SeverdHed's Donkey Kong project...OFFICIALLY DEAD

[severdhed]

As some of you already know, i recently picked up a DK cabinet.  i started a thread on the main forum before i bought it, but now that i have it and started working on it, i figured it was time to make a project announcement thread.  

I bought the cabinet for $50 from a local arcade/family fun center kind of place.  I just walked in one day to talk to the manager just to see if he knew where i could find a dk cabinet..as it turns out, he had one sitting in the warehouse and he wanted to get rid of it.

here are some pics of the cabinet when i first got it home:

[severdhed]

I wasnt sure if i was going to do a full DK restore, or go with mame.  that depended on if i could find a cabinet with a board set intact.  since this cabinet was empty, and i already had a PC and monitor in the basement, mame seemed like the way to go.  i want to keep the cabinet looking as close to the original as possible, but with 25 or so vertical classic 4way games.  i want to keep the control panel just as it is, a single 4way stick and 1 action button.  I want to find a place to put an exit and possibly a pause button...but i'm not sure where yet.


Over the last few days, i started working on it.  It is going to go a little slowly, because my wife made the stipulation that i could get the cabinet, but i am not allowed to spend any money on it until after Christmas.  SO i have to make due with what i have.

i got it all cleaned up, (then my 8-month-old son crawled over and dumped the bucket of nasty black water all over the family room floor...at least he didnt drown)

i didn't get alot done to it yet, i did remove the nintendo power transformer thing, and the marquee light fixture.  I had a small flourescent light fixture i got at walmart that will work perfectly for the marquee light.  i didnt actually take a picture of this, since it was a pretty simple procedure.

i was a little concerned about the control panel.  it is a DK Jr panel, but it is designed for Nintendo buttons, which are apparently smaller in diameter than happ buttons.  i wasnt sure how i would go about making the holes bigger without mutilating the panel, but after i took the panel out to measure it to make a new one, i noticed that the holes in the wood were the 1 1/8" inches, the holes in the plexi overlay were slightly smaller.  this meant that i was able to use my flush trim router bit to make the plexi holes a little larger, so i could install the happ buttons that i had lying around.  i removed the bits and pieces of the nintendo joystick that was in the panel, and had to do drill a few new holes and route a little more off of the back side to get a standard joystick base mounted in there.  WHen i picked up the cabinet, i got a NOS 4way wico joystick still new in the box.  it is a little stiffer than i would like, but i am hoping it will loosen up after it gets used a little.    i didnt have alot of button colors lying around, but i did have some black, red, blue and yellow.  i chose to do black buttons with colored centers, and i think the blue and yellow work pretty well with the dk jr panel.  i'll get the blue and orange buttons when i buy the real DK overlay.



it just feels like just a big step getting controls in the panel, even though they arent connected to anything yet.

i also modified the coin mechs to accept steel washers that i have been using as tokens in my other mame cabinet.  this was a pretty simple process. here is a pic of the original nintendo mech. (not my pic, got it from TheShanMan..the red arrows indicate the screws that need adusted to get it to accept different sized coins or tokens.



because i wanted it to accept steel washers, i need to remove a few extra pieces.



I forgot to take a pic, but there is also a small magnet that needs to be removed if you are using steel washers.


i started working on the PC for the cabinet.  I had a piece of MDF in the basement, so i mounted the motherboard to it, as well as the hard drive.  as it turns out, i should have measured first, because the board is a little too long..so i will have to cut it down tomorrow.  i will take pics when i do that.   TO mount the motherboard, i took someone's suggestion (i dont remember who) and cut a bic pen in small pieces to use as PCB stands.  then just used wood screws through the motherboard and through the pen.  i also used a piece of this pen to hold the agp video card in place. (like i said, i'll take pics of that tomorrow)

my biggest problem now is trying to figure out how to mount the 19" CRT PC monitor that i plan to use.  i'd like to try not to use the bolts that are through the side of the cabinet.  i'd like to be able to pull them out and bondo over the holes eventually, before i repaint it and replace the side art.  i havent tried decasing the monitor yet...that is on my list for tomorrow.  if anyone has suggestions, i'm all ears.


if you notice in the pics, the front board from the black cabinet base was missing....i found it lying in the bottom of the cabinet.  i put it back in place and attached it with a few screws.  i think i will eventually build a new base, since it is in pretty rough shape.

