My finished project

[genesim]

SPECIAL SPECIAL THANKS

2 years in the making and my wife was a great help, thanks for putting up with me baby!!   Also I thank the people on this board for their help as well.   Many of you have at the least stimulated ideas that help put the finishing touches on the arcade.

Without the internet, this project would have likely never got off the ground.

Special thanks.   Kevin Steele from Retroblast who gave the best reviews for hardware and I will his website dearly.
 
The MAME team for providing the interface to all the classics.  Great work guys and you will go down as legends to us geeks everywhere!!

Boone and Tobias for making a game worthy of getting alot of people like me back in the arcades after the Nintendo generation got alot of people playing in thier homes.   

Lastly, to the Atari which was the beginning of it all!   Combat was the first "fighting" game for me, and that competition sticks with me to this day. 

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

Forgive all the detail, but alot of this was posted in a place that wasn't arcade savvy.









*AMD 64x2 4400, 2 gig ram, 500 gig dual SATA harddrive.

*Ipac, Xarcade, and Druin Rotary interface.

*Bits smartstrip

*Ultralux lightup "coin" buttons

*Groovy gamegear coin box sticker

*Creative Inspire speaker with cut off cord to accomidate Sony Xplodes(since they are all 4ohm)

*It has the standard Ultimarc 4-way with restrictor plate Red Top on the top of panel : Pacman and Donkey Kong

*Ultimarc 4-way in diagonal rotation for: Qbert and Congo Bongo

*Left Joystick on player one and player two are 8 way Happs Rotary Joysticks which

A: Can play fighting games and any 8 way games such as Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter II
B: Can Play rotary games such as Xybots from Atari as well as Ikari warriors where you need to rotate as well as shoot.

*The Right joysticks are 8 way Happs supers which can allow the play of double joystick games such as Robotron or Smash TV and Karate Champ.

*Spintrak Spinner up at the top for driving games such as Pole Position and paddle games such as Breakout and Avalanche.   With of course high resolution gameplay for Arkanoid.

*The Happs Roller ball for the classic games such as Centipede or Golden Tee Golf

*The Top fire bottom at the top can work in conjunction with the spinner to play the classic TRON or in conjunction with the 4 way to play Battle Zone.   Or it can work in conjuction with track ball for Doom3 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein

*The button configuration around the spinner and top fire is in classic Asteroid style

*The buttons by the double joysticks are in either classic 6 way or the added 7th yellow button is for the hundreds of Neo Geo games

*drilled 8th button to accomidate the console controls.

*There are double joysticks on the side for the pinball games...and I drilled a extra whole for the "plunger". Use this on any computer pinball.

EWWWWW!!!

[GameOver]

You forgot to thank Al Gore for creating the internet....

Nice work! Your cab looks great.  Now go play your brains out.

[genesim]

 

Got some more news.   I got the Propinball series working under Vista just fine using the XP patch.    Other then a few annoying button configs(F1 for "the Web"??) changes, it looks better then I used to have it because of higher resolution settings.

These pictures don't begin to show you how good these games look!

[Donkey_Kong]

Do you play the Dreamcast on the cab with the arcade joysticks? I didn't see it mentioned, maybe I missed it.

[Apollo]

well done, propinball looks great

[genesim]

I use it for the Dreamcast and Playstation 2. 

The Xarcade enables this wonderfully...along with other consoles if one could find a way to display them on a monitor.   An upscanner would do the job, but that is very expensive.

I use a component to DVI box(then I convert that back to VGA for now) for Progressive scan games on the PS2 and the Dreamcast has a VGA adapter.

thx for all the compliments.

[sonones]

Great cabinet..

I got a question regarding the rotary joystick. How did you install it on your cabinet. I have two types of joysticks (happ ultimate joystick and the happ mechanical rotary joystick). The ultimate joystick can be disassemble but the rotary cannot be. I was just wondering how you installed it.

-sonones

[jcoleman]

Ultimarc makes a PS2 to VGA adapter.

Coleman

[leapinlew]

Nice looking cabinet... Good job!

[genesim]

sonones,

The rotary joysticks that I have which are happs have a simple bottom with two allen wrench screws.    The bottom pops off and the rest is like any other arcade stick.

XXXXXXXX

jcoleman,

I thought their converter was for an arcade monitor only???  This would be great news, but it would surely have to upscan the non-progressive games somehow.

