Joe's Toy

[jjd]

After 7 months of sporadic construction and too much play, Joe's Toy is finished.

It's a scratch-built, one-of-a kind 2-piece design. 

It houses a 21' Nokia monitor and a 1.8 GHz AMD Duron processor with 512 MB RAM.  I am using Ultrastyle as the frontend.  The controls are primarily from X-arcade, Dream Arcades (lighted buttons) and Happ.   The trackball is a high-end unit from CH products that is built like a tank.  I picked it up on Ebay for $15 shipped and it is every bit as solid as any arcade trackball that I have used.  A Keywiz max provides the brains for the CP. 

The marquee was printed by Mamemarquees.com and looks great.  The only beef I have with Mamemarquees is that they shipped the rolled marquee in a box that was just a bit too small and it has some small creases in it causing some uneven lighting. 

The sideart idea was  'borrowed' from Kineval's Neon Mame, 

It may not be perfect, and the Asteroids stencil-theme didn't come out as well as I had expected but it plays great and the family has been having a blast with it.  For a first major woodworking project, I am pretty happy with it. 

This message board is THE source of information.  Every question I had through the process had an answer easily available through the search feature on this site.  Thanks to Saint for hosting such a great resource. 

[mccoy178]

How long did the project take?  Looks very good.  What tools did you use?  What does it look like under the hood?  Just some questions you may run into.

[jjd]

Thanks. 

Total build time was about 7 months, but I made the mistake of making it operational before I finished it.  That lead to a 4 month delay


Tools:  Circular saw, router, dremel, drill  and jigsaw.

It looks like crap under the hood    That's why there are no pictures.   I used CAT5E to do the wiring with one piece for each module (Joystick 1, P1 buttons, etc.)  If I had it to do over again (which I may anyway), I'd use standard 22 ga wire and scrap the CAT5E altogether. 

I really enjoyed the design and build process but the little guy in the picture likes the end product better than he liked helping Dad build it. 

[SNAAKE]

hey looks great congrats !
not diggin the bezel though..you can spray paint it flat black or somethin.

[leapinlew]

It makes me weep to see kids playing the classics - like donkey kong jr...

I love it.

Looks good dude.

[c64rulez]

Looks great. The grey color looks like some kind of applied material (but not paint). Is it paint ?
Did you consider any other colors before that grey ?

[ChicagoDave]

Looks great!  Nice job!

[jjd]

hey looks great congrats !
not diggin the bezel though..you can spray paint it flat black or somethin.

Thanks. 

The bezel isn't perfect, but it looks much better in person.  The flash really highlights it.  In person, you can't really see the monitor frame because it is in shadow. 

My original plan was to use smoked plexi, but the neon rings inside the monitor cabinet put off too much light and no matter how dark the tinting, you can still see everything that is inside the box.  I went with the black foam board with clear plexi as a temporary solution.  Eventually I'll pick up a 19' plastic monitor bezel. 

[jjd]

It makes me weep to see kids playing the classics - like donkey kong jr...

I love it.

Looks good dude.

He was having trouble with Donkey Kong Jr. and it didn't last long

He likes Ms. Pacman better.  It's amazing to me to see a 4 yr old kick his Mother's but at a quickly paced game like Ms. Pacman.

[jjd]

Looks great. The grey color looks like some kind of applied material (but not paint). Is it paint ?
Did you consider any other colors before that grey ?

It's actually silver.  The paint is Rustoleum Hammered Metal and is hard as a rock with quite a bit of texture.   Again, the flash washed out the colors but it really is very silver.  It ties in nicely with the black and chrome t-molding on the CP.  You can't really see it, but the t-molding is black with a chrome strip in the center.