[Ryglore]

Maybe Shift function the P1 and P2 buttons to Exit and Pause?

[severdhed]

Maybe Shift function the P1 and P2 buttons to Exit and Pause?

i thought about that, and that would work just fine for me, but i found with my other cabinet, that shift buttons are just too much to ask of other people.  THey don't want to know how it works, they just want to turn it on and play it.  on my other mame cabinet, i have light up novagem buttons with inserts labled EXIT and PAUSE, and people still ask me how to exit out of the game, or how to pause it.   it is amazing how clueless people can be.

i am thinking that i may go the same route with the light up novagems with inserts..perhaps on that little black wooden area directly below the bezel, to the right of the instruction sticker.  i don't think they would look too horrible there, and that would keep the control panel from being cluttered, or needing modified.

i do not plan on having any coin buttons.  it will be set up so that you can either insert the washers that i have, or push the coin reject buttons to insert coins.

[loraith]

That is a great find. I really like the look of the DK cabs.

[Ryglore]

Ha, I dunno. I would want to keep it as clean as possible. Maybe rather than nova gems, just use plain ol' black buttons so the kinda "hide" in the black bezel? That's kinda why I went with white buttons for my exit/pause on my CP. So they are there but not as noticeable....  

[severdhed]

thats not a bad idea either.  if i dont have labeled buttons, i'd probably just install one to use as exit, and use a shifted pause command, since that wouldn't get used as heavy by visitors.

i know javeryh installed his on the underside of the panel that houses the speaker, so that they are not visible.  this would work, but wouldn't solve the problem of stupid people, plus it would put them right where my 8month old son could find them

[DaOld Man]

Congrats on the find severdhead!
I think you and javeryh are trying to start a "mountain jukebox-like" craze with DK cabs!
I am still keeping my eyes open for a bargain DK cab.
Although I wouldnt mind having a ms pacman/galaga cab either.
Good luck on this build, I will be watching..

[severdhed]

Congrats on the find severdhead!
I think you and javeryh are trying to start a "mountain jukebox-like" craze with DK cabs!
I am still keeping my eyes open for a bargain DK cab.
Although I wouldnt mind having a ms pacman/galaga cab either.
Good luck on this build, I will be watching..

it is awesome to have so many DK projects right now.  i have wanted one for a while, but Javeryh's thread lit a fire under me to look a little harder for one...and i just got lucky.

i was really torn on which cabinet to go with.  I love DK and the cabinet is cool.  plus the fact that it has a 4 way, 1 button, and a vertical monitor, made it a perfect candidate for a mame classics cabinet. i also thought about a ms pacman or galaga cabinet, since i think the shape of those cabinets is just awesome.  the guy i got mine from had several ms pacs, and a galaga cabinet also, but i knew that what ever cabinet i went with, i wanted to be able to play the good vertical classics, and for a good many of those, i would need at least 1 button.  so if i got a ms pac, i'd have to add a button to the control panel, and if i got a galaga, i'd have to change it from 2 way to 4way.  with the DK the control panel is already perfectly setup...also DK is my favorite arcade game...so it just made sense.  although i do still think the ms pac/galaga cabs have a nicer profile than the DK cabs.

roughly where are you located DaOld Man?   The guy i got this cab from has 5 or 6 cabs sitting around he wants to get rid of..if i recal correctly there were 3 or 4 ms pacman, 1 pacman, and a galaga3..he said he would let them all go for $150 for the set.  they are just empty cabinets that would need a little TLC, but would be a good foundation for  a project like this.   of course, if you aren't in or near PA, that does you no good.

[DaOld Man]

That sounds like a good deal. Too bad I live in Kentucky, about 55 miles north of Nashville, Tn. so it would be quite a drive for me.
What part of PA is it?

