Another project in the works....

Just as I am still doing crap with my new rig that I have build....I recently started another project.....

You see....with my affinity for video games ever since I was a young lad back in the 70's, when arcade games were born and thru the 80's as a teen when they died, then made their resurgence - up thru the 90's when console gaming started to take off....Video Games is my hobby. It was also once my employment....but that story I will leave for another day........

I have grown up with and have always loved games - about as much as I love the Yankees (since I grew up with both, they are both been big factors in my life) so I have a lot of nostalgia for the ol' coin ops of yesteryear...

So that said, I have admired the MAME community for a while now and have thought it was so cool that people have made their own arcade machines. It something about the ol' coin op cabinet that facinates me in that it was its own little getaway when I was young. Hell, I remember back in high school on L.I. going up to the ol' 7-11 and spending not only my lunch hour but the next one too, when I was supposed to be in gym class! (I used to always think that was funny ,but now looking back...)

So I have wanted to get my own arcade cabinet, but could never find a viable option. I have been wanting to build my own cabinet, even bought plans on ebay and have researched several sites within the MAME community.....but lack all the good wood cutting tools necessary to do that. (a good router and/or a miter box).........

So imagine my shock & suprize when the ol' lady calls me up while driving through a nearby neighborhood and tell me she saw a Mr. Do cabinet at the end of someones driveway for heavy trash day! So long story short, I rushed right down there - knocked on the owner's door - just to be certain it was trash (and indeed it was!) and took it on home.

Now, since I now have an extra old PC since building my new one, and taking my old one and rebuilding it for the ol'lady....I took her old HP Pavillion (that I since removed the crappy HP OS...) and totally stripped it apart, motherboard and all, and tore up the plastic BS on all sides so that I was down to a bare metal frame. Put the motherboard that was a part of the HP (since it has on board video and sound) and threw in an old 40GB HD I had laying around, a256MB & 64MB PC100 memory I had laying around and a few things here and there.... and using XP, today I built what is now my arcade machine OS.

Spent most of the rest of the day fucking with the arcade machine's monitor trying to power it up so that I could also wire that monitor up to a vga cable [url]http://www.mameworld.net/massive/How-to/VGA_Adapter/vga_adapter.html[/url]. Longer story short that didnt work unfortunately. I started to wire up the vga cable but then thought let me 1st fire up the monitor itself and ....nothing.

So now I guess I will have to go with plan B......I have to get a new monitor. I have an old 15" that I used on my bench in the garage when I built the Arcade OS, but thats too damn small. My plan is to get a new flat screen for my study, then I will take the 19" one. After I strip out all the old crap out of the cabinet (old monitor, wires, non working power shit at the bottom) I figure on building a rig out of wood that I can use to suspend the monitor in the cab.

Fry's has been selling a 17" Flat TFT for 179.00. Little too much to spend right now since I have recently bought MCE '05 & a new video card....

I am also gonna call my buddy who owns a PC repair shop on the southside of Indy and see if he has any crappy looking but working VGA's laying around that he will get rid of cheap...I doubt I will have any luck...but ya never know until you try..........

But just screwing around with the new Arcade OS, I am loving how this will turn out.

I figure I will build a new control pad, since the MAME shit I have covers all sorts of controls. I figure I will need an 360 directional controller - for not only games like Ikari Warriors and Commando, but also so a stick can be played with any games.... I will also get a spinner and a trackball, and 8 gaming buttons and 2 more for 1p & 2p. Not sure if I am going to set up 2p at this time. When I build the new control board, I will insure that is not only secure but replaceable later on when I would like to spend more $$ for more controls.

The track ball is like 80-130 bucks! Then some crap I was looking at today, I found USB control hubs that going to make the PC to button hook ups easy. Thats another 130 bucks!

This shit is kinda $$, but in the long run, its gonna be sweet.

--Well its 1am and my next work week is fast approaching.......

So is the shuttle landing. Best of luck to that crew and may god be with them and bring them home safely.

-------Indy