"Touched in the Head" Touchscreen Bartop

[MTPPC]

And so another project begins. I have been sitting on a couple of 15" microtouch CRTs for a few years. I decided that it's time to start configuring some software for an eventual bartop cabinet. It's going to have a hacked keyboard or one of degenetron's DIY encoders for coin and escape. All other functions will be controlled via the touchscreen. This machine will run SimpleTouchFE, mame touchscreen and shooter games, downloaded internet flash games, masque slot machines and any other suggested games. It's also going to be a media playing front end (xbmc) and a jukebox.

At it's core is a Dell GX620 slim with a P4-2.8 and a 40GB HD. Please feel free to inject any suggestions for software, controls or the cabinet. As always, thank in advance.

[MTPPC]

This post reserved for documentation of costs:

PC - Dell GX620 Slim P4-2.8                              $30
Touch Screen - Sampro 15" w/3m Microtouch     $FREE
ELO and Dell LCD touchscreens                         $30
Serial Cables                                                   $8.28
Masque IGT Slots                                            $6
Bejeweled Twist                                               $5
Coin and other Buttons                                     $19
Coin Mech                                                       $18
Audio Amp                                                       $11.18
Speakers                                                         $14

[MTPPC]

I've completed the research and have committed to dwjukebox. I considered SKGjukebox, but had windows errors. I read that if you installed a couple of other commercial jukeboxes it corrected some dlls or something. But at any rate, I am very impressed with the ease of use and quality of dwjukebox.

I also ordered some IGT video slot software from masque. I'm deciding if I'm going to install a USB keypad or not.

What's really got me torn right now is if I want to build a podium style cabinet instead of a bartop. Since it's for personal use and I don't have a stereo set-up, I think I might grab some speakers from a thrift shop and build a console of some sort.

[yotsuya]

Dwjukebox works great with a touchscreen and is highly customizable. Athough it's free, some of us have dropped Chris a couple of bucks as a donation just because.

http://dwjukebox.com/make-a-donation/

[Paladin]

Here's my setup:
http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/kiosk

Hardware is a 19" LCD touchscreen, P4 PC (can't remember details right now), 2.1 speakers with a couple extra speakers added to the side.

Software:
SimpleTouchFE
E-Touch Jukebox
Pop Cap games package
Masque Slots
Internet streaming of Pandora and our local college radio station KEXP

It's all powered on via a remote controlled outlet switch that turns on the internal power strip.  The PC bios is set to turn on when powe is applied and then SimpleTouchFE is in the startup folder.  I didn't bother trying to hide Windows as it doesn't bother me.

[MTPPC]

Thanks for the video, Paladin. Did you consider MAME megatouch or touchmaster games on it?

[Paladin]

At the time I made it I also had 3 or 4 real Megatouch XL setups that I got cheap and was playing with.  I kind of got tired of messing with them and never really thought about running them in the cab.  I mainly use it for a jukebox while I'm working on stuff in the arcade.

I might look into it in the future though.
Megatouch build from my website (sold, then broke after a few months. Possibly heat related failure.)
http://home.comcast.net/~dark.paladin/megatouch

[TalkingBull]

I built a really ugly touchscreen system a few years ago with GameEx as a frontend.  It works for the most part but I would prefer something simpler.  I would love to put some megatouch games on there but could never find any...

[MTPPC]

I have learned that the touchscreen seems to work best with most games by activating mouse button 1 on release instead of when you first touch the screen.

I'm just about done working on software for this project. I installed Bejeweled Twist and Masque's IGT Little green men slots. I found a version of MAME that was compiled with no nag screens and replaced my old MAME. I'm running Megatouch 2,3,4,5 and Touchmaster 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 7000 and 8000. Some shooting games T2:judgement day, Point Blank, Point Blank2, Clay pigeon, Operation Wolf, Space Gun, Turkey Hunting and a couple more I can't remember off the top of my head. The turkey hunting game has a little calibration problem, but it's close enough. On my original .143 version of MAME, the megatouch solitaire games would mess up when you cleared a column. My hacked .146 version doesn't do this so all those bar games are loading and running perfectly as far as I can tell.


The final jukebox is DWjukebox with a really nice skin called woodcabbox. I especially like this skin because it has the radio and exit buttons:

[MTPPC]

I got a nice 15" Elo LCD USB touchscreen implemented today. It wouldn't register mouse clicks on liftoff, so I had to set it to run like a conventional mouse. Because of this, crossbow and clay pigeon had to come out of the lineup. On the plus side, all the angry birds games are now in the lineup.

I was mistaken earlier about the touchmaster solitaire games being fixed. They still exhibit the same bug where they glitch out when you clear a column. At this point, I'm ready to start on the actual cabinet design.