The Tonicade

[Nogginboink]

My sister-in-law (yes, her name is Toni) is a huge Ms. Pac Man fan. So I've decided to build an arcade for her as a Christmas gift.

I'm hoping that by posting here I'll make myself more accountable for progress on the project!

The goals of the project are:

• Run Ms. Pac Man and other 'classic' video games
• Use a tabletop cabinet that can be set up on the kitchen table for playtime, then be taken down and put in the corner at dinnertime
• Be simple to operate for her young kids
• Use some of my spare computer parts instead of having to buy a new CPU/Motherboard
• Be as 'cost effective' as possible

I created a simple SketchUp model of the cabinet:


I'm going to go with a single four-way joystick and probably 2 buttons. The goal is to build something simple and fun, not an 'everythingcade.'

I modeled with 3/4" material but am thinking of using 1/2" MDF to give it a manageable weight. So far the list of games is probably going to be:

• Ms. Pac Man
• Pac Man
• Galaxian
• Galaga
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Dig Dug
• Space Invaders
• Mr. Do!
• Ladybug
• Frogger
• Dr. Micro
• Burger Time
• Tetris

I'm planning on using an old 700MHz processor on a motherboard with 128MB RAM and (gasp!) integrated video. Clearly this is going to limit my game choices. I expect my list of games to change between now and Dec. 25, but I think it'll probably end up close to what I've got here.

It's been raining for almost a solid week in the Dallas area and I haven't been able to put a sheet of MDF in the bed of the pickup to bring it home. Hopefully we'll get a dry spell here soon so I can bring home some work materials!

[drventure]

Looks like a cool project. I just +wish+ I could get a cab done in, what, 2 months. That's ambitious (at least, it would be for me!)

[Nogginboink]

Looks like a cool project. I just +wish+ I could get a cab done in, what, 2 months. That's ambitious (at least, it would be for me!)

Yeah, it's ambitious. I'm posting it publicly for the added accountability and pressure.

[TOK]

I think it'd be real cool to shape the upper Midway style. Look at a picture of a Ms. Pac and imagine it cut off right below the base of the control panel.

Its a little more work for you, but other people have done it and the results are excellent.

[Bender]

I think it'd be real cool to shape the upper Midway style. Look at a picture of a Ms. Pac and imagine it cut off right below the base of the control panel.

Its a little more work for you, but other people have done it and the results are excellent.

funny you should mention that
I'm going to be working on a mini ultra-inexpensive (I'm hoping for $100 total) Galaga project for a friend's kids
Its based off a Jakk plug and play 10 in 1 and an old portable DVD player screen
I'm gonna start a thread when I actually start building

[Nogginboink]

Last night I worked on the software. The current version of MAME (.134) won't play *any* games, not even the ancient classics, at an acceptable framerate on the anemic 700MHz CPU using onboard video.

I made an Excel spreadsheet listing the games I wanted to include. Using the MAWS database, I compiled a list of the MAME version in which each game was introduced, and a list of MAME versions in which the game ROMs had changed.

Looking at the compiled list, I determined MAME 0.85 was likely the best version of MAME to run in order to support all of the games I want to play. I installed MAME and a mishmash of ROMs from various romsets. I playtested the games and everything looks good with a few exceptions. Galaga with the fast shoot hack won't run. I get a DirectX error when Space Invaders runs. Asteroids runs too slowly to be playable. And oddly enough, Galaxian runs but won't respond to input when I drop a coin!

I'm going to try resolving these problems by running them in a different version of MAME.

Yesterday I also began looking at creating a custom MaLa layout.

[Bender]

if your running mame .85
the best thing is to get that rom set, mismatches are not going to run well(as you noticed)

I have .36 running on my PSP and it works pretty well for most of the games you mentioned and doesn't require a lot of cpu power

[Nogginboink]

Most of the ROMs (at least for the games I'm including) haven't changed from 0.085 till now. I haven't had any luck finding older romsets. (Then again I haven't looked to terribly hard.)

I did try .036 but it refused to run on my hardware platform.

I'm still tinkering.