[Chicken McNobody]

If you are going to MAME it as a "replica" and just stick with the one button setup, you could make the 2P start button a second button for some games that need 2.  Since it is only a 1P at a time cabinet anyways, you may not need a 2P start button for some of those games.  With my Bump N' Jump MAME restoration, I will have the 2P start button as a 3rd button for some of the vertical games that use it, or for playing some horizontal games on it as well.  Such as the Metal Slug series.  Since those games are 2 player simultaneously, I will not need the 2P start button to actually function in that manner, so why keep it the same function?  Hell, depending on the game you could make the 1P & 2P buttons function for the gameplay, and make the jump button the start instead.  Who says you have to keep it the way it is labeled?  I mean you are already putting at least 20 more games that it is technically supposed to play in the first place, so it's not changing the authenticity any further really than you already are. . .

Just an idea. . .

[severdhed]

If you are going to MAME it as a "replica" and just stick with the one button setup, you could make the 2P start button a second button for some games that need 2.  Since it is only a 1P at a time cabinet anyways, you may not need a 2P start button for some of those games.  With my Bump N' Jump MAME restoration, I will have the 2P start button as a 3rd button for some of the vertical games that use it, or for playing some horizontal games on it as well.  Such as the Metal Slug series.  Since those games are 2 player simultaneously, I will not need the 2P start button to actually function in that manner, so why keep it the same function?  Hell, depending on the game you could make the 1P & 2P buttons function for the gameplay, and make the jump button the start instead.  Who says you have to keep it the way it is labeled?  I mean you are already putting at least 20 more games that it is technically supposed to play in the first place, so it's not changing the authenticity any further really than you already are. . .

Just an idea. . .

not a bad idea.  i'll have to look through maws and see what else is there.  most of the games i really care about will work just fine with 1 button and a 4way stick. i am not aware of any 4way vertical games with 2 buttons that i am just dying to have..but i could be wrong.

I didn't get anything done on the cabinet today....i was hoping to work on it this afternoon, but my wife made me go to some stupid fair.  So we drove for 45 minutes to get there, walked about a mile from the parking lot to the fair, had to fight my way through thousands of stupid people, just to look at stupid crap.  my 2 year old did very well, we left him play one carnival game.  my 8 month old however was a pain in the butt and would cry if we weren't carrying him..so for about 3 hours we walked around, taking turns holding the little goof, while the other pushed the stroller with the 2 year old.  then when we left, about 10 minutes into the drive back home, the baby started screaming, and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs for the rest of the way home.

the kids just went to bed, but it is too late, and i am too stressed out to get anything done with it tonight. 

[Vebbo]

Wohoo the joy with kids I've got 4 kids at home so i know what u are talking about 

my biggest problem now is trying to figure out how to mount the 19" CRT PC monitor that i plan to use.

Just curious, are u going to use soft15k with this?

[Chicken McNobody]

I forgot that your is a 4 way, my vert is going to be 8 way.  you could do Punch-out!, it technically doesn't have a start button, you use one of the punch buttons or something like that.  Use the 1P and 2P start buttons as the left/right punch, and the Jump as the Uppercut.  It will actually be very similar to the actual setup.  And I know the game is not technically a vertical game, but using the up/down method of the two screens gives it that feel, and this is a classic!

You could do the same with Arm Wrestling, but that game is not as fun, and it only has the one button.  I think Arm Wrestling also has a pull out joystick, so that may need another button to function.  Super Punch-Out! would require a 4th button for duck, or you could use both punches together, that is what I have setup.  It takes a little time to get used to, but in the end, it's plays fine that way.

Once again, this is just a suggestion. . .

[severdhed]

Just curious, are u going to use soft15k with this?

i'm not even sure what that is.  I've heard of people talking about it...i was under the impression it was for getting your video card to output a specific singnal to get it to work with an arcade monitor.  Is there some benefit to using this with a PC monitor?

[Vebbo]

Just curious, are u going to use soft15k with this?

i'm not even sure what that is.  I've heard of people talking about it...i was under the impression it was for getting your video card to output a specific singnal to get it to work with an arcade monitor.  Is there some benefit to using this with a PC monitor?

