My Mame Cabinet: Escape From New York

[krisbee]

Here is  what I have so far on my MAME cabinet, "Escape From New York".  It is 3/4" MDF, using a modified Woody design.  I am no woodworker, so it is coming out pretty good, I think.  My circular saw blade isn't straight, my jig saw isn't straight, however my router is proving to be the savior of the project.

All my tools are used and abused, as I live on a farm here.  Most of the time I have to take care of the horses, but every once in a while on Saturday I have a few hours that I can dedicate to the cab.

The O/S will be linux (linux guy here!), running Daphne, GLQuake, Mame, as well as other consoles I have floating around on the HD.

Parts: Opti-Wiz and TurboTwist2, Top Switchable Prodigy Joysticks, Suzo 2 1/4" trackball, KeyWiz

Finish will be black with yellow t-molding.  Player buttons are yellow, admin buttons are blue.  Two player, six button normal layout.

Front-End will be themed based on the movie "Escape From New York", with bg music being the theme song.  Besides being an awesome movie, my wife and I escaped the rat race and bought a horse farm when we migrated from NY to NC, so that is the real meaning of it.

Decided to go as thin as possible for the room it is moving into, and also wanted to stay married.  Wife has been very supportive, but getting her to play Contra (her favorite game) on a joystick and mentioning how awesome it would be to have a real cabinet sold it to her.

Will try to keep updating my progress, but all credit really goes to Knievel; he is the real inspiration for me to stop dreaming it and start doing it.

[Games001]

So far so good with bad, beatin tools. 

[Havok]

Looking good so far Pliskin!

[Games001]

Call him SNAKE!!

Then uncuff him.

[IG-88]

 I like it!

Your shop looks just like mine! Stuff everywhere! Hilarious!

[ablizno]

Nice choice in joystick.

[Zobeid]

Front-End will be themed based on the movie "Escape From New York", with bg music being the theme song.  Besides being an awesome movie, my wife and I escaped the rat race and bought a horse farm when we migrated from NY to NC, so that is the real meaning of it.

You need to get UAE running on it so you can play NY Warriors!

Best attract mode ever, and an excellent game.  Although it was based more on "The Warriors" than that other movie.

[MonkeyFracas]

A #1 Great theme!

Will you be including some of the orange wireframe vector style HUD imagrey into your artwork? The simple map of the wall around manhatten would look great.

Snake's 'Death Clock' might also make a nice addition somewhere - if you want to get really fancy you could probably hack an LCD alarm clock to match up with a graphic of the 'death clock' and make it even cooler and more functional.

[krisbee]

Will you be including some of the orange wireframe vector style HUD imagrey into your artwork? The simple map of the wall around manhatten would look great.

Yes, I plan on making that my CP overlay... I am going to try to do some framegrabs and see if I can vector trace them.  The movie poster is going to be the side art, I think.  I figured the shutdown sound can be the president saying "Duke of NY, A number 1"... I will have to go through the movie to really see what artwork I am going to use...

This weekend is mounting the monitor and filling in the holes.  It's been great, but I am worried about mounting the joysticks, that being the last of the real cutting left, and I don't want to have to buy more MDF if I mess up!   The only other worriesome spot is cutting the plexi with the router (decided to chamfer the edges instead of buying thinner MDF to equal 3/4")

I faked up a quick Marquee just so I can see how the lighting is working.  I have attached that below, too.... GIMP is a pretty complicated program!

[krisbee]

For fun this monring, I did a quick image search, and I think I found the perfect image for the control panel...  I want the first, but maybe I can overlay that second image onto the marquee somehow...

[krisbee]

I haven't posted in a bit, but things have slowed a bit here too..  I mounted the audio controls in the CP on the side, so you can change the volume and plug in headphones if you wanted (used an adhesive hot glue from craftsman!), and kept filling in holes.  Set out the templates and will start drillin g the control holes this weekend.

Also went to Lowe's and bought a few more tools I needed

Still am not sure if I am going to put in two mouse buttons, and which admin buttons.  I am using a Keywiz... I was thinking 1P, 2P, 1 Coin, 2 Coin, Pause, Shazaam...

What do you think?  Do I need a Shazaam?  Do I need mouse buttons?

[somunny]

I heard this project was dead. 

Nice theme.  Looking forward to seeing it completed.

[krisbee]

Cabinet is painted... I did my best to make it as flat as possible, but I still see some problems with it.. The wife disagrees, so I will have to defer to her opinion.  In normal light, nobody would notice, but I can see the flaws.

I put the side art on it (just an 8X10 of the movie poster), which I scanned in from a poster book.  Since the cabinet is thin, it looks pretty good.  Need to recut a matte, and then measure for glass and get that cut.  Still waiting on a usb port to mount to the side, just in case I need access for anything (coming from Asia).

I'm actually getting a little bummed out that it is almost over.  Not too much left... just paint the control box, get the control encoder, wire, and mount.  Also to add tags to the controls, and fully secure the hardware.  Oh, and add the guts to the thing, clone and program the computer...  Honestly, less than 10 hours left before small detail work with the front end, which I am not counting. 

[spocktwin]

 
one of my all time favorite movies.....can't wait to see the finished article
Spock

[BASS!]

spent a couple minutes in illustrator, colors came out weird and the outline around the bottom of the statue is wrong, but what the heck. Always fixable. Let me know if you want the .ai file.

[krisbee]

That is fantastic, upright!  As I started working with it, the only space for that artwork right now is directly below the trackball, so I had to print it really small, so the jpg looks fine!

The description of the prison is going below the monitor where there is quite a bit of space.  Also, I couldn't find posterboard big enough, so there will be a seam that hopefully that artwork will cover.

Because of finances, alot of things had to be done good enough... my cutting tools weren't perfectly straight, so there is a comprimise there.  I didn't have money for Lexan, so I used the cheaper alternative.  Side art was done on photo paper and glued on.  The marquee however will be professionally painted.

I haven't done the math yet, but discounting presents (the monitor), scraps (the computer), this project is hovering around $500, I believe...

[krisbee]

Here are a few pics of my progress... I decided to decase the computer, but in doing so, I accidentally screwed the "L" bracked through a capacitor, and shorted the power supply.  A new one is on the way.  Here is the audio and usb ports on the side of the control box, besides the control box and monitor...

[Havok]

spent a couple minutes in illustrator, colors came out weird and the outline around the bottom of the statue is wrong, but what the heck. Always fixable. Let me know if you want the .ai file.

That looks great! It's good to see the twin towers in there, reminds me of happier days...

[krisbee]

Getting near the end... put a new power supply in after toasting the other one.  The glass I had cut was a hair to large, and I ended up cracking it.  Got a new one and tinted it myself... I hope it looks ok.  My last parts are ordered and should be here soon.   I am hoping to have something working by July 4th weekend, but we will have to see.

Getting very excited!

[vertygo]

Good for you! It's great to hear you are sticking with it despite the setbacks.

Hoping it'll work out for you so it's playable by your big ol' yanky holiday. 

[mahalos]

Being a fellow linux user i'll be looking forward to hearing how you get on using it to run the cab.

[krisbee]

Broke my second piece of glass this morning...  the cheaper glass I bought at Lowes was just too thin, and it snapped when I picked it up.  Got slightly thicker glass at a glass dealer, and I tinted it this evening.  Copied everything over to the HD, and hopefully will be able to see something soon.

Also got my ship notice from GroovyGameGear, and my final parts are on the way!