(New member) Description of my project!

[dudenohair]

New here, and too lazy to post pics, but here is a description of my new multi-machine.

Old Buck Rogers cabinet...had been converted to Toki.  Fixed dents on cabinet and painted black.   I peeled off the old contact paper covering the control panel and found the buck rogers control panel window and cleaned it off.  There is a fluoresent light fixture under a buck rogers panel, so I put a black light in it.   Now black light will not let the UV light through plexiglas, so I had to replace the window with real glass so things would glow outside the cabinet.  (HINT>>use thick tabletop glass if you do this... thin stuff broke during installation)  I painted MEGARCADE in UV-glow colors on the inside of the panel.

The machine itself is a PC running windows ME and Mala... but here is where it got fun...it isn't really a MAME machine.  I only wanted to use legal MAME roms, and those are the fairly lame.  So Mame is a minor part.   The main game library is the PC version of "Midway Arcade Treasures" with about 30 games on it (a bunch of classic williams, atari, and midway games!).   But the stock PC interface is a bit...windowsy.  So I used autohotkey scripts to automate the built-in game start menus.  But to hide the option buttons, I edited the bitmaps that displayed the buttons on the menus.  When combined with blacked-out windows appearance settings, it looks rather arcade-like.

The other game library is Microsoft "Return of Arcade" with a handful of Namco classics.   Also automated with autohotkey launches.

Now the control panel itself is a keyboard hack.  I wired to two joysticks and with a defender/stargate-inspired control layout.  It's rather asymetrical, but it works.  It has an almost authentic defender feel to it (as much as you can get with an 8-way joystick instead of a 2-way.)  Robotron is perfect with the joystick layout.  I've attached a picture of the layout.  If anybody wants a template, I have it in a DXF file or most any other file format.