I thought i've read somewhere that it will help getting a better picture on a LCD (when i say better i mean a more stable, feks. on my lcd monitor today when playing 1942 it often gets a large "scanline" across the monitor kinda like a lag, hmm not easy to explain it), not sure if that included a PC monitor. Problem is that i dont remember where or when i read it, maby i just imagine i read/heard it somewhere...     the only way to find out is to try it (i can do that) but first i need a harddisk so i can continue on my project (install xp, mame, configure joysticks etc)

U ask why i dont already tried it on my stationary PC? well its running win7 and having a nvidia 280 gfx, and there were warnings when i launched  soft15k wich said " Please note that Geforce 8 series, geforce 9 series and geforce gtx series cards most likely dont work without the EDID dongle. " dont know what a EDID dongle is,  and a second warning " Please note that vista support is considered experimental an has several limitations". So i think i wait to try it until i have my pc up and running with XP.

[severdhed]

Just curious, are u going to use soft15k with this?

i'm not even sure what that is.  I've heard of people talking about it...i was under the impression it was for getting your video card to output a specific singnal to get it to work with an arcade monitor.  Is there some benefit to using this with a PC monitor?

I thought i've read somewhere that it will help getting a better picture on a LCD (when i say better i mean a more stable, feks. on my lcd monitor today when playing 1942 it often gets a large "scanline" across the monitor kinda like a lag, hmm not easy to explain it), not sure if that included a PC monitor. Problem is that i dont remember where or when i read it, maby i just imagine i read/heard it somewhere...     the only way to find out is to try it (i can do that) but first i need a harddisk so i can continue on my project (install xp, mame, configure joysticks etc)

U ask why i dont already tried it on my stationary PC? well its running win7 and having a nvidia 280 gfx, and there were warnings when i launched  soft15k wich said " Please note that Geforce 8 series, geforce 9 series and geforce gtx series cards most likely dont work without the EDID dongle. " dont know what a EDID dongle is,  and a second warning " Please note that vista support is considered experimental an has several limitations". So i think i wait to try it until i have my pc up and running with XP.

that scan lag is probably screen tearing...try enabling the tripple buffer option in your mame.ini (or if it is just a certain game, in that game's .ini file.) i had that problem when playing Rastan, enabling triple buffer fixed it.

[Vebbo]

OMG so simple solution thanks SeverdHed

[severdhed]

well, i didn't have alot of time to mess around tonight, but i did get an hour or so.  i got the motherboard mounted inside the cabinet.  i mounted it to a separate board so it can be removed easily.



i took a few more pics of the motherboard mounting, as well as how i secured the video card, but i took them with my cell phone and i dont have the cable downstairs here with me at the moment, i'll try to dump them tomorrow.

i also started playing around with the monitor, since it is by far the biggest challenge of this project.  i thought about removing the case, but upon opening it up, i wasnt sure how i would secure everything...so i put it back together.  i ended up just sitting it in the cabinet on some boards that were already mounted in there from the factory.  the front board was clearly used for the original monitor, but i don think the one in the back was.    i had to play around a little bit to get it into position where it didnt stick out the back of the cabinet.  i had to put a small wooden block at the back to get the door to go on.  i screwed two small boards together, and attached them to the monitor shell from the inside, using small screws.

it is too late tonight to use the drill because i might wake the kids, so it is just sitting in there now.



i masked off the screen and spray painted the bezel black so it would be easier to hide.  since the inside of the cabinet is all black, and there was a paper bezel in there that needs a little adjustment...but behind the tinted plexi, it just looks really dark..so i dont think i have to be too particular with how that turns out.



i still need to secure it in there somehow, but it sits there pretty well for now.   i dont have a power supply for the PC I am using, so just to give it a try, i hooked up my laptop to the monitor and fired up mame...






tomorrow i hope to get the monitor secured, and start wiring up the controls.

