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Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear - Done for now
Dervacumen:
In late 2005 I acquired a Tempest cabinet that was totally stripped with the exception of a coin door / coin mechs. I'll be posting progress on the conversion to an emulator cabinet in this thread. This is not a restoration project. If I wanted to restore this, I'd start of with a machine that has *some* of it still there.
The artwork in in decent shape - lots of dings and scratches around the edges, scrapes here and there, but mostly it's really dirty. To be expected I guess. There's a sticker with someone's tag on it slapped on the side, and the T-Moulding will need to be replaced. There is a good sized chunk of the left upper rear corner that's been busted off. The coin door has been kicked a lot, giving it a nice concavity. All in all, the cabinet is sturdy and solid.
Since I want a panel that will let me play most classics, I'll be designing a new panel with 2 8-way Supers, 1 Ms. Pac / Galaga Reunion, 4 buttons each player, a 3" trackball, and an Oscar Vortex spinner.
My aim for this project is to use anything I've got on hand and keep costs down. That means a lot of compromises, but since I'll be the only one playing this the vast majority of the time, I've come to terms with them. I hope you do too.
Since this is my first attempt, I'll mention things I deem "important to know" for noobs like myself.
I'll add to this as I can. I've actually gotten pretty far in the conversion process already.
leapinlew:
I'm curious how you plan on installing all this on a tempest sized control panel.
1 last thing - to make it compatible with as many games as possible add buttons 5 and 6 for all the fighting games out there.
Have you done a mockup of the cp yet? To see how it all fits? If not, I highly recommend it.
leapinlew:
Also, is the new monitor going to be a computer monitor in a horizontal or vertical configuration?
dweebs0r:
Good looking cab. Expect some heat from some of the folks on here for Mameing a classic like Tempest.
Good luck with the conversion. Post lots of pics.
-Dweebs
Dervacumen:
All those controls won't fit on a stock Tempest CP. I spent a few months playing with different configurations until I settled on my required controls. Then I put the word out for an empty cab, and this one was graciously provided. After mulling it over for a few weeks, I decided I needed to someow put a larger CP on there. Look, I'm not emotionally tied to this cabinet or anything, but I still thought it would be nice to try and work with the original motivation. So I came up with these side extensions, which allow me to place a 11 3/4" deep CP on there, and I don't think it looks too hideous. Unless you know what the original CP is supposed to look like, I'm hoping this looks stock.
As for mocking up the CP in cardboard, I did that for the final layout but found that cutting a piece of black felt the size of my CP, and then using white felt cutouts in the shape of buttons, joysticks, etc. gave me a lot of flexibility. I was able to discard a lot of initial layouts by "pretending" to hold the joysticks and pressing buttons, roll the trackball, etc. It's amazing how quickly you can determine what doesn't feel right with this method.
--- Quote from: leapinlew on May 10, 2006, 02:29:13 pm ---Also, is the new monitor going to be a computer monitor in a horizontal or vertical configuration?
--- End quote ---
Here's where I pulled a cheap --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules-- move, and though I'm totally fine with it, everyone else will probably disagree. I'm aware of what wrath I invite. It's a computer monitor, only 17", and a flat trinitron tube. It was laying around, and though I could have bought a used 19" or 21" for well under $100, first and foremost was to do this project on the cheap. I'm not decasing it (more on that later) because it fits in the cabinet just fine without doing so. (Of course it does, it's frickin' miniature, after all.)
--- Quote from: dweebs0r on May 10, 2006, 02:39:54 pm ---Good looking cab. Expect some heat from some of the folks on here for Mameing a classic like Tempest.
--- End quote ---
The redeeming factor is that the parts that didn't come with this cab did find their way into another Tempest restoration, so not all is lost.
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