Posting an old project- the Portable Markade

[Infinity_Yak]

Hey Everybody,

I've been lurking on this site for literally years, since the time I started building SNES to Parallel port adapters for myself and friends several years ago.  Anyways, I've always been impressed with the work that others have done on this site, so I think it's only fair that I post some pictures and specs from one of my projects to get some feedback and give others some ideas.  Keep in mind that this project was started in 2003 and is ongoing, mainly through upgrading hardware and software.

So, here's my first arcade project- the Portable Markade.  It's a self-contained emulation console with the following specs:

Computer:
-AMD Athlon 2100+ CPU
-Onboard Sound/Lan/USB(x6)
-256 MB RAM
-30GB Western Digital 5400 RPM hard drive
-ATI Radeon 7000 w/TV Out

Software:
-WinXP- custom "markade" bootskin
-customized mamewah frontend
-MAME
-ZSNES
-Kega Fusion
-Impact
-Daphne,
etc...

Controls:
-2 Happs Super Joysticks
-Happ Competition Pushbuttons (7 each player)
-Happ 1/2 player start buttons, insert coin buttons
-ipac keyboard encoder

Box:
-El-cheapo laminated chipboard top/bottom, front/back
-Laminated Walnut sides
-1 inch pine rail frame on inside

I consider the project to have been extremely successful- I've been taking this thing to all sorts of places, hooking it up to bigscreen TV's, projectors and the like.

Here are some pictures of the box:

[Infinity_Yak]

... And a couple more of the unit assembled

Also, it looks like these pictures are a little older than I had thought- back when I was using an uber-slow Epia-M10000 for the MoBo.  I highly recommend against using epia boards for a number of reasons, including the poor Hardware acceleration support for the onboard video, and it's rediculously slow speed...  But hey, it was small!  (as you can see from the pics)

[J.P. Patches]

I think that's a pretty darn cool project.  Way to go!

[sixcoin]

throw in a trackball and your in business

[Infinity_Yak]

Thanks.  I got so much help from this board and its members it's not even funny. 

I'm actually starting my next project this weekend- some strange person I met on the internet (sounds creepy, I know) is getting rid of a "Two Tigers" Machine (the Tron conversion kit w/2 optical spinners), and is just giving it to me for free, so I'm pretty stoked.  I'm thinking of giving it a tasteful Mameing, while still keeping its original look and original equipment.  It's got a busted monitor, but aside from that, the controls/coin mechs are still in okay shape.  So yeah, I'm stoked about picking that up and having a project I can work on, and have some live progress posted here.

As for a trackball- I'd absolutely LOVE to put a trackball in, and maybe I will someday.  I've been looking into hacking some old ones, and actually thought of building my own, but we'll see.  It's a shame that all the trackballs I see are so bleedin' expensive, otherwise I wouldn't have thought twice.

[Bones]

Hey, this is a cool project. Well done.