Robby Roto MAME Cocktail

[SkateDetroit]

Hi Guys -

Been a few years since I've worked on a project, but I am starting a new one. I have a Robby Roto horizontal orientation cocktail cabinet whose life ended as a hacked up trivia game. I have since removed some stickers and flipped the overlay over to reveal it was Robby Roto. The overlay is the only thing that's left of Robby Roto. The control panels have long been hacked up. I am looking to get some new blanks made for the cab and I installed a 19" pc monitor in it last night.

I think I put the project off for so long because I was put off by the horizontal orientation, but I am now going to embrace it. Most of the games I find myself playing are vert shooters or classics. With the addition of a third control panel I can play these games side by side with someone else.

One question I have is a button layout. Its horizontal and only 1 player at a time so I was thinking a joystick, 3 buttons, and 2 of the smaller player start buttons (like on pac man). I'm not going to play fighting games on it so 6 is out, and I can't really think of any other horizontals that would be enjoyable on a cocktail that are more then 3 buttons?

I'll post some pics up later, all I have now is a blurry cam shot from my cell phone.

[IG-88]

Sounds like a cool project. I not a real big fan of Robby but it's not a bad game. Can't say as if I ever heard of someone restoring one. 

[SkateDetroit]

ha! I'm not restoring it, i'm giving it new life as a MAME machine.

I was checking out some other projects and discovered you can do split screen in MAME so the same image is repeated on a monitor and one is flipped, so each player will have a view. I may just do six buttons for fighting games and what not for some real head to head action.

[IG-88]

Ahh.. I was wondering Wasn't sure how much you were gonna put back too original.

[SkateDetroit]

Original isn't the goal here. Just a nifty bonus that the overlay artwork is still in tact. I don't know how much you know about Robby Roto, but it's one of the few games freely given to the MAME developers to distribute. Kinda cool.

Here are the pics.

I mounted my old 19" desktop monitor last night and cleaned out the inside a bit. I got the original power supply working inside as well, so everything will be operating off of one cord and a relay to shut it down. Lots to clean up here still.

I plan on doing a 3 or 6 button layout as well as adding a third control panel for side by side vert games.

Like I say the thing was hacked up pretty good. I want to order some blanks or precut control panels and get rid of the hack jobs on there now.

Final shot is Windows 98 in all it's glory. The plans are to run the front end with the videos and spinning.. can't think of the name right now.

[severdhed]

looks like it should be a fun project.   you weren't kidding when you said the control panel was hacked up...wow.