakers are being used.
opt2not:
That's the way to do a first post right. :)
"Here's what I have, what I'm going to turn it into, and and here's what I did before", none of the sucking up to the board, establishing a back-story, life questioning posts... just straight to the hobby.
I like it, and I like your idea too! I'll be watching this one for sure!
I applaud you :applaud: for your conviction and frankness to the point.
Also, I would love to see some pictures of that first cab running :cheers:
Kokapetl:
--- Quote from: opt2not on August 06, 2010, 02:32:24 am ---I would love to see some pictures of that first cab running
--- End quote ---
Thanks :)
The aesthetics of my first machine don't extend to the inside :P` ..it's quite embarassing to look at.
Here's a labeled picture of it running.