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New here...looking for advice and guidance

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spiderpig:

So I was born in 1975 and moved to the USA in 1982.  I remember when Malls still had arcades and have spent many a quarters on many machines.  I have a place in my heart for arcade machines and actually had my 37th birthday at this place:

http://www.tntamusements.com
(it was amazing...highly recommend it)

In my spare time I love to fly flight simulator with the more realistic ones the better.  In the past couple years I've actually built several home cockpit for my flight simulators and the companies I order supplies from (USB controller) caters to arcade games (groovy game gear).  So after I recently found out a mame I figured I'd like to build my own cabinet.

Here's a thread about my latest cockpit...it's designed for multiple aircraft.
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=107533&page=3

So off the top of my head I'd like to build full size upright cabinet.  I"m not amazing with wood working, but I can figure things out.  So here's what I have thoughts so far that I would like to see if any of you have experience with:

1)  I currently have a 21" Imac that I'm not using that I can use for the machine and display.  It's either that or use a mac mini and get a LCD display. As anyone had any experience with either one of those?
2)  Looking at the Mame games and controls I'm torn between what kind of control setup I should use.  I like a lot of classic games that only need a couple buttons, but one of my favorite games is Karate Champ - which uses two joysticks for each player.  So do I design a panel with four joysticks and lots of buttons, or design two panels that can easily swapped as needed.  I'm leaning towards the later since later on I could add other panels (like for driving games).
3)  Software wise I'm currently using MAME OS X.  But ideally I'd like it setup up so I turn the unit on and it boots into an OS and fires up the mame software.  I want to be able to control it with the control panel and not need any keyboard or mouse input.  Since I'm using intel based macs, I can always load Windows 7 on them if software is better that route...although I would prefer to stick to Mac OS X if possible.

Looking forward to doing the build.  Thanks in advance guys.

DrumAnBass:

I am a hard core mac guy, but for arcade machines, Windows is better. The reason is the software. There are very few decent front ends for OSX, and the ones that exist are very limited in features compared to their Windows counterparts. MaLa is excellent, easy to configure, and has tons of extra features. The best option for OSX seems to be AdvanceMenu, but I don't think it looks very slick.

I would suggest setting up your iMac to boot into windows with bootcamp, or do what I did, and build a cheap PC from parts or pick up a refurb PC from eBay or http://geeks.com and hit a garagesale or 2 for a 20" 4x3 CRT monitor.

You can achieve what you want to do using an OSX front end for MAME, but it just won't look as nice as what can be easily accomplished in Windows.

See: http://www.koenigs.dk/mame/eng/mamefrontends.htm

keilmillerjr:

If you want to use mac os, QMC2 is the way to go. New releases include an arcade front end with similar functionality to most front ends (except hyper spin), in addition to its awesome rom manager. You could possibly use Zephyros for your scripting needs. I haven't used it yet, but I'm already thinking about remaking my little helper app FrontEndHelper using Zephyros or something similar for mac os x.

http://qmc2.arcadehits.net/wordpress/
https://github.com/sdegutis/zephyros

shponglefan:


--- Quote from: spiderpig on July 31, 2013, 01:31:16 pm ---2)  Looking at the Mame games and controls I'm torn between what kind of control setup I should use.  I like a lot of classic games that only need a couple buttons, but one of my favorite games is Karate Champ - which uses two joysticks for each player.  So do I design a panel with four joysticks and lots of buttons, or design two panels that can easily swapped as needed.  I'm leaning towards the later since later on I could add other panels (like for driving games).
--- End quote ---

I'd go for swappable panels.    Like you say, you can later add other panels to accomodate different control schemes.  And designing swappable panels is not terribly difficult, just make sure you have a place to store them where they can't get damaged.

brihyn:

Ahh, a man after my own heart. Been flying MSFS since 5.0 and have always dreamed of building a full cockpit. Best I've done is to hook up multiple monitors in FS98 (can't remember the name of that software, but I know it required IPX/SPX to communicate). Finally bought a house, had everything setup and ready to build in the garage, and then had the curse of meeting a woman...funny how they can be more fun than a flight sim cockpit (at least part of the time...I kid, I kid).
Anyway, welcome. I'm fairly new here myself, but it's a great place to learn.

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