MAME installed

Its been a while since I posted any progress here, time for an update.
The old computer is in a new box now and working great. I may not have a USB problem after all.. but still has to be thoroughly investigated.
I spent a lot of time last week just getting WinXP up and running. Windows wouldn't even boot up. After several tries, eventually had to do a reinstall from the old cd.
Main problem is that this drive came out of a laptop, and is now moved into a box, so none of the drivers were relevant to anything, and there was lots of system level stuff that had to get deleted.

I spent a lot of time over the weekend just uninstalling a zillion old programs that don't need to be there. I probably still left too much crap on the drive, but doesn't matter anyway.

Last night I finally got the Mame installed, and tried two different front ends, MaLa and AtomicFE. I could never get Atomic to actually load up a game, so it's out. For the moment I think I'm going to go with MaLa. Can always load up and run another FE down the road, but this had a few features I'd like to set up, including support for the control panel viewer and multiple emulators. (Phase 2)

still testing

I've been busy beta testing various games and settings since Sunday. I can't get the spinner to work with Arkanoid, but other than that it works great.

Somehow I mis-wired the old leaf joystick .. it's 90 degrees off of what it should be so I'll need to fix that at some point. Also trying to figure out how to change the setup so it will only do 4-way output.

When I'm not playing, I'm working on getting a front-end set up that I like and trying to make it work. The coolest front end I have seen is the Flash Mame Front End by Dan Hall. Way cool .. but kind of messy with files everywhere. I'd like to clean it up and tweak it a little, customize it to my CP. It also needs a utility to write the xml and batch scripts.

Dell is sending a new PC .. it should get here after I get back from vacation. whoo hoo. finally.

Now, back to trying to make the spinner work ... this is driving me crazy. Can't figure out which config / setup file that information needs to go in. Nothing has worked so far.

And so it begins

I had been thinking about building a MAME box for a while, and recent events in my personal life inspired me to take the plunge. Read that as "something to keep a single guy busy for a couple of months instead of being a mouse potato".

I really decided at one point that that I wanted to start with an existing cabinet, and modify it as needed. I'm capable of doing the woodwork, but if the price is under $100 it's worth much more than the time and money it would take to build one up from scratch.

I also didn't want to take a working system and gut it for a MAME system ... I just couldn't bring myself to do that.

When I started poking around classifieds and craigslist, there were some possibilities. But anything that was actually functional was going to cost $250 and up to a couple thousand. Even some "classic" but unworking systems were offered in the $200 range. Good. The price alone was going to save me from violating my principles.

About a week ago, I came across this ad and it inspired me to take the plunge. .. A completely empty cabinet offered by a local arcade for $50. Perfect.



Arcade Videogame Cabinet - $50
Reply to: --
Date: 2007-02-22, 8:48PM PST


Ground Kontrol, Portland's classic arcade, has an upright video game cabinet for sale. This cabinet would make an excellent starter for the hobbyist who is interested in building their own home arcade game.

Features:


* Control panel with working 8-way joystick and two pairs of buttons

* Frame for mounting a standard 19" arcade monitor (not included) in vertical orientation

* Smoked plexiglas monitor bezel

* Wired for power, sound, and marquee light

* Coin door with start button installed for coining games that lack a free-play option

* coin box

* back door

Note: In a past life, this cabinet was Scramble, one of the first side-scrolling shooting games. See Scramble's KLOV entry to learn more.

Etc., etc. ...