the
Klutzoplex's Arcade Mame Project |
|
Intro |
Most
good movie theatres have at least a small arcade to while away
the time waiting for the movie to start. |
No
Piccie |
xx.xx.1998 |
Picked
up a Midnight Resistance arcade game a couple of years ago.
What could be more authentic than a real arcade machine? |

click
pic to enlarge |
04.12.2001 |
I
picked up a podium with a 17" monitor in it for CHEAP CHEAP
CHEAP! I love it. It came loaded with bnc connectors, adapters,
cables, a power bar, a couple of keyboards, and a couple of
mice. When I first looked at it what did I think? MAME CABINET!
For those who don't know what Mame is, it stands for Multi arcade
Machine Emulator. A great piece of shareware that lets you play
all the classic games like Pacman, Frogger, Galaga, Tempest,
and so forth. Roms were gathered from ACTUAL arcade machines,
and put into an emulatable format. Did you know that Asteroids
was only about 10K worth of code? But it is OH SO KEWL! This
podium has a wood grain finish... is of course particle board,
and has castor wheels on it... SWEET. The angle is a little
wrong, but oh well, you can't have everything. |
No
Piccie |
04.14.2001 |
Gnome
and I went to another auction. She was bored silly, but I thank
her for accompanying me. Thanks hon! She also helped me stuff
the podium into the little Honda. Oh my.. the thing only fit
in about half way into the hatchback! Needless to say with a
lot of struggling, and slow driving we got it to my house. It's
a nice cabinet! I cleaned up the inside, and removed all the
thousands of feet of cabling from the cabinet, and cleaned it
up a bit. Lots of room inside for a PC... SWEET! Then I did
a stupid thing that night... I was imagining playing an active
game of mame, and was jostling around the cabinet.... BAD IDEA...
A piece of wood paneling fell off the podium and smashed my
toe. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. Needless to say, STUPID. My toe
is still semi compressed and has a huge scab on it. DOH! |
No
Piccie |
04.18.2001 |
I
borrowed an old notebook from work and loaded that sucker with
my Mame games. Mmmm.. Mamalicious! I installed it into the cabinet,
hooked up a keyboard, and away I went. Excellent! I had a few
games of Galaga, Snow Brothers, Ms. Pac Man, Dig Dug... and
so forth.. Love it. |
No
Piccie |
04.19.2001 |
Brought
home my old arcade style joystick from my folks place (They
weren't using it anyhoo). Essentially it's a joystick that repeats
keyboard commands... perfect for mame, or so I thought. I can't
get the sucker to work! DOH! After playing with it for a couple
of days.. it's going to sit idle.. unfortunately. I'm going
to have to wire up some real controls meethinks. |
No
Piccie |
05.06.2001 |
Went
to a bunch of garage sales today... I saw a Logitech Trackman
Marble FX... the one with the big red ball on it. D00d was selling
it for 20 bux... Of course, I forget about mame, and look at
it for a while.. then I pass it by! 20 bux CDN! DOH! So I am
kicking myself for the next couple of days... |
www.ubid.com |
05.11.2001 |
I
found a Logitech trackman marble FX on ubid.com. Not bad price...
I bid on it, and Won it! WHOO HOO! I just hope they ship to
me now... => When I get it, it will be PERFECT for Centipede,
Missile Command, Marble Madness etc! |
No
Piccie |
05.24.2001 |
Having
problems with Ubid, they will not ship to a Canadian address...
but I do have a Backup! Thanks Vinny and Intelgal! |
No
Piccie |
05.29.2001 |
Had
fun going to a police recovery auction today with Max. Picked
up two typewriters, a dead monitor, two HP4 500 sheet trays,
1 P90 with monitor and mouse, 1 386 with monitor and mouse for
$25.00 CDN! Well, we chucked out the typewriters, one monitor
was dead, so both got canned immediately. I checked out the
paper trays, and they fit perfectly on my HP4! SWEET! Both trays
I bid for 5 dollars! |
www.ebay.com |
06.01.2001 |
Ubid
seems to be screwing around with me.. I found a big balled Trackball
on Ebay and got it for a buck. Not too bad! I'm just waiting
for it to be delivered. |
No
Piccie |
06.03.2001 |
Max
and I ripped apart the 2 pcs, gutted the drives, floppies, vid
cards, cables, a CDROM, and tested out the monitors. Before
we did that, we found both machines worked perfectly, but for
resale value, we wouldn't get too terribly much... We needed
the components, and did not want the hassle of selling the machines,
then buying new crap. Max traded the cases, a bunch of jewel
cases, an old Model 80 (weighs like 50 lbs!), and some misc
stuff for a discount on a 20 inch Big Blue monitor. I think
we got 20 bux for the lot! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. So now I think I
have almost enough stuff for a mame machine. |
No
Piccie |
06.06.2001 |
So
I used the 800Mb hard drive (almost too small for the mame roms!),
a small ati PCI video card, 128 Mbs of RAM (Proabably too much),
8X CDROM, and I put in my Fortisimo sound card into the mame
cabinet. My case is a 24" tower, so that BARELY fit into
my cabinet. In fact I had to take out the cover and casing for
the sucker to fit in! Crazy. Copied an old mame source, and
the sucker's working. Excellent! Unfortunately, the old Mame
I'm using doesn't recognize the sound card... *SIGH* oh well..
almost done though. |
No
Piccie |
01.01.2001 |
Found
out about a great service. Tombstone.net or something like that.
They have an international network of "Burners" that
will burn you the latest MAME ROMS onto CD's! Is that sweet
or what??? Needless to say, I paid some guy 10 bux US, and got
over 3000 ROM images! No need to go hunting around for them
now! YEEHAW!!! |
No
Piccie |
01.07.2002 |
Did
some scrounging and actually FOUND four PC cases, and misc parts
in a dumpster downtown... I was passing by, so I wasn't really
dumpster diving... An ISP was going out of business and I happened
to be around at the time! |
No
Piccie |
02.02.2002 |
Turns
out to be 2 AT cases, and 2 ATX cases. One of the AT cases was
pretty kewl, had a neat LCD display on it. I tried, and turned
it into a littel Linux box. Seems to work well. One of the AT
cases, had a tiny Hard Drive and a bunch of stuff. All together
salvaged a floppy, 2 small hard drives, some video cards, network
cards, a 5.25" floppy. |
No
Piccie |
02.03.2002 |
Chucked
out two of the cases. One ATX, and one AT case. Am using the
small ATX case as my MAME machine now. |