[severdhed]

Here are a few pics of how i mounted the PC components.

i used someone's suggestion on cutting up a bic pen (i dont remember who suggested it, but it worked great)  i just took apart a pen and cut it into relatively equal sized pieces with a razor knife.



i marked the screw locations on the board by placing the motherboard on it and marking them with a pencil..then i predrilled the holes.  then i placed the pen pieces over the holes, and proceded to screw the motherboard down using ordinary wood screws.



the motherboard i am using did not have on board video, so i had to use an AGP video card.  i had to find a way to secure it so it wouldn't get knocked loose if i moved the cabinet.  so what i did was bend the bottom of the metal back plate up at a 90 degree angle, and drilled a hole in it.  then i cut a longer piece of the pen and then screwed it down to the board just like i did with the motherboard.  this keeps the card held tightly in place.



here is just another shot of the mounted board:



and here is how i mounted the hard drive.  i had some brackets that were designed to attach to a hard drive on either side, so it could be mounted in a 5.25" drive bay.  i just used one of them, attached it to the hard drive, and then screwed it to the board with wood screws.  i placed a piece of craft foam between the bracket and the wood to help dampen vibrations.




on a side note, i thought i was going to have crappy pictures, but apparently my cell phone takes better pics than i thought.

[garnerb350]

Severed...Looking nice man....keep it going!!!

[severdhed]

thanks.  it kinda sucks to do all of the functional work first, only to have to undo it later to make it look nice, but since i can't spend any money on it for a few months, i figured i should at least get it working.  then in the spring i will strip it, bondo it, paint it and make it look a little more presentable.

i'm a little concerned about repairing the speaker grill area.  the laminate is peeling off there and is missing.  i am assuming that i can peel off the broken pieces, throw some bondo on there, and use a small file or something to clean up the holes...it just seems like a difficult task, but it will be a while till i have to worry about that anyway.

now i need to find a set a speakers to hack up, and start workign on my MALA layout.

[Jack Burton]

That monitor is probably capable of doing native resolutions at 120hz.  What is the exact make and model of the monitor? 

You already have the Nvidia card so you should be able to just install a custom 31khz version of the app and be able to have full support for both windows and arcade resolutions in full screen.

It's worth your time to try this because the image results will be very good on a monitor that size viewed through that tinted class and distance.  It should be 99% accurate to an arcade monitor if you do it right.

[severdhed]

cool...i may need some guidance if i'm going to attempt that. 

the monitor is a Systemax brand, model:DE-995 FC3

i googled it, but couldn't find much info

[Jack Burton]

I couldn't find much either.  Systemax didn't make that monitor though, I think all they do is rebrand monitors. 

Easiest way to tel if it will work is just see if you can set a resolution of 640x480 at 120hz. 

To do that just go into your display properties and then

settings tab -> advanced button -> adapter - > list all modes button -> 640x480 @ 60hz

then over to the monitor tab and uncheck "hide modes this monitor can't display" and change your refresh rate to 120hz. 

If it works in this mode it should work in arcade resolutions too.

[IG-88]

Dude that was brilliant on how you did the vid card. 

You would not believe all the contraptions I've built to secure cards in place.    I cannot believe I never thought of that. Simple and effective. Good show.

A couple more questions:

That 19" PC monitor, is it close to the same as an old DK monitor? Aren't PC monitor sizes and  TV/arcade monitors sizes measured differently? Maybe I'm just screwed in the head...


As for that paper bezel inside, are you still using it or what? It's the wrong size correct?

[severdhed]

i'll have to give that a try...i apparently used the power supply for my cabinet to fix my mom's computer about a week ago, so i have to find another one before i can use that PC...it was weird, i didn't remember having a spare power supply when i was workign on her PC, but shortly after i gave it back to her, i realized that it wasnt actually a spare.  so it may be a little while until i can get that PC up and running to try this.   

the PC isnt anything special..it is actually the PC i used in my other arcade cabinet before upgrading it.  which means that windows is already set up properly and mame is already in place with a full set of roms...i just need to get my mala layout setup and make a much smaller game list.  It is an athlon xp 2500+, with 1gb of ram.  i think i have some more ram lying around that will go in it though.

having the PC not functional actually makes it alot easier to get the other stuff done. 

as for the monitor size, this one appears to be slightly smaller than the originall arcade monitor.  the paper bezel that was in the cabinet is not quite the right size.  i'll probably just pick up a piece of posterboard and make a new one eventually.  but with the monitor bezel painted black, and the paper bezel in place, it just doesnt look that bad because it is so dark inside there behind the tinted plexiglass.  if i had to guess, i'd say this monitor is about an inch smaller diagonally, but i think it will be fine.  i also have it mounted at a little steeper angle than the original was, but i like the way it looks.


the video card mounting bracket was one of those things that i struggled with for a long time.  i also tried so many stupid methods to mount them, and none of them ever really worked that well.  when i figured this one out, i couldn't beleive how much time i wasted before.  that is why i posted pics, i figured others might be in the same boat.

