Xevious project completed

[maraxle]

A while back, after seeing my MAME cabinet, a friend of mine asked me to convert his empty Xevious cabinet into a MAME cabinet for him.  Well, after a couple of months of changing requirements, technical setbacks, and various other interruptions, the cabinet is done.

Here is the cabinet before.  It was empty - no monitor, boards, etc.  Just a cabinet, artwork, and a coin door.  It's in pretty good shape, though.



And here it is after.  It's a bit of a frankenpanel, but it doesn't extend outside the dimensions of the original control panel, and it retains the Xevious theme.



Here's a shot of the new Xevious-style control panel:



And another shot of it so you can see the funky, retro-styled icons:



Now for the specs.  It's running AdvanceMAME 0.79 with AdvanceMenu 2.4.2 on a Duron 800 running FreeDOS.  It's not a super fast machine, but it plays everything up through the Street Fighter II era without problems.  

The monitor is a 19" arcade-style monitor with a VGA connector, mounted vertically.  I'm not exactly sure of the model, but it's one of the VGA monitors that goes in one of those Silverball touch-screen games (minus the touch-screen capability).

On the control panel it has a T-Stik Plus, a Happs Topfire joystick, a Slik Stik Tornado Spinner with Oscar Controls optics (long story), a 2 1/4" blue Happs trackball, 4 original Atari volcano buttons, and 6 buttons per player.  It uses a Groovygamegear.com Keywiz encoder for the sticks and buttons, a Happs serial adapter for the trackball, an Oscar Controls mouse hack for the spinner, and a custom built circuit for lighting the volcano buttons (they're always lit).

It uses a Bits Limited Smart Strip for power, which works nicely.  The custom overlay was designed by me, and printed at Classicarcadegrafix.com.

[Hiub1]

MAN! That is spanking! That artwork looks to be in mint shape, good job with that! It is nice to see that you kept the Xevious theme, it just looks so cool! Show us some pics of the cab running a game!

Good work man!

[maraxle]

MAN! That is spanking! That artwork looks to be in mint shape, good job with that! It is nice to see that you kept the Xevious theme, it just looks so cool! Show us some pics of the cab running a game!

Good work man!

Thanks for the compliments.  Yeah, the artwork is in very nice shape.  I did a few touch-ups here and there, but other than that, it was in good shape to begin with.  

Here's the sideart before my touch-ups:



And after:


I don't have any really good shots of it playing any games yet, but here's one from when I was testing the monitor:


Also, here's one with the first iteration of the menu system.  It has since been changed to a black background but the layout is the same:


The menu system uses a video of the Xevious attract mode as the screen saver.  It looks really good.

[Gunstar Hero]

Wow.

Impressed.

Want one.

[DYNAGOD]

thats tight!!
great job!
 

[fredster]

I like the CP.  The glowing button with the guy running out the door is soo cool.

[TOK]

This is the way I think a conversion should be done. This cab could be restored to Xevious because nothing permanent has been done. I also don't mind games with a little nicked art or even a cigarette burn. That's how I remember them.

Nice, clean conversion!

[maraxle]

Thanks for all the compliments.  I just delivered this to the proud owner.  He's thrilled with the results, as are his wife and daughter.  I'll actually miss having it at the house.

It could easily turn back into a Xevious at some point, as the only thing that was modified is the control panel.  Even the monitor mounts on the original bracket.

Next I'm helping my dad with a Centipede cabinet.  It'll be kind of similar to this one, though the art isn't in quite as good of shape.  After that I have a Super Pac-Man with a rotted out floor that I need to restore.

[rchadd]

good work a quality conversion

4 atari cone buttons? now thats just plain greedy 

i just love that monitor bezel artwork - really cool 3d effect!

[danny_galaga]

i hate to say it, but the cab you just gave to your friend looks heaps better than your own!! ive never seen the xevious artwork until just now. looks great. especially the bezel artwork as rchadd says.

[maraxle]

i hate to say it, but the cab you just gave to your friend looks heaps better than your own!! ive never seen the xevious artwork until just now. looks great. especially the bezel artwork as rchadd says.

We have a little difference in taste there.  I don't like spaceships and sci-fi stuff.  But I'm glad you think his is better, as it means I'm getting better. 

[danny_galaga]

We have a little difference in taste there.

[krick]

...a Slik Stik Tornado Spinner with Oscar Controls optics (long story)...

I'd like to know more about this.  Do tell.

[maraxle]

...a Slik Stik Tornado Spinner with Oscar Controls optics (long story)...

I'd like to know more about this.  Do tell.

Basically, the Tornado Spinner was advertised at the time as working in DOS (since retracted).  I tried it with 3 different versions of their recommended drivers (plus generics like the MS mouse drivers), on two different versions of DOS (7.0 that comes with Win98 and FreeDOS) on two completely different motherboards, and couldn't get it to work with any of the 12-16 or so hardware/software configurations I tried.  I tried it in Windows and it ran fine, but I didn't want to use Windows so it didn't really help.  I ended up getting an encoder board and mouse hack from Oscar Controls, and found that the encoder board fit almost perfectly on the Tornado frame, plus worked perfectly in both versions of DOS, on both motherboards, using any of the above mouse drivers.  Problem solved.

Slik Stik did offer me a full refund on the Tornado, but in between my last plea for help and their offer, I had enough time to order the Oscar Controls board, receive it in the mail, and install it...  So, I just sold the Tornado encoder to someone who wanted to use it in Windows, cut my losses, and directed all future mailings from Slik Stik to my spam filter.

[DarkKobold]

The ability that you have to do that kind of touch up is astounding. I have zero art skills, otherwise I'd do that with my cab collection

[maraxle]

The ability that you have to do that kind of touch up is astounding. I have zero art skills, otherwise I'd do that with my cab collection

Thanks, but it's not as tough as it looks.  I started off by giving it a good scrubbing with a soft cloth and some of that orange clean spray.  Then, after I let it dry, I touched up the black lines with a permanent black marker (Sharpie RT Fine Point).  I didn't actually touch the colored parts up at all, but once the black lines are solid, your eyes tend to ignore the flaws in the color for some reason.  I guess it's because the outline is complete, so your eyes kind of fill in the blanks for you, unless you're really scrutinizing it looking for flaws.

[krick]

I ended up getting an encoder board and mouse hack from Oscar Controls, and found that the encoder board fit almost perfectly on the Tornado frame, plus worked perfectly in both versions of DOS, on both motherboards, using any of the above mouse drivers.

[maraxle]

I ended up getting an encoder board and mouse hack from Oscar Controls, and found that the encoder board fit almost perfectly on the Tornado frame, plus worked perfectly in both versions of DOS, on both motherboards, using any of the above mouse drivers.  Problem solved.

So the Oscar controls encoder board stays put on the Tornado with only one screw?  If it's sturdy, I'm probably going to go that route.  I need the small footprint of the Tornado but I want to connect it to an OptiPac board.

Yup, it stays on there fine.  It will hang off the other side by about half an inch, though, so take that into consideration when you are deciding how to position it.

[dabone]

I've got a friend that I fixed up his xevious last year.
He just saw yours and wants to do that to his also.
My question is how did you do the control panel?
(i.e. do you have anymore blanks?)

Thanks.
Later,
dabone

[maraxle]

I've got a friend that I fixed up his xevious last year.
He just saw yours and wants to do that to his also.
My question is how did you do the control panel?
(i.e. do you have anymore blanks?)

I drilled new holes in an old Xevious control panel and patched the existing ones that I didn't need.  If you watch eBay, you might see an old one pop up sometime.  Unfortunately, I don't have any others lying around.