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CONCEPT PHASEAfter months of thinking about building a MAME machine, I have finally come to a definitive decision as to what exactly I’m going to do. I acquired a 4 player, 2 monitor Run N Gun that had been converted from a Cyberball for dirt cheap on CL about 4 months ago. I have never been a fan of sports arcade games, but two working monitors for a mere $80, I couldn’t pass it up. It sat in storage still tarped up for a couple of months after I got it. Once I decided to convert it to a MAME machine, I brought it over to my house and set it up in my garage with my GORF.
I turned it on to check out its working condition. The left monitor was way out of whack, and I thought it might need a cap kit. But after asking around on KLOV, I found out it just needed a ton of adjustments. Now both monitors are crisp, bright, and burn free.
Player 1’s joystick only worked in two directions. I pulled the left control panel back and found two broken wires at the CP connector. After repairing those, all the controls are functioning properly. One of the speakers was also shot. I didn’t have an exact match, but did find one (from a Phoenix cab I got for free) that fit, and after wiring it up it seems to be working just fine. Well, after playing this game to test everything out, Run N Gun grew on me. I love beating the crap out of anybody who comes over on this thing.
But the potential this machine has for MAME is awesome.
Planned Build Specs:
Asus P5LP-LE micro-ATX motherboard
Intel Pentium D processor
250 GB hard drive
4 GB memory
Windows XP
Hyperspin FE
ArcadeVGA 3000
2x Wells Gardner 19K7601 monitors
I-PAC42x PACLED64s or 3x LEDWizs4x Mag-Stick Plus joysticksBlack 2 ¼” USB TrackballEach control panel is only 19.5” wide. So in order to fit a trackball, I’ve decided to have interchangeable control panels. The “stock” control panels have old school Atari logo sticks and three way buttons. I’ve got a friend that has access to industrial brake presses and materials. He’ll be able to duplicate the control panels with whatever holes I want in them. For normal play, both the left and right control panels will have two joysticks, one with a seven button layout and the other with a four button layout. Players 1 and 3 will be on the left side and 2 and 4 will be on the right. No more bumping elbows while playing the fighter games! In two player games each player will get their own screen. With the
mag-stick plus joys, it will be a blast playing games like Robotron and Smash TV. I have also designed a trackball panel to be interchangeable with the left control panel for when people want to play the trackball games. There will be three buttons on each side of the trackball (it’s just not right to discriminate against lefties
). In the future I may make two spinner control panels and also a couple steering wheel control panels.
There is tons of room inside this cabinet. I plan on keeping the cabinet’s power supply and isolation transformers for the monitors. The motherboard and other computer components will be mounted inside towards the back of the cab. I will put in some extra boards between the computer components and the front space of the cab to be able to use the front for storage while protecting the guts. The storage will be used for console controllers, light guns, and the other control panels.
I already have MAME and Hyperspin set up on the computer and have all the preview movies loaded and working for each rom. Once my buddy gets those control panels made (hopefully within the next couple weeks), the converting/building will begin. I will start with the controls and installing the computer to get the machine functional/playable. After that, I’ll be focusing on cabinet restoration and making it pretty. Things to do for that: fill in blemishes, paint, new t-molding, cut new bezels, smoked monitor glass, custom marquee (maybe within 2 weeks), cabinet art/lighting.
Once this is converted to MAME I will probably be selling the Run N Gun board and marquee, as well as the Atari logo joysticks and the three way buttons.
I hope to have the entire project complete by the end of the year. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll update along the way, bear with me.