Author: Wobbles

I tested the control panel out at the weekend and….it works perfectly! I have to say, I didn’t expect it to. The i-Pac worked at treat and it appears it is as easy to set up as everyone says. So, I got my first taste of playing MAME using genuine arcade controls. It was fantastic – they even stood up well to a few rounds of Track & Field! I can’t wait to get the whole setup going.

Speaking of which, I also finished routing the cabinet at the weekend so it’s now ready for a lick of paint. Hope to have a go at that next weekend.

Okay, my control panel is pretty much finished! Just need to apply some T-Molding to the edge – I didn’t have time this weekend. Anyway, the panel looks pretty cool, at least I think it does. I’m quite happy with my button and joystick positions, they feel natural. Here’s a couple of pics.

(Edit: Pictures no longer available)

In the end, I made the joystick ridges flush since the slight dip on the inside around the joysticks isn’t visible because the Fablon is fairly sturdy and pulled tight.

Well, the missing coin door was sent to me within a couple of days of my pointing out it’s absence to Happ Controls – so they’ve redeemed themselves a bit on that one.

I’ve finished drilling all the button holes and completed one of the joystick positions. I wanted a flush finish for the joysticks so I took my time routing out the outside edge of the joystick hole to accomodate the 1/4″ thick edge of the joystick case. There’s a bit of a ridge around the joystick case which may cause a problem getting a flush finish. Either the ridge will be sticking up a bit or if I sink it right down there will be a bit of a dip in the centre around the joystick handle. Need to think about that one a bit more.; may need to fill it in with something.

Anyway, I hope to complete the joystick panel this weekend. No pics for now but I’ll put some up later.

I’ve started work on my control panel. Managed to cut the groove (1/16th” router bit) for the T-Molding (after first having a practice on a spare piece of MDF, of course!). Not too bad a job and the T-Modling slots in nicely.

I then played around with a few button & joystick layouts. This took some thought and I’m sure everyone who does this will end up with a different configuration. Anyway, here’s a picturce of the control panel. You can just make out the T-Molding groove around the edge and I’ve also cut holes (1 1/8th” hole bit is perfect for buttons) for all the Player 1 buttons (each player will have 6 buttons).

(Edit: Pictures no longer available)

I’ve decided to cover the control panel with Fablon rather than paint it and cover with Plexiglass as I didn’t fancy the hassle of trying to cut holes in it. I still plan on painting the rest of the cabinet though and I bought some spray paint (Dark Navy) along with the Green Marble effect Fablon to do the job. My plan is to cover with the Dark Navy and then paint some sort of design on top.

Oh, and I realised today that the bottom door of the coin door I ordered from Happ Controls is missing. So I’ll be chasing them up for a replacement. Thought it was too good to be true!

I’ve given up on getting MAME to work in pure DOS. I’ve installed Windows 98 and I’ve settled for running Advance MAME in DOS mode under Windows 98. Not ideal, but hey…at least it works.

After two and a half months my order from Happ Controls finally turned up! I think that’s a record for anything I’ve ever ordered. Well, at least it’s all here and looks really cool. Just seeing all those buttons sitting there along with the excellent quality joysticks and coin door. Can’t wait to get it all put together.

I’m least looking forward to cutting the groove for the T-Molding as I know it’s going to be a nightmare. I’ll then start work on the control panel. I’ll need to do some paintwork before completing the T-Molding and buttons though. Spray time!!!

Having a nightmare trying to get my MAME computer to work on the TV. DOS works fine. Windows works fine. Anything MAME related? Nope. Doesn’t want to know. I’ve tried ArcadeOS – worked fine on my PC Monitor, but all I get on the TV is a scrambled mess. It is working because I can see that pressing ‘1’ to select a game causes a change in the scrambled mess.

I then tried Advance MAME which works by accessing the card direct. Well, I spent hours playing with the configuration programs that come with it but nothing works. I set the configurations manually for a PAL TV but all I get is a scrambled mess. Is it me?

Well, the only thing I can think of to try (no suggestions on my message board posts), is to check that I’ve installed all the latest drivers for the motherboard – maybe it isn’t quite AGP ready. I’ll try that at the weekend. Working away from home all week is a real pain! My other option is to try Windows 98. I tried Windows 95 which whilst it worked fine (including on my TV) it doesn’t support my AGP graphics card and Radeon have no drivers. So, I’ll try again but with Windows 98. I’d hoped to avoid having to run from within Windows, but unless the motherboard driver update fixes it it’s all I have left.

Who said this would be simple?

And guess what? Still not buttons/joysticks/T-Molding from Happ! My last phone call they said it should all be here start of this week. Did it turn up? Nope. I did get an email on Monday saying they were still waiting for the T-Molding to come from USA. So why tell me it was coming early this week? Sorry Happ, can’t exactly recommend you.

Lets see what this weekend brings!

Well, all my parts from trusty Dabs turned up for the weekend but still nothing from Happ (grrrrr…..). Therefore, I set to putting the new MAME-dedicated computer together.

I always put my own computers together (so much cheaper!) so this was no major task. The specification is as follows:

ATX Mini Tower Case 300W (came with its own fan too!)
AMD Athlon 950MHz (not 1GHz as stated elsewhere!)
GigaByte GA-7ZX Motherboard
512MB RAM
ATI Radeon 7000 64MB (with S-Video naturally!)
Soundblaster soundcard
Quantum Fireball 6.5Gb Hard Disk

The only things I had to purchase were the Radeon graphics card (an absolute bargain at about £28), the soundcard (£12.50, though I’m sure my old AdLib one would have worked) and the case (£30). For the case, all you really need is the power supply but since they cost the same as a whole case I went that route. I also swapped it with the power supply from my main computer as I felt that that one – running an Athlon XP 2200 – needed a bit more juice; so the MAME Machine only contains a 250W supply.

Probably the cheapest computer I’ve ever put together! This system will have no CD-ROM or Floppy as I don’t see any requirement for them at the moment (may change my mind later!). I temporarily installed the ones from my main computer so that I could install the Windows 95 OS I had lying around but they’re now back where they belong!

I have a D-Link Wireless network setup for my main computer and laptop, so I’ll probably get another card for the MAME machine at some point to enable me to install updates.

Hey Saint….thanks for adding my link on Arcade Controls. I think I gave you a bad one so thanks for fixing!

I placed my order yesterday with Dabs for the parts mentioned earlier. No sign of my stuff from Happ Controls yet though. I’m also having trouble finding a 1/16″ Router Bit to do the groove for the T-Molding. They seem to be freely available in the US but I’m yet to find one here in the UK, I need one that fits a 1/4″ or 8mm collet.

I’ve been thinking about how to finish the cabinet. I’d initially thought of covering it with Fablon (similar to Contact or Formica) available from B&Q; Warehouse, but I’m turning in favour of using spray paint in a dark colour like black or navy blue as the main colour as I’d then like to paint my own colourful design on the cabinet sides. I don’t think you can paint onto Fablon very easily.

Still no parcel from Happ Controls, but my I-Pac turned up very quickly. Nice one Ultimarc! I stripped down an old telephone extension cable I had lying around and took out the four inner cables to use when I wire my buttons to my I-Pac.

I also put my control panel together today. I’d already cut all the pieces but I recut the front section as my first one was a bit off. Then I just screwed it all together using small batons. Here’s a few pictures of it sitting it place.

(Edit: Pictures no longer available)