Main > Project Announcements
Multi-Williams / Mame Project
mgb:
I do agree that a restore and a multi williams board would be best, If your gonna make it a mult-williams anyway.
But it is your cabinet and you have the right to do as you see fit.
I hope the project comes out well. keep us posted on how its going.
I look forward to seeing the end results.
opt2not:
I know I get it. In a landfill vs. maming scenario obviously maming is preferred. But if you're going to take the path of nobility, the noble thing to have done was return it to it's former glory. Or at least multi-board it.
--- Quote from: quanlee on February 03, 2011, 04:46:04 pm ---Let me address each concern, one at a time. First, when it was plugged in, it made a humming noise, no lights on the PCB. That's really irrelevant anyway, I had no interest in owning a dedicated Joust game.
--- Quote ---As far as a Joust vs. Stargate, I grew up playing Stargate, and understand the value of keeping an original dedicated machine, that's why I own one.
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Yeah I figured so, based on your earlier posts. Like I said, I personally couldn't pick a SG over Joust, being that SG is a sequel to Defender and Joust being such an original and break-out title. But if Stargate is closer to your heart then that's your prerogative. I still get to complain though ;)
--- Quote from: quanlee on February 03, 2011, 04:46:04 pm ---I'm planning on fixing the CP, just not dedicated to Joust. We will be able to play joust though, in fact I'm considering leaving most of the cabinet with the Joust deco... marquee, side art and so on.
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That's good! I think that's a great idea. Say in the future if you ever decide to resell this machine, the buyer could at least recover the cabinet in the case they want to restore it to it's original state. Or you could still have the option of restoring it yourself if need be. (Jousts have great resale value)
--- Quote from: quanlee on February 03, 2011, 04:46:04 pm ---I was very careful removing the PCB's, wiring, monitor and so on, in case someone who has a Joust machine they need to restore, or fix needs these parts. It would have been easy for me to simply pitch them, they really have no value to me.... it's not like they are bringing $$$$ on e-bay.
I wanted to create a Multi-Williams machine... makes perfect sense to start out with a Williams machine to begin with. I could have silently done this in my basement and not posted anything here (maybe I should have) but I thought it would be useful to others to see what I'm doing (or maybe not), and I'd like to find a good home for the Joust boards and other parts I have... YOU INTERESTED??
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Ebay, maybe. But here or on KLOV, you'd probably have an easier time selling them. More-so KLOV since they're more original centric than BYOAC. At least that's what I've gathered frequenting both.
As for if I'm interested...truthfully I'd be more interested in the entire thing, because I would restore it (of course barring price and distance). I've actually been looking around my area for a cabinet lately, unfortunately no one around here is giving them away for free, or at reasonable prices! I not looking to piece one together, but rather start off with a complete or at least close to a complete situation.
I'll be watching your progress, and will help out and comment where I can. I hope that this goes without any road-bumps, would be a shame to take this path and not have it turn out the way you planned. :cheers:
taylormadelv:
Good luck trying to either 1) find that particular MW bezel or 2) reproduce that (Clay's 6 in 1 MW) MW bezel on your own
Nobody sells that one anymore since it's been a looong time since the Clay kit was released. The CPO and marquee are no sweat but when/if you figure out the bezel, please post here!
Funny thing, I love Stargate as well and I got a water damaged Joust this summer to get parts to bring the Stargate back to life and now I'm refinishing the Joust cab into a joystick mame for a buddy.
IMO Williams boards may not be so "easy" to work on, Atari PCB setups have been much easier for me to work on.
quanlee:
I received the used monitor I purchased on Ebay today, so I threw it in the cabinet to see how things fit. The LCD screen is bright and looks great behind the bezel. I'll have to either paint the front monitor frame black or just cover it with some black tape like I did in my Ms. Pacman. Once that's done, you won't see the silver frame behind the glass, it will look just like an original tube monitor, if not better. I'll have to figure out a slick way to mount the monitor in place so it's not moving around inside the cabinet.
I fired up the computer, connected the prototype control panel I'm working on, and turned on the monitor inside the cabinet. Not bad, but still needs some work. The control panel prototype was used to figure out my button placement, and get the USB interface from Paradise Arcade configured with MAME. Please ignore the fact that the prototype control panel is sitting on top of the original control panel (open). Once I get this all done the original control panel will go
back in place where it's supposed to be.
I spent about an hour tweaking the MAME video / display settings. The computer I'm using isn't great, it's a few years old so I had to tweak things just right so the animation speed was decent without skipping frames or causing the game to slow down when there was a lot of action ont he screen at one time.
Here's an interesting one for you... if you notice, I have a couple of very cheap 8 way joysticks on this prototype control panel (above). Those are not the sticks I'm planning on using, just a couple I had acquired in my dealings with other arcade enthusiasts. I fired up Ms. Pacman on this machine to see how the graphics speed compared to my other Ms. Pacman I own, and to my surprise the joystick worked great, even though it's an 8 way stick. What??? In my other MAME machine, my ultimarc IPac interface, along with the ultimarc 4/8 way joystick will not work for Ms. Pacman when in 8 way mode, when the stick is pushed into the corners, you lose all control of her. Anyone know why this is? The Paradise USB joystick / button interface seems to work fine, even with an 8 way stick???
Joust, Robotron, Defender, Stargate and a few other games worked great. The reverse button for Defender / Stargate is way too far away from the left stick. You can see the original hole for the reverse button closer to the stick, but I couldn't get a button in that hole, the joystick base was too big. The Paradise JLF stick I"m going to use in my final CP is narrower, so that won't be a problem.
Other games like Rolling Thunder and Gladiator worked great though... I played Gladiator for about an hour, love that game.
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: opt2not on February 03, 2011, 04:13:56 pm ---Oh yeah, the subjects coming up alright. Wow, you gotta be kidding me! ??? I apologize if this comes off a bit hostile...this isn't the first time I've complained about mamed up classics.
I've said it before, I know I know, in the end it's your machine and you can do whatever you want to it...BUT: It just breaks my heart to not see this restored back to original. Especially since the cabinet looks to be in really decent condition, and it's complete! Williams electronics aren't that difficult to troubleshoot and repair. They all seem to have the same problems.
I mean come on...it's a fricken' original JOUST! :banghead:
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I think it's pretty tacky to gum up this guys project announcement with your opinion. There are more williams cabinets than there are joust boards. These are mass produced boxes of wood and he's tastefully converting it to a multi-williams. We've see a lot worse around here - maybe you should scurry over to one of those threads and make them feel bad. I think it's a fitting end to a cabinet and quanlee should be happy with it once it's complete.
Quan, I made the same mistake with a reverse button on my multi-williams. I could still play defender, but I think it held me back.