Pics of my Cabinet


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Posted by TaskMaster on 8, 2001 at 2:11 PM:

In Reply to: Awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing it. Thanks! [NT] posted by enemyace on 7, 2001 at 12:56 PM:

: : : : : : The sidewinder gamepads have 10 useable buttons on them. If you are going to use four of them to do the controls on your cabinet, there will be more than enough buttons. I don't think you will need to worry about shifting the buttons to get another 40 buttons out of them.

: : : : : I'd like to keep 2 of the the gamepads free for use as 3rd and 4th player controls, which will hook up to an extended gameport at the front of the cabinet. Do you mean 10 buttons not counting the 4 directional inputs? I hope that's the case, or I won't have enough for even the credit buttons in hardware if I have six play buttons per player.

: : : : : Thanks!
: : : : : EA

: : : : Yes, 10 buttons and the directional pad.

: : : : I also have my cabinet done with 2 sidewinders gutted and two external sidewinders for additional players. It is a great way to set it up.

: : No, I have never taken any pictures of it. You see, I am a lazy bum. Once I got my cabinet into a state where it worked, I quit working on it. I do have a digital camera, and I will post pictures of it tonight (or sometime this weekend) and let you all see it. It is not that great, but it works very well, and I enjoy it very much, as do my two little girls (5 and 7).

: : Here are the specs of my cabinet:

: : .My mom made the cabinet itself out of plywood (she thinks she is a carpenter, but she did quite well actually). I got the schematics for it from some link on this site.
: : .I bought all of my joysticks and buttons from happs
: : .the controls are wired by 2 gameport sidewinders hacked
: : .It has two 8-ways, 6 buttons per player.
: : .4 player start buttons (the ones with the little people on them from happs). These press coin in and player start (both) for each player 1 to 4. This setup does not work for all of the games, but it does for 95% of them.
: : .On the side of the control panel, I mean at 90 angle to the main panel are two buttons, one on each side, for flippers for pinball games. They are wired to the same buttons as player1, button 1 and 2
: : .I also have ESC, Tab, Pause, and F11/F12 (both on one button for rushing through game startups).
: : .The only emu I run on it is MAME which I compile my own version that has all of the press a button and press OK stops removed from it.
: : .I have two external Sidewinders so a 3rd and 4th player can stand and play.
: : .I also play many PC games on it, especially driving games. I have a NASCAR DIGITAL USB Pro 2 wheel, it is great. It clamps right onto the control panel. Because I used joysticks and not a keybopard hack for my control, playing PC games is much easier/nicer.
: : .I also have a standard mouse trackball with a 2.5" trackball hacked into the center of the control panel. It is a mouse for windows and allows you to play trackball games.
: : .The PC is a P3-550 with onboard SB compatible sound, a Rage Fury 32MB video card with S-Video out, and 256MB ram.
: : .It has a DVD drive and can play DVD's, Video CD's, etc.
: : .The TV has good stereo speakers mounted on the front bottom (not sides blocked by the cabinet), so the audio is just piped through the TV. Sounds very good
: : .I never turn the PC off, just the TV. So when I or my kids want to play, we just press the TV on button (I have 4 PC's in my house that are never turned off).
: : .The control panel is removeable, attached with Velcro. It is very stable and takes quite a bit of muscle to remove it. You can yank on the joysticks and move the entire cabinet before the Velcro pulls free. (I will also post pics of the inside of the control panel). Originally I had planned to make multiple panels and put different controls on each one. But even though it is quite easy to remove it, pull up the panel (at a corner is easy) and disconnect two ribbon cables, it is still a pain in the butt to do that and so I am gonna put a 4-way joy and a spinner onto the one panel. I know it will look cramped for space, but it will be functional and better than swapping panels.

: : Why it is not done?

: : .The marquee space at the top is just a hole. I need to put brackets, plexiglass, a light, and a picture up there.
: : .It has no bezel, just a 27" TV stuffed in that fits perfectly, but there is space above the TV that needs to be covered.
: : .I covered the entire cabinet in black marble contact paper, some has become ripped from stuffing different TV's into until I settled on the one I wanted to keep. So, some places need to be recovered.
: : .I have been too lazy to get a spinner installed, I think I am gonna buy an oscar eventually.
: : .Oh, and the bottom front is not on, I never put it on, but I need to put a hinged door with a latch on the bottom front.

: : Like I said, I will try to do a simple page up for it this weekend. I have a digital camera. But since I was too lazy to complete it, I never did a site for it.

OK, I finally put up pictures of my cabinet. I made a kinda simple web site. View it here:

http://www.ifso.net/Arcade




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