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This machine took me a week to complete. All of the parts came from other unfinished projects that I had laying around.
All of those unfinished projects combined to make 1 complete project.
I suppose this all started after I got married. I wanted a TV for my gameroom and I had an idea. I bought Continental Circus as a non working game with plans to turn that into a TV. I bought a new 19" TV, stripped it and put it into CC's cabinet.
A few months later I came upon this old Stargate cabinet on the side of the road for garbage day so I loaded it up and
brought it home with plans to rebuild it. It had a monitor and power supply in it all it needed was the PCB, marquee and control
panel. Eventually I gave up that dream and decided that since it was less complete than CC I'd put the TV in there instead.
I took out the old monitor from Stargate and swapped it with the TV that was in Continental Circuis and found it a marquee
on eBay.
So I've been using it as a TV for months. I decided to hook up my old N64 to it to add a little more functionality to
the cabinet. Eventually I realised that I had all the parts needed to make a MAME machine just lying around so why not try
to put one together.
I had:
A working monitor (TV) with RCA inputs
The TVator, a device that converts SVGA signal to NTSC
An IPAC, a USB keyboard controller (part of my Arcade Controller project) A full set of controls for 2 players from Happ (also part of my Arcade Controller project)
Spools of wire (part of my Arcade Controller project)
An old keyboard (originally part of my Arcade Controller project but replaced by the IPAC) A complete old computer (a 1.2 GHZ w/520 MB RAM which was the basement computer untill it was replaced
by a 2.4GHZ w/1 GB of RAM when I upgraded the living room computer.to a 3.4GHZ w/1 GB RAM)
I started up the old computer and installed MAME as well as putting a shortcut in the startup folder to insure that MAME
loads with windows with no user input. I threw that and the TVator in the cabinet and hooked it up to the TV. I cut up a 5/8"
hunk of wood into my desired shape and mapped out and drilled all the holes for my buttons. Using glue I attached sides to
the lower half of the controller to hide all the switches and wires. I did not make a bottom for it. I wanted to keep the
wires exposed in case I ran into some sort of problem with them. I also counter sunk the screws that hold the joysticks on
so you won't see them on the playing surface.
Once all that was finished I bought a big tub of Bondo (something I'm familiar working with due to body work on cars)
and coated the entire outside surface with it. I let the Bondo dry overnight and then I sanded it relativly smooth and spray
painted it with red enamel paint. After the paint dried overnight I installed all the buttons and set about to wire them up
to the IPAC. Wiring took about an hour and once that was finished it was time to mount the controller to the machine.
I removed the factory mounting points (1"x1" blocks of wood) but not before using them as a guide for my new mounting
blocks (a 4x4 cut in half, essentially a 2x4 but stronger, screwed and glued for strength to where the old mounts were). I
used lag bolts to attach the controller to the cab and purposely left the heads out in the open so I can take the controller
off when we move. It wouldn't make it out of the basement if I didn't. The wonderful over-engineering produced a control panel
you could stand on and it wouldn't give.
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And now for the old keyboard. I've seen lots of MAME machines and they all have a partiall exposed (or a compartment
for) a mouse and keyboard. I did not want to have to use a mouse or keyboard to access games on my machine but I was missing
one crucial button. The "enter" button. Inside the back of this old keyboard are contacts. It took a while but I mapped out
which contacts are for which buttons. To make the keyboard send out the code for "enter" to the computer I had to connect
J66 with J83 so I just ran a wire from each contact to one of my buttons. When I press the button, it connects the two contacts.
Within MAME32 I was able to change the default buttons to match what the IPAC had availible so the whole system can be
controlled with the game controller, no need for a mouse and the keyboard is hidden deep within the cabinet. To scroll through
the game list in MAME32 you just use the player one joystick. To start the game just hit the button hooked up to the "Enter"
contacts on the internal keyboard. To exit the game just hit the button I assigned as "escape". I also have buttons wired
up for Pause, Coin 1, Coin 2 and Menu. I have the computer's power button set to shut down MAME32 and Windows so when
you want to turn off the machine just stick your finger in the coin return hole (I removed the backing plates) and hit the
power button.
I left an old NIC in the SMP computer. Since I don't have a mouse hooked up to the SMP computer and the keyboard I have
hooked up is crappy at best I need to network the machine to make changes. By opening up the coin door and plugging in a network
cable I can make changes to the MAME32 interface, ROM files or the operating system. All from the comfort of my living room
couch.
God Damn It! The Project is only a month old!
The night of August 1st we had a bad thunder storm. Lightening struck too close to the house and fried the TV in the
Starget MAME Project. It also took out my router, on board NIC and the NIC in the SMP computer (even though it wasn't hooked
up to the network at the time). I replaced the TV but the color isn't as good. Good thing I'm not picky.
Alright, figured out why the color was bad on the new TV. Turns out that when I stripped the TV I damaged the degauss
circuit. The degauss circuit on the old TV still works so I just plugged the degauss wire from the new TV to the degauss circuit
on the old TV, powered them both up and the colors cleared up. Pretty annoying sure but at least I haven't had to do it again
since.
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