P.S. to all, thanks for all the compliments

I added an extra button for a Left plunger...which I use for the bottom bump on pinball and I added a extra purple button on the top to have dedicated pause AND escape.

Maybe overkill, but essentially my control panel is now pretty much a mirror image of itself.    I actually like this alot now, the 3rd buttons for pinball just wouldn't work, and were probably even more over kill anyway.   Most would boo at this step, but I thought what the hell.

[Neilyboy]

Very nice man!! The cabinet is very clean and sharp looking. It makes me want to get my MAMEŠ machine built. I have the cabinet (gutted battletoads cab) and have all of the componets and hardware. I just need to get on it and do it. Every new project thread I see posted here Makes me want to get it built more and more. I cannot wait to get it up and going.

Yours looks very nice man. Your CP looks a little crowded up toward the top but totally playable. I like man.. Button colors wouldnt have been my first choice but hey im all about the Red White and Blue!

Take care man and enjoy it,

Neil

[genesim]

The red, white, and blue is for mortal kombat.

Believe it or not the crowding up top is desired for TRON as well as being able to play 4 way at a perfect distance from the buttons.     

The only thing that is entirely unnatural is the Asteroid buttons.    They just don't work great.

But as I have stated before, this is also great for Doom 3.    trackball with left hand and top fire 8 way for right, with the other buttons at my disposal for special stuff.

Thx for the compliments, and any criticism.

Do get on the project.   MAKE YOURSELF DO IT!    You can wait and wait and get older and older.   I have never regretted it for one second.    With every modification, it is all pure joy.     Any advice that you need will be answered by just looking around a little.    I would be more then happy to give you some on here as well.  If you already have the cabinet...man you are pretty much there dude!

Again, without the internet, I don't think the project would have ever come to completion.    There are alot of geniuses around that are working for FREE!    All I can do is give back as best as I can.

[tommy]

The game screen looks alittle small for that cab but overall it looks very nice.

[genesim]

I agree but I have a new project in mind.    Dual monitor!

I was thinking how much I hate printing out moves on paper and also how some new kind of "attract" screens could be really nice.

Is this too crazy?



On another note, I did use a rotozip and cut out the display.

I mean seriously what is the point in going on about how great an LCD is, if you are going to defeat all purposes and throw up a damn screen that causes reflection problems!

Well, that has changed.   

Here is a picture of that.



More updates



Black button in back is the digital/analog button for the LCD monitor which of course is back behind the display, so I just soldered a few wires and ran it through the control panel.

This is where I can switch out the xarcade and unhook those wires along with the power supply wires that go to the lighted buttons.



The front "left plunger" button is for the upward nudge.    I know I know...button happy, but I needed it, and a 3rd pinball button wasn't happening.

Still alot of buttons can be nice  for a few things...like having extra coin and start buttons.    It is theoretically possible to have 4 players now with ease.    Though where they stand is another thing all together!

Lastly the purple button that is duplicated to the right is for a dedicated escape.    Again, yeah I know shift buttons would work, but with a combo Xarcade/Ipac, I would rather keep them separate.   

Someone was talking about the top being crowded.   I do appreciate any criticism.    But I wanted to point out the why.



It wasn't my design, but those guys at slikstik got that completely right.    The 4-way doesn't need to have an arm laying on the panel...so the trackball is forgiveable.  Unlike a fighting game, one takes it from the top to illustrate constand movement as in walking left or right as oppose to a "down, down, back, back" or a "circle forward" which often needs an anchor.      As for the spinner and top fire, well I can't imagine them any where else, because again, arm room is very important.

Last but not least...here is my screw up.    I HATE HATE HATE that I did this, and someday I just might have to get some top artwork because of it.     Still, with "seamfil" I was able to get it to at least look like an area of dust.    It really did turn out nice.



I know I am not the only one on here, but I totally appreciate the criticism, and I hope I can pass on some ideas...or at least pitfalls... that others can take from this.

[astrothug]

why not post images to flickr....i hate seeing nothing?

[CheffoJeffo]

why not post images to flickr....i hate seeing nothing?

genesim's not here dude ...

[leapinlew]

why not post images to flickr....i hate seeing nothing?

genesim's not here dude ...

ha!

This is why people should post their pics here.

[pinballwizard79]

ftw?