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First Time MAME Cabinet - Need Help

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drummererb:
So last week I picked up a cabinet for free that will need a little TLC.



I'm not looking for super professional finish and this is solely for my enjoyment and fun so I'm not worried about being "pure" and all that. Most everything is picked out and ready to go, PC is standing by fully loaded. Got a nice large PC monitor set to the side. The wood pieces I need to cut have all been measured.

But I'm at a big problem: The joystick set up.

Allow me to rant a moment here: The internet is horribly outdated and unorganized when it comes to this one little thing. Most "guides" if their Geocities page hasn't expired yet all talk about some weird JAMA board or Serial/SCSI ports and all this junk.  What few videos I could find that went step by step skipped so many steps my head started to spin. I honestly am tempted to grab the X-Arcade Tank Stick but the price is pretty steep and would look out of place on my cabinet.

So if someone could point me in the right direction, that would be awesome. What is it I want? Well, I want something that is going to connect via USB. I want something that will be easy to configure in windows without keyboard remapping or whatever I saw on a few pages. I have no idea where to buy the buttons and sticks and whatever "joystick junk to USB converter card" I'll need. It's just very daunting and most of the information out there is from the late 90s early 2000. Is there ANY updated step by step guide that will explain stuff to me like I am five and have NO knowledge of wiring?

BobA:
Any of these are very reliable places to buy your parts. There are others too but I consider these the top 4 because of the support they give to BYOAC.

http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/

http://arcadeemulator.net/

http://www.ultimarc.com/

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/

For a step by step to build your cab get the Bible.

Project Arcade V2

JohnEDollar:
Another excellent reference can be found here:

http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/introduction.html

 :cheers:

- John

drummererb:

--- Quote from: JohnEDollar on September 24, 2011, 07:37:22 pm ---Another excellent reference can be found here:

http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/introduction.html

 :cheers:

- John


--- End quote ---

Awesome, thank you for that link, just what I was looking for. Some of the stuff still goes a bit over my head but I'm sure if I print it out and read through it a few times, as well as doing it when I have the actual things in my hand, it will become so much more clear.

And thank you BobA for the part site links. However I'm going to stay away from that book as the only thing I'm interested in is the actual controller building.

drummererb:
So after shopping out and pricing things I wanted to do a comparison.

The X-Arcade Tankstick is 199.99
All the same parts (even picking the cheap Happ brands of most things) which is 1x USB Trackball, 2x 4/8 Joystick, 2x Player Start Buttons, 16x Concave Long buttons, IPAC USB = 165.30. This does not include any of the wood, wood working (I most definitely do not own any wood tools so would need to find someone who would do this for me, probably not free), painting, wiring and what not. I'm sure parts and labor would be above 35.00.

So my question is this: Why would I build my own as opposed to just buying the Tankstick? It seems to be cheaper for someone like me who does not own a garage full of tools. I've heard that people can build these things for cheaper, my question is: How?

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