Centipede cocktail table for workshop

[gdonovan]

Good morning

Shown is a mame Centipede cocktail table that I purchased in North Jersey. As purchased the table was in fairly good shape with no PC; just a trackball interface board, an IPAC for button support and a real crappy PC monitor wedged in place.

The IPAC has some sort of fussy connection at the cord socket and might end up being replaced.

Since the table is in good shape otherwise one aspect of the project is to not alter it in any manner. Sometime down the road someone may wish to restore it to its arcade glory. I'm going to use it in my workshop as someplace for the wife and I to sit at while taking a break from work, play a few games and stream internet music/news.

1) After poking around the internet for a SFF PC and fooling around with a few systems I have here I ended up dropping in a Dell 2.2 ghz single core mainboard with 4 gig of ram. The CPU is going in the trash as it actually struggles to run some games like Tempest. I have a Athlon 64 X2 5600+ in route for a hot $8. OS is Windows 7 running on a 120 gig SSD and the power supply is a high efficiency 220 watt unit that was in my stash.  Currently on boot up the complete system pulls 65 watts.

Complete system was mounted on a board with aluminum rails and slides in place of the original Centipede PCB. Total cost? $47 for CPU, Win7 key and SSD, shipped.

2) For sound I had some blaupunkt car speakers, a MA-150 amp and Sony laptop power supply jacked into the mainboard, cost $0

3) The monitor had to go; aside from the slightly funky image quality one of the speakers magnets was causing havok on the tube. I had an HP LCD monitor in the shelf so in it went.. Painted the bezel flat black and now were good.

4) Since there was already an IPAC on board I decided that I'd take advantage of some functions and made a "sub control panel" on the side of the unit. The original door was set aside and I made a second that I mounted arrow keys, coin up, fire 1 and 2, table power and PC start. I'm also going to be mounting a dual USB port once it arrives. Arrow buttons will be black so they don't stand out as much.

The panel is mostly for scrolling through menus if need be and "move joystick left to right" when some games start.. one of these days I'll get around to recompiling my mame version..

5) Even though it has a coin up button I insist on having operating coin mechs. I took the units apart, cleaned and adjusted them till they worked to perfection and used small tie wraps to hold the coin return solenoid in the powered position.

6) Replaced pads on legs with casters so it can be rolled around shop floor. Replaced busted locks on top, side panel and coin bucket.

Currently waiting on CPU, new caps for the steel legs, wireless adapter, paint to dry on control panel, black happ buttons and led lamps for the coin return lens. Have new red coin return buttons on way but no atari logo (one of mine is buggered) and I have to decide what to do about the stock atari player I/II buttons.

I really want them to light up as they should but the detail that bothers me the most is some wanker in the past took a lighter to them and they are deformed a bit. Grr...

[Mike A]

I like that style of table. It is so close to being complete. It would be cool if you could get a centipede pcb and restore it to its full glory some day. For now you have a nice little machine that fits your purpose well. It is nice to see your wife included in your hobby. I lost my wife 2 years ago. The more you include each other in your passions the happier you will be.

[gdonovan]

Picture with the old monitor with system board installed.

Only a small number of games running on system- Tempest, Tempest Tubes, Missile Command, Bowling, Centipede, Millipede, Marble Madness, Crystal Caverns. I'm working on getting a few left/right shooters like Space Invaders to work but have to speed up the trackball response time.

The trackball works very good for games like Tempest, alas one of my favorite games Star Trek has a few too many buttons for me to setup on this table.

[gdonovan]

It is nice to see your wife included in your hobby. I lost my wife 2 years ago. The more you include each other in your passions the happier you will be.

Arcade machines are more of a secondary hobby, cars are my first love. If I can combine them both...

And I agree, if I can make her comfortable out in the shop when I'm tinkering then we will have a better relationship. The main "mame machine" has several games for her like Tetris and related titles she enjoys.

Always loved the Atari tables as they can be set to a good height, are compact and have great style. Fond memories of the local pizza joint with my sister setting at a table just like this back in the day.