click
pic to enlarge |
02.09.2002 |
Did
some woodworking, sawing, and a bit of smashing. I took out
the top shelf of the Podium, and put in some risers for the
monitor. The Monitor before lay pretty flat, and many people
had difficulty seeing the screen. Now I have it elevated and
tipped upwards for easy viewing. Seems to be doing the trick! |

click
pic to enlarge |
02.10.2002 |
My
ol Celeron 300A, and the salvaged 1.3Gig HD as well as a 4X
CDRom are all in the MAME cabinet now. Set the whole thing up,
and now we have Win98 as well as MAME with ArcadeOS running
on this sucka. Works great. I had to haul out my old PCI ATI
card from the machine, but replaced it with a faster AGP cheapo
ATi I had lying around. Now the games play MUCH faster... much
better refresh rate. |

click
pic to enlarge |
02.10.2002 |
Hacked
the windows bootup file, so now everyone knows that this is
a Klutzoplex Arcade machine. |

click
pic to enlarge |
02.10.2002 |
Here's
the Trackball hiding in a shelf. |

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pic to enlarge |
02.10.2002 |
When
the machine is off, I put this Out of Service burlap over it.
This was found at an old Theater. It was left behind, so I'm
using it to cover up my Mame Machine. |
No
Piccie |
02.21.2002 |
Checked
out an Arcade distributor, and picked myself up a set of Buttons,
and two sticks! The Sticks aren't, but look like HAPP controls,
and I also am now waiting for my IPAC to come from the UK. Also
picked up a Trackball too! YEEHAW! |
No
Piccie |
02.25.2002 |
My
IPAC, and Optipac came today! Can't wait to get everything hooked
up! |


click
pics to enlarge
|
02.27.2002 |
Here's
the Podium before I start doing the control panel, and here's
a buddy of mine enjoying a nice relaxing game of Stargate. |

click
pic to enlarge |
02.27.2002 |
Some
of the controls laying around, pre-installation. |