[Jack Burton]

PC monitors are measured at the tube size.  TV's and arcade monitors are measured in the viewable area.  A 20" PC monitor should have about the same viewable area as a 19" pc monitor. 

The monitor is probably a 19", but you lose an inch in the overscan.  My Mitsubishi monitor is supposed to be a 20" but only has about 18 visible inches.  If you decased it you could get the full viewing area. 

I wouldn't worry about it.

[IG-88]

PC monitors are measured at the tube size.  TV's and arcade monitors are measured in the viewable area.  A 20" PC monitor should have about the same viewable area as a 19" pc monitor. 

Did you mean a 20" pc monitor should have about the same viewable area as a 19" tv monitor?

[severdhed]

I couldn't find much either.  Systemax didn't make that monitor though, I think all they do is rebrand monitors. 

Easiest way to tel if it will work is just see if you can set a resolution of 640x480 at 120hz. 

To do that just go into your display properties and then

settings tab -> advanced button -> adapter - > list all modes button -> 640x480 @ 60hz

then over to the monitor tab and uncheck "hide modes this monitor can't display" and change your refresh rate to 120hz. 

If it works in this mode it should work in arcade resolutions too.

i got it close, but cant quite get it.  i can get it to do 640x480 @ 120hz, but only at 256colors.  if i go to 24 bit true color, it jumps to 800x600 @ 120hz.

is it worth doing this?  will my mame games look crappy at 256 colors?


i did make a little progress on the cabinet today, but didn't get to take any pics.  I got the power supply replaced, and after replacing a bad IDE cable, got the PC up and running.  since this pc was in my other cabinet, it was already set up with mame and MALA.  however since this is a vertical cabinet I will have to make some changes.  I am working on a mala layout, but i'm just not quite happy with it yet.  I need to work on the screen resolution things a little too.  i planned on running at 640x480, but if i do that, the nvidia control panel won't allow me to rotate the desktop.  it only works at high resolution settings for some reason.  i'ts not that big of a deal really, but i would like ot have the desktop rotated to make administration easier.

i made a DK bootskin theme, but forgot to copy it off of my cabinet before i shut it down, i'll post it tomorrow evening.

[IG-88]

I'd really like to see that bootskin theme. Were you able to make it so it's oriented correctly for a vertical monitor?

[severdhed]

Here is the bootskin theme, i was going to try to upload it earler, but just didnt get time today during work.  

it is oriented for a vertical monitor.  i wasnt sure how to get the status bar to be positioned properly on a vertical setup, so i made it so that thereis no progress bar

I dont know which way people generally rotate their monitors in their cabinet, if there is a standard or anything like that.  mine is set up so that the right side of the monitor is now the top, i physically rotated the monitor counter clockwise.  if yours is set up the other way, this will be upside down.  so i made two different bootskins.  one is donkeykongcw, which is for people who rotated their monitors clockwise, and donkeykongccw, for those with counter-clockwise rotated monitors

here you go

ftp://nickf.dyndns.org/images/donkeykongcw.zip

ftp://nickf.dyndns.org/images/donkeykongccw.zip


just download the file, change the extension from .zip to .bootskin   then just double click on it and it  should install it as an available bootskin, (provided that you already have the bootskin program installed)  then just select it and apply it.

[Jack Burton]

800x600 in 24 bit is enough.  Almost all the games you will want to run in MAME, including DK, use 224-240 lines so you will be fine with that.  256 colors is unnecessary, but would also be enough for many MAME games. 

[severdhed]

i dont have the cabinet completely functional yet, but i did play around a little bit last night, however i found that 256 colors just will not work. not necessarily because of mame, but because it makes my mala layout look like crap.

so right now, i have it set at 640x480, 24bit @60hz.  are you saying that the 120hz refresh rate is more important than the resolution?


