Mr Do is Mr DONE! mini mame cabinet

[kcorcoran]

Finally finished this project after a couple of weeks. Well worth it though.

Stands 42" high, 19" wide, 22" deep.
Painted with flat black and white semi gloss with a low nap roller.
Custom side art I had printed on adhesive vinyl along with the instruction card.

P166 / 96mb RAM / 10 gig HD
keywiz eco (i'll pay the extra for the ipac2 next time.. dont like the keywiz as much)
15 inch PC monitor
DOS
gameLauncher
dmame .88

this CPU setup REALLY sucks but it's all i had laying around. the games are skipping some frames so I'm working on getting a P2/500 or something better. i finally got it running halfway decent last night and put it in the cabinet but i must have jacked something up because now all games play for about a minute and lock up the computer. going to do a reinstall tonight.

i tried using advanceMenu and advanceMame but games were running sl slow that even  the sounds were going in slow motion.

wish someone who's had this running since back in the early days of mame would post an acceptable low end setup to run just the classics.

wired up the coin return buttons to be coin drop buttons.. didnt want a crap load of buttons on the CP

so...

I started a page documenting the project but ended up concentrating on building instead of documentation...

here's where it all started...

http://www.keithcorcoran.com/arcade/mrmame

http://www.keithcorcoran.com/arcade/mrmame/day1.html


Then from there on I just have photos... from oldest to newest...













the end....



Comments are welcome..  
I'm gonna get some sleep tonight. haha.


later...

[mozzer]

Welcome to the forums....

Nice job on the cab!

[NIVO]

I'd like to say you did one helluva job there. Extremely clean and fine lines.  

[Gunstar Hero]

That cab easily vaults into the category of "awesome!"

[javeryh]

Mr. Do is Mr. Sweet.    AWESOME JOB.

[Witchboard]

That's some good work there.  Congrats.

[Bomber]

Looks great. How is the control panel held in place?

[kcorcoran]

i set up a small stringer on each side inside the cabinet that the CP rests on.

then the monitor mounting brace (a 2x4 running side to side) helps establish the angle and support the top of it.

you'll see there on the sides there 1 screw on each side that runs into each side of the control panel. that's what holds it in place. if someone pulls up on the stick it might tilt forward but probably not because of where the scren is in relation to the front panel.

then.. i cut a small channel in the top of the cp at an angle that holds in the monitor plexi.

[ras2a]

I concur, beautiful looking cab.  How did you retain the plexi?  I'm sussing out the best way to do it at the moment and all I can come up with is to use some wooden beading along the sides.  Maybe I needn't bother though, as it's tilting back on an angle, maybe it will just sit there on it's own?

[javeryh]

Can we get some measurements?  You can scribble them on a scrap piece of paper and scan the pic in - they don't have to be perfect or to scale or anything.  I might try one of these someday - they are perfect for my daughter's room (in a few years when she can stand up)...

[danny_galaga]

very nice  

but- how TALL are you?

[SirPeale]

keywiz eco (i'll pay the extra for the ipac2 next time.. dont like the keywiz as much)

Well, gee, with all the soldering you had to do, I'm not suprised.  Why didn't you get the Max?

Also...nice job!

[kcorcoran]

keywiz eco -  i got this because i called myself being cheap and not wanting to wait for the ultimarc to get shipped.  should have waited. i DID however end up buying some cheap screw terminals like on the iPac2. soldered those in so now it's really just like an iPac but without a keyboard pass through.. which bugs me.

plexi - i'm holding in the marquee with 2 routed slots in the cabinet top and bottom. for the monitor plexi and bezel.. i bought a piece of black oaktag and cut out the hole and just laid it against the glass.. not sandwiced between two pieces of plexi because it's pretty rigid.

the plexi gets inserted from the bottom up into a slot i made in the speaker panel. then i routed a slot in the top of the cp at an angle so once you slide it up.. you drop it down into the slot on the cp. i didnt want to buy anymore crap so i was trying to not to use any materials to hold it in place.

my height - i'm 5'9" but this is really made to sit down at on a little stool or a chair.. since it's got wheels.. you could pull it over to the couch and play while the wife is watching some chick flick. haha. quality time together!


still having problems with the software though..

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=26940

compounded last night when mame starting crashing the machine in every game. going to start over tonight and see how it goes.

