Yes, little ol me is working on a MAME Board.

I have a lot of parts coming in right now. So heres what I got:

I have an arcade shell coming in (yes a real stand up one) for free. How? Craigslist.org
A nice 2.5GHz Celeron with 512mb Ram a 80gb Hard Drive. That was sold to me for an extra $100
The owner found out what I was building and threw in a nice 1500 Rom collection for MAME for free.

I’ll also be using a 17” CRT computer monitor as the visual.

All I need now is a nice Joystick setup.. which I would love to get the Arcade X setup, but the HanaHo is as good, and cheaper. Thats another 100 smackers.

It’ll get a paintjob and get a new Marquee put in as well for an extra $30.

But in the end.. I’ll have an MAME Board for under 300 bucks.. and plays almost every Arcade out there including the CPS3 games (ha ha! MvsC2!)

Keep an eye on this thread guys, cause photos are going to be put up sometime soon of the whole project.

Best arcade controller out there is the Slickstick most likely.  However, they are hella expensive.  I have a dual stick X-Arcade personally and can vouch for it being a nice sturdy stick that controls great.  I would go with the X-Arcade Tank Stick however because of the trackball.  Unfortunately, it is $200.

Maj Malfunction - 22 September 2007 11:40 AM

Best arcade controller out there is the Slickstick most likely.  However, they are hella expensive.  I have a dual stick X-Arcade personally and can vouch for it being a nice sturdy stick that controls great.  I would go with the X-Arcade Tank Stick however because of the trackball.  Unfortunately, it is $200.

I would love to step up to that, but due to the fact its 200 bucks, and the shell can only hold a 2 player joystick.. that kinda out of my price range.

http://www.mame-arcade.com/

that site is perfect on what exactly Im going to do.

Heres a little update.

Went and got the Arcade Shell today for free

sorry for the cellphone pics.. the only camera I had available while at the parents garage.

Its not the best in the world, but for free its worth it.

as you can see it has plenty of space inside.. pretty empty.

It will need to go under the knife for some rotting wood, but thats an easy repair..

but that right there will have to go. Thats about 3-4” worth of Wood gone.

I might paint it a little, but not much.

I also got the plexie-glass and some tinted glass as well, with a monitor cover. It’ll look all flush.

But so far, all this again.. is free.. which is nice

Sweet

you have inpired me to do the same when I move into a bigger house next year.  Thats awesome

So another update from last night…

Cleaned up the Case with a vacuum and uninstalled some things..

Took out the light and speaker from the Marquee area, I’ll be installing a new light that plugs in a normal outlet since the one on there was only going to work if installed on a board. And My god how long did that speaker last, cause I bairly touched the paper and it was brittle as crap.Filled the hole where the speaker was with cardboard (cheap yet effective) and mounted the speaker cover back on. The pic is crappy, but if you notice the huge chunk missing is thanks to the light being stick up there for 20+ years, it was almost like glued. So I filled the holes up with powergrip glue.

Fitting and 17” Monitor in a 19” monitor casing is tricky, but a little plywood, and black paint can fix that. I still need to work with the cover on the monitor as well, thats going to be painted black too. The guy who gave me the cabnet also gave me a cover that hides most of the monitor, and some tinted plexy glass to make the screen cleaner.

Keyboard is setting where the PC is going to be and if I install a 2.1 the space below it is where the sub is going. just gotta drill a hole to get the wire through for power.

Tomorrow is the big day of surgery. Its going under the knife to get rid of the rotting wood. about a nice 3” and also cut a piece of plywood and hammer that in with some nails on the bottom to flush it out.

Now then, while cleaning I have some spare parts, which I need some ideas on pricing. I the light fixture inside the Marquee shelf, and a coin counter that tells how many quarters were dumped in it (which was over 43,000 quarters… and a old Sega arcade.. wow)

Also inside I found old Game Tokens!! and by the designs this arcade came from an Aladdins Castle somewhere around here. Quite interesting.

more pics after the surgery tomorrow!

I used to love Aladdin’s Castle.  Used to run up to the College Mall in Bloomington (Indiana University) and play at one when I was a child.

So Dr. Maynard was in today with his circular saw.

about 90% of the Dry rotting wood is gone. And by god there was a lot

you can see on those photos there, this bottom half was horrible. I could knock it off with just a rubber mallet as well.

heres the patient after the surgery nice and cut, the edges were rough but most of that rot was gone

Ok Im not the most perfect wood cutter, but I got the damn job done.

Cut out another piece of Plywood the flatten out the bottom and make it flush. Plus it needed to be mounted right to use the quarter buckets for storage.

But now the surgery was complete and a success! Its a little shorted, but it looks MUCH better. and there by far is the best pic of the arcade.

Now it needs the hardware, the PC is coming in this week, and I need to start on the Monitor (gee that’ll be fun). After that its time for touch ups with paint and then installation of the joysticks.

Thanks for your time everyone!

Opinions anyone?

Good luck with that!  It looks interesting!  What kind of games are you going to be playing on it?

Wow that would be sweet!!

OldschoolVgamer - 26 September 2007 09:24 PM

Good luck with that!  It looks interesting!  What kind of games are you going to be playing on it?

MAME in particular. If your not to familiar in the emulation area, its the equivalent to Arcade. And lets just say, it doesn’t play one.. it plays as much as the rom list is (which is over 1500)

Im just showing how you can make one cheap.

A picture can say a thousand words.. but a video can do better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4itwhEedp0

its easier for me.

Thanks to a local member on another forums (stlvw.org) for the PC.

anyways I did some recording on my Camera Phone just to show some of the games running… and they run great I tell ya!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9X_lZRRfjZo - TMNT

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g8N6dUbVJVA - MK

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dQzFtQ2D2iw - Street Fighter 2

And best for last…

http://youtube.com/watch?v=N3qWp23p5fg - Killer Instinct

I recorded these for my friends… and I would like to also share them to you guys.

BTW, The cabinet is done! Painted yesterday, and All I need is the Marquee and Joysticks ordered in soon (hopefully by mid or end of this month...).

So now… its about 90% done.. Im soo happy!

Expect a full run down on everything about how much it cost… you guys will be surprised how much it was.

Because it was cheap or expensive?

Which do you think is better?

Cheap. But that’s only because I’m a cheap bastard.

you aint the only cheap bastard here.

I just got it moved in today at my Apartment, and it looks awesome where its at.

Now I gotta pay some bills (and lots of them… damnit) and then order the HotRod Joysticks from Hanaho and then get a Marquee done.

Whoa!! Where have I been?

Workin really, but now heres a major update about the Cabinet.

Marquee installed with Custom Print from Kinkos (12 Bucks) and a custom piece of Plexie Glass (10 Bucks)

It looks really authentic. I love it to death… but heres a nice add on

A complete DVD Collection of MAME V1.20 roms. Every rom is included in this collection.. so I have almost ANY arcade game running on my MAME Cabinet. Thanks to http://www.mamedvds.com . A Cool 20 bucks can get you that.

BTW… the DVDs are legal. The roms are not sold, its only the media format, packaging, and shipping.

All thats left now are the joysticks… which I really want to get so badly.

so guys what do you think?

Looks awesome. What kind of joysticks are you going with?

Nice!!

Thats really cool.