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pics to enlarge
|
02.27.2002 |
Went
to Home Despot to pick up some MDF. MAN That stuff is HEAVY!!!
Did some cutting with a Jig saw, made measurements according
to my Podium Mame Cab. Here's some piccies of the various
stages. Wood glue is Da Bomb! |


click
pics to enlarge
|
03.02.2002 |
Found
a fella on www.arcadecontrols.com who had some drawings of
a trackball in Adobe Illustrator format. Since I use Corel
Draw, I converted, then chucked it in, drew out some buttons,
a Joystick, a Spinner, and voila! Played around a bit with
the layout,a nd found a control panel layout I liked. I HIGHLY
HIGHLY recommend spending time on the layout before you drill.
I'll post a link soon with my Layout so you can download it.
Went to Kinkos to get print out my Control Panel. WARNING!!!!
Don't go to a busy one.. they tend ot forget you, and I had
to go back 4 times to get it done!
Here's
some piccies of the layout, on the MDF, and soe piccies with
the drillin commencing. Use a Power Drill, and avoid the cordless
ones, or you'll be recharging alot! |


click
pics to enlarge
|
03.03.2002 |
YEEEHAW!
Finally able to actually play a game of Robotron, and Joust!
VIVA LA MAME! |


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pics to enlarge
|
03.08.2002 |
Used
some KILLZ on the MDF box to give it a paintable surface.
I used 2 coats of KILLZ.
Used
some Satin finish Blue spray paint. I think it came out decent
enough. I'm going to do a bit more sanding, then give it another
quick coat of blue though. |

click
pic to enlarge
|
03.09.2002 |
Notice
the silver peg? There are two pegs holding the CP (Control
Panel) in place. To secure the metal pegs are cotter pins.
So, the idea is that if I want to build another control panel,
I can pop out the cotter pins, remove the pegs, and pop in
the next control panel! Dirt simple! |


click
pics to enlarge
|
03.10.2002 |
Here's
some shots of the wiring. It does the job, but it's a tad
messy. I used a bit of solder, but mainly quick connects. |
No
Piccie |
03.10.2002 |
Got
my Oscar restrictors and spinner today. They look pretty sweet...
However the paint job could use some work.. I think their
starting to flake a bit already.
I
worked on some Plexi today, and used fairly thin stuff. Cut
out the CP dimensions, drilled some holes, and so forth. My
advice when working on Plexi, go SLLLOOOW! Also when scoring
holes, I used my Spade bit (Hole cutting bit) in reverse to
score the hole, then worked from the other side of the Plexi,
and completed the cut. Drilling seems to be my weak point.
I think I almost cracked it a few times. go VERY slowly here.
Near the end, perhaps if you run the drill in reverse, that
may do the trick. |
No
Piccie |
03.12.2002 |
Well...
SHIT! I cracked the plexi... after all that hard work.. *SIGH*
I guess I'm going to go the painted route. CRAP!!!! |



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pics to enlarge
|
03.13.2002 |
Here's
some shots of me using my Dremel router.. Man It is SAHWEEET!!!! |

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pic to enlarge
|
03.13.2002 |
Using
some of that KILLZ stuff I used on the control box. Basically
prime it first, then layer it with Melamine paint and some
laquer paint. |

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pic to enlarge
|
03.17.2002 |
Being
putting layers of that Melamine paint.. nice purple, but it
settles REALLY quickly, and dries VERY slowly. About 14 hours
+ !!!! |

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pic to enlarge
|
03.31.2002 |
Check
out the ALMOST finished Control Panel!!! Had some friends
ova playing Toobin, Puzzle Bobble, and Tempest! I FINALLY
got the Trackball working, and it ROCKS! Was playing Marble
Madness, Centipede, and Missile Command. Mmmm... Nummy! |

click
pic to enlarge
|
04.11.2002 |
Another
arcade addict gets her fix of Tetris and Frogger. Mamealicious!!! |

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pic to enlarge
|
04.18.2002 |
This
ol' cab. A future Bob Villa project! There must be some nice
original art underneath all that crap gray paint! I'm sure
of it! Hmmm.. I smell another project!!!! |

click
pic to enlarge
|
04.18.2002 |
Here's
the Mamealicious cab with my old cab. Old meets New! |
|
Next |
Going
to get my Tron / Gorf Stick hack working. |