[gdonovan]

Progress today even though there is over a foot of snow!

1) Stripped the new door and re-primered and repainted. Had a paint reaction the other day which caused it to craze and strip. This morning I stepped out and got my usual brand of paint and it was done in one shot.

2) Took the IPAC board and de-soldered the odd s-video style socket, traced out the wiring code and directly attached it to the board. Success! No more bad connection! Potted the end in place and moved on to next problem.

3) Extended the wiring for the Player I/II buttons which were on the short side and at the same time ran a ground and COIN1 feed down to the coin mechs. Success! Machine coins up as it should when 2 bits are dropped in either slot.

Nice to make some progress, now to go outside and run the snowblower some more...
 

[gdonovan]

Well after performing repairs to snowblower and picking up gift for wife I was back in the workshop..

Populated the door with what I had, the 4 black buttons did not arrive in the mail today.

Two coin reject buttons did though, they will do till I find a nice Atari unit to match my other used one.

FYI- Both Player I/II buttons do light up, I hit them with 3 volts DC and they work fine..

[gdonovan]

Scanned in at 1200 DPI and cleaned up in Photoshop- Speckles removed and blacks made black and whites made white.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try taking apart the new buttons again and running these off on my laser printer.

[gdonovan]

Thats what I'm talking about! Much better!

1.5" black plastic square caps for table legs near wheels/pads came in on Saturday and popped right it.

[gdonovan]

My last 4 buttons came in today along with the remote USB x 2 surface mount extension!

The only thing I'm waiting for now is the CPU, LED lights for coin mechs and PCI Wi-Fi card.

Also look what followed me home today!

Frogger! Works great!! Not sure what were doing with it at the moment aside from leaving it alone and mild cleanup.

Gary

[gdonovan]

5600+ Dual core 2.9 ghz CPU came in today and the machine runs as fast as a bunny now! All the lag I was experiencing on the upper levels of Tempest is gone, gone, gone! Hardly hits 50% usage now! Woot!

[danny_galaga]

Nice work, but that 'admin' panel doesn't suit. Do you REALLY need any extra buttons? I just hook up a keyboard and mouse to my cocktail if I ever have to do anything. And if I spent a couple of bucks more, would just use wireless versions...

[gdonovan]

Nice work, but that 'admin' panel doesn't suit. Do you REALLY need any extra buttons? I just hook up a keyboard and mouse to my cocktail if I ever have to do anything. And if I spent a couple of bucks more, would just use wireless versions...

1) Hate wireless anything. I need more devices that require batteries like a hole in my head. I also want a "clear space" table.

No keyboard present unless there is some system maintenance/upgrade going on that requires it.

2) A few buttons are extra but had the capacity and the buttons so thought might as well.

3) Power on, system start, USB port, coin up and left/right are required. I could do without the rest but when you are this far into the program why not a few extras? Until I learn and have the time to recompile mame I'm stuck with the left/right joystick warning which I can't do away with via trackball.

4) I could put the power and start buttons in a more discrete location but that would entail making mods to the table which I'm not inclined to do. If you look at the picture showing the table open, the items in the large zip lock bags are the tables tinted plexi screen, original door, monitor cardboard mask/bezel and the original coin return buttons.

I'm trying very hard to keep all the original parts in one place and changes back to "stock" simple.
 
At some point in the future I can do a 3rd version of the door very easy if I feel compelled to do so. To be honest with the overhang of the trackball pod and the height of the unit the panel is not very noticeable when standing in front of it..

[gdonovan]

Update: My Windows 7 supported PCI WiFi card finally showed up from Newegg and I'm pleased that is has enough sensitivity to pick up decent signal in the garage!

Table is now out in the main garage and height set for the padded stools that are out there. Still waiting for LED's for coin mechs to show up and I may upgrade the amp. The current units just doesn't have enough oomph to power the speakers in the larger space.

Only other complaint is Brave browser Adobe flash support is finicky and I can't get the internet radio station to stream and had to fall back to IE for that.

Gary