Thursday, August 28, 2008

Who needs sleep?

I am so tired.... why? Playing Donkey Kong until 1am every night this week... that's why!!! It is 95% done. The other 5% is purely cosmetic stuff. Here it is...
Complete with lucky chair. When I look back at my mock up, I am not sure if I am more proud of my Photoshop skills or my carpentry skills. It looks really good.

Here is a shot of the wiring involved with the control panel
The keyboard hides inside ( I need a smaller one) so I can do regular computer type stuff, like configuring programs and directories.

Here is my 5 year old, taking the torch from my hand, and starting a new generation of old school gamers.

I think my new favorite sound is her jumping up and down and clapping, while asking if we can play Ms Pac-man. Her high score is 3240. Two dots away from clearing the first board. I am so proud of her.


Monday, August 25, 2008

The End is Near!

Over the weekend I made a ton of progress on the cabinet. I got the control panel built and wired. Man, that was quite an ordeal. I will get a shot of the wiring soon. But here is the control panel:

One of the toughest parts about building a MAME cabinet is designing the control panel. It has to accommodate the many different controls of many different games. I made a list of the 20-30 games that I would play the most, and designed mine around them. I don't have a rollerball, to accommodate Missile Command, or Centipede... they run about $125. A bit pricey and I was never that good at those games in the first place. I didn't put in a spinner to play Tempest, or Arkanoid. I enjoy tempest but not enough to invest the $45 for the spinner. Unfortunately that means no Tron as well, I can live with that for now.

The panel consists of (from left to right) an 8-way joystick, 2 game buttons, a Player 1 Button (Awesome, I was so happy to have found these), a 4 way joystick, 2 game buttons, a Player 2 button (double awesome), and another 8 way stick. The 4 way wasn't really necessary, but playing traditional 4 way stick games on an 8 way stick, just doesn't feel the same. So I threw it in there. And I had to have 2 8-ways to play Robotron, and Smash TV, and allow for some 2 player games.

Here is what it looks like as of this morning:

This week will consist of getting the computer loaded and configured... but my time machine to 1984 is almost complete.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

What have you been up to, young man???

Well, it has been a month since I posted last. You may have been wondering "Is he ok?".

I am here to tell you, that I am more than OK...I am great. The reason being my birthday present from my beautiful wife, and a very wonderful and generous friend.



Yes, the MAME Project is in full effect. I have been cleaning and painting and planning and wiring and trimming, and giggling like a child for the past month.

Here is what (I hope) it will look like when I am done.


Stay tuned... it is getting close to being finished.