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My sweet baby... GAME (top tier rebuild)
ChadTower:
Dude with that much instrumentation that thing better go zero to orbit in under 100 seconds.
angryred:
--- Quote from: sean-o-mac on June 02, 2009, 06:19:35 am ---Looks nice. Just a little too much control panel for my taste.
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I knew it would be for some folks. ;) In one post here, someone advised me "Oh and Frankenpanels? Don't do it". By that point I had already drawn and redrawn plans that, aside from some incorrect proportions, are exactly what I ended up building. I actually did the first design right after 9/11, when I was in a frenzy of needing to create things-- the only things I remember inventing during that time, though, were these plans, a remote caddy for the coffee table, and one heck of a Dirty Martini.
--- Quote from: IG-88 on June 02, 2009, 06:47:54 am ---Wow!! :o That is some control panel! I'm betting people are going to go either way on this. They'll either love it or hate it. It obvious you put alot of effort into it. My 2 cents, come up with a better name tho. :)
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Ha! I danced around with that one for a while; "Megarcade" is the only also-ran I can remember. With all the games I have running on this thing, I went ultra-minimalist on the name, really I was going for 'generic'. I was thinking of the video game that's way back in the corner of a panel in the Sunday funnies; the cartoonist doesn't know jack about video games, so he just called it GAME. Or VIDEO GAME.
--- Quote ---I haven't had a chance to throughly read thru the entire thread,
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Man. I don't know that I have.
--- Quote ---...but can the outside players on the lower panel (yellow and green) see the screen OK? I'm betting those wouldn't work with a LCD...
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Players 3 & 4 don't end up standing as far to the sides as it may seem. However, I still haven't gotten a real 4-player game going on this thing-- so far all visitors have either gone after Golden Age 2 players-take-turns games, or 2 player head to head fighting games. I can't believe we still haven't gotten a game of Gauntlet going (although that's one game that does sort of lose its bite when you have infinite quarters).
--- Quote from: CheffoJeffo on June 02, 2009, 08:11:44 am ---
--- Quote from: angryred on June 02, 2009, 01:03:17 am ---1. Wells-Gardner 19K7906 monitor, wired to ArcadeVGA. I can find almost nothing about this monitor. I'd kill for a manual. But I've managed to get it to do everything *except* adjust the horizontal size-- that coil doohicky feels stuck tight. Fortunately the H size was already set pretty well, I just wanted to tweak it a tiny bit.
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I'm pretty sure that the 7900 is covered by the manual and schematics for the K7000 series, although I don't think I have one, I just seem to recall having a conversation with one of the local collectors about it.
Manual and schematics can be found here:
http://www.wellsgardner.com/service/
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Aaaaah! Thank you!
--- Quote ---As for payment, how far are you from genesim ? >:D
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Phooey! I don't get the joke! Googling didn't help. But it's always easier killing strangers.
--- Quote ---I find myself intrigued by the design of your "classic CP" -- it's still too busy for my tastes, but I like the homage that it pays to the games in question -- you picked games that you want to play and, other than playing QBert with a Nintendo stick and having the DK stick on the wrong side, I think you made good choices.
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The DK switch bugged me a little, but since I knew I wanted a dedicated diagonal stick, and that meant that the other dedicated 4-way would not only be used for Donkey Kong but also all the other 4-way games-- Pac-Men in particular-- then I was gonna want that stick to be right handed.
However, one thing I did do was to set as many games' controls as I could to be able to be played right or left handed. For example, Rygar uses a stick and two buttons, one player at a time. I mapped both Player 1 and 2 joysticks to the single inputs for Rygar, so that you can use either stick and either pair of buttons on the top tier. In the case of Donkey Kong, 3 joysticks are mapped to it; you can use the right-handed 4-way, or either of the leaf joysticks as well. And for kids, those same inputs exist on the bottom tier, since the lower tier shares joystick inputs with the top tier.
The only real 'classic' I couldn't get on the top tier was Defender. That has to be played on the lower tier's Player 1 area to have enough buttons easily accessible.
As far as the Q-bert stick goes, I'd really like to replace the shaft on that one and the other 4-way-- I'd prefer a red ball Pac-type for the latter-- but I have to make sure the shafts are the proper length. I used the router to sink the leaf joys 2/8" (raising them), and spacers to lower the 2 4-way micros 2/8", giving the leaf joys another 1/2" of height over the 4-ways. That eliminated the last little bit of obstruction I had; I would brush up against the 4-ways while using the leafs at first, and now that doesn't happen at all.
From the very beginning of the plans, I was focused on getting as much as I could on there, but still leave clear paths for the hands to get to each stick. At this point, the only time I bump another control is during VERY heated games of Robotron-- I lose my grip, my hands slip off the red balls and I whack the analog sticks. But whacking the analogs doesn't do anything to mess up the game or my play, it's losing my grip in the first place... ...and that would happen even on a dedicated Robotron.
--- Quote from: HarumaN on June 02, 2009, 01:35:11 pm ---<blinks rapidly>
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20 cc's Tapper, stat!
--- Quote from: ChadTower on June 02, 2009, 01:50:13 pm ---
Dude with that much instrumentation that thing better go zero to orbit in under 100 seconds.
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Yeah, on Assault, Battlezone, etc. I really feel like I'm piloting a mech or something. I think the most controls I've had going at once is with Lucky & Wild. I got my wife to give that a go with me, so we had both analog sticks acting as do-fer light guns, along with the steering wheel and pedals. This machine rocks.
No, I mean it really rocks. Particularly during Robotron; I was wobbling that thing all over the place, practically dragging it across the room. It's on carpet, so that's bad, but I don't have any other choices there unless I stuff it in the kitchen or the bathroom. Also, though it does have 4 adjustable feet, one of the feet has stripped female threads-- so I can't just replace the foot. I'd have to turn the thing on its side and replace the whole assembly, and that's a pain in the ass-- especially at this point-- that I just don't want to get into.
Here's what I did: Look at #2 in the last set of pics-- the angled shot with the steering wheel attached-- then look at the top rear right corner. That little white blobbie is a rubber bumper from a shower curtain rod. I put another one on the top rear left. Then I shoved the machine into the corner as tight as I could, and inserted two chucks under the front bottom corners (visible in same pic). That thing is solid now. Doesn't rock at all, and you can JAM on those leaf sticks.
Malenko:
Ive seen worse, but theres just too many controls there.
Jack Burton:
The CP is ---smurfin---' awesome. I don't care what anyone says. That is not a frankenpanel. It's a work of art. I'm completely serious. That is the sort of the you wanted to see in an arcade twenty years ago.
Barry Barcrest:
--- Quote from: Jack Burton on June 04, 2009, 04:26:39 am ---The CP is ---smurfin---' awesome. I don't care what anyone says. That is not a frankenpanel. It's a work of art. I'm completely serious. That is the sort of the you wanted to see in an arcade twenty years ago.
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Not what i wanted to see in the arcade 20 years ago, and it isn't what i have seen in an arcade ever. It would have been better without the higher tier on it.
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