[JamIt]

Nice cab kcorcoran!  Mr. Do is one of my favs.

Is that side art available somewhere?  I've got this idea for a marquee and would love to use that Mr. Do image.

Thanks,
JamIt

[kcorcoran]

I traced the artwork from a tiny jpg i found online. came out REALLY nice.. colors might not be totally accurate but who would know.

I uploaded my contribution to the Arcade Art Library...

http://www.localarcade.com/arcade_art/details.php?image_id=432

it's all layered. you'll need illustrator to edit it.




keith.

[SirPeale]

keywiz eco -  i got this because i called myself being cheap and not wanting to wait for the ultimarc to get shipped.  should have waited. i DID however end up buying some cheap screw terminals like on the iPac2. soldered those in so now it's really just like an iPac but without a keyboard pass through.. which bugs me.

With the number of inputs you have on that project, if you *really * wanted cheap, you should have spent $10 (or less) and done a keyboard hack.

[RayB]

Can we see a pic of the cab with a human next to it for comparison?

[kcorcoran]

keyboard hack - i thought about it.. even pulled apart a keyboard... but when ii read the hack tutorials.. i figured it would take me longer then it was worth. so now i'm cheap AND picky. lol.

i'd love to get good at doing the hack.. would save some money for sure. maybe i will try to since i got the BYOAC book last week. time's a premium for me though.


here's a pic of my 4 yr old son next to the cabinet when it was being built. (check the links in the first post.)



and another...



I'll get some pics of someone playing it.. ONCE I GET THE DAMN COMPUTER RIGHT!!!! haha.

[GadgetGeek]

First, nice cab.
As for the CPU, look into running Vantage.  It runs the classics just fine.

[koolmoecraig]

keywiz eco -  i got this because i called myself being cheap and not wanting to wait for the ultimarc to get shipped.  should have waited. i DID however end up buying some cheap screw terminals like on the iPac2. soldered those in so now it's really just like an iPac but without a keyboard pass through.. which bugs me.
 

My Ipac got here in 3 days. Was there a back order or something?

Sweet ass cabinet man. White cabinets never get old. What a relief from all the plain old black monstrosities(?)

[kcorcoran]

thanks for all the love on this project. really happy with how it came out.
managed to scrounge up a PII500 from work on friday dumpster diving in the storage space so vantage and arcadeOS are running great.

i'd really like kangaroo, roc-n-rope, centipede and a few others but for some reason AOS isn't showing any of my mame roms. screw it. this is good for now.

problem now is no sound. the onboard cirrus logic sound (intel) has no dos support it seems. i found a SB pci card in the basement but it must have got dead from the flood we had down there this year.

then i found a pine card (pci) but can't find any dos drivers for it. walmart has SB16 pci cards which i've found the drivers for on easyemu cab's site but of course they dont have any in store. just online. defeats the purpose.

someone's got a SB PCI 512 for me today.. found some dos drivers but not sure they're going to work.. i dunno. just the way my luck's going. haha.

here's a new photo today of my 4 year old and the machine. again.. this thing stands like 4 feet 2 inches (2 inches is for the wheels underneath).




now for my next project for my co-worker... mini ms pac. (another 4 footer)
before i even touch wood this time though.. i'm setting up the computer.



.

[Gunstar Hero]

Good looking boy!

When I have kids, they're gonna have one of those for sure.

I want them to have a healthy love of classic gaming.  

[Wade]

That P166 would probably work okay if you went with an older version of Mame.  The older the version, the faster it runs.  There's a huge difference.  Just a tip, if you don't know about it already.

Wade

[kcorcoran]

i'm going to give it a try on another machine. maybe find some dos 6.22 floppies.

not sure if i mentioned but i snagged a p2/500 64mb on friday. it's a mini atx though so it only had PCI slots. bought a SB16 PCI card for like $17.

problem i had last night when i brought it to my brother's was that in dos mode.. the soundcard kept locking up the game.

i'm sure it has something to do with the blaster settings. i dunno. not the first time this happened. it happened with the other computer (p166).

works when run in a dos window with soundcard set to soundblaster.

locks up in pure dos. it will play for a short time and lock up.. usually right after some sound starts.

didnt have time to screw with it last night as it was getting late so i just had him use the mouse in windows to run the frontend.

crap i know.. maybe next weekend i'll go out by him and work it out.

