Classic Gaming System - Finished w/pics

[JayTea]

http://www.licoricepizza.com/fantastic4.html

This has been done for about 4 months, but I have the pics to prove it.  I will go into deeper explanations and provide a few more pics when I find the time, but this is a good cursory overview of my project.

it was built from scratch, made a trakcball mouse hack, and purchased "The Ultimate Set of Tools" in order to get it done.  I also just MAME'd an old missle command cab that had been converted into Thunderjaws.  Pics and descriptions of that one to come later.  Please feel free to critique - or to be an innocent bystander.

[kspiff]

Hm, 25 views and no replies.. OK, I'll compliment.. looks nice, and the marquee is.. well.. you are thefootballguy, I guess

[CthulhuLuke]

Very clean looking finish, although the joysticks and buttons are a bit high I would imagine, unless its at a super angle.  I really like the fact you used Perfect 360s in there, those joysticks are the best you can get!  I hope you're treating them to plenty of fighting games.  But the Vertical pushbuttons are definitely not a good choice for fighters, I built my first joystick with em, horizontals are 100 times nicer feeling, easier on your hands, and are a billion times easier to button mash with.  That's a pretty killer computer you stuck in for MAME, I'm in desperate need of putting something similar to that into my cab, it's sad with its 300mhz pentium II..
     Good Stuff
       -Luke

PS: that's an electrician's nightmare in there, you used red for almost everything!!  Imagine if you had accidently crossed something, it'd be a pain to try and figure things out.

[tritonarcade]

But the Vertical pushbuttons are definitely not a good choice for fighters, I built my first joystick with em, horizontals are 100 times nicer feeling, easier on your hands, and are a billion times easier to button mash with.

Hmm... I'm going to have to disagree with you there.  I know everyone on this forum favors the horiz. pushbutton over the vertical because the "slipping" mechanism of the latter could cause wear over extended periods.  And I can agree with that premise though I think most of that sentiment is based on expectation and not experience.

On the matter of "feeling", however, I happen to favor the vertical pushbutton.  The actual point of the click to me is slightly more solid and it releases a bit differently as well.  All told, however, the differences between the two are negligible.  In my opinion calling one button a billion/million times better than the other in any aspect is misleading for those that haven't tried both.

[JayTea]

Yes, the controls are a bit high, but I am 6'3" and it works out to be a perfect fit.  My wife on the other hand has to sit on a booster chair...nah just kidding.  I also left them high in anticpiation of adding a steering wheel (which you can see on top of the computer) and possibly a spinner.

As for all red wires...well...It's the wire I had laying around at the time, plus it's not too difficult to trace if you tape, bunch, and label the different joysticks / buttons and the com's.  I will admit that I kinda just left the I-Pac laying freely because I was in a rush to "test" the controls.  Turns out I haven't stopped testing for about 4 months

The I like the vert pushbuttons.   They sit a little higher than the horizontal ones I put in another cab I just finished, but both have their advantages.  I used the horiz. ones in the recent cab because little kids are going to be playing it and aren't as brutal as I am with the buttons, especially track and field.  Too me it's a preference.  More resistance with the verts, less with horiz.

[IceCold]

Just so you know, I think you mean 512 MB of ram, not 512k.  And you probably also mean 80 GB and 4 GB hard drives, not MB.

You might want to fix that, it makes your pc sound like a major piece of junk  

[CthulhuLuke]

But the Vertical pushbuttons are definitely not a good choice for fighters, I built my first joystick with em, horizontals are 100 times nicer feeling, easier on your hands, and are a billion times easier to button mash with.

Hmm... I'm going to have to disagree with you there.  I know everyone on this forum favors the horiz. pushbutton over the vertical because the "slipping" mechanism of the latter could cause wear over extended periods.  And I can agree with that premise though I think most of that sentiment is based on expectation and not experience.

On the matter of "feeling", however, I happen to favor the vertical pushbutton.  The actual point of the click to me is slightly more solid and it releases a bit differently as well.  All told, however, the differences between the two are negligible.  In my opinion calling one button a billion/million times better than the other in any aspect is misleading for those that haven't tried both.

I do agree that I haven't personally witnessed vertical pushbuttons wear down any faster than horizontals, and I believe they both probably wear out around the same time.  My one major problem with the verticals is the resistance to button pressing.  It's really good if you want to get that nostalgic feeling of playing on an old arcade machine, where you don't have to press the button a whole lot, but I play a lot of fighters on my joysticks.  So switching over from vertical to horizontal in a game of Marvel vs Capcom 2 makes doing those 100 hit air combos a billion times easier on your fingers.  One thing I like about the horizontals is they feel worn in when you get them.  My vertical pushbuttons took about 2 monthes of hard play to get them to the feeling I liked, and when I screwed in my horizontal pushbuttons for the first time, playing on em was great, short throw distance, very little resistance, ideal for fighting games.
   Well truthfully I personally prefer competition pushbuttons, my bro has some on his Mas stick he bought from a guy.  Not only do they have the feel of the horizontal pushbuttons, they're also a lot easier to button mash with, because when you're going back and forth with your fingers, there's no big curves for your hand to be chaffed against.  I will definitely agree that if you haven't felt all the button types, then don't just say the horizontals are better, but if you've felt all the different buttons, then its perfectly reasonable to say your opinion *although I'm still not convinced X-Arcade pushbuttons feel as good as real arcade buttons even though I haven't tried them.*
        -Luke

[JayTea]

Just so you know, I think you mean 512 MB of ram, not 512k.  And you probably also mean 80 GB and 4 GB hard drives, not MB.

You might want to fix that, it makes your pc sound like a major piece of junk  

thanks Icecold, It seems I was off by a factor of 1000 on all my calcs...I was having a flashback to my Commodore 64 I think....