Hi all I have been dabbling with Mame on and off since the early days when I had a dial up connection... and was free and single. How things change!
I have also been lurking in the shadows of this forum in stealth mode for quite a number of years. I did have the urge and idea back in 2007 to start a project but it never got past the design stages.
Now I have 2 children, grey hair and a pretty damn good excuse to build something, that's how I sold it to the missus anyway. Unfortunately the missus has allowed me a budget of £0.00 to spend. As I am the type of person who likes a challenge the lack of funds has not stopped me. First off I decided to draw up a list of objectives which were as follows;
Ticks indicate the things I have done or obtained for the project.
1) It has to be small-ish! = Vertical Bartop
2) It needs to be competitive, (two kids and me) = Save High Score / 0.139 recompiled √
3) It needs to play a small collection of games =
2GB Compact Flash Card √ See 13 below
4) It needs 1 joystick, 5 play buttons, player 1 & 2 buttons and 2 service buttons = £24.11 inc. postage √
5) I need £24.11 = Sell items I have not used in a long time on ebay = £62.30 √
6) Small monitor = An old 19" LCD with no power adaptor and no stand, might be working still?? From a friend √ Tested and working!
7) Need some MDF preferably 12mm = 18mm MDF and some 18mm ply from B&Q, off cuts bin £3.50 √
8 ) Cheap MOBO with ram, processor, sound and graphics = 3ghz P.4 with 2GB ram on board sound and graphics, donated by the next door neighbour √
9) Paint = 5lt of light blue tractor enamel, wrong colour mix so was free. √
10) Name for my project = Play Time √
11) Graphics / Decals = ?? Design a marquee and the control panel, but will decide how I am going to tackle these when I come to it.
12) USB encoder = KADE Minimus £10.00 Inc. postage (Ebay) √
13) Hard drive = old 500 gig sata kept from my last PC √
14) Sound, speakers and small amp = 1 x bass/mid, 2 x tweeters salvaged from other projects in the past. Still need an amp and also cross over, may make them??
Total Funds raised = £62.30
Total Spend to date = £37.61
Balance = + £24.69
So far its going well, I have all of the main parts to make something resembling the top half of an 80's arcade machine. Hopefully it will function like one too!
For anyone wondering, the name of my project, (Play Time) came about when I thought back to my child hood. I spent most of my child hood in care, (children's home). Luckily one of the homes I was moved to in the 80's had a games room, pool table and a shabby upright machine that played Breakout. The marquee had been replaced with a really bad one that simply read "Play Time", no graphics just a bad font in white on a black background. I decided to adopt this name and try to make in a bit more of an improved design. I was going to post the list above and how I chose the name the other day but thought, lets wait until I have some things scratched off the list and some photo's to accompany the first post.