[RayB]

You have to make sure your autoexec.bat (or config.sys?) properly sets the IRQ and DMA for the card.

(I so do not miss those old days! ;-) )

[kcorcoran]

right. i guess i need to figure out what those right settings are.

i let the installation CD add the entries to the autoexec and config files so you'd think they'd be right .. right?  wrong..  lol.

i read somewhere you might have to change the actual slot you have the card in if there's a problem. might have my brother give that a try.. though i think he's really content with it as is.

[RayB]

I don't see how the CD would know the exact settings for your card, unless it's plug-n-play. Some tips:

 - The IRQ you choose can depend on what slot your card is plugged in.
 - The IRQ you choose could conflict with other IRQ settings for other cards.
 - Sometimes you can specify a slot's IRQ via the BIOS
 - An SB's DMA channel should usually be 5.

[kcorcoran]

it's a gateway bios so there doesn't seem to be much in the way of assiging IRQs.

the cd was installed in win98 when the OS found the card. i'm assuming it 'found' the card and set it up appropriately as it made revisions to the autoexec.bat.

there's only 1 card in the machine right now.. the SB16.
i'm sure it's a setting because i DO get sund in dos for a few seconds before it locks up the machine.

k.

[RayB]

the cd was installed in win98 when the OS found the card. i'm assuming it 'found' the card and set it up appropriately as it made revisions to the autoexec.bat.

there's only 1 card in the machine right now.. the SB16.
i'm sure it's a setting because i DO get sund in dos for a few seconds before it locks up the machine.

Well that's the thing.... Windows sets its own IRQs so everything works in Windows. You need drivers for DOS mode too, like "SB Emulation" I think it is...

Try a couple slot changes and see what happens...

[krick]

there's only 1 card in the machine right now.. the SB16.

sounds like an IRQ conflict to me.

If there is onboard sound, make sure it's disabled.

Try putting the sound card in different PCI slots.
*usually* the PCI slot closest to the AGP slot should be avoided.

Sometimes, the only way to figure it out is by physically moving it around until it works.

Does the BIOS screen during booting show which IRQs are assigned to which devices?

Are there any IRQs shared in windows?

...
Krick

[kcorcoran]

unfortunately the bios is really simplistic.
i'm going to have to run pcisniffer to see what the settings are.

onboard audio is disabled and using on-board video.
no agp slots on this board.. just 4 pci slots.

now what i'm not too clear on.. lets say i put the card in slot 1 of 4.
then the irq i set using the SET BLASTER command in autoexec should match whatever IRQ the board assigns to that slot or do i just try setting IRQs until it works... (a few different settings for each slot are then possible).


i'd think it's more the former then latter.

[krick]

What operating system are you using?


From what I understand, the Soundblaster PCI cards actually require 2 IRQs.

One is for the PCI card itself, the other is for legacy soundblaster 16 emulation.

The should NOT be the same IRQ.

There was a post here about this a month or so ago.  I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT:  Found it!

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=22302

[kcorcoran]

ok. i loaded win98 on the machine for dos mode.
i'd like to run arcadeOS with vantage and dmame in pure dos to get the most performance.

i'd rather do without windows if i could. the machine's not all that fast.

thanks for the help.


k.

[krick]

i loaded win98 on the machine for dos mode.

Can you go under device manager and post the list of the IRQ assignments?

I suspect that something is sharing that shouldn't.

[kcorcoran]

i'll have my brother do this tonight.. actually. i have to go to an event for work tonight so i'm thinking video game work is postponed for the evening.

 

[javeryh]

i'll have my brother do this tonight.. actually. i have to go to an event for work tonight so i'm thinking video game work is postponed for the evening.

 

Don't you just hate that?  I don't get home from work until 9 p.m. at the earliest so I only get to work on stuff on the weekend.  

If only I was independantly wealthy.

[kcorcoran]

ok well i cant really complain.. i work for the biggest hip hop and r&b radio station in the country so when i have to go to a performance by Destiny's Child for about 100 people and take photos and video for the website and eat catered food... it's not ALL bad.  

then there was the time they sent us to cancun for a week for our annual interactive meeting. ROUGHING IT!

anyhow.
my brother called me on my cel tonight though.. major problems with the machine.. it wouldn't turn on.




until i reminded him where the power button was. haha
keith.