Today i am hoping to get the power supply mounted in the cabinet, as well as the control panel wired up.  I was going to hack a gamepad since i only need a few inputs, but i dont have one lying around, and i do have an x-arcade just sitting around, so i'll probably just use that.  i also need to find a way to rig the coin rejects to switches as well.

i'm getting close to having my MALA layout in an acceptable state, and my gamelist is pretty much ready to go. 

i'll have to try changing the resolution and see how that affects the mame games.

[severdhed]

well, since without pictures these Project Announcements threads are pretty lame...here are a few more pics of my progress so far:

i need to spend some time tomorrow organizing the cables and misc inside the cabinet yet, then i'll post pics of the inside.  i did get everything up and running.  I ended up using my x-arcade as the interface for the controls..due to their wiring methods, this isnt the best option, but it was the best option i had on hand.  i just removed alot of the wire harnesses so it isn't too cluttered.

i did not add any buttons to the cabinet yet, but i really think i want an exit and pause button somewhere where they are easy to get to.  right now, i have it set up so that start1 + start2 = exit, start 2 + jump = pause, and start 2 + coin1 = TAB menu

it is working Ok, but i'd rather have dedicated buttons.   both of the coin slots were wired together on the cabinet when i got it, so i just kept it that way.  i also added switches so that the coin reject buttons will add credits.  i wasnt sure how to go about doing that, so i started looking at what i had lying around.  i ended up using the nintendo button brackets and switches in a modified manner to mount the switches so that they are activated when the reject button is pressed.





i didnt want to add any holes or anything, it worked out that i could mount it to the door using one of the bolts that hold the coin mechs into the door.  i used the original screws to attach the switch, just in a different position.  the switches have meteal arms on them with little rollers on the ends.  this makes them great for this function.  this way there are 4 switches all wired up as coin 1...both coin mechs, and both coin reject buttons.  so far, this works just fine.

here is a pic of the paper bezel around the monitor.  it clearly isnt the right size, and is a little warped.  but with a few pieces of tape, it works just fine for now.  once the tinted plexi is in place, it is so dark in there that you can't see anything except the screen lit up.



here is a shot of the outside of the cabinet...still pretty beat up looking, but i cant do anything about that till after Christmas.  so far, i havent spent any addional money on this other than buying the cabinet.



here is a closer shot of the screen, without a flash....to show the current MALA layout.  i'm pretty happy with it so far, but i may make a few tweaks yet.   



that's all for tonight, hopefully by tomorrow i'll get the wires tied up a little nicer and will take a few pics of them.

[Ryglore]

That mala layout is pretty sweet. I really need to get cracking on learning the layout program for it so I can do something up on mine...

[javeryh]

Awesome!  When you finish the MaLa layout I hope you won't mind sharing!  It looks perfect for a DK running MAME!  Of course now that it is playable we probably won't hear from you for a few months.   

[severdhed]

here you go..i made a zip file containing all of the DK artwork stuff i have done so far.

it contains:

MALA layout, including required fonts
bootskin theme
wallpaper
mouse cursor

if you use the mala layout, make sure you have mala set to show the full screen loading picture, instead of the tiny loading window, because i didnt make a custom small loading window...just the full screen graphic.

i may tweak a little hear and there, but this layout is about the 8th revision, so i think it is just about complete.


it is a little over 1mb, so i cannot attach it to the post, so here is a link to download the zip file:

ftp://nickf.dyndns.org/Images/DKartwork.zip

i can provide the photoshop file if needed for the mala layout, but i need to clean it up a litle since there about 35 non used layers from a result of alot of testing

[IG-88]

Very nice.    I love that layout.  I cannot wait to get started on mine! I'm like you tho, not alot of $$ till after the holidays. This spring and summer has been tough on us. 

[severdhed]

thanks.  making a vertical layout is hard.  this is the first time i have tried one, and you have to approach it alot differently to get everything to fit.  i have tried using the marquees as a gamelist like this before on my other cabinet, but i just didn't care for it.  mainly because there are quite a few games that i just dont have marquees for, plus, it just seemed to cumbersome to scroll through large lists, so i usually use text list....but for this cabinet, there are only like 20 games or so, so it works pretty well.


i have to say i love playing these games on a vertical monitor...it is just so much better.  now i just need to get this crappy wico stick out of here and get something a little better in there.