[Scales]

Obviously not car related, but im pretty proud of my efforts.





Has a good amount of games on there
runs all the classics, plus it can play all the old-school consoles as well....

At the moment it accepts custom-made tokens i had made... considering changing that to suit 20c coins or something for when the boys are over on the piss.

Also have a full bar setup out there with kegs and beer-font etc. (3 fridges in this room) Needless to say, i dont go inside the house much!


Needs a bit more artwork put on there, but its something i just muck around with when im bored and sick of working on the Jimny.

[atari4x4]

that's pretty cool

[Scales]

cheers dude.

I'm lucky to have a pretty understanding missus who lets me get away with all my toys!

[jonno_racing]

wow! that's cool. what's running under the box?

[Scales]

Plenty of gear, but to make a long story short, its basically a spare PC I got running through a cheapass car audio amp for sound with a 12v relay to switch it on and off. as well as an arcade controller interface which converts the button presses from the microswitches on the joysticks and buttons into regular keyboard key commands. theres no analogue controls, everything is micro switches. I think theres about 25 micro's from memory. Its a total hornets nest under that control panel.

This is the keyboard controller, not my setup, but you get the idea



oh it also plays pinball games. granted they are just on the screen but still pretty fun.

the software side of things is probably the most complicated thing, it runs about 20 different emulators and side-programs to make it compatible with the menu system. configuring all the different programs with the keyboard interface was fun too!

Best thing about the controls are, its indestructable... ive smashed the shit out of those buttons and joysticks and the way they are designed you cant damage anything, they dont "bottom out" on anything so no snapping plastic or busted micro's etc. and on the off chance you do bust one..... 3 bucks for a button and 10 bucks a joystick lol.

I like just having it on when im in the room, it goes into an "attraction" mode after a few minutes and just loads up games from my favorite list and changes every 5 mins or so displaying the demo mode as a screensaver, it plays mp3's like a jukebox while it does this. so really cool just having it there looking swish while having a beer. When a game comes up that your like "hey that looks fun" you can just throw a coin in and it disables the "attraction" mode and you can just start playing it like normal.... its wicked.

Does a heap of other cool shit too, too much to list, but think along the lines of youtube, internet radio... things like that and youll get an idea.


Im a sucker for the classic games up to about the mid 90's and it plays them all perfectly, but TBH it probably needs a bit of an upgrade hardware wise. But i just keep chucking in obsolete parts from my other pc's I have all over the place.

[Scales]

BTW, this is actually my MK2 arcade. the first one was a cocktail cabinet... one of those sit down ones with the glass top. wasnt the best design though, and the glare was terrible. so i dismantled it and used the parts for this one. I might re-visit that idea one day if i get a bigger house for my toys!

[jonno_racing]

I'm so jelly of this!
I want a sit down style one, I had no idea you could do this kind of thing. I'm a masive retro games fan.
any link to your builds?

[Scales]

nah sorry dude. was built quite a while ago hey. Can offer up plenty of advice if you want to build your own though.

[rustyzook]

that fucking rules!! legend!

[Joe]

Dude! that is fucking awesome

[jonno_racing]

Scales wrote:

nah sorry dude. was built quite a while ago hey. Can offer up plenty of advice if you want to build your own though.

I will take you up on that when I get a new man cave!

[Scales]

lol cheers for the kudos lads, really wasnt expecting this sort of response

And youll be happy to know Joe, it has a hidden "Boobs" mode too.

[PJ.zook]

Nice build, all the old classic games are awesome!

BTW if anyone wants cheap gutted upright cabinets, PM me.

[zukenutter]

Very cool

[rustyzook]

p.j.zook if i was closer id pm you....

[Scales]

to tell the truth guys, its pretty piss easy building the cab. its just MDF. and probably only took me a day to do. once i found some decent plans, it was easy to draw out on a couple of sheets and use a jigsaw. the rest is just square panels. DONT wing it, it will look retarded if you dont get it right.

Mine has a slide out drawer under the ctrl panel with the keyboard and trackball for doing maintenance and other stuff you cant do with the controls.

Ill see if i can find the dimensions for you guys that are interested.

[Scales]

this is some plans based on what i have. dont think its exactly the same, but pretty close

LINK

also Here is a pretty good link of whats involved... mines pretty similar, yet different Im actually going to steal some of his graphics for mine lol. His software setup is shithouse compared to mine though.

[jonno_racing]

i like this thing so much i showed the Mrs!! (she is keen for me to build one!)
where did you get all the controlls from etc? and do you have a overall price at all of what it cost you if you dont mind me asking?
Phil

[Scales]

I had a lot of leftover PC parts in my house, as you can kinda see in one of the pics. I have about 8-10 computers atm. so that wasnt an issue at all for cost.


so yeah probably around the 600-1000 dollar mark would be pretty accurate at the end of the job. depends how full on you go really. its all the little things that add up like cables and relays, screws, 240vac wiring, sockets etc.

All the controls came from here
http://www.ozstick.com.au/
noticed prices have risen since i did it.

[Santos]

Kudos on having Metal Slug as the demo piece, i should reallly find and download the entire metal slug series... they are so awesome

[Scales]

actully its Metal Slug "X". I have the whole lot, that was just the game that happened to be up at the time.... it will cycle through my favorites list at random every 5 mins

[tim80z]

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

- Tim.

[Scales]

That's what I'm using Tim. Sourced from ozstick

[KEENSY85]

I love it I'm so going to build one of these once my zuk is built,
U should make a new 1 and sell 1 its gotta be worth a bit to some one

[speedyblue]

I've been meaning to do this for a while. I already have the majority of the software, but it never got much past that. I remember the wife wanted an old arcade type machine with pacman, space invaders etc, so I confirmed that last night. I want Street fighter, as well as all the old Neo Geo games. I already have a few versions of Metal slug ready to go

As of today, I have scored an old computer that will easily run it all, and have discovered that JBhifi are selling 32 inch LCD's for $229. (Over kill I know, but hey )

Rather than a lowboy, I'm planning something like the Virtua Fighter 5 Arcade machine where you sit down and the screen is more vertical.
Kind of like this, but only one screen and two players next to each other.



That should kill some time My father had a few arcade machines when I was a kid (for business, not for fun) so I grew up with them, but it's been a while now.

[Scales]

thats a cool design.

basically just make a custom table and whack ya LCD on top i rekon.

Make sure you put a slide-out drawer under the control panel with a keyboard mouse spot. Ive got it on mine and its handy as hell for configs etc.



One thing i will say about LCD's is you have to be careful with resolution. one of the reasons i am using a CRT is they handle the lower resolution a lot better than an LCD would. do some trolling around the arcade forums and youll quickly learn what im talking about. A TV would only be worse at it than a computer LCD.

[speedyblue]

The resolution shouldn't be an issue. The LCD will run in it's native res and MAME will just stretch the picture to suit. As it will be widescreen, I'll have some black strips down the sides, but that's no big loss. I'll run a video card with a HDMI out to keep things simple. That seems to be the recommended way to do it. If in the end it's unbearable, I will just have to install the tv in the shed to watch while working on stuff

As far as blockyness from the low-res games, I have the Sega Classics Collection on xbox, playing through a 40 inch lcd. It's blocks, but it's what you expect.

I rang up my wife and told her about the computer I'd scored, and the price of the TV at JB's. She asked if I wanted her to go buy it now. She really wants to play Pacman I think.

[Scales]

ok well if you think itll be fine, sweet!

just dont say i didnt tell ya lol!


im sure youll figure it out.

[11acb]

fucking well done dude!!!

[WestVic-Zook]

I have just recently build a arcade machine myself its a bit of work in it and as for the emulators its a big learning curve lol

The screen on mine is a lot bigger than yours as you can tell, im currently running Hyperspin frontend which was a bit of a bitch to setup, I have not only MAME. but all sega arcade systems, and all console systems up to PS2, already filled up a 2TB hard drive with roms lol

if you need any help with hyperspin of want a copy of what i have let me know in a PM, i also have the latest up to date MAME collection there is, or if you want you can download them all from here

http://rom-connection.ca/